Damaged Armor/gear

[Jak Nazryth]

Last week we ended the game in a lull in combat. The party had boarded a Vargr Corsair (it attacked the party's ship and lost) and eventually the party successfully hard docked with the crippled pirate ship. The party managed to fight through a group of 4 Vargrs in combat armor, knocking them unconscious by reducing 2 of their 3 stats to zero. At this point, none of the Vargr's are dead... but since they are pirates, and several of the players in my game are ruthless, I'm thinking the Vargr guards will never regain consciousness. They will be stripped of their gear and die in the vacuum of the damaged ship.
Which leads me to a question.
When damage get's through personal armor, thus doing physical damage to a player or NPC, do you need to repair your armor? I know it's very generalized, but I don't know of any game mechanic that requires "fixing" armor that's been in a fire fight. My players have a combination of Combat armor, Boarding Vacc Suites, and Advanced Vacc Suites etc... all with sealant sheaths... Some of them took damage during the combat, in a vacuum (Vargr Ship's Hull was reduced to 0, and it's Structural points sit at 3 after the fight).
Will the players have to repair their armor after the fight? There are no rules in reduction of the protection number just because you sustain damage in combat... not that I'm aware of...
How many times will any one suite of combat armor, vacc suit, etc... be breached before it can no longer create a sealed environment?
All the questions are up in the air for a generalized combat system I know.. but still... the questions and conversations began last week.
We will continue/conclude the boarding action this week... there will be more combat in various parts of the Vargr ship.

Also, knowing my players, they will gather up all the Vargr gear and sell it. Normally I let them sell gear at half book value as a basis, and they can modify the price with skill checks (broker). However, if there is no real game mechanic or need to "repair" armor that's been in a fire fight, will Armor that has been breached sell at the same price than armor that has never been breached? Logically, the answer is no... damaged armor should be worth less... but there aren't any rules I can find that addressed damage armor and gear. Is there a rule that I'm not aware of, and... has anyone else dealt with this issue before?
Thanks

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I don't think there is any official system, so it's up to you.

I would theoretically require some repairs to their armour, but with a streamlined process. If it is only petty cash I would quietly forget it.

I would say 50% of new price would be for un-damaged items. Well-used pirate equipment that is shot to pieces would fetch far less.

On the other hand the players should get some serious money for the captured ship, as I can imagine that the Imperial courts are not overly concerned about ownership of foreign registry Vargr raiders. That would reduce personal armour to petty cash...

 

[Nobby-W]

[ . . . ]When damage get's through personal armor, thus doing physical damage to a player or NPC, do you need to repair your armor? [ . . . ]

Modern body armour is designed to have replaceable panels. If it gets hit you can get another panel and fairly trivially slot it in. There's no particular reason for sci-fi armour to be any different. Combat Armour has a pressure suit component, which could be damaged - one might expect patching kits to be available or even issued with the armour. Perhaps something like the life support, temperature regulation system or a key joint might be damaged, which could require a more significant repair job. Armour designed to be used in the field is likely to be modular in order to facilitate this - to some extent at least. If an armour panel gets hit then it would be assumed to be damaged to the point where its damage was degraded. I think it would be reasonable to rule that one would have to replace the panel.

Perhaps the ship might have some spare panels and spare parts somewhere if the players search it carefully.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Yeah... it's all very basic...
I used to LARP many years ago, and there was actually a rule about degradation of armor. Armor was reduced by 1 point once your armor was penetrated. You had to have an armor smith fix it to bring it back up to full after each combat. If your armor eventually went to "0" after many fights and never getting it fixed, it would literally fall apart...
Suffice to say, the LARPers who were skilled at Armor Smithing were always busy and getting in-game money for their efforts...

Without redoing the current rules or getting too complex I'll just wing it... say the base fraction of the cost of the armor per "heavy combat" will reduce the value... maybe a suite of Armor can go though a number of heavy combats based on it's protection level before needing major repairs... So protection level 14 can get damaged in 14 combat missions before needing major repairs....
plus a simple Mechanics roll to "fix" a suit of armor after each combat that is't been punctured or something minor...
A GM in go overboard with this if he's not too careful...

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

How many times will any one suite of combat armor, vacc suit, etc... be breached before it can no longer create a sealed environment?

A few ideas, real quick, that might be agreed on before starting a game:

1) If 75% or more of the damage gets through the armor, the armor becomes useless and the person inside is probably dead anyway.

2) A Critical Success Effect makes the armor meaningless afterwards (it's blasted or torn away).

3) Damaged armor is just clutter laying around, like anything else found at a crash site or war zone. Sold as scrap maybe. See if the locals run through the debris, collecting up anything they can find whenever fights end. To them it is worth something.

 

[NOLATrav]

This came up in our game too and we've been playing that any hit which causes damage to the PC reduces the armor's protection value by 1 point, regardless of damage suffered. Repairs cost 20% of new the armor price, per point lost, to repair it at a shop (not always available due to Law/Tech levels) or 10% per point if the PCs do it themselves (requires proper materials and Mechanic skill, possibly Vacc Suit as well, possibly Electronics too). So far so good. There's one suit of armor in our group that's almost a character unto itself, not to mention the role-playing that's grown between the engineer and one of the gun bunnies.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

20% per point lost seems a bit pricey IMHO, but I get the fact that it normally costs more to fix many items than to simply buy it new.
The next few sentences are from memory... I'm working all weekend and my books are at home... so these numbers could be wrong...
For combat armor (MgT1) it is 300,000 credits. 20% is 60,000 credits. 60.000 credits per point! That's pretty expensive for each point of armor (16 points of armor for advanced combat armor)
I would simply divide the cost of repairs by the total protection value.
Advanced Combat Armor (MgT1) would be very expensive to repair (1/16th total cost for each point of protection) making it 18,750 Cr per point.
However, if you want to add a "fix-it cost" you can round it up to 19 k per point which would pay for the labor of an NPC armorer. Or you can do what is common in the construction industry and simply add 10% to cover overhead. That would make each point 20,625 Credits per point to repair, (1,875 credits for labor costs).

 

[steve98052]

If I wanted to get strict about accounting, I'd rule that each hit that causes damage to the character wearing the armor destroys a piece of the armor. If the damage from the hit is most of the protection value of the armor, the armor protected the character wearing it, but a piece of the armor was destroyed in the process of protecting the wearer. If the damage is significantly less than the protection value of the armor, the armor is unharmed.

By analogy, consider a car as a suit of armor for the people inside. In a minor collision, neither the car nor the occupants are injured. In a moderate collision, the occupants are unharmed, but the owner needs to get a new bumper, door panel, etc. In a serious collision, the vehicle is damaged and the occupants injured.

The difference between the vehicle analogy and armor is that armor -- advanced armor, at least -- tends to be very strong but essentially impossible to repair except by recycling the damaged piece and replacing it with a new one. That's actually true of modern car bumpers too, and sometimes other external parts, but less true for old fashioned steel parts.

Back to the point about a piece of armor being destroyed but protecting the person inside, as opposed to damage simply bouncing off, where do you draw the line? One possible answer is to rule case by case. Ablat armor has a specific rule that goes all the way back to classic Traveller: it loses one point of protection value for each hit it stops. But that's all, as far as I know.

For something like a shotgun, a concussion blast, or a blunt archaic weapon, I'd rule that hard armor takes damage only if it exactly stops the hit, but soft armor always takes some damage. For regular bullets, fragmentation explosions, and pointy archaic weapons, I'd rule that half the protection value is enough to cause sacrificial damage to any armor. For energy weapons, I'd rule that every hit does cosmetic damage; otherwise they're like bullets. For armor piercing weapons, every hit damages the armor (possibly with common sense exceptions), and if it gets through, it damages two pieces (on the entry surface and the inside of the opposite surface).

If that's too much trouble, just rule that half protection value hits always damage one piece.

So what about repairs? As others note, advanced armor is designed to be repaired in pieces. There are probably quite a lot of pieces in rigid armor, because they have to articulate. But some hits will just add damage to already ruined pieces, which doesn't add to the replacement cost. So maybe two dice percent of original cost, but if a roll comes up the same as the preceding roll, it's free. For flexible armor, every hole counts, so it's likely cheaper to replace shot up Cloth than to repair.

What about systems included with armor, such as life support, power armor motors and power supply, heads up displays, etc.? That gets too granular for rules without hit location; it makes no sense to say that your power armor power supply needs replacement at repair time if it continued to function during battle. So assume that an expensive roll means that part of an included system is repaired along with replacing the armor piece, while a cheap repair is just an armor piece.

 

[NOLATrav]

20% per point lost seems a bit pricey IMHO, but I get the fact that it normally costs more to fix many items than to simply buy it new.

It is pricey but they do the work themselves. In MgT 2e TL12 Combat Armor is Cr88000 new (Prot 17). So that's Cr8800 per point which is doable for this group but sometimes it hurts their collective wallet, which is good IMO. With your suggestion it would be about Cr5200 per point, definitely cheaper but still a significant cost. I apply it to weapons too; whenever they buy ammo they have an opportunity to spend an extra 10% of a weapon's cost on maintenance and cleaning. If they don't I give them a Bane die on a random future firefight until they do. Not every encounter, just occasionally.

I like the high cost of post-combat maintenance. It's been around in space combat forever, I've just added an aspect of it to personal combat. Helps make the PCs think twice before drawing their guns.

 

[xnet445]

20% per point of damage for the repair of highly technical armor protection works for me. I think repair costs should be high. If you were to build, say, a Ford F-150 from parts it would cost you 4 to 5 times the price of a new truck from the dealer. I've run into the same issue in cycling, where it is often cheaper to buy a new bike with the components you want than it is to upgrade your current ride.