Known Issues/Playtesting Wanted

[Klaus Kipling]

Couldn't alot of the issues associated with weapon damage and armour penetration be solved by having separate values for such.

That way shotguns can do loads of damage but have really low armour penetration, and gauss pistols do less damage but slice through armour.

Subtract AP from AV, and then any remainder is subtracted from the damage.

(The effect die could be applied to either the AP - for shooting at weak points, or Damage - hitting critical areas).

This would mean we could have fun with different ammo types.

Frag: + to damage, - to AP
Armour Piercing: 0 to damage, + to AP
HEAP: + to damage, + to AP

etc.

Taking AP from AV before applying damage is surely not adding much complexity?

In terms of comparison.

An auto pistol should have little chance of penetrating Cloth.
An ACR should have trouble with Combat Armour.
Battle dress should be more or less impervious to gauss pistols, and maybe specialised gauss rifles are designed to penetrate them (like a gauss LAG).
Battle Dress should also offer some protection from plasma/fusion guns, otherwise the infantryman becomes obsolete.

 

[AKAramis]

Any system that goes back to handfuls of dice will immediately reduce my groups to the two guys that liked traveller already.

Fair enough but we're not talking bucks of dice. The to hit mechanism is virtually identical. Most weapons may do up to 4d6 damage. High power weapons can be dealt with using a multiplier similar to the 6d x # system used in GURPS. The advantage of using dice for damage is that it removes a significant part of the skill factor in generating damage and leaves it to the weapon.

That lack of skill factor was one of my largest complaints about CT.

I'm a MegaTraveller fanboy. I like a quality of hit effect on damage. Which is why I suggested a damage rating * quality die (no cap).

 

[AKAramis]

Klaus:
such a mechanism doesn't work for all things. Take a .75cal subsonic roundball. Armor is highly effective, but damage is REALLY high.

I'd rather see something along the lines of loss per die.

Combining this with the damage system I suggested, you adjust the effect die/success level for armor.... rather than the total.

It would require a rescale:
Jack 1
Mesh 2
Cloth 3
Combat/BD10 4
COmbat/BD13 5
Combat/BD15 6

THat's another thing: Combat Armor and Battledress were the same armor values by TL as each other; the differences were in the augment.

 

[Libris]

Klaus:
such a mechanism doesn't work for all things. Take a .75cal subsonic roundball. Armor is highly effective, but damage is REALLY high.

I'd rather see something along the lines of loss per die.

Combining this with the damage system I suggested, you adjust the effect die/success level for armor.... rather than the total.

It would require a rescale:
Jack 1
Mesh 2
Cloth 3
Combat/BD10 4
COmbat/BD13 5
Combat/BD15 6

THat's another thing: Combat Armor and Battledress were the same armor values by TL as each other; the differences were in the augment.

Using dice for damage works fine. The reduction per die though comletely flattens the armour protection variations.

Take Cloth Armour as an example.

We fire at it with a 2d+2* SMG which fires a stubby 10mm full metal jacket round, a 2d (AP2) PDW, firing a sleek 4.5mm steel cored round, a 3d6 7mm Battlerifle firing a pointed, long round and the olde 4d6 4mm gauss round going out at two klicks per second.

If we assume that cloth will stop 90% of 10mm rounds then it needs to have AV6; the stubby 10mm is a pistol round and doubles armour. The PDW round though is equivalent of a rifle round in it's terminal ballistics effects so the same AV will only stop 41% of rounds. The battle rifle in this case has Armour Piercing-1 (AP1) and is stopped 5% of the time. The Gauss rifle, the ultimate slug thrower technology has yet developed, has AP3. The armour doesn't even slow it down.

 

[Libris]

Okay, that example didn't work too well

The double AV for pistol rounds is far too high!

Probably add 1/3 or 1/2 would be better.

Lets try that again! With a +1/2 Av for a 'P' round

2d+2 P AV8 stops 90% of rounds.
2d AV8 stops 72% of rounds
3d AP1 AV8 stops 25% of rounds
4d AP3 AV8 stops less than 1% of rounds

 

[Libris]

Keep the dice damage as per LBB Traveller. That way you can even use the guns from them!

Use the effect dice to add to damage.

Modify armour values to cope with this.

ADVANCED RULES

Low Velocity Rounds

By default, rounds are high velocity.
Low velocity rounds are basically pistol bullets; though not always. They double armour.

Armour Piercing

Any round can have an armour piercing value, including low velocity rounds. (For ease of comparison deduct AP value before doubling for Low Velocity)

Hit Location

As an advanced rule use the effect dice for hit location as well; this means there is a point to wearing a helmet with your flak jacket.

1 Arm
2-3 Leg
4-5 Torso
6 Head/Neck


NOTES

This would give you standard stuff as per basic combat in the LBB, some optional rules for more detail and allow you to model subtle differences between weapons of the same tech if desired. The standard BASIC EDITION weapons are shown in bold the others could be added in Mercenary. I do think that the current Personal Defence Weapon types should make it into the basic set though.

For example,

TL5 Autopistol 9mm 2d6 LV AP1
TL5 Autopistol 11mm 2d6+1 LV
TL6 Autopistol 11mm 3d6 LV
TL8 Autopistol 5.7mm 2d-1 AP1

TL10 10mm ACR 4d-1 AP1
TL11 9.8mm ACR 4d-1 AP2
TL12 4mm Gauss 4d AP3
TL12 5.5mm Gauss 5d AP2

 

[pasuuli]

Keep the dice damage as per LBB Traveller. That way you can even use the guns from them!

Or some other version. Anyway, that would be pretty handy.

 

[Emryys]

Couldn't alot of the issues associated with weapon damage and armour penetration be solved by having separate values for such.

There was an article in JTAS #16 that addressed some of this...

"Merging the Striker and Traveller Combat Systems", by Michael Wharton

It's not as complicated as it sounds and may be useful to have a look...