Plasma Cannon And Fusion Cannon Armor Effects

[Solomani666]

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I can't seem to find the armor effects for Plasma and Fusion cannons.

Some of the main battle tanks have an armor rating of 150 on all sides, thus rendering plasma and fusion cannons worthless against them without armor effects.

Ex: An Aslan Tank is impervious to another Aslan Tank!?

Unless someone can point me to the corresponding rule, I am assigning the following armor effects:

Plasma Cannons - Mega Armour-Piercing (Mega-AP)
Fusion Cannons - Ultimate Armour-Piercing (Ultimate-AP)

It's not really armor 'piercing' but more like armor 'melting' and armor 'vaporization'.


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[Old timer]

The rules for plasma and fusion vehicle weapons are in one of the special supplements, PDF downloads only, i think it was number 3, in which plasma weapons are destructive which causes them to destroy armour equal to their dice, and fusion was ultra destructive which cause them to destroy x2 their dice in armour.

 

[tuz_sen]

It is the Vehicle upgrade manual that has the rules

 

[phavoc]

From the vehicle supplement:

Destructive: Destructive weapons damage the Armour of the facing they hit. They permanently reduce the Amour value by one point per die of damage. So, a plasma gun that does 10d6 damage would remove 10 points of Armour on the facing it struck.

Ultra-Destructive: Ultra-Destructive weapons damage the armour of the facing they hit. They permanently reduce the Amour value by two points per die of damage. So, a fusion gun that does 10d6 damage would remove 20 points of Armour on the facing it struck.

You'd need to adjust this somewhat because of how vehicles account for armor, and how ships account for it. Granted a ship-based plasma or fusion weapon is going to be more powerful than a vehicle-based one, but you may want to tinker with your formula a bit.

It would be easier, probably, to simply convert the ships armor factor into say armor points and every hit strips off armor. This could include regular weapons too. I always liked the way FASA handled damage and armor. They did it so you had layers of armor, say 10 x 10 for a total of 100 points. Some weapons stripped off layers, so you would take it off in rows (horizontally). But some did penetration damage so you would determine what column the damage hit in and then apply damage vertically. So it really made a lot of sense to have a good weapons mix. You did a little bit more work tracking damage, but it's not any different than a lot of other games, like say Star Fleet Battles where you marked off the damage to your shields and systems. Though Traveller has never gone to that length when it comes to vehicle or ship combat. But it's certainly a type of system that would work well for the game system.

 

[Solomani666]

From the vehicle supplement:

Destructive: Destructive weapons damage the Armour of the facing they hit. They permanently reduce the Amour value by one point per die of damage. So, a plasma gun that does 10d6 damage would remove 10 points of Armour on the facing it struck.

Ultra-Destructive: Ultra-Destructive weapons damage the armour of the facing they hit. They permanently reduce the Amour value by two points per die of damage. So, a fusion gun that does 10d6 damage would remove 20 points of Armour on the facing it struck.

Thanks!
The very answer I was looking for.

You'd need to adjust this somewhat because of how vehicles account for armor, and how ships account for it. Granted a ship-based plasma or fusion weapon is going to be more powerful than a vehicle-based one, but you may want to tinker with your formula a bit.

It would be easier, probably, to simply convert the ships armor factor into say armor points and every hit strips off armor. This could include regular weapons too. I always liked the way FASA handled damage and armor. They did it so you had layers of armor, say 10 x 10 for a total of 100 points. Some weapons stripped off layers, so you would take it off in rows (horizontally). But some did penetration damage so you would determine what column the damage hit in and then apply damage vertically. So it really made a lot of sense to have a good weapons mix. You did a little bit more work tracking damage, but it's not any different than a lot of other games, like say Star Fleet Battles where you marked off the damage to your shields and systems. Though Traveller has never gone to that length when it comes to vehicle or ship combat. But it's certainly a type of system that would work well for the game system.

With the new "Destructive" rules in mind I'll keep the 1:50 ground to ship combat ratio.

I'll count each point of starship armor as 50 points, then subtract as the ship becomes damaged on any particular side. When 50 points are taken, I'll reduce the ships armor on that side by one for starship combat.


Given a ships +4 size bonus to target makes an exceptional success likely, thus scoring 1 point of damage for large cannons regardless of the ships armor.


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[Annatar Giftbringer]

This is very weird, but I can't seem to locate the 'Destructive' rules anywhere in my copy... We are talking about Supplement 5-6: The Vehicle Handbook, right? I see some weapons flagged as Destructive, and p34 speaks of anti-armour effects, but even after using the search function within the document I could not find anything about what destructive does.... ?

 

[AndrewW]

This is very weird, but I can't seem to locate the 'Destructive' rules anywhere in my copy... We are talking about Supplement 5-6: The Vehicle Handbook, right? I see some weapons flagged as Destructive, and p34 speaks of anti-armour effects, but even after using the search function within the document I could not find anything about what destructive does.... ?

Special Supplement 3: Vehicle Upgrade Manual.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/special-supplement-3-vehicle-upgrade-manual.html

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Oh. That... Explains why I couldn't find anything... Wrong book, heh... Thanks

 

[Condottiere]