Weapon Damage Output Balance?

[hopsnbaer]

Definitely helps a bit, but it's still effectively 3D vs 12 protection when accounting for armor piercing vs Zhodani light combat armor, which turns them from almost impervious to only very tough, with regards to Imperial small arms. They'd need APDS to start evening the odds; though gauss rifles with AP rounds would be better (Which are actually the same tech level as their ACRs!)

I have an issue with stacking AP on AP, but am still on the fence.

 

[swordtart]

At the table for decades, rounds, shots, and ammo have been used interchangeably as logistics terms, while combat resolution has consistently abstracted a six-second round as one opposed exchange. That abstraction is why Traveller has always resolved combat as one attack roll and one damage roll per round.

Except with fully automatic fire where you make can three attack rolls in a combat round, or if you dual wield. A burst also uses multiple rounds but is only a single attack (or shot). Your experience is apparently not universal.

The rules never say damage is "for one bullet," and they don’t need to. Damage is clearly resolved per successful attack, with Effect applied once. Tracking individual projectiles was deliberately avoided because it slows play without improving outcomes.'

I am not sure what the difference between saying a magazine holds 9 rounds and each attack is 1 round vs a magazine holds 9 attacks worth of ammunition with respect to tracking ammunition expenditure. It does make everything far less intuitive though if you abstract it away. Only if you say magazines are infinite does the tracking go away.
Counting rounds fired is fairly common practice for experienced shooters even under combat conditions.

Magazine capacity terminology has always been a bit fuzzy, and that’s not surprising given the abstraction. What matters at the table is keeping combat moving: one roll to see how the exchange went, one roll for harm, and one decrement of a tracked resource unless a weapon trait explicitly says otherwise.

Not fuzzy to me. A magazine holds 15 rounds is unequivocal. Taking one round off a magazine of 15 rounds is no more taxing than taking 1 attack off a magazine of 15 attacks. If you find a 15 loose rounds of ammunition though you would like to know how many magazines that will fill.
CT specified explicitly that the body pistol held 6 cartridges and the automatic pistol held 15 cartridges.
Megatraveller states the same explicitly.
TNE uses some different guns, but states the capacity in rounds (and even goes so far as to say how much each individual round weighs).
Traveller 4 specifies shots but again it is an explicit magazine capacity not number of attacks.
I honest can't say for Traveller 5 as it isn't even a game as far as I can tell just a set of building blocks from which a game could be constructed.
MGT1 might abstract it.
MGT2 which is under discussion also uses those terms in many of its publications and even explicitly in the CRB, you have just decided that is "wrong".

Fundamentally, Traveller works because it tracks what matters to decision-making under pressure, not because it simulates every cartridge or joule. I wouldn’t recommend changing damage numbers. They already do a reasonable job of modelling the harm that accumulates over six seconds.

Sorry, I think you have this plain wrong.

It also doesn't say an attack is 6 seconds. A combat round is 6 seconds but that is a minor action as well as the major action. As it can also be 3 minor actions (presumably of 2 seconds each) there is circumstantial evidence that a major action is only 4 seconds. However a combat round also allows for any number of reactions, so actually it is the duration of the major action that is fuzzy, not the number of rounds in a magazine.

I think you have chosen to nail your colours to the wrong mast.

 

[shirgall]

Except with fully automatic fire where you make can three attack rolls in a combat round, or if you dual wield. A burst also uses multiple rounds but is only a single attack (or shot). Your experience is apparently not universal.

I am not sure what the difference between saying a magazine holds 9 rounds and each attack is 1 round vs a magazine holds 9 attacks worth of ammunition with respect to tracking ammunition expenditure. It does make everything far less intuitive though if you abstract it away. Only if you say magazines are infinite does the tracking go away.
Counting rounds fired is fairly common practice for experienced shooters even under combat conditions.

Not fuzzy to me. A magazine holds 15 rounds is unequivocal. Taking one round off a magazine of 15 rounds is no more taxing than taking 1 attack off a magazine of 15 attacks. If you find a 15 loose rounds of ammunition though you would like to know how many magazines that will fill.
CT specified explicitly that the body pistol held 6 cartridges and the automatic pistol held 15 cartridges.
Megatraveller states the same explicitly.
TNE uses some different guns, but states the capacity in rounds (and even goes so far as to say how much each individual round weighs).
Traveller 4 specifies shots but again it is an explicit magazine capacity not number of attacks.
I honest can't say for Traveller 5 as it isn't even a game as far as I can tell just a set of building blocks from which a game could be constructed.
MGT1 might abstract it.
MGT2 which is under discussion also uses those terms in many of its publications and even explicitly in the CRB, you have just decided that is "wrong".

Sorry, I think you have this plain wrong.

It also doesn't say an attack is 6 seconds. A combat round is 6 seconds but that is a minor action as well as the major action. As it can also be 3 minor actions (presumably of 2 seconds each) there is circumstantial evidence that a major action is only 4 seconds. However a combat round also allows for any number of reactions, so actually it is the duration of the major action that is fuzzy, not the number of rounds in a magazine.

I think you have chosen to nail your colours to the wrong mast.

I think we’re talking past each other a bit. I’m not disputing that Traveller tracks ammunition in rounds or cartridges. It clearly does, across many editions. What I’m saying is narrower: damage in MGT2 is resolved per successful attack, with Effect applied once, and the rules never state that damage dice represent a single projectile.

Auto and Burst already show the separation: ammo expenditure can change without changing how many damage rolls or Effects are applied. That’s the abstraction I’m pointing at. I’m not proposing changing magazine sizes or damage values. I think the existing damage numbers work fine as an aggregate over a six-second exchange.

At this point I think it’s an interpretation choice about abstraction level, not a rules error, so I’m happy to leave it there.

 

[swordtart]

I was confused when you said magazine capacity terminology was a bit fuzzy.

No-one ever argued that damage was resolved per separate attack with effect applied once (though of course with full auto fire you make up to three attacks each of which may have a different effect and the effect is applied to each attack).

The rules also don't say that the damage dice represents multiple projectiles other than by exception with respect to Bursts and Full Auto. Burst tells you precisely how many rounds are being used to cause the damage from the burst attack and Full Auto is simply three burst attacks with the number of rounds precisely defined.

That understood I am also content to leave it here.

 

[rinku]

Okay, I would have expected someone to have mentioned this early in the replies, but I didn't see it.

Do not forget that Effect adds directly to damage, and is not capped. And that there are NUMEROUS ways to get to hit bonuses, which also feeds into that.

So, yeah, on the face of it the weapon damages seem low. But once you have a skilled attacker taking time to aim at close ranges (or scoped at longer ones), maybe with tech assistance, you can get the job done.

Naturally, firing an autopistol at battledress is likely to be futile. That's intended and logical. But Battledress is more akin to a light armoured vehicle - you don't get very far with small arms against those either.

Quick example, using normal circumstances:

Crewmember (gun drawn) is investigating a disturbance in the cargo hold. They turn a corner and come face to face with a hijacker. Neither gets surprise, but the Crew gets Initiative.

Crew is Gun Combat 2, Dex mod +1. They take a Minor Action to Aim (+1) and use their Significant Action to shoot. Range is Short (+1), the Crewmember's Autopistol has a laser sight (+1). Total modifiers to hit are +6.

Let's assume an average roll to hit of 7... that gives an effect of +5, so the damage rolled is 3D6-3+5. Let's say that's also an average roll of 10, so 12 damage. Dangerous to the unarmoured, something that an armour 10 target can shrug off.

But if the rolls are a little bit better than average, things change rapidly. If the to hit roll is 10, the effect is +8; if the damage roll is 13 (-3, +8), that's 18 points - likely taking an unarmoured target out, and wounding that armour 10 one.

If the crewmember were instead armed with a shotgun using solid shot (4D) average damage is 14, not 7.5 and that armour 10 target is in trouble even on average rolls.

The end result is that typically a Traveller firefight between armoured combatants will be a series of misses, glancing hits and minor penetrations, until someone manages a lucky shot (which does include one side being overmatched in skill and equipment. In that situation the better side is much more likely to get the lucky shot first).

Also worth remembering is that Melee weapons add STR DM to damage and that an attack of Effect 6+ will always inflict a point of damage regardless of armour (at least at the same scale. Small arms usually can't affect starships). And Cover. Absolutely get your space butt behind it.

 

[agentwigggles]

Nope. That would not be required. First of all... facing is already a part of the game when you ask PCs to specify where they are or they use a mini to show you where they are. Or do you not let your PCs sneak up on someone 'from behind'?

Stealth and facing rules arent the same thing.
Facing rules is strictly a combat mechanic, which matter more for mini war games, then it does for ttrpg. Facing for war games determine what they can aim at, which vector they're being aimed at from. And for person to person combat, this edition, doesnt care about it.
This can become a hydra problem. They go into combat with an open jacket. Is it a free action to close it. Is it a simple action. Is it a complex action. Are you going to go through the start of every combat to ask them how they're dressed and how its sitting on them before each combat?
How are you going to track this for NPCs? Are you going to do little dottles to mark where the armor is open on them, or how it cover them. Are you gonna do a dottle of every combatant, with a front, back, side, side of how much each armor is covering.
If the player state where they're aiming and if ther an open slot, how do you determine if it the 2/3 of the chest is cover by the jacket verses the 1/3 that isnt. Or if the jacket is open, are you treating it as if the jack front flaps just go into a pocket dimension when open and the front of the chest is exposed?

What is this really solving?

I appreciate your input from your experience. Thanks. I guess in my way of thinking a one-shot kill should always be possible especially where no armor is being used. That's more like our reality where people can actually be killed with a single punch even. I do like the 'Effect' system Traveller uses adding damage based on 'Effect', and maybe that's the key to getting those one-shot kills. A skilled fighter with a dagger and +4 to hit can do some better damage (1D+2+4).

For this system, even though it doesnt have called shot for melee combat, you can declare to do something harder, like aim for the neck or aim for the heart or other organs.

For my table, I would probably declare that their END is reduce to zero and that your damage roll is applied a second stat.

Mechanically, this edition, doesnt have a bleed out during combat mechanic. You can die after combat, when natural healing starts to happen.


You can also describe something like this happening if the attacker rolled and MoS +6 which is kinda, sorta a critical hit.
Respecting the narrative circumstances is fine.

I'd do the same if someone aimed for the head in particular with a gun for similar results or more, depending on narrative circumstances.

Pretty sure most Traveller Refs let enemies shoot at their PCs with firearms. I don't think character generation is relevant to the problem I'm seeing.

Frequent combat means having frequent new characters. Which is fine if everyone knows that going in.

Looking online, I found reference to one Ref who simply ruled that energy weapons ignored all armor. Not something I would do, but it does suggest to me that I'm not alone in seeing an issue.

One idea I am playing with is simply increasing 'effect' damage. Instead of 1 point of extra damage per 1 point of effect... I wonder what doubling that might do. So effect of 4 would mean +8 damage. I like this idea because it ties additional damage to the roll... basically just increasing the result of a more 'critical' hit.

I wouldnt really worry about lasers.
While lasers were shit canned in this edition, they arent worthless. They're more niche. They're zero gee, have basically infinite ammo, invisible to see. They have more narrative options than guns.
For my table, I give all laser guns free laser dot.
And investing in gun combat energy, lets you use the stun weapons, which are amazing.