G'day,
> does anyone have any suggestions as
Off the top of my head: Make it so armour takes up capacity (thus there is a
reason to have less than full possible armour) Recost movement schemes and
make it so you can have different rates of many different types (so you can
have monster slow trucks through to speedy Ferrari's)
Recost stealth/miniaturisation
Make at least some of the defensive systems use up capacity.
I don't doubt Oerjan may have more. As to what's the best way of doing this?
I'm still figuring that out, if you have any grand ideas please don't keep me
in suspense;)
Cheers
Another important one would be to increase the cost of enhanced and superior
fire controls significantly. Right now from a design point of view, there's no
reason to use basic fire control.
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---------------------------------
"Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac man affected us as kids, we'd
all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening
to repetitive music." - Kristian Wilson of Nintendo, Inc. 1989
> At 3:13 PM +1000 4/3/02, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
Armor should lower speed. Not capacity. Each point of armor lowers the speed
by two inches. Using a capacity point for additional engine reduces this by an
inch.
Could someone run the numbers on this? My brain hurts right now.
> Tony Francis wrote:
Likewise using different composites of armor - I believe armor can be
made lighter now than 60 years ago that is more effective at stopping weapons
fire. And engines more powerful than those of 60 years ago to compensate for
any heavier stuff.
> Ryan Gill wrote:
Not necessarily - there are more ways of uprating survivability than
bolting more plate to the side of a tank. Radical sloping of the armour
would increase effective armour thickness, but _would_ actually reduce
the internal space available (ie capacity) rather than increasing weight (and
reducing speed). Both methods are valid.
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 4:05 PM +0100 4/3/02, Tony Francis wrote:
As someone who owns two vehicles with sloped armor, that sloped armor allows
for more spaces to put stuff. Even with my 1960's and my 1940's vehicles,
there are lots of things you have to stow. For two people working and living
out of a ferret, there are lots of places to put things, but guess what, they
are taken up by radio harness control boxes, ammo boxes, radio spares, tools,
spares for weapons, spare vison blocks, personal weapons.
My point is, even with sloped armor, you just have a reshaping of the space
inside. Granted, there is likely a slight lessening of the internal volume,
but using the M113 Zeldas as an example. The Israeli's bolted and hung
additional armor to the outside of the vehicles. Overall weight went up. Same
for the Achezarits (sp?), they
went from being a T-55 tank to an APC with a 3 man crew and 7
dismounts plus 10 tons. They even fitted a smaller engine.
> "Bell, Brian K (Contractor)" wrote:
[snip, snap, snop - no scissors or knives were used in this trimming,
btw]
> > (and reducing speed). Both methods are valid.
I wasn't arguing against taking up capacity. I can see that being a
case. I might not necessarily *like* it (it'll mean smaller/fewer guns
on my tanks ;-), but I can see it being quite valid. I just didn't like
the idea of armor reducing speeds.
> At 10:40 AM -0500 4/3/02, Bell, Brian K (Contractor) wrote:
There has to be a cost to building a heavy vehicle vs a light one. Armor still
comes at a price to weight given a certain technology level. The armor does
cost weight in the building scheme. It should slow a vehicle down regardless
of tech level. To allow for better tech where armor is concerned, then you
need to apply tech levels to armor in the system as well.
> Ryan Gill wrote:
I'm not following your reasoning here. If you slope armor, you
reduce the amount of internal space/volume, which is part of
what the capacity rating of a vehicle is, no?
> Even with my 1960's and my
Okay, how's this for a spontaneous thought (I'm rapidly
approaching my quota for the week :-/ ) - have armor take
up a capacity point for each level you have, up to the size class of your
vehicle (thus a size class 3 vehicle
would use 3 capacity points for level-3 armor). But if you
want to add on *additional* armor (ala your bolt-on armor
above), for each level over your size class reduce movement by some factor,
and possibly also have it cost another capacity
point. Thus you could PSB it away that a certain size-classed
vehicle has a certain standard max rating for armor, but if you want to add to
it, then you start incurring penalties to the system (engine) in that it was
not it was not designed to carry that much more mass.
This is open for serious tweaking. I'm just thought-dumping
at the moment.
> At 11:07 AM -0500 4/3/02, Indy wrote:
To a degree. I think that the amount you loose is made up for in part by the
lengthening of the volume. It used to be Drivers of tanks sat in a fairly
standard position. Now days, they lie down practically. There is still plenty
of space for stuff down in there, its just squished flat. Same thing goes for
turrets and bustles. By flattening out the turret, you're extending its length
and the area in which parts of the elevation gear for the main gun fits. By
moving the trunnions foward from the area of the turret ring (and the back of
the bustle of the turret) you are getting more space in the area of the turret
ring for crew and other stuff. Additionally you're able to stow ammo in the
bustle of the turret where in WWII vehicles a Single or maybe two wireless
sets would barely fit.
Overall, I don't think you loose that much space as re-arrange it.
> Okay, how's this for a spontaneous thought (I'm rapidly
I think applying this system to current vehicles helps some in the
tweaking department. Use M-113's and T-55's as examples. Both have
seen significant upgrades. I suspect that the M-60 series works well
in this regard too.
> Ryan Gill wrote:
> There has to be a cost to building a heavy vehicle vs a light one.
your first line says a lot. Given that this is all about how armor works in
DS, there is a relevance gap between game mechanics and reality. In the
long run, it would be possible, whether desirable or not, to ALMOST[1]
(I'll
get to that caveat in a bit) completely remove capacity from the vehicle
construction system if points are also used. Why? because a good point
system should reflect the combined effects of the vehicle, regardless of the
means used to reach that end. Say you want a vehicle with X armor, Y speed, Z
other weapons systems, and n effective signature. There are myriads of ways,
both within the current rules and using new rules, to reach that end. Make X
Armor take up capacity. Make it take up no capacity, but cost more
points. No capacity, no more points, but reduces speed - then allow an
increase back to Y speed at cost of capacity. Less capacity left for Z
weapons? Build a bigger vehicle in the first place, or allow for
miniaturization of weapons. A bigger vehicle is easier to hit you say?
Allow stealth levels to lower it back to n signature. Or miniaturization. But
no matter which system you use, if the points system is right, then the
combination of X, Y, Z, and n should cost the same number of points no matter
HOW it isd reached. So why not just eliminate capacity entirely for motive
systems, Armor, signature, and weapons, and just use a point system?
You can PSB any esthetic effect you want - my heavy MBT with oodles of
stealth may have the exact same weapons, speed, and armor as your Q
superkillerskateboard with noisy cricket and alien forcefield - that's
why the difference in figures used. But if they have identical game
performance, they should have identical game costs.
[1] The exception to all of this is, of course, when it comes to
carrying cargo. For arty or ammo reloads, a points per reload cost is fine.
For
carrying other vehicles, it would be a matter of keeping capacity in the
game JUST for cargo, and giving a points cost for cargo capacity or
"slots",
each carrying vehicle could purchase any amount of capacity, paid for in
points, and each carried vehicle would require a certain amount of capacity to
carry, with it's overall cost adjusted accordingly (Given the small% of it's
combat ability it represents, as opposed to once deployed, this shouldn't be
too big a #). The only rule would have to be that a vehicle cannot carry more
capacity than it takes up (Unless someone wants to design a TARDIS to run
against Beth).
;-)
3B^2
> At 12:01 PM -0800 4/3/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:
[snip]
Hmm. The thing I'm trying to hit here is the ability to get a large, heavy,
slow vehicle that is now slower because it has more armor on it than it did at
the start of the design phase. Points are the final means of gauging
something, we're looking at things before that.
If I take a given vehicle that is size 2, and armor 1 and then add more armor
to it without changing anything else, it ought to go slower. Its the whole
basic equation with armored fighting vehicles. Firepower vs speed vs
protection. This is something that comes up for people like me (and designers,
etc) who are comparing the various facets of their ferret vs someone else's
ferret with the same engine and vs a WWII version of a very similar vehicle.
The Mk1 ferret was called the field mouse and was considered the sports cars
of the Armoured corps, the same isn't said about the Mk 4 Ferret with more
armor and the same Rolls Royce B60 engine.
A Merkava is armored more than an Abrams or a Leopard. It is slower. It has a
different emphasis. I'm not looking at Marks or Dollers here, just vehicle
stats.
Remember, the original reason for this whole exercise was to provide an
additional cost to armor on a given vehicle and push players to not have
everything with max armor protection. If I can make a small recce vehicle with
1 armor and 2 size and still have a good amount of mobility, then the system
should support that. If I make it a size 2 and 2 armor, then I pay a tiny bit
more per unit (3 points). Big deal. Everything is max armor. But, if that
recce vehicle is now slower, and I have to use more capacity to speed it back
up (or use capacity to make it go even faster at the original configuration)
then I've added an additional dimension to vehicles that wasn't there before.
It also cost more.
G'day,
> Remember, the original reason for this whole exercise was to provide
If movement systems also take up capacity (obviously a lot more capacity is
being spoken over per size class) then putting on extra armour can involve
going slower if you don't want to sacrifice guns or use miniaturisation.
Cheers