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11 minutes ago, g33k said:

There's quite a bit of "startup" / "entrepreneurial" / "hustle" attitude of "no time for that negative shit."

It's why I like working for engineers. They generally have to deal with reality.

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

Yes; the military is, if anything, even more prone to this mode of error. 

Yeah, because while a boss might fire an employee for talking out of turn, the military can court martial and shoot them for it. 

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

Plus, in all cases, people are people.  The ones with the ambition and the drive to get stars on their shoulders -- or corner offices on the top floor -- tend to be the ones with strong opinions, strongly expressed, and impatience with disagreement.

Yeah, those who most want the job tend to get it, regardless of their ability to actually do the job. 

10 hours ago, g33k said:

Many places won't even talk to the guy.  "Too negative, bad for morale, etc."

LOL! I believe it. It's modern corporate thinking. Don't say anything negative. It why companies can fail so spectacularly with no one involved ever even having a clue that it could possibly fail despite the fact that it was so obviously stupid that anyone not associated with the project could notice it would fail immediately.

10 hours ago, g33k said:

 

He told about being in a room with a bunch of top military brass & high-end contractors who were working some sort of tactical battlefield computer-assist system.  Lots of 2-star & 3-star, lowest-rank in the room was Captain.  It was like pulling teeth from a hen, nobody could see any flaws in the project (or was unwilling to voice it).

Finally, he started calling on people individually, and Captain Low-Rank offered:  "Well, sir, I was wondering... we're developing this thing on top-end supercomputers... but we're deploying it onto commercial-grade tablet CPUs.  I don't think it will perform well."  Dead silence, as everyone realized he was right.

Sounds something like Operation Market Garden. One of the junior officers involved in the planning had expressed doubts about the plan, and was sort of told to get on the team, before being sent off considered overworked, and sent off for some R&R. The guy was right, but nobody wanted to hear it. As a result nobody wants to speak up and tell the higher ups that they are wrong. 

16 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

My guess is different data. 

Ah, you wouldn't know what their mm to Penetration method is, would you? I seems like somewhere between 5-6 mm per point.

16 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

Yes on the TW2013.

Ah, yes, I agree. IMO,  TW2013 had the best small arms rules of any version of TW. I quite liked the "Sweet 16" add on, too. 

36 minutes ago, Gundamentalist said:

We suffered the same amount of PC deaths caused by falls as death by gunshot wounds in my Twilight:2000 2e campaign. It became a bit of a running joke.

LOL! I believe it. Pistols are deadlier in D&D. It's one of the reasons why I preferred The Morrow Project.

47 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

The heavy weapons (anti-armor) specifically.

It looks good but I can't figure out the penetration formula. They have an Apilas (720mm) at 60C, and Armbrust (300mm) at 55C, but a LAW 80 (600mm) at 100C.

So either they are using difffernt penetration data or they got some wonky formula.

47 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

The small arms were pretty bad back in the day, but the 3E stuff was OK.

That would be Twilight 2013? Yeah, probably the best small arms system of 2K. 

37 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

Whoa... that is impressive.

I don't think I have near that amount... maybe a couple hundred tops.

Well I started collecting data a long time back, and worked out some formula's for converting data to game stats. It's not perfect, but it's a great way to get a lot of stats fast. I just enter the data into a spreadsheet and it does the heavy lifting. 

Another perk of starting from real data is that I can port over stuff from one game to another, as the real vehicle hasn't changed. So I can take a bit list of vehicles with data from one spreadhseet and port it over into another, with formulas for a different RPG and voila. 

Or at least it was voila, apparently one particular spreadsheet wants to crash when I cut & paste a certain cell from it. Suddenly five sheets crash at once (radar, the aircraft data I posted previously, a database of vehicles that I spent a hour adding in a bunch of watercraft, and a couple of sheets for vehicles relating to the project that got to start this thread). Then the recovery crashed mid recovery, and things got...tense.

37 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

Query, have you played Twilight 2000?

Yes, although to be honest I've never care much for the system, especially the small arms data (oh first edition where every gun they didn't like did 1D6). And yes, I known there been about five versions of that. IMO if a game needs a NPC quick kill table to make the firefights work, something is off. At least in BRP head shots can be fatal. 

37 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

There was a lot of good data in there.

I take it you mean for vehicles and heavy weapons, right? 

I've got some stuff for it, but I not sure what the method they used to get the penetration values, or I might reverse engineer it for some of stuff I can't get data for. 😊.

30 minutes ago, soltakss said:

You're only supposed to blow the bloody door off!

 

That's how Jimmy got crushed!

13 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

The bank vault was kinda iffy since I wanted him to disassemble the door, or give a manufacturer or something beyond "1500 pound bank vault door."

Yeah, even as he points out, he's not sure half the time if the bullet went through because it punched through the armor plate or if it missed the armor plate. 

But then most people watching this are there to see what it loks like, not crunching numbers for an RPG.

13 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

And, while I completely agree about test cases, and I use them as well, sometimes GM fiat has to play a role. I mean if you used relativistic lead projectiles, that might make it.

Yeah, but then if a GM can make the right calls in such cases they don't need formulas and rules. That is the GM has to have some idea that something is wrong or right to make the right call. GMs can only simulate well things that they have some understanding of. 

Case in point we once had a GM who had a river flowing from the ocean to the mountains. Said GM figured it was a coin toss which was the river flowed, and most of the players didn't see a problem. A couple of us were wondering why water was flowing uphill. But someone would have to be aware that water flows downhill to get the call right.

Likewise, someone has to have a rough idea how guns and armor work to get that call right sometimes.

13 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

I'm not pleased with my calcs which is why I keep working on them after 20 years, but as I get more real world info, I tweak things.

Don't be too  hard on yourself. It's hard enough to get penetration right when it's not doing double duty as damage. Even the experts had multiple armor penetration formulas, and they aren't all to the same criteria either. I've got multiple official tables for the same guns that give very different values, as everyone isn't counting things the same way.  

Plus, you are trying to get something that is workable for an RPG, playable in a timely fashion, and are handicapped by having to work with estimated values rather than real world data.

EEk! Speaking of not being pleased with your calcs, my spreadhseet program crashed taking with it, all my work on this project,  stats for radars and a couple thousand vehicles for BRP,  and another game! Fortunately the documents were recovered, not sure if I recovered through. 

7 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

This?

Well, using your info, yeah 181 damage, but since it is a lead round nose, that would be 181mm of lead (base), but "If the implement doing the damage is the same hardness as the target (fist vs face) then damage to the target is only half." that would 90mm of penetration in lead.

Yup, that's it. I though 1 damage = 2mm so I had 181x2=362 base penetration (in lead) reduced to 25% (90mm) into steel (harder material)

Sorry, entirely my bad. My first impulse when I see an new system is to push the envelope and see where it breaks. The 4 bore was the most ridiculous thing I could think of, with twice the energy of a .50 cal. M2, and a one inch diameter. I do it to my own stuff too - I find it a good way to spot problems quickly. I like to notice them before my players bring them to my attention. Come to think of it, I grabbed the stats for the 4 bore to test out some firearm stuff I was doing. 

I doubt a 4 bore could penetrate 9mm into a tank, it is an old black powder weapon,  but they crew would probably think they got clipped by a 20mm. Still, If someone could get above a tank (or APC) and shoot down at a hatch, they might just ruin somebody's day. 

44 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

 

 

Going to dig through this data and see how my calcs hold up.

-STS

There another where he  shoots through a bank vault door. The H&H .375 Magnum out penetrated (most) of the rest, probably because higher energy per area  tends to mean better penetration, although it might have just missed a piece of reinforcement. The bigger bore slugs tended not to get through, but they deformed the door, while the .375 punched a clean hole.

But again, my bad, I was looking for a trouble child as a test case.

17 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

LOL.

Yeah, it can apply to tank rounds and tank armor. If you want to shoot a long rod aluminum penetrator at a tank, go ahead... I'll wait.

Works on the FV 101 Scopion, the FV 107 Scimitar, but then I ran out. All I had left were the silver rods, and I'm saving them for the weretanks.

Sorry, I just had to do it:

4 bore magnum stopping rifle = . sqrt (30671 ft-lbs* 1.07") = sqrt (32818) = Damage 181 !

Hmm at 2mm per point it could penetrate 362mm of (lead) armor! Bring on the trolls!

At 1/4 value for soft weapon (lead) vs. hard target (steel) and I still get around 90mm of Penetration. Which is enough to go shooting big game such as Panthers, Tigers  Elefants, and Tigger II's, provided their not looking at me.  I wonder if they make a steel core round for this. 😊

Now I know why the call that other tank rifle "Boys", the 4-bore must be the "Mens Anti-tank Rifle"

I seriously doubt it would work, but I cannot deny the sheer coolness factor of someone taking out a tank with their hunting rifle.

It looks good for a "named" NPC- that is someone worthy of their own sheet.Would rank and files guys would be more standardized in abilities (I.e Green, Average, Veteran, Elite, or some such)?

11 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

And would have the added fun of revealing your location! Fun for the PCs! 🙂

SDLeary

Well, if they are flying overhead in a gunship the enemy probably already know where they are. 

1 minute ago, sladethesniper said:

Ah, but I have the answer for that as well... bullet diameter and expansion. Also, weapon/target hardness (sort of related to armor). And 7.62mm is more deadly than 9mm or .45 ACP, but THAT is a function of bullet placement (aka skill %).

Yes, although most RPGs don't model that very well, since they tie damage mostly to the round.

1 minute ago, sladethesniper said:

"For bullets the equation is energy in foot/pounds multiplied by the diameter of the bullet, then take the square root of that. For a bullet of .50 caliber with 1000 foot pounds of energy, the equation is 22 damage.

I'll play...let me see:

7.62x51mm = sqrt (2500ft/bs* .308") = sqrt (770) = Damage 27.7

9x19mm = . sqrt (483ft/bs* .355") = sqrt (171) = Damage 13.1

.45 ACP =  sqrt (328ft/bs* .452") = sqrt (148) = Damage 12.2

12 gauge bean bag round =  sqrt (162ft/bs* 1.00") = sqrt (162) = Damage 12.72

Okay, I'll admit the bean bad was a cheap shot, but I didn't to point out one of the drawbacks to this, namely that damage is also dependent upon penetration, and wider diameter means lower penetration. It why a pin can go through a piece of paper with less enrgy that a finger or fist.But assuming you factor in for penetration elsewhere, it might hold up. Personally I'm not a big fian od higheer diameter more damage, but that's tangential. 

Somwhat ironically your formula is similar to but not quite the same as the one used by BTRC for Timelords. Namely the square root of the energy (in foot pounds) divided by the diameter: DV= sqrt(ft-lbs/cm).

1 minute ago, sladethesniper said:

Injuries that are not of this magnitude do not count as damage in this system. They hurt, but they are not damage unless the effects cannot be mitigated with a day
of rest or less.

Of what magnitude? It's pretty easy to get comparable damage values from common object with some energy.

Baseball @99 mph = sqrt (107ft/bs* 2.86") = sqrt (306) = Damage 17.5

Average Punch =  sqrt (62ft/bs* 3.25") = sqrt (202) = Damage 14.2

But I'm assuming that there is some modifier I might be missing. 

1 minute ago, sladethesniper said:

 

Such short term, but still debilitating effects are better modeled with a round or two of being stunned or knocked down or other short-term effects.
Weapon vs Target Hardness: If the implement doing the damage is harder than the target (bullet vs flesh, hammer vs face) then the target takes all the damage. If the implement doing the damage is the same hardness as the target (fist vs face) then damage to the target is only half.
If the target is harder than the implement (skull vs boxing glove) then the damage done is only ¼."

-STS

And there is is.

BTW, does that half damage factor apply to tank rounds vs. tank armor ? 

6 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

This is my current list of weapons by "base damage" and the chart of all the different types of ammo. I have other charts and stuff, but this is the one that has the basics.

Let me see if I got this correctly.

A 1200mm APFSDS round would do 30d10x2 and reduce any armor by half. So average damage would be 330 points, with a penetration of 1320mm (330x2x2)?

That's a bit generous. Actually it's probably impossible for any real 120mm round. 

7 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

Nice. 

I think that your equation is good, but I personally dislike log functions for damage/armor. I am a linear guy and I want the damage to scale that way.

But damage/kill potential is not a linear function. Otherwise all those 7.62 rifles would be five to six times as deadly as a 9mm/.45ACP handgun.

7 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

To that end, I prefer Palladium. personally go with 1mm of RHAe = 2 armor points. That makes damage go up into the thousands, but again, Palladium is where I got my start so I just regress to that.

Let's see at 2 armor per mm (RHAe) that would put a T-72 at something like 560 points. Hard to get through that in BRP. We'd need a gun that did 120D6!

Plus penetration doesn't exactly equal damage. But, unless I dice to reinevent the wheel

7 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

  Reveal hidden contents

To use real world equivalents 1 point of “damage capacity” is approximately 1 inch of penetration in organic material (flesh), 1 millimeter of penetration in iron or .5mm penetration in rolled homogenous armor plate. This roughly models on previous RPGs and the extensive library of real-world ballistics and injury literature.
This allows a 6” very large knife blade to do 6 damage (6” penetration = 6 damage) and a 120mm Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot Depleted Uranium to penetrate 1200mm of rolled homogenous armor equivalent to do 2400 damage (RHA penetration x .5mm = damage).

However, your mention of Class B armor does warm my heart.

Glad you didn't think I was full of Krupp. 😃

9 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

I agree with you. 

In that case... you could say that lasers add a +5%, BUT a good gunner would know when to use them, when not to, and all that jazz. Sometimes using the laser can give yourself away as the newest gizmos can do:

https://www.kwesst.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/KWESST_BLDS_14022022.pdf

Using a laser 20 years ago was the heat, now it's a bit dangerous depending on who you are fighting.

-STS

Yup, it's like in all the SciFi shows where the visible energy beam can tell people exactly where the shot came from. If someone has the right imaging epuiptment they can see that they are being painted by a beam and trace it back to the source.

As for the weapon mods, well I mostly worrying about the bigger weapons right now, not the personal ones. 

For the heavy weapons I've been relying on my armor formula to reverse engineer damage ratings, that way the weapons will be able to damage the things they should.

My current best formula is a logamthic doubling one, where every doubling of thickness is worth +4 armor, specfically:

Armour=  (LOG(mm)/LOG(2)*4+4)

It's not a perfect match, but it's hard to reconcile the tank and battleship armor rating with the 3 cm steel plate being Armour 30.  It's supposed to be RHAe, but currently is probably a bit closer to Class B armor, since it works for the battleship (assuming about a 305mm/12" belt). I'm still trying to curvefit something that works better while still making sense for the vehicles presented in the BGB . As it is, the Vintage tank (Armour 18) is fine, but the "modern" tank  (Armour: 24) would have to be a WW II era design. That makes some sense to me as the "modern" battleship has to be a WW II era design, since they don't make them anymore. 

But the formula does allow me to plug in real world data and get fairly decent game stats. A T-90 gets something like Armor: 42 (44 vs. HEAT) and it takes around a 12D6 (13D6 vs. HEAT) gun to reliably  (that is more often than not), defeat it. That's without factoring in for facing, range, etc.

7 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

You have to know to use them first. 

Yeah. Maybe some bonus would only apply if the user's skill was at a certain % or higher?

It's like with competition shooting. Things like custom grips, precision optics, longer barrels, ported barrels, and match grade ammo can all help an expert shooter get that little bit more of control that makes all the difference. But to Joe Average picking up gun and starting off at 20% it doesn't mean squat. 

7 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

Using tracers is part of being a gunner. Use of the laser guidance system is part of the skill. The big part of these systems is the maintenance and upkeep of them. If the crew doesn't keep them boresighted or whatnot, that laser is not pointing where the round is going to go.

I understand your point, so I am just arguing semantics at this point.

-STS

 

Yeah, but obviously the tech has to do something for the gunner, or else it wouldn't be there. Militaries don't try to spend millions of equipment that doesn't do anything.  It just sorta happens, at times, anyway, but it wasn't supposed to work out that way. 

6 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

I would say that none of those make you a better shot...

I'd think laser guided would. So would tracer rounds, at least after the first burst. 

6 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

 

but they DO cancel out negative conditions.

Night time, use night vision.

Smoke, use thermal.

Flat terrain with no landmarks to gauge distance, laser rangefinder.

Moving target, moving shooter and a cross wind, ballistic computer (BC). I would say that you could rate your BC for the number of variables it can correct for like moving target (1), moving shooter (2), wind (3), humidity (4).

Of course for each of those, there is a counter.

Night vision, use IR searchlights on the observer, or smoke

Thermal, hot smoke

Heat seeker, use flares

Radar guided, use chaff

Laser, use chaff or an anti-laser aerosol, or smoke or dust

Ballistic computer, evasive action

Optics, be hull down

Incoming fire, active defense systems

 

Cut & Pasted. Thanks.

I'm going to look at the table of modifiers for attacks (night, smoke, movement, etc.).  

For countermeasures (chaff, flares) do you think the resistance table might be the best approach?

THat is the weapon could have a rating for it's guidance system and the countermeasures get a rating  and rolling on the resistance table to see what happens. Using lots of countermeasures would increase their value (say +1 per doubling).

Just an update on this:

1.  I've been leaning towards using Mecha scale (from BRP Mecha) where 1 point of armor, damage or hit points is equal to 10 points of character scale. IMO this will make it easier for weapons to get through armor and do enough damage to take out a vehicle. It should also make the combat and math a little easier since it takes less time to total up the damage from 1D6 than for 10D6.
2. I'm thinking of using a hit location table where every point that gets through the armor (mecha scale) will damage the vehicle some way. The table is still a work in progress, but it currently looks something like this:

In play I'm thinking it should work out something like this:

Let's say we have an ACP with Armor: 2 , Hit Points: 8 (Mecha Scale) and it get hit by a autocannon that does 1D3 damage (impaling due to AP rounds), and gets 3 hits (rolled good on the burst), doing 2, 3, and 3 points of damage, respectively. The 2 point hit bounces off the armor, but the two three point hits would both damage something, and rolling on the hit location table (assuming D20 numbers that aren't there yet) we get Driver compartment and Cargo, forcing both to make an Easy Ce Luck Roll, per the.tables below:

The driver has a Luck of 14, for a 70% success chance, rolla an 18 for a success and takes 2D6 damage from shrapnel , and has 6 points get soaked by his armored vest. Close call. 

The "cargo" consists of 100 kg (SIZ 16) of spare parts. THe GM decides that spare parts are fairly rugged and uses their SIZ  in lieu of Luck for the roll. 16x8 is an 80% chance, and with a 55 the parts also take 2D6 damage and get 8 points of damage. The GM decides that since 8 is half of 16 about half of the spare parts are useless. 

It seems okay, except where the GM cheated on the hit location table. How does it look? What did I miss? Does it seem playable?

7 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

Yeah, AI weapons and expert systems are an issue, but they could be given a skill %. Good point.

-STS

Do you think the top of the line fire control stuff out today is worth +10%? More?

I was thinking of _10% plus the ability to reduce/cancel out the penalties for darkness,  and movement.

40 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

It is if wargaming or PC's running logistics is any part of gameplay.

35 minutes ago, g33k said:

A critical question for the designer!

It is. At least to some extent. Basically, as with all combat forces, there is a gap between what they want and what they got. 

In the source, there is often consider friction between the CO, and those who set the budget. There are even some stories the revolve around the CO convincing his superiors that some project is vital, and they need to spend a a few billion on it. 

Also there is a play issue. If the players think they have infinite resources they'll want to use infinite resources. To put things in terms of Pathers and Shermans, if a Panther is worth 3 Shermans, then why not throw a hundred Sherman's at the Panther and take bets to see if the crew surrender without firing a shot? I don't want the players to get complacent about looses.

40 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

Also, tech doesn't really increase skills... you can have all the tech in the world, but if you can't use it (as in don't know how it works) it is useless.

Unless it's a smart weapons system run by an AI, which fortunately  for me, isn't the case here.. 

But there might be bonuses for targeting systems for some things. But most bonus should be minor and add to skill scores, not replace them. 

1 minute ago, g33k said:

The issue there is a question of how you want your game to model the setting, the real-world, etc.

For this mostly the setting, but since the setting is mostly the real world (modern day/near future Earth with a twist), there is a bit of overlap. Besides if I can come up with mechaics that can work for both, I will have something that can be used for other tings later on. 

1 minute ago, g33k said:

If "gear" is dominant, how do you model that in skill-centric BRP? 

With the game stats. 

1 minute ago, g33k said:

Would a Panther tank be a +40% vehicle?  But that's vs. a Sherman... what if it was going against an Abrams, a Leopard-2, etc?  Do the Abrams &c become +80% vehicles??!?  And what then with a Bolo/Ogre style tank, or a battlemech??!?

I was planning on addressing that with the armor rating, weapon damages, weapon effective range, and so on. I've got a formula for armor that mostly hold up.

For instance a Panther Tank might have Armor: 31 and be Size: 86 and say Hit Points: 130 and armed with a 7.5cm/L70 cannon that does 10D6 damage.

A Sherman, in comparison could have Armor: 27, be Size: 83, with Hit Point: 125 with a 75mm gun that does 9D6 damage. 

An Abrams might have Armor 38/42 (vs.HEAT) or more depending on variant, Leopard is similar, although just which one is better is debatable, and mostly comes down to   which one is newer.

Things like facing could affect armor rating (shoot the Panzer from behind where it's armor is only around 23 points), and range could affect the damage of kinetic rounds (so the Sherman's gun drops down to 8D6 at long range or some such).

1 minute ago, g33k said:

  Particularly with regards to our d100 rolls, a massive "bonus" for better weapon/system/platform begins to look like a bad design-strategy; or that you need to "zero"  your setting to a given standard and declare better/worse than average gear gets bonus/penalty as per how good it is, in-setting, rather than try to cross-compare all gear from all settings.

I agree big skill mods can be a problem. But I don't think anything more than, say  a 20% bonus makes much sense here, at that's more a theroetical max, real modfierrs should be in the 5-10% range.

THere might be some modifiers that cancel out penalties though. Like gyrostabilized weapons that don't get a penalty for shotting while moving.

1 minute ago, g33k said:

This, I think, is the crux of the problem in trying to scale up BRP's model of 1:1 personal combat, to the level of the 120mm canon of a MBT 

I think the big problem is that the randomess of damage does scale up due to bell curves. 1D6x10 gives very different results from 10D6. And that matters when you got to beat 40 point armor.

1 minute ago, g33k said:

I'm not criticizing your project or goals, just looking at some of the issues involved.

Thanks. I'd much rather have these things pop up now in the design phase than have them show up two hours into the first game session. 

1 minute ago, g33k said:

Roman Legions vs. modern infantry is a perennial favorite -- I've used it myself -- but a bit of a strawman, really.  Multiple major technological innovations (and 2000 years of overall progress) mean we're very apple-and-orange with this example

Yup. Plus there are a lot of factors that haven't been addressed. How seasoned are the troops for each side, distance for the encounter, terrain, etc. etc. 

1 minute ago, g33k said:

(vs the comparison of Panthers & Tigers facing Shermans, which actually happened).

Yes, but which wasn't as big of  a of difference technologically, and the infantry example. Leopard 2's vs. Shermans would be more of a problem, at least for the Shermans. 

1 minute ago, g33k said:

Unless -- going back to your OP & the media inspiring you -- this discrepant tech is a feature you intend to explore.

I will have to for one side as it does have a significant technological edge of the other in the source material, but the source material does address this sort of thing too. It makes things a bit more challenging for one side, but not hopeless.  Both sides have tech that can take out each other vehicles, it's just that one side has a clear advatage in tech, but the other has a numerical advatage (more like the Shermans after all).

1 minute ago, g33k said:

But is 1940's USA productivity (vs. the Axis powers) a lesson of relevance to your setting?

Somewhat. One side does have massive resoruces aviable to them, and could get a lot more if the higher ups choose to commit more. It's kinda like with Ukrain. THe West could send a lot more equipment there is it really had to. It could ramp up production too. 

1 minute ago, g33k said:

Is one side vs. another side going to be a Shermans vs. Panthers situation?  Maybe so!  But if not... is this an issue you even need to address?

Actually yes, come to think of it. The typical encounter is often three vehicles from the lower tech side facing off against a single vehicle of the higher tech side. 

1 minute ago, g33k said:

I can see how you might need to address a tank-squadron being down a unit (or more).
I don't think you want to model infrastructure and logistics & the national industrial base...?

I will mostly for role playing and resupply purposes. For instance the PCs might be under supplied and have to try and convince the higher ups to commit more resources. Like asking Congress for another $10 million to buy a replacement tank. Especially since that side isn't fully committed or mobilized.

7 hours ago, g33k said:

Certainly relevant to the war as fought in the real world, with logistics & supply-chains &c impacting the battlefield!

But is it germane to the "blowing up vehicles" OP?

It's as germane as the tangent about modern tank warfare being more about tech than skill. Honestly, that claim could be made for almost any field these days. I mean I wouldn't want to bet on a century of Roman Legionaries against a platoon of modern troops with modern weapons. 

It's also could be germane in terms of what each side will have available to them in the game, and how the players will have to go about things. If the PCs are down a tank it might be awhile before the replacement shows up. 

6 minutes ago, g33k said:

Not at all a bad example, just based upon "dueling armor" (tank v tank battles) -- the conventional wisdom (IIRC) was that the Shermans needed a 3:1 advantage vs. Panthers, just to have a "decent chance," and 4:1 to be the likely "victors" (by which is meant at least 1 combat-capable Sherman advances, leaving a dead Panther behind.

Yes, but the Panther cost more than ten times that of the Sherman. Even the PZ IIs and IVs cost ten times that of the Sherman. So from a big picture perspective, it doesn't matter if the Pather takes out 3 Shermans before it gets destroyed. The US can easily replace those three Shermans (plus a lot more) while Germany can't easily replace that Panther.

It's hand craftsmanship versus the assembly line. Mass production wins. And it's mechanized lines of support full of supplies vs. haphazard  supplies for an army that can get enough fuel for their tanks. THe Shermans might as well been infantry with M20 Super Bazookas riding in four Jeeps. THe results would have been the same.  

4 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

It is tangential and I have asked you stop.

You haven't asked me to do anything. You declared that it is tangential, and don;t want to talk about it.

6 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

That is an assumption without evidence.

No, it is a deduction drawn from the evidence of what happened. In case you faieled to notice Worlds of Wonder didn't stay in print for years, so at best it could only sell out it's print run.

6 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

You are assuming that it wasn’t supported because of lack of sales, as opposed to the other way round say,

I'm not assuming anything. I'm pointing out that Worlds of Wonder wasn't 1982 Game of the Year.  

35 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

 

We don't have the sales numbers for Callof Cthulhu either, but we can easily tell that it outsold Worlds of Wonder. What we do have is the reaction that it got at the time, the revies it got in the various magazine of the day, how many copies show up on the shelves (and left said shelves) at the time. 

6 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

Chaosium may have just surmised that they wanted to focus on other games

Then why go to the trouble and expense of making a printing the game in the first place? . No game company releases a game and then abandon if it is successful. Remember, that was before the days of desktop publishing and PDFs. Making it was a drain on their time and resources. If they wanted to focus on other games they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of making WoW in the first place. 

6 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

or didn’t really know how to go about supporting it.

An unlikely supposition since they went on to produce other RPGs that they did support. ANd if they didn't want to support WoW, why split off Superwolrd into it;s own line? 

6 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

 

As pointed out, it never received ongoing supplemental support

Which a hit game would have received. Every  RPG that Chaosium produced in the 1980 got at least one 

6 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

 

so it is pure speculation as to  how successful it could have been if it had

Exactly, but it's not pure speculation to say how successful it was. Because the past actually happened. In the real world, Chaosium didn't support Worlds of Wonder, and instead focused on other games, specifically Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon  and Pendragon, and made a deal with Avalon Hill to try and promote RuneQuest . They relased a Ringworld game, and All thier other games got multiple editions, including two versions of ElfQuest.  

Everything got more attention except Worlds of Wonder. That was reality. Any claim of how popular WoW might have been if it had gotten more support is the pure speculation. here. THat's all on you. It's like speculation on how things might have gone for RuneQuest if Chaosium didn't make the Avalon Hill deal. But the thing is the deal did happen. 

36 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

I haven't shifted any goalposts and your argument here is being disingenuous. I am saying, perfectly consistently, that the game needs supplemental support and the use of mini-settings is the best way of supporting the game quickly and effectively. I have not been arguing that it is one thing or the other but mini-settings should be prioritised as they were effectively with Fate. 

. You have shifted the goalposts. You title the thread:  

38 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

BRP needs mini-settings

Then when I challenged that you said: 

39 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

I’m not moving any goalpost at all. I am saying, clearly, that in order for BR:UGE to be successful, as a universal, generic systemic it needs supplemental support.

And that is moving the goalpost. 

You went from a specific statement about the need for mini-settings -which is debatable, to a statement about the need for supplemental support -which is not. 

42 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

The sales of the supplements are secondary to the sales of the core rules.

Yes. Generally speaking you have to have the rules to play the game. 

42 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

You will note that in the case of Fate, most of their mini-setting supplements were free or PWYW. They weren’t making money from the supplements, but from the increased sales of the core rules

Which doesn't mean that the mini settings were what was driving those sales.

42 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

because it was perceived as a well supported line.

 That's speculation on your part. We don't know why the sales increased. In fact, your own argument agianst you, you can't say that the sales did increase unless you have the sales figures, can you?

Personally I believe it sold, and that it did so because it was perceived as a good game. Does anybody buy an RPG because it is well supported, or do they buy it because they think/hope it's good.? 

I think support matter more for how long people keep playing a game, and what game the group in playing is what matters as far as sales to the other players in the group. It why practically everybody who played D&D regularly owned a copy.  It was what they were playing.

51 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

You seem to be implying that mini-settings can’t be good settings?

I'm not. Mini-setting can be very good. It's just a bit harder for them to be so, since if something is good there is a tendancy to make more of it.

51 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

That is an immediate point of contention. Long supplements do not necessarily make for better settings.

No contention there. Higher page count doesn't mean a better game. 

51 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

In fact, if you are looking for something quick and easy to run, they can be a major turn-off. Indeed, much of my experience is that longer setting supplements often lead to criticisms of why they weren’t just released as stand-alone games.

Which is exactly the direction that Chasoium was going in before the whole D&D OGL fiasco.

56 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

y encouragement, to third party sources or Chaosium themselves is to support BRP in the best way possible by demonstrating the game's versatility.

But it is an assumption on your part that "demonstrating the game's versatility" is e best way possible. And you doing so at a time where most of the Universal RPGs have been in decline or at best, treading water. 

56 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

This means having a wide range of diverse settings to play - and the most effective way of doing this is get plenty of mini-settings quickly out,

But there is no reason to believe that getting lots of mini-setting out there would help BRP. GURPS probably has the widest range of diverse setting to play, and these day it has a lot of short mini-supplements, but the days of impressing people with diverse settings is long past. All the major RPGs have multiple setting now.

56 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

rather than spend years trying to develop major setting supplements which would likely get de-prioritised anyway for other game releases.

Not if they are successful. If you look at the various RPG companies, once they have a successful game they stick with it, and prioritize it over a new unproven game. It's basic business. Once you have a product that people like, you don't prioritize something that they don't like. You prioritize what works for you. 

56 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

 

Over time, I’d like to see a range of supplements - big and small, however it is a question of priorities for a new edition that has only just been released. 

Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean your priorities are the correct ones in this case. 

Now what I getting from this is that you personally like mini-setting, which is fine. But I'm saying that isn't necessarily a universal truth. Or even that it is universal to BRP players. It's not like there haven't been mini games for BRP in the past (Fantasy Paths anyone?).I';m not saying I'm opposed to Mini Setting either. IMO any decent supplement helps. 

What I am contesting is  the idea that BRP needs mini-settings. In fact, I doubt if mini setting will move the needle. I'm sorry if you don't like that idea, but you did ask what other people thought.