Trying to merge 2 different combat systems

[Lloyd Dupont]

I am trying to merge the spaceship combat system, inspired by Master of Orion, with the creature combat of BRP.

Why you ask?
Fair question! ^^

Because, I am inspired by the spaceship combat, to design vehicle weapon and armor (since I could reuse many techs / weapons / devices).
And obviously a character vs an armored vehicle is a possible scenario...

So.. where is the problem?

In the spaceship combat there is very little damage reduction, instead a spaceship has 2~3 HP layers. An (optional) forcefield layer (that regenerate), an armor layer, and a structure layer. Damage is taken by the outer layers first, until it reaches the structure when things start to go bad!
Though, on a side note, forcefield does provide some armor reduction... but it's an optional more advanced component...

if I scale that to vehicle... I got a problem... character have damage reduction (even huge damage reduction, like 16 for best power armored of their tech level), while spaceship weapon don't do that much damage but they destroy armor. So what  should I do?

- idea 1. keep things as is and give a 'armor buster' trait to large (i.e. vehicle size) weapon, that destroy a fraction of the player armor on each damage... seems like a good idea!

- but then.. what about what about when character shoot at vehicle?

Any ideas?

Edited November 19, 2020 by Lloyd Dupont

[Lloyd Dupont]

Added precision.

The problem is more obvious with some numerical examples.

If I take the weakest Spaceship weapon (all the other kind of work): Laser Cannon, with D4 damage. And my intended multiplier for Vehicle vs Character of x2. One can see the problem.

Laser Cannon does 2xD4. Plate Armor does 8, character is immune 😮 While spaceships take chip damage! 😮 
What about a vehicle with 10 Laser Canons?
Player is still immune (-8 on each weapon), whereas enemy vehicle take a lot of damage!  
One could maybe use the armor against the end result of the 10x2xD4.. but this is a bit contrived, particularly when, at the same time, vehicle shield damage reduction applies to each dice... 😕 

And also it's kinda funny, since the hand laser rifle does, as suggested in the BRP for advanced missile weapon, does 2D8....

[olskool]

Simply scale your damage.

Have each point of "Major (ie starship) Damage" equal ONE DAMAGE DIE of "Personal Damage."  So...  If your Starship Lasers do 1D4 points of Major Damage, each POINT of that Major Damage could do 1D10 points of Personal Damage to a human (or anything scaled as a human).  Any device which does Major Damage AND any armor which absorbs Major Damage would be designated as such by being placed inside brackets [ ].   

[Lloyd Dupont]

I think Vehicle attacking Character can be worked out.. I do have multiplier, and I  am going to add armor destroying bonus (like, when a canon ball go through that armor, the armor is ruined!!)

But.. where I am unsure.. what about players attacking spaceship/vehicle?
Those don't have damage reduction!
Even if I divide character damage by by, they can still burst the thing "relatively easily".. 😕  I.e. tank should have armor and the hand gun do absolutely nothing instead of chip damage as it will be..

Mmm.. got it! Handgun don't have "armor destroy" bonus! So.. hey should work differently! 😮  
Alright back to tuning, thanks!  

[soltakss]

I normally have a scaling factor, so a person with a Blaster isn't going to do noticeable damage to a Battle Cruiser, but a Battle cruiser is going to annihilate a bunch of Adventurers if it hits them with a major weapon.

Also, for me, things like force fields and shileds work in different ways:

• Force fields just add to the Armour of a ship, so basically increase Hull Quality, if you use those rules from ships
• Shields absorb damage, spending energy to do so. This happens after it gets through a forcefield, or maybe before it even reaches the forcefield