RE: (4166) Re: RE: (4152) Re: Proposed Alternate Starship Combat in Traveller
2G Scott writes:
> But I still like the idea of using
> the damage point values. What we need is to adopt a more mass oriented
> system than the volume oriented system. (ie 1 damage point per 15 tons
> rather than per 15 kiloliters or something like that)
I wrote this into a 'minimalist' vehicle system redesign when we had the
first TDR flurry. What was that? About a year and a half ago? As far as
I know, Bertil is the only one who took the idea and actually tried it out
in a game, and I seem to recall that he was pleased with it. (-: If GDW
wants to revised this section of the rules, I'd be all for it, and I think
that it would be an excellent time to stop and think about what damage
values for weapons ought to be in relation to the number of damage points
for vehicles. As it stands now, a typical tank (4 displacement tons)
has a hull value of, um, 4/9, which should be read as 40/90 in "personal"
combat. A typical TL7 tank gun (say a 10cm high velocity, roughly equal
to a US 105mm) does about 10 points of damage per hit. Thus, 13 hits
would be required to 'destroy' the hull. A single hit from a 50MW beam
laser will do 100. Any idea what the muzzle energy of a 105 tank gun is?
The worst offenders in this problem are the aircraft. I've posted previously
my calculations showing that a typical current fighter plane in COACC can
take a couple of dozen hits from anti-aircraft missiles before becoming
unflyable...
Rob