Vehicle weapons??

garhkal · Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:32 pm Post subject: Vehicle weapons??

Looking at most vehicles, many have weapons that are speeder or walker scale, where even WITH the 2d (or 4d) bonus, are still around the same damage as a regular character scale Light repeater, and occasionally a medium repeater..

Anyone know WHY WEG did this?
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Pel · Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 4:58 pm Post subject:

At a guess, I'd say those stats came into being when they (WEG) had die caps in mind from the Rules Companion.

Which speeders/walkers are you referring to?
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klhaviation · Lieutenant Commander Joined: 19 Aug 2014 Posts: 188

A lot of the stats were inherited from 1st edition rules... I think that is the first bit... the second bit is that it makes sense that the die code for a speeder's blaster be in speeder scale... that way if it is speeder bike vs. Speeder bike there are no scaling modifications that need to be made to calculate the damage. If a 2D speeder scale blaster were listed as 4d character scale, every time a speeder shot at a speeder, you would have to make a modification. I suppose, for the most part, they tried to keep in line with the vehicles scale.

In the case of vehicles having both scales... I think the character scale guns were intended to be anti infantry, while the walker scale, anti vehicle...

Another part of the mystery is that under 1st ed [Rules Companion], ranges were generic based on the die code and scale of the weapon... so a 4d speeder scale gun would have a different range than a 2D walker scale gun... again these stats were likely ported directly into 2nd ed.

And sometimes, it just makes no sense

That is my best guess

garhkal · Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 2:37 pm Post subject:

Naaman · Vice Admiral Joined: 29 Jul 2011 Posts: 3190

Seems like the answer is to start with character scale damage godes and then convert to the proper scales. That will give it some consistency.

Pel · Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 9:40 pm Post subject:

I never liked the R&E die scaling. It just seemed too quick and simplistic. Always been a big fan of the die caps introduced in the Rules Companion. They work and it's just as easy with a bit of familiarization.
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Naaman · Vice Admiral Joined: 29 Jul 2011 Posts: 3190

I was thinkng the same thing. Die caps are another option.

CRMcNeill · Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 6:39 pm Post subject:

I don't mind the dice scaling method; I just don't like how WEG applied it. I ended up coming up with my own version that put Speeders at +4D (with speeder bikes and such in between at +2D), left Starfighter at +6D, but put Walker at +8D. I haven't had much chance to play test it, and I'm waiting for feedback from some people who were going to try it out. Putting Speeder-Scale weapons at +4D alleviated most of the problems garhkal brought up.

As for why? Its a classic example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. WEG made a lot of changes over the course from 1E to 2R&E and failed to give adequate consideration to how the changes would truly affect the various stats.
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garhkal · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 3:51 am Post subject:

4d boost would be better to represent their damage.

Another thing is looking at most speeder/walker weapons, there are very few (even those with things like concussion missiles/grenade launchers) that give a blast radius for them..
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Lane Arroway · Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 8:58 pm Post subject:

I recently changed the effect of the weapon based on type. Cannons, for example, have an area of effect which goes up as with scale. This way character scale weapons may do the same or more than their speeder counterparts, but the speeders blaster cannon has more effect. Anything further is a discussion for the house rules.
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garhkal · Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 11:46 pm Post subject:

SO what did you place the blast radius zones at?
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Lane Arroway · Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2015 4:00 pm Post subject:

Just experimental so far,
character and speeder scale cannons are at five meters, walker scale ten meters, starfighter scale fifteen meters, capital scale 30+meters. If capital ships are firing at the pc's on the ground, its more for dramatic effect.

Also not that the area is compared to character scale. speeder to speeder or ship to ship their is no area, damage is done normally. Though I can imagine a capital ship cannon completely overwhelming a starfighter.

Like I said, these are just experimental. I also have variants for repeating weapons and grenades.
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garhkal · Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 1:04 am Post subject:

So lets say a walker scale tank is shooting a PC.. The walker's damage is 4d+2 base (8d+2 with scaling die added in).. Is that 10m done like
0-3/6/10?
Or more like 0-2/4/6/8/10?
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Lane Arroway · Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 4:29 am Post subject:

The first one seems the simplest, but I haven't thought about doing a long set of areas like that. For the adventure with the cannons, I used the system I use for grenades.

Ex. the cannon does 6D character scale so the breakdown I used was 6D/4D. The base difficulty of the hit roll was, say 15. That is the base. I add 4 to the base for each step of damage. So, to dodge this completely, you would need to roll a 20. 15 is a tie and you take 6D damage. 16-19 and you take 4D damage. However, I could see the damage breakdown increasing the larger the scale. so, using the above cannon, speeder scale would be 6D/4D/2D.
Like I said, this is experimental, but based on the D6 system of grenades.
For repeaters I use a 3 step damage break down, but no area. I wanted the weapon to actually be threatening and not reliant on a character firing multiple times in a round, while being different than grenades.
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Lane Arroway · Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:27 am Post subject:

Hey, thanks for your interest garhkal. Your last question has made me really think about this and I think I've exaggerated the area of effect by a lot. I think character and speeder scale would be like 1 meter, walker 3 meters, starfighter 6? meters, and capital 12+? meters. I also think that I will be using the grenade deviation rules for misses. And that's misses not dodges, but I guess someone could dodge after the shot missed in order to avoid the blast effect. Dodge is a reaction skill, after all, and can be used at any time.

So I guess in your example of the tank cannon, the area would be 0-1/2/3.
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