FMA Enhancement to Dirtside II

Hi everybody, I'm new to this list, just subscribed after a friend of
mine passed on a Dice conventions for Dirtside II impacts. I tool a look
at it and grabbed my books to see if it needed fixing , and repair any
possible damage, So here is my dice conventions for Dirtside II. Most of
this is for impact values of weapons. Be advised this is kind of long, 
and at the end is a final notes section where I explain anything that I
didn't already justify in the main text.

QUALITY DICE AND FIRING for DIRTSIDE

The following Dice-For-Impact system rarely brings up a damaged result,
as the odds of exactly making the targets armor number is reduced
dramaticly. If the players agree to use quality dice  a "Minor hit" will
result in a damaged result if the attacker beats the defender,
supression (or tanks ignore it) on a tie or less. On a major hit normal
impact rules apply, destroied if damage exceeds armor, damaged if damage
ties armor.

Infantry fire and quality dice:
    Infantry fire dosen't have the firecon roll,  Just the normal
reaction test, already a form of quality die check.

WEAPONS FOR DICE IMPACTS

Impact dice values:**
    HEL: D6 (Red chits make up 50% of the pot) D4 vs abalative (Green
and
yellow make up 25% each)
    HVC: Close range D8, Medium range D6, Long range D4
    MDC: Close range D10, Medium range D8, Long range D6
    HKP: Close range D10, Medium range D8, Long range D6
    DFFG: close 2 x D10, medium 1D10, short 1D6
    GMS, and SLAM: D8, D6 vs reactive
	GMS Values : GMS/P(Portable): 1, GMS/L: 3, GMS/H: 5

    Final damage is figured by number rolled X weapon size.

** Any other damage dice may be extrapolated by: Yellow or Green only
(25%)
= D4, Red only (50%) = D6, Red and Yellow or Red and Green(75%) =  D8,
All
(100%) = D10

This means that D12s are not used for damage resolution. If all players
agree special ammo may be added to a weapon that gives it a +1die type
shift
for a cost of (15%? of the weapon's cost) to represent Armor Piercing
Depleted Uranium or similar Enhanced munitions. An example weapon
designation: E-DFFG/5

    Values Vs infantry
	HEL: 2 x D4
	RFAC/HVC 2 x D4
	MDC 2 x D4
	DFFG 3 x D6
	SLAM  weapon class X D4

GMS/P rules for Dirtside II: there are no GMS/P systems in Dirtside II
and
Stargrunt II uses vastly compressed ranges. so a GMS/P has a range of
24" if
vehicle mounted requires 1 space, and costs: 10 for basic, 15 for
enhanced,
20 for superior
(all GMS/P numbers are extrapolated from subtracting the diffrence
between
/H and /L from GMS/L)

Infantry have no firecon so the IAVR dosen't register hits as normal.
just
roll class 2 damage with D8, D6 vs reactive, D4 vs APFC

AACK! So an IAVR does more damage than a GMS/P !?!  Well not quite. In
Dirtside II all infantry members are assumed to be carrying IAVR and a
stand
of infantry will consist of four troopers* so each IAVR may be only
doing
1/2 missile damage but the cumulative effect is (4 x 1/2) a class 2
weapon.
(another reason for not rolling to hit is the saturation effect of these
four missiles at a relatively point blank range of 4" maximum.)
    But this is playable, an infantry team may carrry short range and
heavy
damage weapon(s) or a long range and light damage weapon (besides which
any
infantry team must be rather cagy to approach an armored vehicle under
the
12" APSW umbrella)

* Dirtside to Stargrunt vehicle conversion: if (1 base = 4 spaces and  1
space = 1 troop) then  4 spaces = 4 troops, 1 base = 4 troops

Critical Hits and Critical Failures:
    On a natural roll of 1 for damage the weapon experiences a critical
failure. a D10 must be rolled for the element that failed. on a 1 or 2
any
non-Infantry element suffers from a Systems down failure.
    On a natural Maximum roll for impact (4 for D4, 6 for D6, ect.) roll
a
D10  on a 4 or under the tank suffers from normal effects, on a 5 or
higher
the tank takes a critical hit plus the damage of (Dice roll x weapon
class -1) the -1 is the chit that came up a critical instead of damage.
The
down side is that a shot against infantry that criticals suffers the -1
to
weapon class when resolving damage, and WILL NOT get ANY critical hits,
as
the chit is normally ignored as if it were a 0 chit.
    Critical Hit Table:
    5-7 Mobility
    8-9 Target Systems Down
    10 Boom

This system dosen't exactly represent the chances of the chit drawing,
but
it should have preportionate effects. Okay so everyone may have noticed
that
a laser has a better chance of scoring a critical than almost any other
weapon, but lasers are so accurate over long ranges that vehicle crews
may
end up targeting specific systems with them anyways. RFACs and HVCs now
have
a use over MDCs, as the chemically propelled slug weapons have a better
chance of scoring
a critical, before this they were rather unnecessary for their cost
(this may require
P.S.B.S. to explain it as appropriate.) As well,  the DFFGs effect is so
much like a flame thrower that hitting any specific system at a weak
point
with enough concentrated impact is lessened, relatively. (DFFGs
typically
don't leave anything left to have critical hit penalties.)

ARMOR FOR DICE

With the use of a D10 for the "All chits valid impact", a D10 should be
the
standard use for the armor ("all levels valid") on infantry as well as
vehicles. Infantry use standard levels for hit resolution But with the
use
of dice to represent armor we get to design with new armor types!
    New armor types require new costs
	Advanced armor (D12) costs 24% of VSP per level (Experimental or
highly advanced composites)
	Standard armor (D10) costs 20% of VSP per level (typical for the
world backgound, 20th and 21st century ceramic alloy)
	Cheap armor (D8) costs 16% of VSP per level (outdated alloys or
modern armor with incomplete coverage)
	Civilian armor (D6) costs 12% of VSP per level (sheet metal and
reinforced fibergalss)
	Primitive armor (D4) costs 8% of VSP per level (thick wood,
layered
boiled leather or other primitive type armor)
		(For supressing E.T. natives!)
	None (D2, or high or low roll) This is NOT "Softskinned" A sheet
metal cover or Anti-Ballistic cloth ranks at least D6 The None armor may
be
used to represent a single infantryman (an evacuated pilot worthy of
concern
or lone operating P.C.) or more than one level may represent
Ballistic-Abalative armor. It costs 4% of VSP on any vehicle it may be
used
on, otherwise it is a default armor value. Any vehicle that dosen't pay
for
at least this much is classified as Jury-Rigged and is assumed to be
held
together by it's critical components, example: a seat on an engine
directly
bolted to its wheels and a gun. Simply hitting such a vehicle is enough
to
slag it regardeless of size.

    All Reactive and Abalative armors cost the same additional 10% of
VSP
per level because their effect is on the oposing weapon rather than on
the
defending armor.

    Infantry Armor Types
	Advanced (D12) costs: 18 for militia, 24 for line, 48 for
powered
(Full body hardsuits, may be considered sealed and have no effect from
biochemical attacks)
	Standard (D10) costs normal (Standard equipment/ partial light
armor, standard power armor)
	Cheap (D8) costs 12 for militia, 16 for line, 32 for powered
(basic
battledress, low grade power armor)
	Civilian (D6) costs 9 for militia, 12 for line, 24 for powered
(Second Chance Standard or similar personal bulletproof vest, and a
motorcycle helmet, powered armor an enclosed powered exoskeleton with
semi
jury rigged weapons)
	Primitive/None (D4) costs 6 for militia, 8 for line, 16 for
powered
(Civilian non balistic clothes, open frame powered exoskeleton, weapons
duct taped to loading arms with twine from the triggers)
	Infantry armor never goes below a D4. that accounts for survival
instinct directing the person to at least dive under whatever cover may
exist.
    Infantry armor die types do not corespond to the values in Stargrunt
II
due to the abstractions used for infantry casualties in Dirtside II

    For those that haven't noticed yet, for vehicles this equates to
Dtype x
2% so you could potentially have Oh-My-PersonalDeityOfChoice level armor
(D20) for 40% of VSP per level cost, but other players better agree to
it,
and one mobile element per side only (Command centers are an obvious
choice
as are bunkers and emplacements).
    The Infantry costs are modified by 1/5 of the cost of the infantry
per
dtype shift off of standard. Specalist system costs are not affected by
the
change in infantry costs, and calvary costs are off the new basic costs.
Infantry should never have anything over D12, unless a scenario cals for
it, and point costs shold be determined by the players involved.

    These modified levels of vehicle armor may be applied to Stargrunt
II, just
convert standard armor levels to D10 and use the close range impact
levels
above (A recomendation is to halve the range of DFFGs, and count all HEL
targets in the first range band in Stargrunt II
anyways, so that  a trade off between range and damage ensures not all
Heavy Vehicular weapons are DFFG's) Softskinned is
still considered D6.

I have tried to stay consistant with the DSII probabilities, and keep
existing vehicle designs from drasticly changing effectiveness. Armor
might
be more effective than before but that helps compensate for the fact
that
while weapon damages have always had a degree of error, armor has always
been constant. for a constant armor factor, it might work to multiply
the
armor levels by 5 and compare damage off the mofdified constant. It's
pretty
close to the preportion of armor to damage.

Final Notes:
    On the modifications from the original:
	DFFGs and 2x D10 vs D12 impact
the DFFG is the single most expensive direct fire weapon with the single
crappiest range and damage falloff, so it had better follow the original
guidelines for damage of "All valid chits x 2" rather than "Well a D12
is the largest die we use." However I am fairly sure that a D20 could
also be used as the damage probability is linear for both but the 2x D10
just jumps from 2 to 20 in increments of 2 rather than smoothly from 1
to 20.
 
	Materials for armor:
The original appeal for myself of Dirtside II was its non specifity
about world background(, and the fact that it actually handled nukes). I
could hold massive battles for role playing or when a Battletech
(Trademark, FASA corp.)  game got seriously out of hand. I  felt that I
needed to refrain from using periods of time within the span of 100
years, and although I do make refrence to a 200 year span but I also
note "Typical for the world background".
 
	The Numbers:
All the numbers here I have extrapolated from the existing data. 
	    Basic damage dice:
I had noticed four distinct damage probabilities (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%)
and had five dice types to work with (D4, D6, D8, D10, D12) I decided to
keep the four probabilities at the low end of the scale so that the DFFG
could have the D12 as it's close range die, then noticed that the DFFG
using the D12 only provided 60% of the firepower of the original
Chit-Draw DFFG, as I mentioned earlier the DFFG is a very expensive
weapon with limited range, It couldn't afford to loose any firepower or
be consigned to the useless weapon system pile.

	    Rolling one die times (weapon class) or rolling (weapon
class) dice
Rolling one die makes the damage conform to a linear probability, you
have as much chance of rolling a one as a three, rolling multiple dice
makes the damage fit a bell curve, 2D6 comes up with 7 more often than 2
and 12 put together. It dosen't really matter which method the players
choose, both have their advantages and disadventages, but both players
need to roll damage the same way, for armor and weapons, or risk
upsetting play balance.
 
	    Guided Missile Classes
For guided missile damages I used the standard weapon classes for damage
GMS/L is a class 3 weapon for determineing damage, and a GMS/H is a
class 5 weapon for determining damage. To change these values would have
signifigantly altered the firepower of these systems by nearly as much
as 50%

	    Basic Armor Dice:
With the D10 representing the "all chits valid" impact the D10 had to
represent the standard armor factor as armor is always "All Levels
Valid"

    On the New additions:
	the GMS/P:
Yes the GMS/P as outlined above does outperform many light direct fire
weapons for a comperable cost. The thing to remember is that any GMS
system has up to three barriers to its sucessfull impact: ADS, PDS, and
ECM, where direct fire weapons have only Signature and maybe terrain.
Besides the GMS/P is extrapolated from the GMS/L and GMS /H as explained
above.

	Enhanced cannons
Why an added 15% cost? The D12 will add 20% or at best one class level
to a weapon's damage, but without the enhanced range of a +1 class
weapon.

	Critical Hits and Critical Failures
Part of the entire Dirtside II experience is the special hits. Who
hasn't watched in frustration as their plans go up in smoke when a main
battle tank is stuck on the other side of the table from the main battle
with a systems down chit laying next ot it, and there is a certain
satisfaction in watching an entire armored colum grind to a halt as you
place a "mobility hit" next to the heavy tank that is crossing the only
intact bridge to your side of the field. The system I came up with may
have had the added effect of giving new life to a much maligned weapon
system: the HVC.
 
	Infantry:
I use lots, go figure.

	Points costs:
It may not be perfect but It does allow all players to prearrange their
armies before they show up and not get any major arguments about it once
they arrive. All of the point costs outlined above are consistant with
the Dirtside II rules

Final Note on the length of this rules addition:
    So you want to know why I have to justify all my numbers? I have an
army already costed for multiple levels of conflicts (usually in 1000
point increments) They are designed to operate with certain elements
performing certain tasks. If a weapon comes up short of firepower, or
armor universally increases, I have to go back and not only re-organize
ALL my armies, but re-design ALL my vehicles as well. I do not want to
have to do this, and I suspect you (all, any, or some) don't want to
either, so these rules need to conform as closely to the original
probabilities as possible.
 
If you have any questions I am Jim Whitehead at djwj@eazy.net 
 
Thank you for your attention,
    Jim Whitehead