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Re: Armor, Movement, and Capacity was Re: DS3 design (long)

From: John K Lerchey <lerchey@a...>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:29:04 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Armor, Movement, and Capacity was Re: DS3 design (long)

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004, J L Hilal wrote:

> If you then want to modify the vehicle, we can talk about that.  As
you
> suggest, you can add applique armor to bring the vehicle up to class 2
> armor.  However, you have now added a significant amount of weight to
> the vehicle.	There are two possible results:
>
> A) the heavier vehicle, with the same power pack, now is slightly
> slower, represented by a reduction in movement rating.
>
> B) upgrade the vehicle with a larger engine, improved suspension,
etc..
> This takes up internal volume, i.e. capacity.
>
>
>
> Now, for a better example of how the armor-movement-capacity triangle
> can work, I can make up the bare bones of a new system off the top of
> my head.
>
> Premise 1: Vehicle pays capacity for movement type
> Premise 2: Vehicle pays capacity for power pack (and thus move rate)
> Premise 3: Armor value is selected, paid for indirectly through power
> pack
> Assumption 1: Size 1 vehicle has 20 capacity
>
> I design a size 1 vehicle.
>
> I need to select movement type.  The capacity pays for the wheels and
> suspension, or tracks, or skirts, or grav, etc..  For the sake of the
> example say HiMob wheeled costs 2 cap., tracked 3, grav 4, and hover 5
> (arbitrary for now, somehow change values for larger size classes).  I
> select HMW for 2 cap.
>
> I need to select armor.  I decide that I am making a light armored
car,
> so I give it armor 1 on all 6 sides.
>
> I now pay for the power pack. For the powerpack that I am using, it
> costs 1 cap. per 2 movement for wheeled or tracked, 1 cap per 3
> movement for hover, and 1 cap per 4 movement for grav (again,
arbitrary
> for now, and maybe some relation to vehicle size).  This is increased
> at a rate of 1 cap. per 6 points of armor (arbitrary, changes with
size
> class, maybe move type also).  Since I have 6 points of armor, wheeled
> movement costs 1+1=2 cap per 2 movement.  I want a fast vehicle, so
> movement 12, and 12 cap.
>
> Total is 2+12=14 cap, leaving 6 for things like weapons, FCS, ECM,
> troops, etc.
>
> A FCS at the Force Tech Level Quality would be 2 cap, while one at
> (FTL-1) Quality might be 1.5 or 1 cap., and one at (FTL+1) Quality
> might be 3 cap.  This leaves enough room for a single class 1 turreted
> weapon, the free APSW, and maybe something else.  If I want to carry
> troops, CBR, or comm gear, I probably need only minimal FCS for the
> free APSW, or none at all (manual, pintle mount).
>
> So formula is:
> Mobility Type cost + Powerpack = Movement cost
> and
> Powerpack = Move x (Mobility Factor + ((Armor Factor Ratio) x Armor))
> thus
> MT + (M x (MF+((AFR) x A))) = Movement cost
>
>
> J
>

Cool.  While I didn't come up with a "forumla" per se, I did come up
with 
a similar idea, though I hadn't posted it yet.	This is what I would
have 
posted.

In one of the recent posts, it was stated that if
you increase the engine capaciy used based on the
amount of armor on the vehicle, that you are "adjusting
for armor weight".  Ok... but that seems so counter
intuitive and just... backwards to me that I had to 
come up with a suggestion of how a system could be
done.  Note that this is for example purposes, and has
not been number crunched, play tested, or otherwise
sanity tested.	It's main point is to show that you can
address the armor weight to power available ratio
by doing something that does not artificially bloat
the size of an engine when someone welds armor onto
a hull.

First, I would suggest that when designing a vehicle,
engines produce power based on capacity used and engine
type.  The following chart serves as an example.

Engine Type	Power/CAP used
CFE		2
HMT		3
FGP		5

The next step would be to determine how much armor 
weighs. For purposes of demonstration, I'll only assume
one armor type (though I am intrigued by the concept of
Poor/Primitive, Basic, Enchanced, and Superior armor to 
allow more differentiation).

Each 2 Armor points weigh 1 Power Point.
Armor will be purchased for each facing.  Any fractions
are rounded up.

Now, we also have to replace the default move ratings
from DSII.  Instead of the "Fast/Slow whatever", we need
to determine how many movement points are generated
per power point from an engine.

Movement Type			BMF/Power
Low Mobility Wheeled		3
High Mobility Wheeled		3
Tracked 			2
Hover				4
Grav				6
VTOL				8
Walker				2

Now to build a couple of examples.  Oh, also note that I'm
still using the 5 class sizes in DSII (Ok, so up to 7!), so
the numbers would need to be completely revamped for new 
class/capacity point values.

Class I Scout Vehicle.
Engine type: CFE
Since I want room for an RFAC/1, I'll use 4 CAP for my engine,
generating 8 base power points.  I've decided that I want 1
armor to keep the pesky small arms from killing my armored
car, so I want 2 APs to the front, and 1 everywhere else
for a total of 7.  This "rounds up" to 4 weight, and thus
reduces my avaialble power by 4.  I have 4 left.  My armored
car is going to be High Mobility Wheeled, and I have 4 power,
so that lets me have a top speed of 3x4 = 12 BMF.

So, what if I did the same thing, but used an HMT?  Well, since
the HMT provides more power (3 per CAP = 12 power for this 
vehicle), I can either make this puppy really fast, or I can
increase both armor and speed as follows:

Armor: 3 front, 2 each side, 1 top, 1 bottom, 1 rear.
Armor total: 10 = 5 power points.
Power = 12, -5 for armor leaves 7.
7*3 = 21 BMF, so my vehicle is now better armored AND faster.

Let's look at a tank.
We'll make it a size 3 and see what we can do.
I'll want a class 3 weapon in a turret, so that'll be 9 CAP of
my available 15.  That leaves me 6.  I don't really need any 
other weapons (other than my APSW), so I can now see how much
armor I want to put onto it.

Armor: 6 front, 3 for each side, 2 top, 1 rear, 1 bottom.
Armor total: 16 = 8 power points.
I'm going to use a CFE engine again, and have 6 CAP available.
That generates 12 power.  I lose 8 for my armor, so I have 4 left.
I decide that this is a tracked MBT, so 4*2 = 8 BMF.

Again, I can upgrade to a HMT, which will generate more power,
and allow me to either incraese armor, movement, or both.
If I only increase movement, and leave the armor the same,
I'll have a raw power value of 18.  I use 8 for armor, leaving
me 10.	This will give my MBT a BMF of 20.

If I cranked it up to a FGP, I could make it scream...
Base power is 30, -8 = 22 * 2 = a BMF of 44!  Of course,
leaving this as is, I'm likely making a really fast target.

However, this does prove the point that such a system can work
(though again, my numbers are right out of my ass, so they don't
really provide for NOT having tanks tearing up the ground at absurd
rates of speed.  Someone with a better mathematical and statistical
background would need to work out numbers that do the right things.

Also, for cases where the rules state things like that you have
to have at least an HMT or FGP to fire certain weapons, or to 
use ceratain move types, either those limits could be preserved,
or there could be a minimum amount of power required in order to
use such items. For example, if it takes 15 power per class to
fire a DFFG, you aren't likely to see many on CFE based engines.
And if you do, that's about ALL the engine will do.

Somewhat different, and for the short term, your version may be cleaner,

but it does show that with some work, we *can* come up with something
more 
flexible and realistic than what's in DSII now. :)

Thanks!

John

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