[GZG] Small arms tech and troop quality

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,

Your new formulation seems more focused and more easily thought upon.

It seems to me that the contrast between poorer and better troops is,
given
the same tech is:

- somewhat improved effective range for better troops - better troops
zero
their sights, shoot enough to have a good feel for windage, and are more
calm and focused doing their job

- improved efficacy at all ranges when compared to their poorer
counterparts. Better concentration, better use of bursts, a sense of
timing,
coordination of fires, etc

ROF, as such, isn't the determiner. As the resident ginger beer pointed
out,
good troops don't use full auto much. Aimed shots, with rifle at
shoulder,
using sights, vs. spray and pray. Even given the same guns, I'd expect
slightly better effective ranges and better effectiveness at all ranges.
SG2
captured this with quality based range bands and quality in the attack
calculation, although the variability of polyhedral dice sometimes make
that
hard to see.

So I would say good troops should provide an additional firepower factor
at
any range and should perhaps have slightly longer maximum effective
range.
(Note, I'm talking practical range, not how far a bullet could actually
travel)

Comparing troops of equal quality using weapons of differing qualities,
I
would expect that better weapons (of any given sort, say comparing an
advanced rifle with a basic one) would:

- potentially add to effective range (better aerodynamics of the round,
better sights, better recoil management)
- add to accuracy at most or all ranges (similar reasons)
- deliver burst increasing hit percentages
- have better penetration or tissue damage

So, you can then examine your initial suggestion of:

Aggregate FP = Troop Q x Weap TL (rating 1-5 for each)

If you aren't rolling FMAesque dice, and just using this rating, then a
Troop of Q2 can effectively *be* 2x as good as a Troop from Q1. Same
with
tech.

If, OTOH, you are using SG style dice, Green D6 vs. Regular D8 isn't a
2x
relationship... I'd have to get Beth or OA to speak to the value, but my
guess is that's about a 25% increase. Ditto the way weapon FP/accuracy
dice
go. Even if I'm a better gun (one die type up), it won't be a 2x
relationship.

So it sort of depends on the underlying rules mechanics. The balance
would
be different depending on the backing rules.

But even then, I don't totally like that formula. If we take a test
case:

TL1 Q1: Rabble with smoothbore muskets
TL4 Q4: Experienced veterans with high tech advanced combat rifles

Is the ratio 16 to 1? I don't think practically that your described tech
spread matches with a xN relationship. TL1 and TL5 are closer than 5x
and
probably so is troop quality.

If you traded weapons:

TL1 Q4: Veteran Gaurds with smoothbore muskets
TL4 Q1: Untrained rabble with high tech ACRs

The suggestion here would be that the result is equal. I don't think so.
All
the expertise in the world won't overcome the basic ballistics and ROF
of
the smoothbore.  Idiots may be using the ACRs, but some of the rounds
are
likely to find their mark and they shoot a lot more a lot faster and to
better range even in the hands of clowns.

Let us also consider one of the ginger beer's points:

Poor troops don't act with coordination or efficacy and lack espirit de
corps or morale to keep to the fight. This does manifest itself, even in
the
firepower field. But John rightly points out a certain scale is needed
to
reap the teamwork and coordination benefits. And most of these aspects
show
up in other regards.

I have not found math that works that doesn't cause an aneurysm in test
subjects or epileptic seizures when contemplating edge cases....

Every simple formula I tried leads to a bucket full of fail.....

------------------------

SG2 Rules of Thumb:

My experience in SG2 has been that, assuming terrain and ROE allows
leveraging of quality advantages:

- Veterans tend to be worth 25-33% more than regulars, but that factors
in
their better range bands and better QD for shooting (and possibly their
better QD for comm checks, reaction tests, etc)

- Elite tend to be worth 50% more than regulars. You start to hit issues
with numbers of activations and number of casualties you can take here.
Smaller Elite forces become more subject to randomness of dice than
larger
(more regression to the mean) forces of rabble.

- Greens, including panic and special morale failings, are worth about
50%
of regulars

- Untrained troops might be worth 20-25% of regulars, but they might
never
get in range if the regs move and shoot. I'd guess 20% might be fair if
you
don't forget to apply the correct morale and panic rules.

SG2 uses the polyhydrals and that means a D8 isn't that much worse than
a
D10 (mean 4.5 vs. 5.5 and both have the dreaded 1). It does count, but
it
isn't doubling. And the D10 is inherently more unpredictable than the D4
which matters in some decisions.

If you were to try to preserve the good sort of balance of potence that
SG2
gives, you might find that 6-8 stands of untrained, poorly equipped
colonists might be worth 1 stand of elite SF. Simlarly, about 3 stands
of
militia with slightly outdated tech might be worth 1 SF stand. You just
can't pile up suppression heavily enough and fast enough as one SF stand
to
handle being hugely outnumbered.

I think you'll find with a point system that the more you try to break
it
down, the more you'll have skewed results. Perhaps just rating a stand
and
giving a rough idea of what a stand should contain is the way to go.
That's
how I eyeball SG2 clashes, realizing that you also want to keep within
about
25% in number of activations in most cases for the most fun games. I
also
know that more than 3 FP dice per stand starts to really bend the
ruleset in
unpleasant ways.

SF in SG2 play much like I'd expect them to in the real world - they can
hit
waaay hard and move fast and shrug off some damage, but once they get
suppressed and pinned, they'd better bust out fast or the plebes will
dogpile on them until they cannot activate to do much but remove
suppression
and they eventually start taking wounds and dying. They're brittle - if
they
can move and shoot, they are very potent and can defeat-in-detail lower
quality units. When the higher quality units get pinned, they get
hammered
flat. That's hard to really put into points in a sane way because you
have
to play them a particular way to show their true capability - use them
for a
stand-up fight and you'll lose them fast.

Untrained Yellows, by en large, fail to score hits, fail to penetrate
with
crappy weapons, have no range, and panic or run away at first chance -
much
like the real world. This works well but is very contingent on panic and
morale and motivation rules being applied.

TomB

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