Please note that this system will not include dice, it will still be based for narrative roleplay and allow for consent-based trust with fair play. While I know there are people who absolutely love to memorize all the capabilities of what each caliber and type does. It has a increased potential to spark arguments when someone says their armour is 5mm thicker and allows to stop bullet Y and X which the opponents has. So I have thought of a more simplified system where the calibers and types are more for narrative RP but with actual combat stats fall into a more easier system. (I know of that NIJ image Couch has, but I have gathered that there are atleast 6 NIJ levels now. So that image is not relavant anymore.) The system I have come up with takes a small inspiration from having set values for each NIJ armour level and three tiers ammo types to allow combat become more streamlined and less of an OOC argument with the potential of being voided. ALL ranged weaponry will fall under this system as due to the diversity of arnaments available to people. Maybe have a different value table for energy-based weaponry to allow it to reflect its strengths better. NOTE : These values represented are not final and are subject to change. The administrative team will decide those in light of fair play and proper balancing. Weapon ammunition will be divided into three tiers. With tier 1 being the weakest and tier 3 being the strongest. Tier I : 0.5 DMG Tier II : 1 DMG Tier III : 1.5 DMG For NIJ armour values you got 6 levels so 6 HP tiers are available. Whether this will count for the whole protection or pieces remains open for discussion. For example, you'd get 4 HP for body, arms and legs if you'd wear NIJ Level I armour on those areas or just body if you only wear a vest of sorts. Or you'd get a set armour HP value for all your parts. Personally I'd like the former setup, since it allows for people to vary in armour levels. Shields might also fall under the NIJ levels or might require a separate table to better reflect the materials it is made out of. (For sake of producing this guide I took the base NIJ number and added 3) NIJ Level 0 : 0 (Regular clothing falls under this catagory.) NIJ Level I : 4 NIJ Level II : 5 NIJ Level III : 6 NIJ Level IV : 7 NIJ Level V : 8 NIJ Level VI : 9 In a combat scenario or event where Player A with Tier III weaponry shoots at Player B wearing Level II armour. (After taking aim etc and player B is lacking cover). The shot hits, Player B is hit, receives some bruising/internal damage and their armour value drops by 1.5 points. Resulting in 3.5 HP left for the remainder of that combat scenario or event. While I know this does not cover the whole package such as explosives, it'd be easier to use common sense on what will be possible with that or not. (Like when a grenade is dropped in the same room and you're caught frontal of the blast chances are pretty stacked against you if you're not wearing good protective armour) Feel free to provide feedback, suggest changes and discuss.
There might be more firearm tiers required for the more powerful firearms, but first the concept needs to be agreed upon by the majority of the community.
This, uh. I heavily oppose this. I agree the system for calibers needs to be somewhat simplified for common understanding, but a 'health bar'/HP system is not how we need to do it.
Then come up with an alternative or help to adjust this idea so that it works properly. Just "opposing" something isn't going to help anyone.
Here is the issue with having this system in place. Currently, armor levels above level IV are highly uncommon and having this system in place will just encourage the use of levels beyond NIJ IV. We'd be creating bulletsponges. And in any RPG (I'm using the genre loosely), bulletsponges are either frowned upon or seen as an unnecessary necessity. We'd be encouraging people to just emote getting bruised while still having like 3 more hits left in them using this extended armor tier list. This in itself is the encouragement of less realistic RP and more of a "You can't pierce me for another 3 turns." Yes, it's simplified, but does it make it fun? Doesn't it just turn an already 2 hour long combat RP session into a 4 hour session? Especially when these heavier armors are involved? When weapon ammunition is broken down into those 3 tiers, a lot of issues occur. For one, the weapon tiers are neglecting weapon caliber, something that gunsmiths in the game take into account for their weapons. Secondly, certain ammunition of a certain caliber could very just do nothing against certain types of armor. Especially when you take into consideration that armors past level IV would likely be new metals and specialized weaves. Having something like a .22 caliber or a 9mm still be able to chip .5 dmg or 1 dmg off NIJ lvl VI would be ludicrous. My main point is that this idea will not streamline the combat RP process. It will make it longer because instead of people feeling that a shot will take them out, they will follow the HP mechanic and act like a bulletsponge. Having people RP the flavor text of their armor acts the same way as this system because even if their armor is of lvl VI, players would likely still play along and get shot. This system changes nothing (at least in my opinion). Making it an HP system will make events last longer because of how many shots one would take at a person. Antares Council Space right now is also not advanced enough (right now) to accommodate newer armor tiers. Very little characters are doing much in the realm of science. A system like this may encourage the use of higher tiers. This is a lot of speculation and rambling on my side, so I'll just move onto how I would adjust the idea. However, I do not support the idea because I feel like the purpose of this system, which is to streamline combat RP, would not be accomplished. Don't do HP. Don't do DMG. Have the tiers line up (as in have the same number tiers for both weapons and armor) and list calibers. It'll still look complex and confusing this way though. For armors, list armor compositions. This is where it'd be difficult. I'm always of the opinion that the honor system is the way to go. But we can see how this can be done.
I wanted to say: I don't think ppl who want to combat RP to be limited by their OOC knowledge of firearms and armour, but on the other hand you'd expect a person who RP's a doctor to at least know the lore on the physiology of the races, to the extent that they can RP medically. However, different guns types and armour types, different shells/bullets etc is a lot more overwhelming than the few physiology write-ups we have. So... We need to streamline combat in some way or another... Combat should be mostly about adversity and confrontation RP instead of "super detailed description of modern weapon and armour RP which forces everyone to adhere to our "modern" views of what is realisitc in that sense "-RP. I mean, Starbound is still a game to some extent and perhaps some people don't want to bother with having to RP that aspect of starbound super realistically.
So there is a simple way to do this, and I'm going to outline it here so I will remember to give it to Angre when I get home. I could also be wrong on a lot of this, but here is the idea of how I want to outline things. Hollow points split open like a peeled banana upon impact, meaning they have low penetration but high area damage in the body. Full Metal Jackets don't really like to break apart, so they have to hit something important dead on. They have great penetration though, however this means sometimes your bullet will go all the way through a person, hitting an unintentional target behind them. Armour piercing take this even further. Whatever that bullet is pointing at, it wants to keep going through. The bigger the gun, the more it will penetrate. After this, an explanation of the armour types (the I to V scale), an example/ picture of each and a example of what it will defend against. These two combined would make a solid enough primer to effectively do combat RP, though there's a healthy reminder that it does get more complicated and the experienced people may have their own killing tools be complicated. Ask questions when you feel like someone knows something you don't, and on the same coin knowledgeable people should take care when they see the other is less learned. Help each other kill each other, and we'll all have a good time getting dead.
I'm honestly opposed to this system as well, simply because of the "HP" approach that's being taken to it. The current NIJ system is actually pretty easy to follow when you look at it, all you have to do is read the specs of each armour type to see what it can stop, and thus anything stronger is going to get through. If you're not sure what's strong enough to get through, look it up and reference the specs of what you're wearing. If you're wearing type IV for example, only things like .300 Winchester Magnum armour piercing and above will start getting through.
A lot of the stuff about firearms is common sense. Big boolet do more hurt, small boolet do less hurt, more boolet hurt more time but one boolet only do one hurt. armor stop hurts, but only little bit stop. big armor stop small boolet better, but big boolet not stop by armor. We just need a guide that identifies what the deal with different weapon types and calibres are, so people are more informed about how these things work, not some kind of HP system to regulate combat RP. I think that's p much the general consensus here, anyway.
I for one think that, before a system regarding armor damage is adopted, we should draw baselines regarding racial armor. Examples below the spoiler. Spoiler: Suggestions Human armor: Decent vs all, weak vs death Glitch armor: Very good vs melee, weak vs high-energy weapons (firearms, plasma weapons), okay vs low-velocity shrapnel Avian armor: Very good vs low-velocity missile weapons (spears, arrows), very weak vs shrapnel, decent vs melee Hylotl armor: Slightly weaker than human armor vs all, better speed than all other racial armor Apex armor: Very good vs high-energy weapons, okay vs melee, weak vs governmental hazards Novakid armor: Slightly weaker than human armor vs all, offers better environmental protection than most other Floran: Fairly weak vs all, gives weapon buffs These are just suggestions, I'm not declaring this is how it should be.
