Jul 12 16:36 1998

To: Froccer

Copy to: Dan
Copy to: Jert

From: Jerm

Subject: re:Hit Loc. and Dodge

>In message "Hit Loc. and Dodge", Jerm writes:
>
>> Dan and I were talking and 5% of the hits would not be lethal due to the
>> amount of M.D. in the helmet. As Dan said the head would be the most
>> vunerable spot therefore the most protected. If we came up with
>> percentages for the various parts I believe it would work.
>>
>> Crusader
>>
>> Main body - 70? 55
>> Head - 125% of main body
>> legs arms and lower torso would be dependent upon the mobility of the
>> armour. Crusader for example has a zero prowl penalty, therefore lower
>> MD for the extremeties.
>>
>
>I highly disagree with this mode of thinking. There is nowhere near the amount
>of material in the head of the body armor that would cause it to have more MDC
>than the main body of the armor. Such a situation would be very awkward to
>maneuveur in: the head would be much larger and heavier, making the guy look
>like those cheezy cartoon character with the disproportioned head and would
>keep the person inside in a continual state of imbalance (remember his HEAD
>weighs more than his body).

The thickness of the armour around the head would be the same as that
around the body and if the material were the same both parts would be
able to receive the same amount of damage. The armour that is around
the arms and legs would be less to allow ease of movement but with the
helmet your cone of vision would be limited.

>
>> Arms - 30%
>> Legs - 40%
>> Abdomen - 60%
>>
>> An armour with a higher prowl penalty would have these percentages
>> bumped up.
>> Since Crusader has no prowl penalty it would be the base and as the
>> prowl penalty went up the MD directly does also
>> ie. -10% prowl arms 40% legs 50% abdomen 70% etc.
>>
>> As for Joe Blow the soldier all the shots he shoots will hit the
>> structure and will inflict the full damage 30 round clip X 3d6 = 540MD
>> The big difference compared to a rail gun is that these shots are
>> dispersed over an area of a building while a glitter boy's 360 MD is to
>> one point which will damage the structure considerably more. This way a
>> soldier will not do damage to a building which would be equivalent to a
>> small tactical nuke.
>
>Actually, the glitterboy's rail gun does 3d6 x 10 MDC making it a total of

oops I meant to make Joe Blows a natural 20 also making his gun do a
whopping 1080 MDC. I know what your saying that the standard infantry
rifle put Uranium City out of business. The numbers just work out, you
just have to visualize differently. Let's say we're shooting at a
manmade MD berm that is 200 MDC. Joe our headhunter armed with his LC6
walks up and lets loose a barrage. He honestly shouldn't be able to do
more damage than a rail gun I know the dice says he does more damage but
the berm would not be destroyed because the damage is spread over an
area of the berm. The boom gum would blow holes in the berm though we
just have to start thinking about it differently. The wall for example
would have 200 MDC in a one square foot area.

>180 MD compared with the Joe Blow's 540 MDC. Also, what is the difference
>between doing damage to a wider area versus doing it to one point? Will the
>MDC of the structure not be destroyed when its MDC is reduced to zero? This
>also points to the frailty of conventional railguns (like the one on the
>Coalition Spider Walker that is longer than a couple of school buses and weighs
>over a ton each). These railguns only do up to 60 MDC. I don't know about you,
>but the next time I design a robot vehicle, I'm going to mount an infantry
>weapon on the top of it, and hook it up to my nuclear generator.
>
>Froccer
>

You're absolutely right about the infantry weapons it's kinda silly hey,
it's like designing a modern day tank with only 50 calibers on it.
That's where MDC screws things up. In the old game SDC weapons couldn't
do damage to MDC structures, but now I don't know what to do.

Jerm "Still frustrated"