Jul 13 09:26 1998

To: Jerm

Copy to: Dan
Copy to: Jert

From: Froccer

Subject: re:Hit Loc. and Dodge

In message "Hit Loc. and Dodge", Jerm writes:

>
> 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.

There is one problem with that. From my GMing experience, I believe that MDC
allocation are material based and not thickness based. For example, if I were
to build a glitterboy that is twice as big, but with the same thickness of
armour, I think that the MDC would double and not stay the same. This explains
why single shots from a laser rifle can actually destroy something. To ease
your possibly confused state at that statement, let me provide you with this
example:

You shoot your laser rifle one shoot at a guy wearing body armor. You hit and
do damage. Now if the MDC system were based on thickness, you would have to hit
that exact same spot, over and over with your rifle to eventually penetrate the
armor and kill the guy inside. Luckily, it is not based on thickness, so you
can shoot the guy twice in any location and deplete the amount of material in
the body armour to kill him.

> >
> >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 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.
>

Like I said. MDC is based on material. The MDC stated for the wall is the
amount of damage the wall can take before being destroyed. How does MDC that
a wall has differ from that, of say, a UAR-1 Enforcer?

> >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.
> >
> >Sean
> >
> 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"

I think the best thing to do, should be to limit the amount of damage the
infantry weapons can do. Either that or increase the amount of damage heavy
weapons do. Or both.

I don't know. What do you guys think?

Froccer