Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

[proditor]

I was looking through the Vehicle Sourcebook and saw the USS Iowa with a 10 Defense and a 35 Body. That just seems....wrong to me.

 

Some armor info: http://www.battleship.org/html/Articles/IowaClass/Armor.htm

 

Regardless, there is NO WAY the Knox class of frigates should have the same Defense, not even close, IMNSHO.

 

Stay with me here.

 

Bob and his buddy are in T-80 tanks (8d6 RKA, 19 Def) shooting at the USS Iowa (9d6 RKA, 10 Def). They are all in range and we assume everything hits for simplicity sake. The Iowa's guns are Armor Piercing, the T-80's is not. But, the T-80 has hardened defense, and the Iowa does not, so that is a wash.

 

Bob and his buddy do an average of 3.5x8 or 28 points per shot, 18 of which gets past the Defense.

 

The Iowa does 3.5x9 or 31 points, 12 of which gets past the defense.

 

So follow me here...we start round 12, everyone fires, the Iowa sinks and one of the T-80's is heavily damaged.

 

Um....WHAT?!?!?

[nexus]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

Vehicles are yet another thing that sucks in Hero?

 

Edit: Because some apparently don't get it the above is a joke. It is meant sarcastically. There is no serious intent to portray that the Hero vehicular rules inherantly suck. They are approximation for a game that seemed generally designed to function on a character vs character level and perform that function in a manner I am comfortable with.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

 

It's the TANK ARMOR question again!

 

 

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! RUN!!!!

 

 

Ben... PLEASE! Shut this thread down now!

 

 

(Nothing personal Proditor... just a scary bit you've started! )

[nexus]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

It's the TANK ARMOR question again!

 

 

EGAD! He's right! *runs screaming into the night....*

[devlin1]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

Vehicles are yet another thing that sucks in Hero?

*shrug* Then go back to FATAL.

[nexus]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

*shrug* Then go back to FATAL.

 

1. I have never played FATAL and the only time I've mentioned FATAL was to call it a piece of crap so I have no idea where that came from.

 

2. I've always been a vocal Hero fan, the smiley means Joke

[devlin1]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

1. I have never played FATAL and the only time I've mentioned FATAL was to call it a piece of crap so I have no idea where that came from.

I know nothing about you or your proclivities. Just remarking on the comment. It wasn't geared towards you specifically. Could've been anyone-- happened to be you.

[nexus]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

I know nothing about you or your proclivities. Just remarking on the comment. It wasn't geared towards you specifically. Could've been anyone-- happened to be you.

 

I see, but it seemed targetted and being associated with that load juvenile manure is pretty offensive (and it has lousy vehicular stats).

My comment was a sarcastic bit of bitterness coming to the fore. Yes, the Hero write up to not perfectly reflect what would "really' happen. A single system probably can't reflect what would really happen and try to portray everything from a bicycle to the Starship Enterprise on the same scale. Its an approximation.

[devlin1]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

Okay.

[Force]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

10def for an Iowa class BB?

 

Wow. I am speechless. I might see that for the superstructure, but they armored the superstructure during the refits in the 80's. And doesn't the Iowa's have 18 inches of steel on the main belt for armor?

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

It gives the inches of armor (mostly steel) so it shouldn't be too difficult to ascertain from there.

 

And I agree it should be much higher than 10Def. Probably closer to 16-20Def...

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

In an attempt to hijack this thread into a fun a useful direction, rather than the usual rant about Vechiles in HERO, I'd like to ask this...

 

Has anyone come up with a good set of alternate vechile rules for the system that are fairly realistic and aren't a complete kludge job?

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

In an attempt to hijack this thread into a fun a useful direction, rather than the usual rant about Vechiles in HERO, I'd like to ask this...

 

Has anyone come up with a good set of alternate vechile rules for the system that are fairly realistic and aren't a complete kludge job?

 

Its not that the vehicles rules themselves are bad...they are fine as they are. Its oftentimes DoJ's vehicle writeups that have the failings. The problem is with the inconsistancies of the various authors. One author details one thing this way, and a different author details the same thing another way. Its an problem inherent within the system because there are so many different ways of writing up the same thing. In order to fix this, a GM merely need to sit down with his players and come up with Laws of Hero Physics according to their personal style of play and adjust everything appropriately and they should be good to go.

 

I did that back in the 4th edition days and its worked pretty well for me ever since.

[Fox1]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

Its not that the vehicles rules themselves are bad...they are fine as they are. Its oftentimes DoJ's vehicle writeups that have the failings.

 

Very true. Their write-ups are just plain bad.

 

Which is not to say that the vehicle rules are perfect, they're not. But the worse issues are just simple construction.

[Kristopher]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

10 DEF?

 

Um...right.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

I really, truly think that there must be some way of merging the base rules with the vehicle rules. The scale thing gets me... maybe I'm just set in my gaming ways, but I'd much rather see a workable system that treats large items on a hex by hex and/or system by system basis than as a whole. Even DR doesn't work out right. Besides added realism, it would add a nice degree of drama... targeting gun turrets, hits to the magazine, engine damage...all that rather than the current "you did its BODY so its broke" system currently in place. I don't have UV yet, but from what I've heard, this is still a problem.

*sigh*

[Agent X]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

I really, truly think that there must be some way of merging the base rules with the vehicle rules. The scale thing gets me... maybe I'm just set in my gaming ways, but I'd much rather see a workable system that treats large items on a hex by hex and/or system by system basis than as a whole. Even DR doesn't work out right. Besides added realism, it would add a nice degree of drama... targeting gun turrets, hits to the magazine, engine damage...all that rather than the current "you did its BODY so its broke" system currently in place. I don't have UV yet, but from what I've heard, this is still a problem.

*sigh*

Well, the only solution I can think of is to set up classes of vehicles and required components or workarounds. This kinda looks more complicated and moves even further from the one size fits all theme of Hero Rules.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

I think a lot of the problem also is in the scalability, ironing out various conversions on the Traveller to Hero project has shown this

 

one good example...

main gun from the M1 Abrams does as much damage as the MK.XII Starship laser

from the Terran Empire book. yes the Laser has far longer range, and multiple modes, but still does the same damage...

 

I wont even begin to pretend to know a good way of changing this, its just frustrating sometimes, but thats also why we have house rules

 

one thing were using is the old damage conversion chart from the rough draft of Star Hero 2 that we found on the Red October Board.

 

for what it is and was designed to do, Hero works fine for most people, some of us uber gearheads tend to tweak things no matter how there written

[Kristopher]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

Given how far lasers have to go before they even equal the kind of lethality represented by the 120mm Rheinmetall smoothbore, that doesn't really seem all that off to me.

[Ternaugh]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

Given how far lasers have to go before they even equal the kind of lethality represented by the 120mm Rheinmetall smoothbore' date=' that doesn't really seem all that off to me.[/quote']

 

Well, see then you get into the argument about gravity focusing of the beams, how long you must hold the beam steady with your beam pointer, and how many lasers fit into a standard socket, and how many g-turns the HEPLaR engines have, and then you've stumbled onto a whole 'nother discussion board.

 

YMMV,

JoeG

[paigeoliver]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

In an attempt to hijack this thread into a fun a useful direction, rather than the usual rant about Vechiles in HERO, I'd like to ask this...

 

Has anyone come up with a good set of alternate vechile rules for the system that are fairly realistic and aren't a complete kludge job?

 

Yes, and they were published too. Its called Autoduel champions, the rules work well (mostly adapted from car wars), but are completely different from 5ER vehicle rules.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

Yeah, I have a copy of autoduel Champs sitting in my storage unit. As well as a copy of Robot Warriors. And Champions 2. And the original Star Hero. And these all show that some advanced vehicle rules can work with the system without totally destroying it. I was, however, being lazy and wondering if someone like the hardy souls who are working on their Traveller HERO conversions, or perhaps an intrepid Pirate Hero GM might have posted a set of working house rules somewhere. I actually have a pretty good set of kludged houserules myself, but It'll take a load of dedicated effort to get them converted to 5th edition and point balanced.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

Ah, feels like slipping into an old jacket. Full steel jacket, perhaps...

 

Now I've always felt that the problem with all this vehicle mullarkey is that weapon damage is too high, which then necessitates high armour values, which...

 

If we are going to get this sorted out we'll need to agree some base rules.

 

The biggie (and I apologise in advance) is this: does everyone agree that the damage scale in Hero is exponential: +1DC (+5 character points in effect) doubles the damage, by which I mean energy delivered: just like the STRENGTH scale?

 

I think it does, but if there is no concensus then there seems little point in going on about it as we'll be doing the maths in (at least) two different ways, which is pointless.

 

If we can agree this, all we need to do (ALL, he says!) is agree one damage value for a projectile, work out how much energy that delivers to give us a starting point on the scale and then find some handy-dandy website that tells us how much energy battleship and battletank guns deliver. One simple spreadsheet later, we will have a DC value for the weapons and we can go on to sort out appropriate armour values from that.

 

Any comments on the approach?

 

If not, can someone start me off with a DC they think is right, and any handy-dandy weblinks that might come in useful?

[Black Rose]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

I think a lot of the problem also is in the scalability, ironing out various conversions on the Traveller to Hero project has shown this

 

one good example...

main gun from the M1 Abrams does as much damage as the MK.XII Starship laser

from the Terran Empire book. yes the Laser has far longer range, and multiple modes, but still does the same damage...

 

Complete agreement with the points which preceded this post, and....

 

Consider that the M1 Abrams is, essentially, a vehicle to move around a big honkin' gun. That's it, really. They don't do anything else. Tank move in, aims, makes baddies go boom.

 

The Mk. XII Starship Laser (which I haven't seen, so I could be wrong) is either the main or secondary gun on a starship. The starship does other stuff, possibly even lots of other stuff; cargo transport, people moving, system monitoring, scientific studies, etc. Plus it can make things go boom.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense?

 

not sure if its right or not, but heres what we've been looking at for our work

on Traveller Hero

 

http://www.starherofandom.com/house_rules/damage_table.php

 

its from the unused playtest draft or Star Hero 2, and the whole draft is still up at the Red October archive.

 

theres been some definate debate over this, but its the only consistent table I've ever seen that went into this subject

 

of course this is pre 5th edition, if somebody has a better idea. I'd be overjoyed to look at it