Capital Class Weapons & Armor [HERO: Combat Evolved]

[Thia Halmades]

Okie doke you hep cats. Here we are, continuing my general discussion of how to properly handle ships, engines, armor & weapons. Today's question is pretty basic; how do you balance ship armor & weapons? How many dice should I have in a weapon to dent the appropriate defense? I recall that generally you want a number of dice that'll roll to an average of your guaged defense.

 

F'rinstance, that would mean you'd have say a Tank (the Scorpion, in this case) with a total of about 20 armor, 30 frontal section, and a main cannon that does 9d6. So average damage is about 31 points (3.5x9 = 30.5), meaning that a decent roll to the side -- with an AP round -- should deal significant damage. Does that sound right to you cats? How much more powerful should capital class weapons be, or should they be "the same" knowing that you don't aim cap weapons at tanks?

 

The Halcyon Class Cruiser at size 28 has a natural DEF of 10, and I've upped the BODY to about 50 (per the guidelines of the material, the Halcyons are flying tanks). That means it'll take a while before the ship goes down, even from significant damage. But here's what I'm asking y'all.

 

Y'all are the ones I'm posting it for, and if there's one thing I've learned from 25 years of playing videogames, it's that more developers should seek input from the audience (and then make the best possible decision). So how would you do it?

 

I'd like the Halcyon to take significant punishment, although Plasma Bolters seem to deal LESS damage than a MAC Gun; the spinal mount on the Halcyon should be enough to seriously damage a Covenant cruiser. The Archer Missile Pods are another pain.

 

Assume that the Halcyon is a 28 size vehicle. Gives it an automatic DEF of 10 and I've cranked the BODY to 50. A Scorpion tank, as I said, is 20 DEF overall, 30 DEF forward. I would assume I should crank up both the total damage and total armor, but I'm looking for ... a standing ball park figure.

 

Anyway. Collecting your thoughts.

[feralucce]

Re: Capital Class Weapons & Armor [HERO: Combat Evolved]

 

I personally used a house rule for personal weapons, mounted, ship board and capital class weapons...

 

going up the scale, personal weaponry (rifles and such) cannot harm combat ready vehicles (apc's and tanks) unless specially designed for it (such as a rocket launcher like the at4...

 

a standard fighter would be fairly useless against a capital ship unless it had weapons specially designed for the purpose (as depicted in wing commander...)

 

coming back down the scale, each step is an exponential increase in damage...

capital to space craft x2 damage

space craft to small craft x2 damage

small craft to human x2damage

 

sooo... if a capital ship managed to hit a person.. it does x8 damage..and a tank would do x2 against the same man...

 

it was just something that we came up with... but it seems fairly close to what I have experienced in halo...