Vehicle Fragility

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Vunderbar. In building a mecha as a vehicle, I've run into the problem that with one or three AP/Penetrating shots, John Doe (whether bad or good guy) runs a very real risk of killing off a majority of the mecha's powers, as both Power Group A (Four-legged Movement) and Power Group B (Force-Field Dynamics) are built as MultiPowers. One little 'blam' and suddenly you aren't moving at all, or the force emitters are knocked out.

 

This is not something I desire.

 

The question, therefore, is 'how do I avoid this?' This is asked both as player/designer and as GM for the game; presumably I should at least apply 'Hardened' to the base DEF to help ward off the '1 Penetrating Shot, Kablooie!!' problem. Are there other ways people might suggest? 'Body only to prevent systems damage'? 'OIF Unbreakable (Multiple Redundant Systems)' might be the easiest, would cost no points, but seems to be a cheater's way out, y'know?

 

Suggestions welcome.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Vehicle Fragility

 

Buy redundant equipment for 5 points. It takes a full-phase to switch from one system to another with a succesful roll. (half-roll might allow it to take only a half-phase, while a failure might mean taking two phases) Also, when you take damage to a critcal system, roll on 8 or less, if successful, the secondary system took the blow so everything is fine as long as the primary holds out.

 

This allows your mecha to be "CON-stunned" because a critical system got hit.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Vehicle Fragility

 

Make AP/Penetrating so rare in the game that it's a threat, but not one people worry about constantly, or much at all.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Vehicle Fragility

 

There's this Advantage called "Hardening"

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Vehicle Fragility

 

The Hardened Advantage and your other idea of BODY with a Limitation Only To Prevent Systems Failure are two good solutions. Also AP and Penetrating attacks shouldn't be that common, and a Vehicle's DEF should be high enough that typical AP attacks still have to work a bit to get BODY damage (though not as hard as non-AP attacks).

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Vehicle Fragility

 

Taking a cue from the 'Limited Coverage' 'disad', I think I'm going to go with additional armor, Hardened, Only to Prevent Systems Damage. With 5 or 6 points, it'd eliminate Penetrating BOD damage up to 5/6d6 Killing, which is the main point, here.

 

This is also in a post-heropocalypse world, where Powers are tracked down, captured, and 'disappeared'. A 10m leonine mecha would have the TOWs hauled out on its ass in a heartbeat.

[babbitt]

Re: Vehicle Fragility

 

In my battletech conversions, we solved this by 1) not putting things in multipowers, and 2) giving battlemechs substantial armor (up to 30 on the big ones), but half of it is ablative, and all is hardened. I don't allow penetrating damage on the battlemech weapons.

 

The result is that the mechs take quite a bit of pounding on the ablative armor before weapons start damaging the internals.