Friday, August 16, 2013

JTAS Aug 13 is up


Self interest being transparent here. 
The first post, Instant Party I, had 4 characters in it. This had 5, 3 being AI companions. I realized I failed to consider the AIs (Volitional AIs so they can be played as PCs or extra characters if the party splits up in an adventure, if that is a GMing style option available). Of the 9 characters I wrote I think I made about 5 AI companions, there could be 2 more but they are notes in the story and not detailed.  

I really owe the wordiness to the details and getting all the skills, next is equipment (the augmentations) and templates. Especially AI's, they have to be "Complete" and very little room for lack of forethought or preparation (where the few extra points kick in). 

I actually wrote 10, an experimental ATV Robot Tank designed for Artillery and Counter-Armor role but I'm in Ballistic Spreadsheet Limbo since stats in UT and Traveller weapons are not "jiving" well and would require a Complete OVERHAUL if not very strategic Tweaks which is time consuming since I'm trying to study blender right now. 

Problems listed
  • Damage to Size Scaling, Douglas Cole pointed it out in the gaming ballistics about how it scales. I was stupid enough to go with the formula: weight increases by an exponent of 3 if size increases by 100%; damage increases by the square root of weight. This is not bad... but when I used the ballistic spreadsheet to double check it my claculations are way off and by the performance of the weapons they should be dealing MORE damage... of course i could be doing this all wrong and I can make everything arbitrary ONLY after I set the bechmarks and the guidelines... which is basically overhaling the GURPS damage system. This would mean about 40 hours of analysis for me, and that stops being fun. I might as well fine tune my one own game system, dusting it off from the virtual shelf. 
  • UT needs more details and they don't mesh well with the same rules used in Traveller.  Like Missiles, Gyrocs, Rail-Launched Missiles and Rail Launched Gyrocs, or Ballistically Launched Gyrocs etc.. etc... by basic calculations these weapons are more energy efficient than a lot of Beam Weapons and compensate their accuracy with their AI and maneuverability. 
  • GURPS Traveller's Missile Repulsion being "black boxed" makes it difficult for me to guess how it would affect larger missiles or Kinetic Projectiles like Gyrocs. Is it gravity, magnetic field, inertial etc... if it is then sufficient speed will reduce its effectivity and active sensors and the cheaper and powerful AIs can compensate its manipulated trajectory (either from the ship or on the projectile).  Anyway overcoming the +15 of repulsors vs 100 missiles. 100 missiles is not a great metric of measure. How does it work with Ballistics etc..  what if Ballistics is Mixed with missiles, is it really 100 missiles or 15 tons of missiles in their final acceleration and force?
anyway it will be a while before I cook up answers for these. 

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