JAGS Vehicles Damage Question

[Marco]

Hello,

We are almost done with JAGS Have-Not--however our tests of several vehicular damage systems have been sub-optimal--so I'm posting here to see if anyone has some input on our ideas.

NOTE: this is a rules-heavy, simmy-style system (for want of a better way to inform people) system. I'm looking for responses in that vein.

Here are the basic outlines (this is not what I'm looking to discuss--if you think you've got a better idea, cool--PM me--but I'm interested in the damage effects area, predominantly for this thread):

Vehicles take damage which is absorbed by armor (100pts of damage vs. 50pts of armor yields 50 to the vehicle).

Determining what the effects of that damage is then gets complex.

1. Structural effects
A vehicle makes a Structure roll that can result in one of six results:
No Failure: Vehicle is unimpaired
Minor Failure: Vehicle becomes a bit more vulnerable to future failure
Major 1: vehicle is sort of "dazed" for a turn.
Major 2: Vehicle is likely to crash/wreck
Major 3: Vehicle is out of commission
Critical: Vehicle is destroyed

2. Specific Damage Effects (where the issues exist)
The Basic Damage Effects are not very colorful nor distingushed by weapon type--and they do a poor job of telling you what happened to the crew and such (things we want to at leas optionally present).

So we go to theory.

1. Vehicles have Movement Kills (vehicle stops), fire-power kills (weapons), crew kills (yeah), and catastrophic kills (ammo explodes).

2. When a shell penetrates a vehicle there is an effect called Spall (high velocity gas or shards in the interrior compartments).

3. There is a segment of damage assessment called BAE(Behind Armor Effects) which simply assesses what sorts of things different weapons might do to targets (an explosion outside the vehicle is very different than one inside it--and HEAP shells are different from solid fin-stabalized rounds ... etc.)

SO--it *MIGHT* look something like this (this is not necessiarily how the system will finally wind up looking):

Major Failure 1 BAE EFFECT (Possible Movement Kill)
DAM/10 against Movement
DAM/20 against crew
Lose no weapon

Now, here's what we're looking at:

Damage Resolution
1. Determine Points of Vehicular Damage (damage done minus armor)
2. Check Vehicular damage table for Basic Damage Roll resulting in 1 of 6 above failures.

THEN

A. We could have a different BAE table for each weapon and failure type (Roll on the Major 3 HEAP table). That's, you know, a lot of critical-hitty-goodness but I think people would gag on the volume of tables involved. High degree of variance and color in the hits, low useability

B. A single BAE table that's somehow modified by weapon type (HEAP adds +12, bullets add +0?)--if there was an elegant solution here that might really be cool--but I haven't seen one.

C. Forget about weapon type, just give a little variance to each failure's type of failure (so that example above would be 1 of 3 MAJOR FAILURE-1 effects--one crew, one movement, one firepower). This is simpler--but won't distinguish against a hit from a plasma gun and a machine gun (something I'd kinda like to see).

Effects that we are considering:
1. Loss of weapon (owning character chooses)
2. Loss of "best weapon" (GM chooses)
3. Control Systems damaged (steering, maybe, or tires)
4. Major Control system damage (tires out)
5. Minor Crew Damage
6. Major Crew Damage
7. Internal fire
8. Loss of speed/range (vehicle will need repairs--but not right now)
9. Loss of brakes
10. Loss of power
11. Fuel or ammo explosion

Any feedback is welcome
The book (non-release) is available here:
http://jagsgame.dyndns.org/jags/content/JAGSVehicles.pdf

-Marco
[If you have feedback on the book, I'd like to hear it too--the version that's up has some stuff in it that we're renaming or taking out so keep that in mind. ]

[Mike Holmes]

Vehicles take damage which is absorbed by armor (100pts of damage vs. 50pts of armor yields 50 to the vehicle).

Have you considered a penetration system? If you're going to have a complicated secondary system like this you might as well go all out and use the much more realistic penetration effect rules like, say, some Traveller editions. Familiar with Fusion and Steel?

Actually, your system might be like that, but it's hard to tell from what you posted.

Also, I'd think about keeping your gross effects charts for mass combat if you go with that at all.

SO--it *MIGHT* look something like this (this is not necessiarily how the system will finally wind up looking):

Major Failure 1 BAE EFFECT (Possible Movement Kill)
DAM/10 against Movement
DAM/20 against crew
Lose no weapon

What is the "it" to which you are referring? Is this a sample listing from the theoretical chart? Or do all hits of a certain level of armor failure cause just one set of effects?

Depennds on how much fine-tuning you want to put in. That is, are you going to consider a Fin-Stabilized Depleted-Uranium Discarding-Sabot round different than ball ammo from a machinegun? Because they're actually very simmilar in everything but magnitude of effect. I'd think that you could just go with three weapon effects charts. Impact (Ball, M1 Lawn Jarts, Railguns), Internal Explosive(HEAT, HEAP, energy weapons), and External Explosive (HEP, HE, Grenades, etc).

And these basically could be modifications of a simple system. That is, Impact weapons do only spalling damage, and, if powerful enough, vaccuum damage. Internal Explosives do spalling and explosive damage. External Explosives do only spalling and damage to unarmored components (often wheels and tracks). All weapons do some shock effects to crew as well (I've hit armored vehicles with 155 HE rounds. They don't penetrate at all, but the vehicle sometimes ends up spun around or on it's side. That'll mess up the crew royally. Any massive enough weapon should provide for the potential of a disorienting displacement which can immobilize the vehicle even if it isn't otherwise damaged (try getting out of your APC and turning it back on it's tracks).

I'm not sure what category this would go into (A, B, or C). Sorta a combination of some?

Effects that we are considering:
1. Loss of weapon (owning character chooses)
2. Loss of "best weapon" (GM chooses)
3. Control Systems damaged (steering, maybe, or tires)
...

If you're going that fine, then how about hit locations? That's really important on vehicles. I mean, how can you assess the damage to the vehicle unless you know what was hit? A particular gun type isn't any more likely to damage a weapon than another if it doesn't directly hit it.

BTW, also consider partial disabling shots when weapons are affected. Loss of hydralics, for example, can lead to the weapon still being usable, but only using manual backup. Which is likely much slower/tiring, but still potentially effective.

Mike

[Marco]

Hi Mike,

Very well thought out answer. Thanks.

1. We do have a penetration system of sorts there--basically if "penetration happens" then the damage done is likely to go way up.

2. I think you're on target with the three basic types of damage--that's certainly what I was looking at. I hadn't thought about vacuum damage--and I doubt we'll get that complete but it's a good call. Internal Explosion, External Explosion, and Impact are a good trio.

The crew damage effect is interesting as well. I've fired rockets in training--but never at a live vehicle or even a moving one.

3. I figured we'd back-track to figure out what was hit. The vehicle is hit and you lost a weapon? It was a weapon/turret hit.

That list was sort of a sample as I was envisioning
      Roll                1-2                  3-4                5-6
Major Failure 1:   EFFECTS A      EFFECTS B     EFFECTS C

And that'd be in the (say) 1-2 column (CREW)

I realize it's hard to get everything in text on the post--I appreciate your feedback and questions.

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

1. We do have a penetration system of sorts there--basically if "penetration happens" then the damage done is likely to go way up.

Hmm. I was thinking more like where your damage rating has to exceed the armor value to penetrate. And if you do penetrate, then you do some part of your damage, often all of it. Take a HEAP round, for instance. Basically, they tend to either bounce, or they get through and to all their damage. There's no attenuation for armor like you have in most sword on chainmail systems (ironically this makes D&D AC system more accurate for tanks than it does for anything else). Again, I suggest looking at the Traveller model if you have a chance.

The crew damage effect is interesting as well. I've fired rockets in training--but never at a live vehicle or even a moving one.

To be clear I've only direct fired at still dead targets. Mostly APCs in an impact zone (though some other interesting things too, like semi trailers which a 155 round goes right through).

3. I figured we'd back-track to figure out what was hit. The vehicle is hit and you lost a weapon? It was a weapon/turret hit.

I get what you're saying. But then I think you have to abstract the damage a bit more as well. That is, I think you can get any effect from any weapon, but they'll sorta look different. A weapon kill with a .50 cal would be very different than one from a HEAT launcher.

That list was sort of a sample as I was envisioning
      Roll                1-2                  3-4                5-6
Major Failure 1:   EFFECTS A      EFFECTS B     EFFECTS C

And that'd be in the (say) 1-2 column (CREW)

Having a hard time visualizing. I think it'd need to be written out to get it.

Mike

[Luke]

Hi Marco,

I've been toying around with vehicular damage systems for years. Never came up with anything satisfying, but I am still trying.

In an indirect answer to your post, I'm going to bring up two other VD systems and their merits and flaws:

Warhammer 40k has a very similar damage system to what you described in your initial post. Armor, Armor Penetration, Component damage (weapon crippling, motive power, crew kills) though it seems a bit more simplified than what you are after.

In my experience I have found that the 40k model plays very quickly (roll to hit, roll to penetrate (based on weapon vs armor), roll for system damage/result). However, I personally find the system very unsatisfying. Random damage tables lead to too much nonsense and game-breaking in my opinion.

Steve Jackson's CarWars has the ultimate in vehicular damage systems. It's incredibly gritty (at least on the receiving damage end, weapons are pretty simple d6 damage rolls),
Armor works in two ways: ablative and "metal". Ablative just absorbs damage points, and can be chipped away. Whereas "metal" armor stops X damage from harming the vehicle. If damage exceeds X the remainder passes through to the interior and the metal armor is reduced by one point.

Functional and satisfying, but requires an entire miniatures system to back it up!

Perhaps you can come up with a better solution.


My advice would be to pick a type of vehicular combat you are shooting for and do some research into actual events. Try to look at them and reverse engineer--how can I sink a battleship in my game? Trying to do it all in one fell swoop is biting off more than anyone can chew!

small chunks,
-Luke

[SumDood]

How much detail do you have on each vehicle?

Does each vehicle type have its own sheet, or do you make the varience between them small enough to list a vehicle just by attributes?

Some thoughts:

I had a similar problem at one time, and I ended up creating a separate sheet for each vehicle. These were mechs, and since other games with mechs often had an entire sheet dedicated to the mech, I didn't think twice about doing it in my game.

I don't know if you use hit locations, but that may help you in your damage determination. A hit to tracks, tires, impulse projectors, or anti-grav generators should produce a movement loss or decrease movement. A hit to the cab/crew quarters to kill or damage the crew. Etc.

Maybe allow characters with specific targeting skills, or using specific targeting technology, to move the random hit location up or down a specified number of hit locations. Maybe give characters who take a round to aim in the opportunity to pick the location hit.

If you put the damage results table for the vehicle on the vehicle sheet itself, you're free to alter the rolls on the table to increase or decrease the results based on what should logically occur. Everything on the sheet is then specific to the vehicle.

As to variance by weapon type, you could list it on the weapon's description and state how that particular weapon applies to a specific type of armor. Then on the vehicles sheet you could list the possible hit locations (being as detailed or as general as you want) and the type of armor at each location. This way you could have reactive armor on the crew quarters, ablative armor on the front and rear, and solid armor around the wheel wells. A hit to the crew quarters by a warhead designed to penetrate standard steel would be absorbed, vs. a warhead designed to penetrate reactive armor which would kill them. Then on the weapons instructions you can increase the cost and limit the range of weapons that penetrate reactive armor, making them harder to come by and lowering their range.

Of course, this depends on the tech in your game. Maybe you've got small high energy warheads with long range that can penetrate reactive armor easily. In this case I would make them expensive and hard to get.

You might also want to consider the geometry of the vehicle design in regards to deflection. The warhead can be defelcted if it hits at a bad angle. Give the shooter a chance roll based on their skill level to hit a target at a good angle. Either this, or have an attribute called deflection angle, and determine it from the attribute.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on detail. Making it fast, well that's something again. Once your players get the hang of it though, and if they like it, then you've got a game.

[Marco]

The intent in the JAGS-V design was to model the "after-market" modification phenomena. That is, you take a stock car (fairly simple list of stats) and then start adding on modifications (which includes armor and weapons).

We're looking at PC's having probably 1 or 2 vehicles for a group (either a group mini-bus or a character-specific battle car/bike) and we want a lot of distinguishing characteristics--so there's a good deal of data (each vehicle gets its own sheet).

Car Wars is, indeed, fairly detailed (I like all interior components having their own damage points)--but it really does require maps and counters to run (facing is determined by "look at the map"). I'd like the JAGS combat system to be map friendly but not require it--so that calls for some abstractions--which I think we have pretty well.

Finally: I've played Warhammer and while I agree that their vehicle system didn't *thrill* me, it didn't ruin the game for me either. Still, I'm less concerned about "random" results than an always winning strategy (shooting for the tires in Car Wars)

We have done some checking around (talked to some armor guys too) and I think we have a system that will serve us well. Thanks.

-Marco