Willard skrev:
Yeah, 0.8 was my guess too, but that may make it too granular to be practical. The current estimates are something like 1.5 or 1.8, which is clearly off. I imagine you would be free to pick the parameters as you choose, and thus will be less likely to overinvest in AP, so it won't be much of a problem.
There should definitely be limits on how things can be combined ("No, 1d4 damage with AP 500 doesn't make any sense."), but that can probably be left to common sense with GM fiat as a backup for when common sense fails.
That said, there should perhaps be some point beyond which the cost of AP drops off, given that most normal weapons cap out around AP 4, then it skips up to 20-50 for light anti-vehicle weaponry and up to 150 for serious tank-killer missiles. (Implementing such a cost break would probably be the solution to that AP 30 outlier you mentioned earlier.) I'm not sure whether it would make more sense for the cost break to kick in after a fixed level of AP or if it should be based on the base damage (making AP cheaper for heavier weapons), though.
Willard skrev:Isn't the addition of more dice in full-auto linear?
Mechanically, yes, but the distribution of ROF values is not. There are a lot more ROF 1 weapons than any other ROF value, very few if any ROF 2[1], then a lot of ROF 3, and a few ROF 4 or 5.
This suggests (as does my extremely limited understanding of real-world weapons engineering) that going from ROF 1 to ROF 2 is relatively expensive (just getting full-auto capability in the first place), but from 2 to 3 is quite cheap (bringing yourself up to the optimal fire rate), with an increasing incremental cost for each additional point of ROF beyond 3 (pushing the mechanism harder and harder to squeeze additional performance out of it).
[1] There are no ROF 2 weapons at all in SWD core and the few ROF 2 weapons in the IZ mostly look like they were intended to be "can fire 2 single shots per round" rather than full-auto, in which case they should really be ROF 1 Semi rather than ROF 2. The pneumatic dart rifle in particular makes no sense as a full-auto-only weapon, especially when its ammo costs 50-500 Cr/shot.
Willard skrev:
You then get approximately: +1 ROF (3 points), +1 average damage (2 points) and +6 range (1 point).
That seems relatively clean, as far as it goes.
Willard skrev:
Whether or not the system actually has to deal with weight, ammo, str requirements etc is up for debate. Since they're all custom made it really isn't a sacrifice for someone to impose a strength requirement which they know they can pass. The same sort of argument could be made for weight, even if it's a little weaker. Ammo could perhaps come with the ROF, or be abstracted from entirely. No one likes to keep track of that, and perhaps auto-fire could be held back by tweaked penalties instead. But that's up to you.
Those should all, IMO, be calculated and/or bought.
The norm in SW is for Min Str to be based on the damage die. Looking at the chart on SWD 54, it seems to
mostly be Min Str d(X-2) for weapons that do 2dX damage, although there are a lot of exceptions. Going from this, I'd say probably calculate Min Str from the average damage, then allow spending additional points to reduce it if needed/desired. (I'm inclined not to give a point cost reduction for increasing Min Str for exactly the reason you mentioned.)
I'd handle weight the same way: Calculate it based on the other weapon characteristics, then allow it to be bought down from there.
Ammo capacity (in tokens) would default to 2 (per Clint's original abstract modern ammo rules), but could be bought either up or down from there. My first thought on minimum ammo capacity is ROF/2 (which would, on average, allow one round of firing full-auto at full ROF for a character with Shooting d6), but that may need tweaking for very high ROF weapons. (Under the standard ammo rules, ammo consumption increases with the square of ROF, but it's linear under the abstract ammo rules. I'm not sure of the best way to address that discrepancy. Ignoring it is definitely an option, but that removes a balancing factor which discourages weapons with stupidly high ROF.)
bladerunner_35 skrev:
nDervish skrev:bladerunner_35 skrev:
I do feel that my initial misgivings (way back before the first session or even character creation started) about the campaign is very much in danger of being a reality.
...and yet you're still not telling us what they are...
Oh but I have. But that was about one month and twenty pages ago so it's pretty ancient history.
Awww... You gave away the secret!
bladerunner_35 skrev:
I think it speaks volumes (and is quite funny) that your casual description in the above post about "one short-term thing and two personal projects, none of which ned to be (or, I think, are intended to be) campaign-defining" is pretty much spot on my misgiving #1 with exception to that it's character driven and not just "stirring up shit".
I see your point (and I agree that it's pretty funny).
I didn't intend to be dismissive about those three plot threads, only to indicate that, from what I've seen so far, nobody has said that they want to pursue any of them as a primary focus and, in the case of the first one (Stopwatch stuff), there have been comments to the effect of "I don't want to hunt AIs full-time".
But, yeah, if talking about possible long-term plot directions will increase your comfort level with the campaign, then let's do it.
)