raspberryfh
First Post
I wonder if these have been playtested and tweaked unofficially (since there's nothing in the errata)? I just find it hard to believe that their implementation is working as intended.
As things stand, AP rounds are a 10-credit investment without any trade-offs. This completely negates a kevlar vest (100cr).
It gets worse as armor type becomes heavier. With a long kevlar coat, you've paid 200cr and sacrificed 2 def, but for 10cr, anyone can ignore 83% of your armor AND they are more likely to hit you because you're wearing medium armor.
Moving down the line, someone who saved up for years and years and just bought their first set of powered combat armor (10,000cr) has 50% of their investment negated by someone paying 10cr.
Meanwhile, random Joe-Schmoe on the streets who didn't buy armor is on average harder to hit than a person in a full basic battlesuit (2,000cr) but will only take 3 damage more when shot by a high-powered rifle using AP rounds.
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Let's try something else.
Compare to hollow-point rounds (15cr), which penalize accuracy to give a damage bonus (essentially providing a more efficient mechanism for trading attack dice into damage dice). There's a trade-off of being less likely to hit your target. But is there a situation when this trade-off is actually worth it compared to just freely ignoring 5 SOAK?
Consider the example of shooting at a person in synthetic weave, the lightest armor with SOAK 2. Assume they have no other sources of SOAK. This should be the ideal soft target for hollow-point bullets right?
So hollow-point bullets only deal more damage (on average) versus targets with 0-1 SOAK, a situation that's highly unlikely to come up. In this unlikely situation, it's still hard to say that they are superior to armor-piercing bullets because you are still less likely to hit your target.
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SOAK negation has a role to play, because powered armor is a thing. But the progression of SOAK vs. cost in suits of armor makes it hardly worth investing when AP rounds are that powerful and have no trade-off or appreciable cost associated with using them. There's also no reason to spend your money on hollow-point rounds (unless you expect to only fight unarmored enemies..... in which case you're probably the villain. And even then, armored heroes will come to stop you).
Ideally, there is a tactical decision behind using one ammo type over another. Something that gives a situational bonus to a savvy player. Jacking up the price of armor-piercing ammo or limiting its availability some other way, is one possible solution, but it still leaves armored-piercing ammo as the clearly superior ammunition choice across all scenarios. I know a few other systems have handled this various ways; I've never played, but I'm told GURPS uses multipliers of post-SOAK damage and armor (HP increases both, AP halves both). I'm curious what other iterations were considered in the playtesting of WOIN and whether there are any other solutions out there?
As things stand, AP rounds are a 10-credit investment without any trade-offs. This completely negates a kevlar vest (100cr).
It gets worse as armor type becomes heavier. With a long kevlar coat, you've paid 200cr and sacrificed 2 def, but for 10cr, anyone can ignore 83% of your armor AND they are more likely to hit you because you're wearing medium armor.
Moving down the line, someone who saved up for years and years and just bought their first set of powered combat armor (10,000cr) has 50% of their investment negated by someone paying 10cr.
Meanwhile, random Joe-Schmoe on the streets who didn't buy armor is on average harder to hit than a person in a full basic battlesuit (2,000cr) but will only take 3 damage more when shot by a high-powered rifle using AP rounds.
*********************
Let's try something else.
Compare to hollow-point rounds (15cr), which penalize accuracy to give a damage bonus (essentially providing a more efficient mechanism for trading attack dice into damage dice). There's a trade-off of being less likely to hit your target. But is there a situation when this trade-off is actually worth it compared to just freely ignoring 5 SOAK?
Consider the example of shooting at a person in synthetic weave, the lightest armor with SOAK 2. Assume they have no other sources of SOAK. This should be the ideal soft target for hollow-point bullets right?
So hollow-point bullets only deal more damage (on average) versus targets with 0-1 SOAK, a situation that's highly unlikely to come up. In this unlikely situation, it's still hard to say that they are superior to armor-piercing bullets because you are still less likely to hit your target.
*********************
SOAK negation has a role to play, because powered armor is a thing. But the progression of SOAK vs. cost in suits of armor makes it hardly worth investing when AP rounds are that powerful and have no trade-off or appreciable cost associated with using them. There's also no reason to spend your money on hollow-point rounds (unless you expect to only fight unarmored enemies..... in which case you're probably the villain. And even then, armored heroes will come to stop you).
Ideally, there is a tactical decision behind using one ammo type over another. Something that gives a situational bonus to a savvy player. Jacking up the price of armor-piercing ammo or limiting its availability some other way, is one possible solution, but it still leaves armored-piercing ammo as the clearly superior ammunition choice across all scenarios. I know a few other systems have handled this various ways; I've never played, but I'm told GURPS uses multipliers of post-SOAK damage and armor (HP increases both, AP halves both). I'm curious what other iterations were considered in the playtesting of WOIN and whether there are any other solutions out there?
