T5 Question For Rob or Don - Ammo???

[Supplement Four]

Hey guys,

How do you track ammo in this game? I don't see anything on it.

Are we to assume that characters always have enough ammo on them to do what ever they want--to fight off hordes and hordes of enemies?

There's no ammo drain on the character's cash reserves?

There's no added weight (Burden, I guess) for players who want their characters to carry lots of ammo?

Characters never run out of ammo?

What about if the player is using a Light Rocket Launcher-5 (from page 239)? The character is considered to have endless rockets to fire from that thing?

 

[Vladika]

Characters never run out of ammo?

Just like XBox...

 

[McPerth]

Characters never run out of ammo?

What about if the player is using a Light Rocket Launcher-5 (from page 239)? The character is considered to have endless rockets to fire from that thing?

Just like XBox...

Or like the ship's missiles in CT:HG :devil:...

 

[Vladika]

Or like the ship's missiles in CT:HG :devil:...

Oh so very true!

 

[taustin]

I recall a game once, back in CT days, where it mattered that we kept track. By the end of the fight, there were two characters left with any ammo. The psychotic Aslan, who had a pistol with half a clip (and claws), and me, who routinely wrote "100 clips of gauss rifle ammo" on every character sheet. I had, IIRC, two full and one half clip left. To quote Starfleet Captain Ron Tracy, "We killed thousands[1], and they still came." Epic game.

[1](mostly, I will admit, with sachel charges, but still, literally, thousands)

 

[Reban]

Yeah this is one of the things I dislike in T5. Unlimited notional ammo and no details on how many of the various sizes of ship missiles you can fit in a turret/bay/main of different sizes.

The latter could probably be calculated if we had benchmark sizes for missiles. Smallarms ammo is different. You are assumed to reload as part of the combat round, okay if you're changing a clip a powercell or a belt you can claim you can carry enough for a couple of 1 minute combat rounds as long as you don't shoot like Rambo. What happens if you have a heavy anti-tank missile launcher with unlimited ammo. Does the user have extra rounds stuffed in his pockets?

There's also the fact that there is no scope in the rules for firing different types of ammo...but I might have a houserule solution for that in the works.

 

[David Johansen]

My own solution would simply be that machine guns have 100 rounds, pistols 10, and combat rifles 30. You can buy all kind s of aftermarket snail drums and extended clips and hoppers but I'd probably make them unreliable. Lasers with a power back pack also have 100 but their ammo capacity should probably vary with Tech Level so, perhaps (Tl -8) x 5 for integral weapons and (TL-8) x 100 for back packs.

Weights a little trickier. Maybe 0.25kg for light pistol magazines, 0.5 kg for heavy pistol magazines, 1 kg for assault rifle magazines, and 5kg for 100 round belts?

 

[Spartan159]

I recall a game once, back in CT days, where it mattered that we kept track. By the end of the fight, there were two characters left with any ammo. The psychotic Aslan, who had a pistol with half a clip (and claws), and me, who routinely wrote "100 clips of gauss rifle ammo" on every character sheet. I had, IIRC, two full and one half clip left. To quote Starfleet Captain Ron Tracy, "We killed thousands[1], and they still came." Epic game.

[1](mostly, I will admit, with sachel charges, but still, literally, thousands)

Sir, just where were you carrying those 100 clips?!? If your character was male I'm sure the females would swoon at your musculature, assuming they could see it under all the clips... :devil:

 

[Levi]

My own solution would simply be that machine guns have 100 rounds, pistols 10, and combat rifles 30. You can buy all kind s of aftermarket snail drums and extended clips and hoppers but I'd probably make them unreliable.

Why make them unreliable? I've found in both my military and civilian lives that often times aftermarket magazines are more reliable than their OEM counterparts. When I was in Iraq we primarily replaced our issue magazines with the heavier HK mags and significantly cut down on misfeeds. Similarly, in my private life I've found that the MD Arms 20-round drum feeds much more reliably than the 5-round stick that came with my shotgun. Though I do have some trash aftermarket magazines for my Beretta that are only good for keeping the dust out in storage.
My point is that milage varies in aftermarket magazines now, so there's not much sense in assuming, a priori, that they are universally lower quality in the future. If the idea is to discourage players from using them why not make them expensive or illegal in most places?

 

[Supplement Four]

My own solution would simply be that machine guns have 100 rounds, pistols 10, and combat rifles 30.

That's fine, but the combat rounds are one minute long. You can easily go through a clip or more in a round.

So...how many combat rounds until you don't have ammo?

And, if you played a five round combat (that lasted about five minutes), how much ammo do you have left, if any?

Logically, a character would be carraying nothing but clips and clips of ammo to fight in these fights.

 

[Uriel]

With the caveat that my book isn't actually here yet, I think that given the assumption that each round of shooting represents an exchange of multiple shots over the course of a minute, I would just give each magazine a rating in number of rounds rather than keep track of ammo itself. So say a standard 10 round pistol magazine is good for 2 or 3 rounds of active shooting (which if anything is probably generous since most gunfights with pistols that last that long burn through more ammo than that).

Basically for a magazine of any given capacity, look at the rate of fire of the weapon involved and give your best guesstimate of average round expenditure to come up with a combat round rating. Easier to track than individual bullets in my opinion.

If you wanted, you could even rate any given firefight with an 'intensity' that affects ammo expenditure rates.

 

[HG_B]

Yeah this is one of the things I dislike in T5. Unlimited notional ammo and no details on how many of the various sizes of ship missiles you can fit in a turret/bay/main of different sizes.

How in such a huge, detailed book is this basic missing? Must be a error and has been left out due to oversight. Was this covered in play test?

 

[Reban]

I like the intensity idea. As written everyone is meant to assess the state they are in after a period of combat concludes, figure out damage to equipment make repairs, stabilize the wounded and generally regroup.

I think the style implied by the ~1 minute round is cinematic or the "TV gunfight", but real gunfights are quite different.

BTW for anyone that may be picking up the wrong impression about the ~1 minute round. According to the book at the end of combat you add up all the rounds played through and assign them ~1 minute each. So if there are 10 rounds of STAMP thats approximately 10 minutes that have passed.

On the other hand in a fast a furious mad minute you might also fit in 10 rounds or you might be stalking your target over an hour is the bowels of the ship and only exchange 10 STAMP rounds. So a round does not exactly equal 1 minute but in general you can fit all the actions included in STAMP into 1 minute so it makes a good rule of thumb.

 

[Reban]

How in such a huge, detailed book is this basic missing? Must be a error and has been left out due to oversight. Was this covered in play test?

Missiles are assigned a benchmark size number. A standard missile is Size 5 which is "Man Sized" but Size 5 can include 1.5m to 6.5m in length. What I'd like is a standard volume. I think the consensus that has emerged is that you can fit 5 Size 5 missiles in a ton.

Yes it was covered in play test but Starship Combat doesn't track ammo either, which is fine for energy and laser weapons but not for missiles that can be the same size as a smallcraft.

I have brought this up as errata that needs fixing (crosses fingers)

 

[HG_B]

Yes it was covered in play test but Starship Combat doesn't track ammo either, which is fine for energy and laser weapons but not for missiles that can be the same size as a smallcraft.

I have brought this up as errata that needs fixing (crosses fingers)

So, Beta covered ammo use rates and capacity but it was left out of the final rules. Weird indeed.

 

[Reban]

So, Beta covered ammo use rates and capacity but it was left out of the final rules. Weird indeed.

No sorry that is not what I meant. The desire for ammo rules was expressed and some betas offered rules for ammo design but ammo did not make it into the Core Book beyond a single page in GunMaker which states:

The creation or design of weapons assumes the creation of suitable ammunition and of magazines or cassettes that will feed munitions to the weapon. The weapon design does not delve into the process in that great a depth.

The page shows example of magazines and rounds for various small arms suggesting normal magazine capacities for different classes of weapon.

 

[robject]

The ammunition omission was intentional.

Having said that, the Burrito Principle* suggests to me that we here on COTI can guessimate a reasonable average size and mass for ammunition, based on what we know about today's ammo, and from there extrapolate clip sizes and mass and cost. And we can include the error/tolerance in the results, allowing referees to tailor things to the way they want them.

If we do this, one thing we have to do is differentiate between the hard data we gather, and the game data that can be used by non-gearheads like me. For example, it's useful to know the precise mass of a bullet of a particular kind, for the purposes of data gathering. However, it is likely that game flow will be better, the less we focus on details.

In other words, I suggest the average bullet just be a "bullet", with a mass of X grams, and a cost of Y credits, and interchangeable clips for pistols and rifles. This is the "quick and dirty" measurement, and it should show up at the top of the list. Then for those who need detail, provide supplemental listings, breaking things down progressively more until you get to actual fake model numbers for rifles and bullet variations based on their damage ratings...

I suggest to you-all that that resulting data would be just as meaningful as data that Marc would come up with (evidenced by Marc not commenting on the matter in the core rules).


*80% of the meat is in 20% of the burrito. A variation on the Pareto Principle, with an eye toward "just get me close enough to something reasonable but keep it simple".

 

[robject]

My SWAG

DISCLAIMER - I am not a gun owner. I am nearly completely ignorant about them.

That said, my SWAG for ammunition price is Cr1 per damage effect. So something that only does Bullet damage costs Cr1 per bullet. If it did Bullet and Frag, then it's Cr2. No idea if that's reasonable.

In complementary fashion, my SWAG for ammunition mass is 10 grams per die of damage. So if the bullet does a total of 8 dice of damage, that sucker masses 80 grams. No idea if that's reasonable.

So for example, 20 rounds of Bullet-2 Frag-1 costs 20 x Cr2 = 40 credits, and masses 20 x 3 x 10 = 600 grams.

 

[HG_B]

No sorry that is not what I meant. The desire for ammo rules was expressed and some betas offered rules for ammo design but ammo did not make it into the Core Book beyond a single page in GunMaker which states:



The page shows example of magazines and rounds for various small arms suggesting normal magazine capacities for different classes of weapon.

That's fine then. I see no problem with that. The GM just needs to create it.

 

[Reban]

My SWAG

DISCLAIMER - I am not a gun owner. I am nearly completely ignorant about them.

That said, my SWAG for ammunition price is Cr1 per damage effect. So something that only does Bullet damage costs Cr1 per bullet. If it did Bullet and Frag, then it's Cr2. No idea if that's reasonable.

In complementary fashion, my SWAG for ammunition mass is 10 grams per die of damage. So if the bullet does a total of 8 dice of damage, that sucker masses 80 grams. No idea if that's reasonable.

So for example, 20 rounds of Bullet-2 Frag-1 costs 20 x Cr2 = 40 credits, and masses 20 x 3 x 10 = 600 grams.

Thats nice simple and workable. It doesn't have to bear any resemblance to real world ammo prices. I think the weight calculation might not hold up. For one thing there are lots of other factors involved in damage or lethality such as caliber and muzzle velocity.

Either way I'm snaffling your post for future tinkering