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Why increments of 10?

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Sat, 2012-10-06 00:15
#1
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Why increments of 10?
Is there any particular reason the rules are written in increments of 10 instead of 5, or in addition to 5? For instance why does team work give a +10 bonus, why do both smart guns and laser sights give +10 to hit? Wouldn't increments of 5 allow greater resolution in the rules set? Would units of 5 be more fun or more paperwork? As a GM I'd kind of like the option of throwing in increments of 5 occasionally. [i]"Yes your team mate is helping you fix that gimbal. Unfortunately they don't have the (hardware) skill so you get a +5 bonus"[/i] Laser sights are cool and effective but not as good as a smart weapon so a laser sight grants +5 and a smartgun system +10. Specs work well but goggles and glasses don't offer the same resolution as an implanted visual upgrade so specs give you a +15 visual perception bonus. This station is ancient and optimized for bipedal biomorphs. This makes all the hatches, companionways and manual controls cumbersome and annoying for your novacrab Pod. You have a -5 modifier for all freefall, freerunning and melee combat tests.
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Sun, 2012-10-07 04:01
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
It depends. I tend to prefer
It depends. I tend to prefer quick and dirty, as slow gameplay and bookkeepingis the biggest problem for RPGs. It also tends to get in the way of cool, like a player that prefers laser sights. Btw if you want realism, laser sights are actually worse than iron sights. They're for shooting from cover, wearing NV goggles, using a tactical shield etc., where you can't line up the sights.
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Sun, 2012-10-07 10:31
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
So there's no mathematical
So there's no mathematical reason for not using increments of 5 for test threshold modifications? I'm not sure weather I prefer my EP as a d10 or d20 game. ;) There are so many situations where traditional shooting just won't work anymore (in the future); Space suits, micro-gravity, "recoil-less" weapons, tentacle hands, smartweapons, have probably created entirely new techniques. Or, at least, the old Weaver/Isosceles techniques have been abandoned in favor of something like 'point shooting'. Laser sights are handy (primarily in the dark where you can't see your iron sights), but they have no where near the utility as a smart gun system as described in the book. I'm not sure I care much about "cool" if it causes a character to do something that conflicts with the common sense of the setting or basic physics.
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Sun, 2012-10-07 13:26
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
OneTrikPony wrote:So there's
OneTrikPony wrote:
So there's no mathematical reason for not using increments of 5 for test threshold modifications?
No, just simplicity as far as I can see.
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I'm not sure weather I prefer my EP as a d10 or d20 game. ;) There are so many situations where traditional shooting just won't work anymore (in the future); Space suits, micro-gravity, "recoil-less" weapons, tentacle hands, smartweapons, have probably created entirely new techniques. Or, at least, the old Weaver/Isosceles techniques have been abandoned in favor of something like 'point shooting'. Laser sights are handy (primarily in the dark where you can't see your iron sights), but they have no where near the utility as a smart gun system as described in the book.
Laser sights are not handy. Even with iron sight you're better off using those. When your laser isn't on the target it is difficult to find the spot in the terrain and often impossible because it goes into the sky or too far away to be seen. Pointing with the weapon in a natural way (point shooting or keeping it aligned with your sight line) is instinctive and fast. The front sight picture snap shot is much faster than timing a shot with the laser being on target. And I imagine that EP guns have a small holo sight pane rather than iron sights. Laser sights are the worst type of sights available. They're pretty much only useful when you can't use any other type of sight. I don't really see point shooting seeing wider use - accurate aiming is still going to be key at anything but the closest range, and why would point shooting help with that?
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I'm not sure I care much about "cool" if it causes a character to do something that conflicts with the common sense of the setting or basic physics.
Sure it can't break immersion. That's very uncool ;) But if there are 3 options that should realistically be +5, +10 and +15 I'd rather have them all at +10 and let players pick what they think is cool.
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Sun, 2012-10-07 17:09
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
What do you mean by "holo
What do you mean by "holo sight pane"? I'm imagining some type of holographic projector that projects a sight picture somewhere near the weapon.
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Laser sights are the worst type of sights available. They're pretty much only useful when you can't use any other type of sight.
That's what I'm talking about. There are lot's of those situations in EP. Space helmets. Also in microgravity it would be better to align a kinetic weapon with your center of gravity instead of your eye. In those cases I'd argue that training in point shooting would be more important than training in acquiring your sights. (I'm not a point shooting nut I'm not arguing for it's application in the real world but in my imagining the future I can see it becoming a part of common doctrine. If you could become "good" at point shooting you'll be better at using a smartgun system.)
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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

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Sun, 2012-10-07 17:55
NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture
You're imagining of it is
You're imagining of it is probably what it would be like in Eclipse Phase. This is the tech right now (since we don't have holographic projectors like they do in EP). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_weapon_sight
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"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
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Sun, 2012-10-07 18:27
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
OneTrikPony wrote:What do you
OneTrikPony wrote:
What do you mean by "holo sight pane"? I'm imagining some type of holographic projector that projects a sight picture somewhere near the weapon.
I wasn't thinking anything fancy, just like a normal holo sight with the pane as an integral part of the gun.
Quote:
Quote:
Laser sights are the worst type of sights available. They're pretty much only useful when you can't use any other type of sight.
That's what I'm talking about. There are lot's of those situations in EP. Space helmets. Also in microgravity it would be better to align a kinetic weapon with your center of gravity instead of your eye. In those cases I'd argue that training in point shooting would be more important than training in acquiring your sights. (I'm not a point shooting nut I'm not arguing for it's application in the real world but in my imagining the future I can see it becoming a part of common doctrine. If you could become "good" at point shooting you'll be better at using a smartgun system.)
Ah, I see what you mean with the microgravity now. You are right that could be an issue. Have you done or know of someone who has done the math on it? It would be interesting to see how much angular momentum you picked up, what sort of friction and angle or counterforce is needed to remain stable under various gravities, etc. I was in recon in the army so not a CQB specialist, but isn't point shooting really good at close range if you learn it? I don't know much about it except what you can read online tbh.
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Mon, 2012-10-08 03:17
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Red-dot sight. Doh! For some
Red-dot sight. Doh! For some reason my mind is working in a Futuretech context only. I've followed the math, can't remember if it was here or on the atomic rockets site. Basically it's muzzle energy X distance from the center of gravity ÷ mass and at some point that gets turned into radians/sec. (or something like that I'll look it up again) IIRC a single shot from side arm or small rifle doesn't turn into a whole bunch of angular momentum but in a freefall situation 1 rpm could be a serious problem.
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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

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