Post by Galahad on Dec 30, 2014 5:48:06 GMT
Am I the only one who thinks the MDC for buildings is terribly low?
First off, it assumes a 5" cube of a building. Even somewhat oversized dropzone terrain doesn't clock in at 5x5x5 often. In 6mm scale that's a building roughly 130x130x130 in feet. There aren't a lot of 13 story cubes in modern cities. Sure, big NYC-grade skyscrapers can end up pretty monstrous in 6mm scale, but I think more often than not buildings on an RTT table will be a fraction of the 5x5x5 standard. And if you;re figuring relative size based on vo,ume than a 2.5x2.5x2.5 buidling would have 1/8 the MDC of a 5x5x5, leaving anything reinforced and under at 1md
This means most buildings, even reinforced construction are only going to have 1-2MD I don't recall a lot of buildings being blown to cinders by a VF-1A's head gun, so LOS-blcking terrain is effectively useless, serving only to absorb one round from one mecha in a squad before the rest of the unit happily blow away whomever's behind it.
Even spaceship hulls are perilously flimsy since you're not bound to encounter starship corridors where the walls are 5" thick. More likely 1/4-1/2" thick. A 5x5 section of UEDF starship hull that's 1/2" thick would only have 4md. If it's modeled using foamcore (wich I think would be ideal) then you're talking about 2MD since foamcore is roughly 1/4" thick.
So has anyone got better ideas?
First off, figuring building size volumetrically is a pain in the ass. So why not do size categories? Just comd up with some rough size classes, like small (buildings roughly 3x3x3 or smaller), medium (between 3x3x3 and 5x5x5) and large (bigger than 5x5x5), with starship hulls rated by, say, 2" or 3" sections say 1/4" thick, ignoring height. Doesn't matter if the wall is 60ft tall or 600 if you only need to blow a hold big enough for a 50ft robot
Then you can get into building materials...though again I think we should go with rough categories. There's no reason to have 6 different building materials not including 2 types of starship hull. Even in the normal systems most of it ends up getting rounded out anyway do it won't matter if a building is made of concrete or wood if it's less than a given volume it ends up being 1md anyway.
Civilian, Industrial, and Military, should suffice. With one category for Starship hulls because seriously does it matter? Again, assuming hulls are single 3x3x0.25 sections
Use building size to determine base MD. Civilian x1, Indistrial x2, Military x4 Civilian and Industrial buildings are DF3, Military and Hulls are DF 4
So now we just need to figure out how much damage is enough for a building to soak for it to be effective cover?
I think even the puniest building should require more than 1md to blow into rubble, but how much massed firepower should it take to blow up an annoying building or punch a hole in a starship corridor?
I want to say Small (3x3x3 or less) 4MD, Medium (between 3x3x3-5x5x5) 8MD and Large (bigger than 5x5x5) 16MD, just off the top of my head. It makes sense that most buildings can be blown away as easily as a battlepod, while bigger or srturdier buildings should take a missile or two. Starship Hulls, say, 8MD per section?
What do you guys think?
Don't be afraid to go big on some of these figures since most military and industrial buildings will be small to medium while almost all large buildings would be civilian skyscrapers.
First off, it assumes a 5" cube of a building. Even somewhat oversized dropzone terrain doesn't clock in at 5x5x5 often. In 6mm scale that's a building roughly 130x130x130 in feet. There aren't a lot of 13 story cubes in modern cities. Sure, big NYC-grade skyscrapers can end up pretty monstrous in 6mm scale, but I think more often than not buildings on an RTT table will be a fraction of the 5x5x5 standard. And if you;re figuring relative size based on vo,ume than a 2.5x2.5x2.5 buidling would have 1/8 the MDC of a 5x5x5, leaving anything reinforced and under at 1md
This means most buildings, even reinforced construction are only going to have 1-2MD I don't recall a lot of buildings being blown to cinders by a VF-1A's head gun, so LOS-blcking terrain is effectively useless, serving only to absorb one round from one mecha in a squad before the rest of the unit happily blow away whomever's behind it.
Even spaceship hulls are perilously flimsy since you're not bound to encounter starship corridors where the walls are 5" thick. More likely 1/4-1/2" thick. A 5x5 section of UEDF starship hull that's 1/2" thick would only have 4md. If it's modeled using foamcore (wich I think would be ideal) then you're talking about 2MD since foamcore is roughly 1/4" thick.
So has anyone got better ideas?
First off, figuring building size volumetrically is a pain in the ass. So why not do size categories? Just comd up with some rough size classes, like small (buildings roughly 3x3x3 or smaller), medium (between 3x3x3 and 5x5x5) and large (bigger than 5x5x5), with starship hulls rated by, say, 2" or 3" sections say 1/4" thick, ignoring height. Doesn't matter if the wall is 60ft tall or 600 if you only need to blow a hold big enough for a 50ft robot
Then you can get into building materials...though again I think we should go with rough categories. There's no reason to have 6 different building materials not including 2 types of starship hull. Even in the normal systems most of it ends up getting rounded out anyway do it won't matter if a building is made of concrete or wood if it's less than a given volume it ends up being 1md anyway.
Civilian, Industrial, and Military, should suffice. With one category for Starship hulls because seriously does it matter? Again, assuming hulls are single 3x3x0.25 sections
Use building size to determine base MD. Civilian x1, Indistrial x2, Military x4 Civilian and Industrial buildings are DF3, Military and Hulls are DF 4
So now we just need to figure out how much damage is enough for a building to soak for it to be effective cover?
I think even the puniest building should require more than 1md to blow into rubble, but how much massed firepower should it take to blow up an annoying building or punch a hole in a starship corridor?
I want to say Small (3x3x3 or less) 4MD, Medium (between 3x3x3-5x5x5) 8MD and Large (bigger than 5x5x5) 16MD, just off the top of my head. It makes sense that most buildings can be blown away as easily as a battlepod, while bigger or srturdier buildings should take a missile or two. Starship Hulls, say, 8MD per section?
What do you guys think?
Don't be afraid to go big on some of these figures since most military and industrial buildings will be small to medium while almost all large buildings would be civilian skyscrapers.
