Lasers in the Gearhead universe?

[Anticheese]

Quoting: macksting

armor piercing or depleted uranium (or even diamond!) bullets

Diamond is just carbon, If people can build giant mechs in 2900 they can definatly build diamond tipped bullets.

Quoting: macksting

You can see why this is an unreasonable level of complication. I think the current system works fine, so ne'er mind.

It does, but one thing you can take out of it is having ARMORPIERCING weapons deal less damage to unarmoured targets.

[macksting]

...doesn't an armorpiercing bullet usually do less damage to unarmored targets?

[Joseph Hewitt]

I would think that an armorpiercing bullet would do the same damage to unarmored targets as it does to armored ones, though I could be wrong about that.

DeadCold had a number of different bullets with different characteristics, similar to the suggestions made by macksting. I don't think GearHead nessecarily needs that, since almost every target in this game is armored. Still, it's something to think about.

[filibuster]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

I would think that an armorpiercing bullet would do the same damage to unarmored targets as it does to armored ones, though I could be wrong about that.

If I'm not mistaken, a high-velocity penetrating bullet retains most of its kinetic energy, and the only damage it does is the actual hole. On the other hand, a low-velocity bullet would use up all its energy in the impact, creating a much greater shock and inner structural damage such as haemorrhage or something. Not to mention hollow-point bullets which produce explosive effect, or bullets with misplaced center of gravity which may alter their course after impact.

IMHO pin weapons have good potential for further development in the game, as opposed to conventional slug and laser weapons. High-velocity hard pins could be as armorpiercing as anything, and softer versions would just rip the organic targets into pieces.

[macksting]

Ooooh. Soft pins. I like this idea.
Maybe even lead pins? Just for ease?

I think I'm liking this Filibuster's ideas. Personally, to our creative friend Mr. Hewitt, I would advise ignoring my grandiose ideas for bullet hardness; I was rambling, and such matters seldom or never come up in anime, even mecha anime. In the instances they do, the manner in which it occurs can be replicated by having very high armor ratings with very low item damage points to represent an object that is hard to scratch but essentially brittle.
I think your system works better than the one I was talking about, for purposes of an anime-based game. If, however, I was looking to recreate a Cyberstorm-esque game, with incredible amounts of targetting data, damage placement, armor vs. weapon, type vs. type, and pilot health and stability and all that under the hood, I might throw in weapon hardness.
It's just too unlikely a mechanic in an anime.