Cybernetic Jesus

Here's the F-20 Tigershark and F-21 Tiger-Talon (Talon is in honor of the advanced-fighter from Empire-Earth);  I was inspired by the F-20 the local museum of Science and technology has hanging in their hall.  I volunteered with a guy that worked for Northrop and when they made the F-20, they didn't consult the DoD and well, they didn't need a fighter like that because the F-16 filled each role.  

The swept-forward wing was popular in the 80's so, the F-21 is the fighter-attack variant wheres the F-20 is mostly an interceptor. They are not swept-wing, so they aren't built for speed really.  Both come with a 20mm Gatling; I wanted to use the dual 20mm AC with a higher ROF, but the image clearly has one cannon under the nose.  The +5 Targeting-computer is the same was in the Cushing-tank, but, it works on this aircraft. The forward-wings gives the F-21 greater maneuverability, but at a cost at lower-speeds.  Both has a similar-engine and they are good at take-off speeds; the cost was way less than the fighters, IRL.

On 05/12/2022 at 18:29, Rockwolf66 said:

. . .Neo-Nazi but then discovered that Black girls are beautiful. After a bit of soul searching he's interracially dating and working on converting to Judaism.

I might be able to one-up you here; I have a friend that is a Black, Neo-NAZI, trans-gender.  He (now a she) also loves Cyberpunk; Jerry Springer, eat your heart out! 

Well, they opened up again, but as a pantry, in another city and not as a soup-kitchen.  I'd rather feed families than Heroin-Henry, but pantries have sprung up all over the city since the pandemic and there's really no need for an another one, but there is need of providing cooked-food and showers; I'm a fan of people taking showers. 

I got a lot of our old-donners back; I have Corporate Resources +5, Charity-organizations, I guess. 

They last mayor got fired and the other Douche-bag council-man didn't seek re-election.  You're a special kind of a sack of crap if you have to lie about a charity-organization.  I want the other volunteer to put pressure on the city to reopen the kitchen in their city again, like they did before.  

And the homeless call the city-run location, the "Shit-Shack", because their food still sucks.  The soup-kitchen was better; at least the volunteers took pride in their food they served. 

On 07/12/2022 at 21:31, Rockwolf66 said:

Sort of like the difference in philosophy between my much loved M60 machinegun...

When I look at that picture: I imagine how expensive it would be to fire that weapon.  I was going to buy a Mossin-Nagant and it would have cost $0.58 cents, at least, per round to fire it. 

On 05/12/2022 at 03:07, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

Except realistically, you are fring those Vulcans ar relatively close range. If we talk about a dogfight between two jets maneuvering at high subsonic speeds, the window of opportunity for landing a shot gets pretty narrow. Why do you think guns were relegated to effectively backup role post-Korea, i.e. once jet fighters became default?

Why were late WW2 fighters packing six, eight or even (if memory serves me regarding late versions of Hawker Hurricane) 12 machineguns?

Also, mechanically you are only half-right. Sure, increased ROF doesen't make you hit more reliably over long distances - but makes your hits more devastating. As per Maximum Metal rules, in vehicles combat, with RoF 30 - every point of success in burst fire means 5 bullets hitting the target. With RoF 100, 10 bullets per point of success. 

True, but it's still 3.2 seconds, one round. 

If you can't remember, no big deal; it was, after all, 78 years ago. 

A 20mm Vulcan firing at an incoming cruise-missile at it's effective, ideal range of 600M would be at a -10 to hit if it were firing at full-auto and that's not including other modifiers like movement (500MPH/40 = -12(Exocet would be -18) and +4 for a large-target and turret weapon and I assume +5 targeting-computer with a radar rangefinder, gets -9 to hit, which, against a DIFF: 30 (-9), so they'd have to roll a 39+ to hit(assume an AI of 20+ skill so, that's a roll of a ten and a nine). So, on the rare chance of a hit, it would do a lot of damage for sure.  Once the target gets closer, the DIFF will drop by five-points etc. 

Also, during the Gulf-War, US Navy ships deployed chaff to confuse two potential Exocet-missiles; they turned on their Vulcans and they were confused by the chaff and fired at the chaff (but only two rounds hit the other naval-vessel).   Deploying chaff in a Max. Metal game could confused AGAMS. 

In the Max.Met. rules, a Vulcan-cannon wouldn't provide any benefit by firing 100 rounds per round unless it was at close-range; at worse, it would add a penalty at medium-plus;  I don't think an aircraft would need to roll athletics for suppressive-fire. Given an air-to-air battle two planes firing 20mm ACs would be about the same as if they were firing at a higher ROF.

For ACs to do 4D10, but, have a realistic ROF, (same for MGs), a 12.7mm is still a problem because that means it should do 3D10, which, is about the same amount of damage as a 5D6-bullet; but, it can damage vehicles v. SP, at X1 instead of X2 for D6 rounds.

And the Witcher has head damage doing X3, but, they have a different damage-structure based off of your Bod-score.

On 04/10/2022 at 08:05, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

Yup. It is an expired security certificate. 

 

Still, something only CJ can handle.

What?  I don't have the patience for computer-programing; I could barely hack Doom; though, I liked the auto-double-barrelled shotgun by increasing the frame-rate.

On 15/09/2022 at 03:45, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

Politics is bullshit.

Fixed that for you. 

I'm working for them politicans, for years now. On a different level (our administrative division system doesn't translate well into US terms, but I'm working for the local government), but still: I keep seeing them doing stuff that doesn't really make (much) sense. Not that they mess up everything, but they do it often enough. 

As one Porteño, in Iguazú, once told me after I complained about all the crime and bullshit in Buenos Aires, "Where there's people, there's problems; no people: no problems; look at the countryside; no problems". 

On 14/09/2022 at 21:18, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

Out of curiosity, why?

. . . 

It's Cyberpunk 2020, not Cyberpunk 2022.  It's Groundhog-year. 

Here's one, I created, I want to say, in springtime of 2000, using Wargasm and Photoshop to grab the images. 

It's for the ACE Military (Alpha Communications & Electronics Syndicate).  The purpose of the Corporate-Military is to protect the Syndicate's interests around the world.  I made a Word .Doc file for them. 


This is the Future MBT with a terrain assimilation technology. 

 

So, for the past few years, I've been volunteering at a local Soup-Kitchen that mostly feeds the homeless. Now, I'm not Mother Theresa and I don't really give a **** about the homeless or their plight, but, it gives me something to do, lots of exercise and of all the things I could be doing with my life, that seems to be the best thing to do.

Background: about 30 years ago, a mayor, yest the mayor of the city, gave city-land, rent-free, to use as a soup-kitchen in an out of the way location in the city, probably because the local churches were pressuring him and he wanted to keep his job.  Fast forward to now, the kitchen has had lots of problems with the city and the current city-council and recently, the city ask them to vacate the property. citing a sh*tload of lies.  Like, there's an increase in crime in the area(there wasn't; the city in fact praised the kitchen for being low on crime in 2010),  disturbing the local businesses (the neighbors are abandoned warehouses and the local police-station), too many 911/police-calls and arrests are up (yeah, the police are proactively checking for warrants and violent-crime is down from previous years despite increase patronage of homeless). During a city-council meeting, a council-man( douchbag) said,  he went there and someone offered asked him if he wanted to buy drugs (now, that's straight-out lie, the homeless don't ask you if you want to buy drugs; they ask you if you have drugs on you), and he cited there was prostitution going on (they don't have any money).  

So, the kitchen sued and got a federal-judge involved that made the city replicate the services the soup-kitchen offered for no less than one year at the tax-payers' expense:  The kitchen's gone now, and the city was thwarting efforts for them to reopen within the city-limits. 

And the State is more interested in Homeless-Shelters, not kitchens or providing services like showers, because, in a shelter, the homeless have to stay and as the Federal-judge put it, "Warehoused inside". 

Oh, and by-the-way, did I mention the empty warehouses, well, developers want to build apartments next-door and Amazon want to move in with 500 trucks coming and going a day: the environmental-report stated the kitchen would be adversely-effected. There you have it. 

To me, Cyberpunk 2020 should be played for the now, the present and not for the future, really, so, when playing CP2020 or CP2077, when the year changes and reaches Jan. 01 2021 or, 2078, you make a new character and it starts out as 2020 or 2077, again.  If, your character makes it that far. 

I wouldn't say the amphibious-assault is dead, even in Cyberpunk.  There will be occasions where you have to move your troops from the sea to the land under fire.  The game mechanics of Maximum-Metal would work, but, I had an amphibious-assault in mind, but not necessarily.  

The Russians are a bad example of an amphibious assault, though, Kliment Voroshilov, would be in awe and proud of the Russian-competence in the Ukraine! 

22 hours ago, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

. . .

 

With purely kinetic 20mm's, I think the 8d10 is there purely to put it into perspective. On average roll, that's ~44 points of damage, so anyone hit by just one of these bad boys gets their Hit Box row under 2020 rules filled out. If you were wearing MetalGear, that's still 19pts that you need to soak with your BTM and Hit Box track, so it lands you in Mortal anyway. Your BTM defines if it was Mortal 0, or Mortal 1.  And it takes out your limb, mangling it beyond repair. Nota bene, here's a problem I have with SP-based armor system: I pretty much suspect a 20mm autocannon round wouldn't even notice Metal Gear armor. It wouldn't make a difference to it, not enough of a difference to make a difference anyway. Just like soft body armor (NIJ IIIa or less) against projectiles rated NIJ III or IV. 

At a minimum, that's of course 8 points of damage, but I'll let someone else count the possibility of rolling 8x1 on 8d10. Theoretically a 20mm autocannon round could just have nicked you, sure.  

. . .

 

As for type 05, that's not a tank. Not construction-wise: it is a fire support vehicle, build on an amphibious IFVs hull. Essentially the same idea as M1128 MGS Stryker, except the vehicle was buildt from the get-go as tracked and amphibious. Then, the designers took the plans for the original troop carrier, gutted it out of troop compartment and related stuff, and installed a gun turret on top. Basically, a vehicle I was suggesting to you at the start just without naming the exact model.

Actually, six is the minimum if you take into BTM.

I have sort of a house rule that if a head hit is double-damage, then why not a limb hit, does half-damage?  That would mean a torso-hit, would do more damage as it could strike vitals, etc. 

I want to say it's 1 in 400 chance you'd roll all ones.  

The vehicle will be used in amphibious-assaults so you'd probably want to open up on a beach-head as soon as you can see it: what's the average visibility of a coast?  So chances are, there's going to be a lot of rounds coming in from extreme or long range against, maybe fortified positions.  That's a lot of athletic-rolls for suppressive-fire. 

Yes; the Type 05 isn't real tank.  But the M45 Cushing is; just look at it!  Democracy is safe. 
 

First off, I don't like Shadowrun: I played it a few times and just didn't like the setting and rules.  But, I found sprites for a Shadowrun PC Game, grabbed them and tested to see that I could do with them. 

It took a long while for me to paste this together and I had to mirror some of the sprites.  I don't like mirroring: and I forgot to change the background color from hot-pink to black;  I use hot-pink so I can see all the sprite, "Leaks". 

It is kind of Cyberpunk. I do like the graphics though and they would also be good,  in a House Kurita game for Battletech. 

I found the sprites here: https://www.spriters-resource.com/pc_computer/shadowrunreturns/

9 hours ago, Allen1 said:

I have also had some issues with damages, especially with Maximum Metal.  I just try to remember that it is a game, so I believe that the (under powered) damage from those big weapons as just a compromise between any sense of realism and play ability.  The only way a character (unless a borg or in a ACPA suit) could survive a direct hit from a 75mm gun or larger is with the Luck rule allows you to roll a d10+LUCK (and adding any actual Luck points left for that session) to try and get a 15 to avoid instant death.  Still under that rule the resulting damage can kill you.  Therefore I try not to have huge weapons like that fire at individual people.  A hit would be very rare indeed, although being in the blast radius of an HE round wouldn't be so difficult a shot.

By the way, I love the curious chaingun with a variable rate of fire depending on movement of the M13AAPC Charger and the special rules on the Targeting computer on the M45 Cushing.  It gives variety and an approximation of design problems that often crop up with new technology even after the roll out of the equipment / weapons.  

 

We tried using the 8D10 for 20 Mike-Mikes and they were just too wipey.  A year later, we had a world-war two game using 4D10/5D10 for 20mm/30mm auto-cannons and the game worked beautifully, so, that stuck in my head.   Say, didn't Bob Dole take a 20mm hit and live? 

As for a game, Maximum Metal was an improvement over Battletech, in regards to realism. 

One question we always had with burst, area-effect weapons is that, does the blast do damage to ALL potions of the body?   So, does a 75mm cannon, when hitting an ACPA, do 8D10 to all hit-locations or just one?  I like Firestorm's ACPA-rules in which the trooper takes half damage, instead of the to-hit chart found in Maximum-Metal.  

As for the targeting-computer, it just came to me and considering these vehicles are built with '80's technology in mind, so a good targeting computer isn't going to work 100% in the age of MS-DOS. 

On 30/08/2022 at 08:07, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

Don't look at me, that's what Maximum Mike & Co. say.

That being said, autocannon round is primarily a pure kinetic projectile. Sure, it is considered big enough to carry a payload (explosive, incendiary etc) so it can be used to lay waste to targets susceptible to HE. But it relies on kinetic effect most of the time. 

75mm, on the other hand, is definitely big enough to have a HE payload. 

Per Maximum Metal, p.18:

• light autocannon (20-25mm) has 8d10 damage / PEN 4, no burst, 500m range. Being kinetic, it loses 25% Penetration at Long range (over 250m), and 50% at extreme range (over 500m).
• 75mm gun can use:
  • HE, with 8d10 damage / PEN 4, burst 5m, and 750m range
  • HEAT, with 8d10 damage / PEN 8 (HEAT - burst 2m is largely omittable here) and 400m range... but it doesn't lose any PEN over range (since it all demends on HEAT shell). It is also a little inaccurate, with -1 to hit.
  • something else, (I assume APFSDS): PEN 7 (likely still "rated at" 8d10 damage, but this makes no sense. Yuo really should use the "big gunse hitting people" rules rather than follow the dice damage code), and 750m range (though again losing it at long range by 25% and so on).

...plus you could have many other types of ammo for 75mm - smoke, etc. Definitely more utility in this gun (though it is of course way bigger, at 4 spaces comapred to 25mm's one space).

Yup, you got me here. Legacy data in my head, sorry: I was an aircraft afficionado in my teens, some of related data still lingers upstairs  - aircraft autocannons, like ADEN and DEFA (or the Soviet GSh-23), have way faster RoF. I guess it simply isn't practical in ground combat (it would waste a lot of ammo), which would be why the ground vehicles use slower-firing autocannons. In the air, where it at some point became all about target area saturation, you needed to spew lead out quick. 

Which, by the way, brought us Gattling-system guns in the end...

I like to have the ROF somewhat realistic, at least on par to what you'd find in combat.  A ROF of 10 for MGs and Autocannons is a bit weak.  MGs and ACs should have a rate-of-fire equal to an assault-rifle, which is mostly the case except for the Type 92 MG. 

Using, kinetic only for 12.7, 20mm & 30mm does make sense.  I kind of liked the idea of a burst, for autocannons, as there are bursts in real life, but for simplicity, having autocannons do 8D10, with no burst, but only normal and AP rounds. 

Speaking of legacy-aircraft, I actually had a conversation with a homeless-guy about the rate-of-fire of a Soviet 30mm auto-cannon on a MiG-27 (Alligator-nose).  It's basically 60 rounds, per second and will basically run out of ammo within five-seconds.  I saw a video of the auto-cannon literally denigrate aircraft; also, when they would fire that weapon, the aircraft would start to come apart. Kind of a down-side. 


Also, China has an amphibious light-tank with a 105mm cannon on it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_05_amphibious_fighting_vehicle

8 hours ago, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

Hmm, some weird weapon, this M48 chaingun of yours

4d10 damage is for this odd 20/9mm APFSDS Barrett-Arasaka Light 20 used. Which is a gun Maximum Mike pulled kinda out of his backside, if you ask me.

.50cal machinegun is rated 6d10, and light autocannon (in the 20-25mm range) at 8d10. Though, true, the "RoF 10" listed in Maximum Metal is a so-so representation of the real autocannon's RoF.

A 75mm cannon does 8D10, so, a 20mm-round does as much as a 75mm cannon?  

A RoF of 10 is like, 200 rounds per minute; most MGs and auto-cannons are 550 rounds and above, per minute.  

Here's the next one.  The amphibious APC by GMZ (General Motors Zen); there's not much to this; it's designed to get infantry ashore. It's nicked-named the, "Charger", because it handles like a muscle-car by Dodge.  The Chain-guns rate-of-fire is unusual because when the vehicle is moving, it draws power from the gun and reduces the rate-of-fire. 

19 hours ago, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

I guess because there was not an option to make it partially-amphibious

. . .

Actually, yes; if it weighs over 15-tons, it's, "Partially", amphibious!

So I had to look it up; while playing Steel Panthers, I could have sworn I used an amphibious Soviet-tank with a cannon, but it looks like they just had a 12.7mm MG. 

And that's part of the marketing; it looks like an MBT, yet, it floats boys and girls!  

And the M24 Chaffee looks, like an MBT, until, you know, it gets hit by a 76mm round! 


Also, I don't know why I made it fully-amphibious; maybe because I saw a .pic on the MS-DOS game, Empire's manual of a floating tank; I think. 

Well, there was the Water Buffalo wit it's 75mm cannon and I believe the Soviets at an amphibious tank with a 45mm cannon; back in their day, they were main-battle tanks as most tanks would light!  Really, how well a vehicle does in combat, at least, literally, on paper, is what rules we use to determine the outcome.  

Using Maximum-Metal's Penetration rules, it's basically an IFV with a tank-cannon; probably won't survive long. 

Using Firestorm's rules, it probably will survive the longest and be the most effective against nudies, but vehicles it will have to slug it out until the SDP is depleted. 

Using Firestorms: Making it Dead Simple, it will be a little less effective.  

Going one step further and using Maximum Metal's ACPA System Integrity-checks for every hit, well, one hit could, knock out the vehicle since every component, included the main-body SDP would be subject to that 25% chance of knocking a system out with any SDP-depletion. 

Edit:  Just look at the .pic.  It looks like an MBT that floats! 

18 hours ago, Allen1 said:

This is very true, much like most of the European powers in WW I, the French in WW II and it seems like the Russians are doing in the Ukraine.  

BTW, I am working up the next arc in my current campaign (Return to Night City 2071) and your M45 Cushing Tank above looks like something I could use in one of my possible segments I am working on.  I may use it, if that's all right with you.

 

Go right ahead and use it!  Just let us know how the combat went.  As the Company's Board of Directors has assured us, the tank's armor, firepower and state-of-the-Art fire-control computer will win the day!!! 

14 hours ago, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

. . .

Not to mention, opposed landings like in WW2 are no longer a thing. So there's really no need to have heavy armor accompany the landing, providing direct fire support against enemy strongpoints directly at the beach...

True; but most people fight the next war using the last war's tactics. 

On 25/08/2022 at 13:06, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

. . .

 

I'd suggest going a different way (if you want to wrestle with Maximum Metal again).

1. Build on an IFV template.
2. Make it amphbious.
3. Give it enough armor to protect it against autocannons (typical guns used on modern IFVs... also, on attack aerodynes / copters).
4. Make the armor composite. t offers better protection against HEAT rounds - including anti-tank missiles.
5. Add explosive reactive armor.
6. Add laser (and for good measure, radar) warning systems, so it won't be easy to paint the tank for an ATGM.
7. Add defensive countermeasures - anti-laser aerosol, smoke grenade launchers and chaff launchers. Again, to make landing a hit on the tank difficult. Nb. many modern tanks use laser rangefinders, too. So it'll help your survivability in a tank-on-tank fight.
8. Add a hardkill defensive system against missiles (either Gatling or the explosive one). 

. . .

I am also thinking of upgrading a Type-63, Chinese with an ETH 85mm cannon (90mm) and all those upgrades, but with this tank, I had to keep it with, '80's technology.   That's why I hesitated with the targeting-computer.  I actually rolled up a good success with that.  That's why the computer is considered new technology and has drawbacks. 

I know that no real MBTs are not fully amphibious, but, the tank is, expected, to be an MBT for amphibious-landings. 

Long live Maximum Metal!

When I designed it, it had a few capabilities planned such as, 1. Being fully-amphibious as to keep up with amphibious APCs during an amphibious landing-operation. 2. Have an effective main-gun that was supposed to be stabilized, as with most American-tanks to enable it to fire when moving, but, it wouldn't fit in the tank so, they went to Dalton Industries and designed a very powerful and effective (too effective) fire-control computer that would allow the tank to fire when moving. 3. Having good armor and be able to keep up with APCs: It has a large engine and amphibious-capabilities so fuel was removed: the front armor is thick enough to stop all MGs, autocannons and most tank rounds*.

Design Notes: when I made it, I had to cheat. You can't make an effective MBT that is fully amphibious in Maximum Mike's rule-sets. It's armor and body would have twice as weak. So, I used an IFV-hull and the main gun is actually a howitzer, for the spaces. So, I cheated, hence all the drawbacks noted in the design (105mm being not effective as an anti-tank gun, etc.). An autoloader was considered, but it would have taken too much space and an extra-soldier would benefit the tank.

It's named after General Hunter Cushing, USMC.

*This is an outright lie. Any hit from close-range anti-tank round will penetrate the armor; it may not knock the tank out, but it will be damaged.

Back in the day, in the mid-90's when my friends and I were all playing Cyberpunk, the not-so-subtle greed was apparent, but we never really noticed it.  Now, the future has become the present and the greed is just outrageous. 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/what-happens-when-investment-firms-acquire-trailer-parks

I found that the d6 doing less damage in combat, was a good idea; I first read it in Shockwave, then, recently reread it in MM.  I kind of wanted to incorporate it.  

Part of my reasoning is that I like war-games and I think FNFF is a good-system, and want to apply it, as realistically as possible so I can resolve combat, in play, that is, in a set of defined rules and random die-rolls, to come to a conclusion based on such as to make the game a bit more enjoyable. 

I've always enforced combat-epistemology that is, you don't fully know how badly another enemy unit is damaged.  You may have fired your proton-torpedo, and it hit, but you won't know if you took out the main-bridge or, not. While playing a board-game, like Interceptor, I can't really because everything is common-knowledge, but, I can while I'm running a game and can record damage to the NPC-unit, etc.  

And I do want to get away from the bucket of dice.  I can't imagine having to roll for a 5.56mm Mini-gun. Other than it's lots of bullets, and like falling into a singularity, the rules break down. I never want to just, declare a PC dead, without a good, roll of dice, but, that's a lotta, lotta dice. 

System-integrity checks have a lot of applications in Cyberpunk (cyberware, guns, etc.) and even in Palladium's Robotech games. Right now, I'm thinking that every time a weapon or an engine is hit, there's always a one in ten chance of an explosion.