Starship hull penetration

[Carl Gleba]

Some ships (like the Protector) actually have a listing of how much M.D.C. per x squar feet. For example the Protector's outer hull is 200 M.D.C. per 40 foot area. There is no formula so use your best guess with what info has been listed.

Carl

[Braden Campbell]

We also decided a while ago that a starship is 75% armour.

So if the total MDC of the ship is somehow beaten down to -76% or more, then it's really all but dead. This is called Catastrophic Damage, and should see print in a Rifter very soon (ie. whenever Wayne gets a moment to read through the whole thing).

[DhAkael]

(If this has been handled before, forgive me. Just point me to the thread or page number)

I'm wondering how much MDC is required to simply punch a hole in the side of a starship's hull. Is it a fixed amount per ship type or, more logically, a percentage of the ship's total MDC? This would be a hole large enough for, say, a boarding crew to enter, or alternately, a crewman to cut himself an exit out of a vessel in a dire emergency (probably pretty hard, considering it IS a starship hull).

You could use a home-brew version of Armour-Piercing rules as well.

[DhAkael]

That gives me another idea. Why not just come up with a device to force phasd beings to materialize.

Both good ideas

[Esckey]

With regards to the MDC per X squared feet. It only lists it for the Warsheild and the Protector. The first ships in their catagories. I think its okay to assume that for a ship to be classified as a cruiser not only should it be a certian length and mass but also it should have a certian amount of armour per X squared feet

To my Knowledge the Warshield and the Protector are the only two ships in any of the PW books that list MDC for an area of hull

[Carl Gleba]

Do what most of the writers do and take your best guess. If you can come up with a workable formula go for it. I try and look at stuff like this from a GM's point of view. How much do I want to make my players work and how tough an obstacle should I put in front of them?

Carl

[Temporalmage]

I believe the reason why they use MDC per sq.ft. is because the ship is far too big for any of Phase World's weapon systems to destroy all at once.

Well, der. But it would still be helpful to have either a formula or a listing for the purposes I mentioned in my first post. This can apply to other Rifts settings as well, actually. In the Coalition War Campaign, there is a robot with a powerful drill mounted as one of its hands, and its stated as being capable of drilling into mega-damage fortifications. That nice, but I have no way of knowing how much I have to do in order to succeed.

It's been stated in several Palladium books that 10% of an items total MDC is all that is required to peirce it.
Example: A space ship has 5000 MDC. It gets hit with an Armor Piercing Missile doing 501 MDC. That's more than 10%, so the ship starts bleeding air, emergancy doors shut, peaple panic, etc.

Just remember that the 10% must be done in 1 single attack. Several differant attacks wouldn't necessarily be done to the exact same location, even using "called shots".

[Temporalmage]

Again, starships are supposed ot have double hulls, so you mean the penetration of the outer hull or both?

Seems the way Palladium does it is give an MDC value for "both" hulls, so 10% of that would blow a hole in it.

Of course the size of the hole is entirely up to the GM and exactly what did the damage should be a factor.

And of course the idea of two hulls is that there is material(s) that fill in the area between them. Such as insulation, wiring, fuelant tubes, etc. In fact making the "two" hulls as one large construction, hence why the hulls of some reletivly small starships have 1000's of MDC.

[Esckey]

200MDC per 40square foot area comes out to what? 5MDC per square foot? Doesn't look like it'll take much but with depth who knows if thats 5MDC for a square foot of sheet metal or not