From: Jim Ogle (Ks. Jim) <jogle@aoc.nrao.edu>
Subject: Re:  Need help with Nautilus
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
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Organization: University of North Texas
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Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 22:37:02 GMT

Ian writes:

> I'm putting together an adventure where a small group of SK are racing to
> prevent Mobius from getting his hands on the Nautlius (Jules Verne's not USA'
> and while I have a set of deck plans and the basic performance levels down i
> need some halp evaluating the exact Toughness of the hull and how much damage
> it does when it hits something. Here is what I know about the how well it
> performed in the book can you tell me Toughness and Ram damage?

I'll give it a shot.

>1. In the book the Nautlius was hit several times by Tech 19 cannon fire which
>    bounced harmlessly off the hull and was refered to as "Useless shot"

The 111 ton naval gun in the Kanawa Hvy. Weapons Catalog has a DV of
30, as does the Tech 19 torpedo in selfsame catalog so somewhere in
the high 20's to low 30's is probably a good start for the Toughness.

> 2. Nautlius went down to further in the sea then even the Trieste did (over 7
>    miles down) with no trouble

Don't have any idea on how psi translates into TORG though.

>3. The Nautlius weighs 1500 tons submerged and has a top submerged speed of 50
>    mph

That would give it a weight value of 31 and a speed value of 12.

Weight tends to be within a few points of a vehicle's Toughness
(though not always) so a value around 30 still looks good.

> 4. In the two instances where the nautlius rammed a warship the nautlius only
>    suffered a bare minimum of damage (one busted engine lever that was fixed
>    within hours) but sank two armored warships (although it did hit them in
>    their unarmored hull and was not impeeded in it's passage even during the
>    collision (it went all the way through the warships and came out on the
>    other side)

A Tech 18 coal steamer has a Toughness of 30, which seems a bit high
considering that makes it immune to every weapon of its era...it would
be reasonable to assume a warship would have around a 30 though (of
course, this is ignoring any actual armor adds, which WEG does anyway
with vehicles.)  

Hitting below the waterline could be considered a vital blow (no
armoring there) so the effective Toughness would be lowered by four.
If we then assume an effective Toughness of around 25 or so, the
damage value will have to be around 38-40 or so minimum (Mortal Wound
level for an ord).

> 5. Nautlius was DESIGNED as a submarine ram and should do more damage than just
>    collison damage 

Probably would reduce the damage that the Nautilus would take in a
ramming maneuver, maybe some extra damage to the target (ala armor-
piercing perhaps).

> 6. Nautlius did end up surviving the Malestrom at the end of the book. 

Must have had a good Reality skill.  8-)

Ok, I'd give it a Toughness in the vicinity of 30, a speed value of 12
or so, and a ramming damage value base of 31 + 3 (just a guesstimate
for the ram) + relative speed value.

So if the Nautilus were ramming at full speed perpendicular to the
target's direction of travel (relative speed = speed of Nautilus)
you'd have a base damage of 46 or so, enough to rip just about any
ship to shreds.  Even if we eliminate the bonus from the ram, a 43
will still scuttle almost anything.

Kansas Jim (jogle@aoc.nrao.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg