From:	Marc Renouf renouf@********.com
Subject:	SOTA
Date:	Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:07:59 -0400 (EDT)

On Mon, 12 Jul 1999, Gurth wrote:

> > Actually, you'll note that there's no SOTA for firearms.
>
> Okay, bad example (a classic case of typing before you think :)

No problem. I often suffer from that malady myself. :)

> That only means I have to adjust my example slightly. Take an armor jacket
> -- 5/3 armor, so it'll reduce the damage of a contemporary assault rifle
> to 3M. After some time, this will be a 1/3 armor jacket, but the exact
> same assault rifle is now only reduced to 7M. This does not feel right to
> me...

Okay, now you've lost me. What's so hard about this? Sure, the
rifle hasn't changed, but perhaps it's ammunition has. It's now firing a
type of ammo that's better at defeating modern body armor. So your old
armor jacket is going to stop correspondingly less energy from the rounds
that hit. The round may do little extra actual tissue damage (i.e. it
still has the same power level against unarmored targets) but it handles
armor better.
Also, realize that not everybody is instantly up-to-date on the
SOTA. I've had players encounter baddies that had fallen behind the SOTA
curve before, and it actually happens on a regular basis. Goons whose
armor is a little thinner, people whose electronics aren't exactly
up-to-snuff. Sure, heavy-hitters in the mega-corp league will have
cutting-edge tech, but most people won't. Keeping up with the SOTA
advances can be expensive, and the players should get both the benefits
and the drawbacks from it. It also makes cutting-edge tech more
interesting in the context of role-playing.
I dunno. SOTA definitely has some holes, but on the whole, it's
not a bad system. It does what's intended without getting crazy about it.

Marc