R P G Ammunition Database

AmmoDownload : RPG Ammo Database

This software calculates weapon damage and penetration on the base of muzzle energy and bullet diameter. It will generate a list with hundreds of ammo types based on a comparative value.

Example 1: In Mongoose Traveller an Assault Rifle does 3d6 damage. 3 x 3.5 (average of a d6) = 10.5. So the comparative value you should use is 10.5.

Example 2: In Call of Cthulhu an M16A2 does 2d6 damage 2d x 3.5 = 7. So the comparative value you should use is 7.

If your game system uses other damage dice use the following values 1d20 = 10.5, 1d12 = 6.5, 1d10 = 5.5, 1d8 = 4.5, 1d6 = 3.5, 1d4 =3.5

The results will be written into a file named Ammo.txt

I’ve been working on this APP for 25 years, and what started out as GDW’s FFS (Fire, Fusion & Steel) has evolved over the years into a database of nearly 400 types of ammunition.

It can be adapted to any game system, you simply enter a reference value at the start, in this case the damage a standard assault rifle like the M16 or the G36 does in the game and get a file called Ammo.txt which contains almost 400 pre-calculated ammo types based on this number.

If there is a 4 letter prefix in front of the ammo, it comes from a certain set of rules, TRAV for traveller, HOST for hostile, 2300 for 2300AD, etc.

After the type designation follows in many cases the number of a year, these data are usually taken from Wikipedia, the date is the year of the introduction.

This is followed by TWO damage values. Those who play GURPS, know that the diameter of the projectile increases or decreases the damage – after the armour was subtracted, the second value applies therefore to targets without armour.

Then there are the measurements on which the calculation is based, caliber (interestingly, the real diameter is usually different from the caliber), weight of the projectile, muzzle velocity and muzzle energy. Then follows a single number which indicates the data quality. 0 = calculated according to the FFS rules, 1-3 available data, where 3 represents what can be found in the Wikipedia.

The next block contains the penetration chances versus different standardized personal armor classes (look it up in Wikipedia) and finally the penetration values according to FFS.

The whole output is divided into several blocks, first ammunition for hand weapons, where the diameter of the cartridge is equal to the diameter of the projectile and then for rifle calibres where the diameter of the cartridge is larger than that of the projectile, i.e. that more powder drives the projectile.