Re: [OFFICIAL] new ideas!

On Fri, 28 Feb 1997, James Butler wrote:

[snip]

> I was just wondering if
> cost alone, with cost differing only by a few points, is enough to
encourage
> players to take one-arc weapons.

No, it isn't. In the basic FT design rules, by increasing the mass of a
weapon you also increase the hull cost and the cost for engines, and (at
least in my experience) these are the main part of the cost of a ship.
As
an example, on a thrust 4 Cruiser 1 extra available space means a MASS
increase of 2, for a cost of 4 (hull) + 2 (FTL) + 4 (engines) = +10. 

(This means that by increasing the mass for a weapon, the cost goes up
fairly fast - so fast that a fleet with cheaper (and thus more numerous)
broadside batteries has a fair chance of winning. In the battles I've
fought, honours have been about even between broadside designs and 
three-arc ships, although the tactics vary quite a lot between them.)

If it only costs me 3 points to get another fire arc for my A battery, 
of course I'll pay them! If it costs 13 points (3 for the extra arc, 10 
for the extra mass), I'll have to be a bit more careful.

However, if a descriptive design system (which was what James' and 
David's discussion was about) makes extra arcs cost a lot, it should
work 
pretty well. Multi-arc weapons are much more flexible than single-arc 
ones, and thus worth much more. All IMO, of course :)

Oerjan Ohlson

"Life is like a sewer.
 What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
 -Hen3ry