Re: This 'A' battery is as good as any other 'A' battery. (LONG)

> > I did something similar, I think it was when I was doing Traveller
ships
> > many years ago. Each time I did a new class of ship, I generated two
> > modifiers. The first was the "class" modifier. This represented how
well
> > the class as a whole performed compared to the designers' plans.
Some
> > classes were real dogs, and others exceeded expectations. The roll
was
> > heavily biased towards the class performing as expected however.
Then,
> > for each ship in the class, I had a similar roll, but instead of the
> > baseline being the design specs, the baseline was the actual result
of
> > the class as modified by the first roll.

This is interesting too, because you could use this set of rolls to 
implement some 'mass production' rules. That is to say, you could let 
the 'class design' get off with saving some point cost (say shaving 
5%) in exchange for taking a die roll penalty (or contrariwise, by 
incrementing it 10% to get a die roll bonus). This would in effect 
represent over or under engineering in the design stage. 

Similarly, you could represent over or undermanufacture (manufacture 
with quality parts or cheap knock offs) by applying a modifier to the 
'individual ship' roll. 

So not only can you reflect the variances of individual ships from 
the design, or of two identical designs from each other, but you can 
also reflect the effects of 'cheaping out' for mass production 
reasons or of building 'cadillac' ships with plenty of testing, 
design and top notch equipment.  

Fascinating how such a simple suggestion can bring so much flavour 
into the game. That's what I like about the GZG games - rules 
simplicity (through the use of core rules) and intriguing 
complexities (through the use of simple options) rolled into one 
package. 

Tom. 

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