Re: [DS2] Points

From: "Oerjan Ohlson" <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com>

> >What something costs (money wise) is quite often different from what
> >its value is in combat. So you sort of have to define which of the
two
> >you think points in DS2 represent.
>
> Yes indeed. Hell, the sole reason for the tech progression we've seen
> over the past few centuries is that higher-tech gadgets are generally
> more cost-effective than lower-tech ones!
>
> >If economic, many of the suggestions about how expensive FCs and
> >stealth are have merit - a high tech stealth tank will cost lots of
> $$$.
>
> But, and this is a very important point: these systems wouldn't be
> deployed into combat at all unless their *combat value* was even
> greater, or at least thought to be even greater at the time, than
their
> cash cost.

I've done a fair bit of analysis - by no means all for gaming - on
optimal
force mixes, lo- and hi- tech.

One thing to consider: the cost of training and supplying troops. It may
be
that "High Tech Vehicle XY-1" is only 10 times as good as "Low Tech
Vehicle T-2". And XY-1 costs 2 mill, T-2 costs 0.05 mill. ( 1/40 of the
price).
BUT....
If they both require 5 crew, and it costs 0.5 mill per crewman to pay
and
train on T-1, and 0.21 mill to train on T-2, (ie 0.2 mill for basic,
then
0.3 vs
0.01 for advanced) Then the XY-1 is a real bargain.
This is typical of an advanced, highly-educated country. A lower tech
country which pays 0.0001 mill for basic training would prefer the lower
tech weaponry. Not merely that, but by having a vast amount of lower-
tech, easy-to-repair-locally parts, the odds are that out of 50 T-2s
you'll
have at least 4 working at one time, vs no chance with the XY-1. If T-2
is really cheap and unreliable, then you have to have good repair
facilities
as a matter of course: in a war you just have to do maybe twice the
maintenance of peacetime ( as you're taking a 20% loss of your tank
fleet
every month just in wear n tear).. But with the XY-1, it would be 100
times
the
amount.

I got a lot of respect from various 3rd world Scrambled-eggs types when
I
was
asked about what I thought of their purchasing. Especially since I was
giving
a demo of some very very expensive hi-tech stuff at the time. Showed em
a
few
models showing that while in some areas "Quantity has a Quality all its
own", by
doing this you can save your better-educated troops for areas where the
10x
price gives you 1000x the benefit.

What this all means is that the cost of a vehicle should be Nv*Ct+Cv. Nv
is
the
number of crew,  Ct is the cost of training each one in basic tasks, Cv
is
the
cost of the vehicle (including the wastage during training, possibly as
high
as 20%)

Different sides will have different Points budgets, and different Ct
values.
This means
that one side will have, say, $100mill to spend, and get most
bang-for-buck
by having
10 Hi-tech tanks, the other has $30mill to spend, and gets 100 lo-tech
ones - equal
effect. But it would cost the Hi-tech army $300 mill or more to operate
the
100 low-tech
tanks, if you get my drift.

Hence the shrinking squad size in the US Army, and increasing cost of
its
vehicles.