Re: Sa'Vasku Pre-Loaded Fighters

on 6/29/00 23:07, Beth Fulton at beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au wrote:

>> Here's an idea for allowing Sa'Vasku ships to start with drone wombs
>> pre-loaded with fighter drones....
>> 
>> Does this sound like a just price?  Any comments?
> 
> Sounds reasonable. I haven't had a chance to look at the price etc,
but the
> logic seems OK... maybe they were created long enough in the past that
the
> 'wound has healed' or they actually came from another (off-board)
> vessel.... My first concern though (and something I'd have to think
more
> about) would be if this means some bright spark could bring on a womb
heavy
> vessel full of drones but not be paying the biomass penalty (and thus
isn't
> taking the disadvantage) of so many drones. Guess that's why the cost
would
> be so critical - as there's sort of a double/hidden cost to drone
launch
> beyond the physical biomass cost and womb space, there's also the loss
of
> PGs which often/always happens when you launch even a few grown drone
> groups - coming already prepared would remove that cost/constraint and
I'm
> not sure that's a good thing.

Interesting idea.  I'm a bit against this idea (not that it doesn't have
merit) because there's more to the cost of mass on a ship other than
it's
base cost.  There's the cost of the engines (thrust and FTL) and
shielding
nodes as well as Beth pointed out.  I believe the overall fit was how
the SV
were viewed when the point costs were balanced.  Just my personal
feelings
on matters such - I'll have to wait till sometime next week to run a
little
numbers comparison though...

BTW, I don't believe SV ships loose PGs from biomass consumption. 
However,
I've been known to be wrong before.  ;-)

>> This could be extended to pod launcher nodes, at a rate of 3 points
per
>> pre-loaded pod.  The Sa'Vasku would still have to pay the energy for
the
>> first shot of any pre-loaded drone launcher nodes, but not bio-mass.
> 
> Nope don't like that one, drones I can see but not the pods. OK
> technically/theoretically its the same process different scale,
mostly, but
> I think this one could be far too easily exploited/twisted so I'd just
say
> that pods have too short a lifetime to be 'pre-grown' and stored. They
> don't suffer the time constraints drones do so the only gain you'd get
from
> coming ready loaded would be biomass wise and I think that's actually
a
> dangerous thing to let the SV have as loss of biomass and the carry on
> effects is a crucial SV constraint/weakness.

The more I think of it the more I'm incline to say no to prepaying for
the
biomass.  It's a bit more difficult but the same effect can be gained by
building the same ship with a little more biomass (and you possibly get
a
little longer threshold rows to boot).

--->8--- (snip)

>> I would also strongly suggest that the Sa'Vasku would only do this
when
>> they were at war and with only with ships in the front line.
> 
> Sounds reasonable, but from a gaming point of view how would that be
> defined.... scenario specific only and not for 'out of the box games'?
I
> know what you mean, I can just see it being something that's hard to
> actually govern/nail down generally game-wise.

Nice background reasoning.  I have to agree with Beth on this though.

> Keep these good thoughts coming.

Most definitely keep these ideas flowing.

Kevin Walker
sage@bresnanlink.net