Re: DS: Walkers

Symon Cook wrote:
> 
> In article <3E446D9B.C343A9B6@blueyonder.co.uk>, David Brewer
> <davidbrewer@blueyonder.co.uk> writes
> >Symon Cook wrote:
> >>
> >> Many years ago (pre Clan) I read a very interesting series of
Battletech
> >> design philosophy articles by a veteran player in a magazine. His
final
> >> article covered his discovery that a well designed force of GEV
could
> >> take out an equivalent or 'superior' force of mechs EVERY time. He
> >> apparently used to demonstrate this at clubs and cons. I was amazed
that
> >> actually Battletech had got something plausible.
> >
> >I recall these. I don't recall the publication name but I think
> >they were written by Glenn Wallbridge. For "design philosophy" I
> >would substitute "power gaming" or "minimaxing".
> 
> Depends if you can defend the production of inferior designs I
suppose.
> Not being a Battletech player, I couldn't tell the difference between
> rational optimized design and rules exploiting design.

Again, it's been a long time, but from what I recall of the early
background material there really was no capability in the Inner
Sphere to produce mecha of the styles proposed in the articles,
except, perhaps, for those Iron Wolves. The Battlemechs were
aristocratic family heirlooms from an earlier era that were
continually patched up and salvaged from defeated enemies.

Furthermore, the stock designs started out as pictorial designs,
often from Japanese cartoons, and fairly bristled with weapons
before the game authors ran them through the design process,
biasing the designs toward too many weapons (in the wrong
positions) and too little armour (and heat sinks), which is fine
as long as everyone chooses from the same pool of designs, or if
they were allocated per scenario.

Not using the sub-optimal stock designs would be something like
having the British Army of 1939 design and build newer and much
better tanks the day before the Germans ploughed into France. Some
SF games can justify this type of play (e.g. Car Wars) but most
really can't.

-- 
David Brewer

"The mentally disturbed do not employ the Theory of Scientific 
Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of 
facts." - P.K.Dick (from VALIS)