Re: [VV] Gate Defense

On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 10:12:28 -0000 (GMT), Samuel Penn
<sam@bifrost.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Actually, no. If the wormhole isn't worth defending, then it's
> not worth defending. Since there is a discussion about how to
> defend it, it is assumed that it is worth defending.

You're still putting the cart before the horse.  If the wormhole can
be bypassed, then it isn't worth defending.  If it can't be bypassed,
then get into the minutia.

> > Point Two:
> > Some people are filling my mailbox arguing (largely ignorantly)
about
> > TACTICS when you havn't even nailed down precisely how the PHYSICS
> > work.
> 
> I think the physics is mostly irrelevent, since it comes down to
> how the game system works - which yes, is based on someone's idea
> of physics, but...

It's no more irrelevant than the study of ballistics is irrelevant to
the firing of artillery.

Sure, from an operater standpoint you don't need to know the precise
physics of it, but from a designer standpoint you absolutely must.
 
> ...any game system is going to be (vaguely) balanced. An asteroid
> with a base built into the middle of it is going to be relatively
> cheap from a physics standpoint, but will have thousands of points
> of armour/hull (possibly millions). A game system which costs
> according to hull strength (as FT does) is going to break as soon
> as you bring in fixed defences like this.

Actually, what burns you on points is weapons.	That's why a system
defense destroyer costs more in points than does its FTL cousin.  The
question you have to answer to determine whether or not STL or
stationary defenses make sense is: Does the points cost reflect
economic reality?

Obviously, if you purchase ships in a campaign system according the
point value as given in FTFB, you have declared that the point system
DOES reflect economic reality and that static defenses are a huge
flaming waste of money because mobile starships are actually cheaper
than the same mass in asteroid bases.

> Irrelevent. Those places aren't this place. Different rules
> and different physics.

Not irrelevant.  Have you read them?  How many of the issues people
are bickering about in minute detail are addressed at great length in
those novels?  90%+.

John
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani