Re: [GZG] John's Shipbuilding

[John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 1/15/06, Oerjan Ariander <oerjan.ariander@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Tom Barclay wrote:
>
> ...an excellent post to which I agree 100%. The main purpose with this
> reply is to emphasise that the FT points system - at least in its later
> iterations - is intended precisely as a *tactical* points system, with no
> attempts to "campaignize" it.

Yup--and a campaign "points cost" system needs to take into account a
wide variety of factors.  The ones I can come up with off the top of
my head:

Construction time
Availability of construction facilities for larger ships.
Crew manning requirements (the campaign balancing factor for fighters)
logistical/resupply issues (which is a whole tree of issues to itself)
Maintinence
Actual cost of ship
Production bottlenecks--I'm thinking of the production of the large
main guns for capital ships early 20th/late 19th century.  Highly
specialized production requirements which cost bundles of money, went
slow, and was a cap on how fast your ship construction program could
be.

I'm sure there are a lot more--and for second tier powers the
situation is worse if they are not capable of producing indigenous
electronics suites or other high tech components.

>  >That would cut 12 points off the cost of that ship, and for the cost of a
> dreadnought (now 1204
>  >points) I could buy 100 of the little buggers.
>
> No, you couldn't: the missile boat in question originally cost 48 pts, so
> if you reduce that cost by 12 pts it still costs 36 pts. That gives you a
> mere 33 missile boats against the 1204-pt SDN, not the 100 John expected -
> and 33 missile boats are by no means impossible odds for a well-handled SDN.

A slip of the fingers--typing faster than I was thinking.

A mere 33. . .given that it takes 10 on-target salvos doing average
damage to completely destroy the dreadnought in question, I would
suggest that the odds are well more than 50/50 in favor of the missle
boats.  At 17 to 1, the odds are much closer to even.

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

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