Points values, uses thereof.

In message <199703101541.JAA03953@www.intelli.com> "Donald A. Chipman
III" writes:
> Points seem to be a
> measurement of relative combat value, not necessarily an assessment of
> material worth or technological advancement.	

Currently, that's not wholey true. Merchants cost way too much and
non-FTL combattants don't cost enough. Some utterly useless things
are given points values, like ortillery systems. Points values 
should attempt to represent tactical worth, although this is something 
of an impossible task.

> This is all well and good, but
> I've been trying to come up with campaign rules, and I don't think
that the
> point system, as it is now, accurately reflects a ship's consruction
cost,
> only how it will generally fare in battle against another ship.  Does
anyone
> have any quick and dirty ideas on this?

I suppose the solution would be to take the vessel's core statistics
and throw them through different valuation systems. The economic
construction cost thingy would probably be very dependent on the
background idea you have and the specifics of the campaign.

For an example, consider the "Traveller" background. Two ships might 
be considered identical in FT terms, while one has a "jump-3" 
capability, the other "jump-4" (goes further in the same time, gets
places that are more remote, make two jump-2's without refuelling). 
The latter will therefore be larger and cost more, and may even be 
built at different "tech levels".

Other factors might include mass construction over custom ships, or
scarce vital resources (e.g. lanthanum for jump drives in Taveller).
I really don't know where to start. Sorry.

-- 
David Brewer