FT III Ship design costs

At 09:53 PM 4/1/97 +0100, Jon at GZG wrote:

>Sorry, but I maintain this is even MORE likely to happen under the
original
>construction system; a thrust 8 big ship has the same weapons space
(and
>the same mass) as a thrust 2 one. If costing drives in Mass (as well as
>points), you have to tradeoff between thrust and weapons space, which
>doesn't happen in the FTII system. Please note that if we are changing
the
>system AT ALL, then we'll probably take the opportunity to juggle ALL
the
>factors (weapon mass, ship sizes etc.) to balance everything as well as
we
>can - so if you want to put everything on your capital ship that it has
>under the FTII system, you may well find you don't have ROOM left for
more
>than thrust-2 or so. You can go for a zippy high-g tincan with minimal
>weapons, or a hulking ironclad gunbus that steers like an arthritic
hippo.
>Or, of course, you can build something nice and sensible in between...
:) 

  I would like to see what you come up with, as I think about this, it
does
make some sense.  However, the old system did have the effect that a
large
ship had to pay a geometrically higher price for each level of thrust
(maneuverability) than a small ship, thus the point system balanced the
fact
that while a AA battery (Railgun, etc) was large and had only one arc, a
highly maneuverable big ship could negate this disadvantage and pound
destoyer squadrons to pieces at long range.  So since the old system
adjusted for this problem, I'm just worried that the new one may not.
  Phil P.
P.S.  There are historical situations where small ships ganged up on
larger
ships and destoyed them.  Torpedo boats come to mind, thus the invention
of
the Torpedo Boat Destroyer...  Now known as the Destroyer...  Obviously
I
can not show you where they were completely on their own, since most
fleets
in history are mixed...