Thrust costs

I've been thinking of a way to
make break point cruisers and escorts less 
advantageous.

Have each point of Thrust cost:
Mass * (Mass ^ 0.5 / 10 ) points.
A 25 Mass Cruiser would pay 25/2 build points per
point of thrust, or .5 Mass.

A 1 Mass Scout would pay .1*Mass / point of Thrust
  4 Mass Corvette	 .2*Mass ""
  9 Mass Frigate	 .3*Mass
 16 Mass Destroyer	 .4*Mass
 36 Mass Heavy Cruiser	 .6*Mass
 49 Mass Battlecruiser	 .7*Mass
 64 Mass Battleship	 .8*Mass
 81 Mass Dreadnought	 .9*Mass
100 Mass SuperDreadnought 1*Mass

You could also fuzz the boundaries between classes
by making Cruisers pay +20 for the extra damage
control party and fire control system, and Capitals
+40.  Put a few restrictions on the systems
available for Escort classes, like no A-Beams, and
restrict certain advanced weapons to Capital ships
and a lot of the problem goes away.

The biggest difference is that fast small Capital
ships become a lot more cost effective, and a
wide spread of masses for Capital ships can work.

Now, I may be reinventing the wheel here, but I
think a simple decimal modifier for the cost of the
engines is the way to go.

Michael Sandy