[DS2] TD Design

"Alex Shvarts, Andrew & Brian Martin" <Al.Bri@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

	A turret mount weapon occupies size class * 3 capacity.
	A hull mount weapon occupies size class * 2 capacity.
    Therefore you can put more things into a vehicle with a hull mount,
or 
a
bigger main gun. A points cost differential isn't really required, as
the
capacity difference makes the difference.

In most designs you have spare "useless" space anyway so it is seldom a
big 
benefit. Additionally it does not address the issue that the points 
required to field a fixed MDC4 are the same as those required for a 
Turreted MDC4. The points are suppose to allow us to quantify the 
effectiveness of the AFVs we create. Clearly a fixed weapon is not as 
effective as a turreted one. Stuffing more gear into the hull just makes
a 
more expensive target. 

Take a size 3 MBT with an MDC4 Turreted costing 142 points. A discount
of 
20% on the MDC for a similar TD model would be 134 points. If you
exercised 
the proposed option of upgunning the chassis maybe you should pay full 
price for the new gun and remember to increase the fire con price as
well. 
As for the extra vehicle space I came up the idea of dedicating space to

armour to limit the chances that people would design size 4 TDs with
twin 
MDC5s and get additional armour! Then I thought if you are using vehicle

space then maybe you should increase armour on all sides by one.

    Hey, who shrunk the tank! You switched hull sizes! The TD variant 
should
stay the same vehicle size class as the MBT! That's what it's based on 
after
all! You're making a different vehicle with similar stats!

My apologies I did not make myself clear. I based the examples on models
I 
have, it is not the same vehicle with the turret knocked off. I was just

trying to extrapolate the classic TD principles into generic terms. Most
of 
us do not have turreted and hull mounted versions of the same sci fi
tanks. 
I think I wish I did though. As an aside if you did remove the fairly
large 
turrets from my MBTs you would likely want to call them size 2. My
examples 
were to compare a smaller chassis (size) TD and a larger MBT with
similar 
weapons and armour. 

Murray Baines (250)356-9668