Sci-fi game vehicle description/construction (was Re: Binary Propellant Guns)

In message <38965EA8.51DEAF0F@home.com> Thomas Barclay of the Clan
Barclay writes:
> And Oerjan - stop bemoaning the weakness of the DS2 vehicle
construction
> system. The SG2 system (DS2 lite I'd call it) is far worse. I'd say
"Get
> up there and write us a good one, oh numbers wizard who knows too much
> about modern AFVs...". :)

I always liked the old one from Dirtside (meaning DS1). To
paraphrase wildly it said: "Look at your miniature... how big is
it, what mobility does it have, what armour do you think it should
have, how big is the gun, is there a turret, does it have any of
the following equipment (APFC, PDS, ASW etc) how many troops does
it carry (etc. etc.)... Now add up the following numbers and
that's your point cost." There were no spaces to cram the
equipment into, if it was there on the model, or just generally
seemed reasonable then you could have it. The system was purely
descriptive. You could abuse it you felt so inclined, but then
everybody could just point at you and laugh.

I suppose a more involved version of this would be Heavy Gear's
laborious construction process, but I find the process of adding
additional random flaws and the calculations of "threat value" and
the dollar cost (to the nearest *cent*) to be ludicrous beyond my
powers of description.

One interesting design system that is quite like DS2 is that of
Mecha Carnage, in as much as each vehicle has spaces that you fill
based on the size of the vehicle... but it is also based on the
"tech level" of the vehicle eg. high-tech stuff is smaller/
lighter. You could bodge this onto DS2 as it stand quite easily.
If low/medium/high tech DS2 vehicles had (5/6/7 * size) spaces to
fit stuff into them, then high-tech tanks would gain some slight
advantage over low-tech vehicles of the same size.

-- 
David Brewer