Re: DS2 Balance and stuff.

Brian Bilderback wrote:

>>Very true. FCSs and Stealth really should be paid for as percentages
>>of the (rest of the) vehicle's cost much like Back-up systems already
>>are, but it is rather tricky to do this with FCSs - most players
won't
>>accept that the Superior FCS for a HKP/5 on a cheap tank is cheaper
>>than the Superior FCS for another HKP/5 on an expensive tank :-/

>But having to pay even MORE for the same FireCon because it's >mounted
on a Grav Tank instead of a Slow Tracked? Now I think you're >being
overly harsh.

Not at all - from the game balance point of view. The combat value of
the FC is multiplicative with the combat value of "the rest" of the
vehicle, and the mobility type provides part of "the rest".

But as I said, most players - you included, it seems ;-) - won't accept
such a solution since it is offends their sense of realism "and damn
the game balance" <g>.

>As for the stealth levels, they're already double costed, because
they're 
>costed for both the levels and the size of the vehicle (Level 1
stealth on >a class 1 vehicle is cheaper than level 1 stealth on a
class 5 vehicle).  
>This does make sense, because it takes more to hide a larger vehicle.
>But it doesn't seem to make sense to charge me even MORE for >stealth
if I mount a MDC than if I mount an HVC.

The same Stealth level buys them both the same (average) number of
"extra shots" that they wouldn't have lived to fire if they hadn't been
stealthed, but the MDC-armed tank can (on average) inflict more damage
with those shots than the HVC-armed tank can. If Stealth costs the same
for both tanks, putting it on the MDC-armed tank is better value for
money than putting it on the HVC tank. 

As a very simplified example, if you call the number of extra shots "X"
and the difference between the MDC and the HVC "Y", the MDC-armed tank
gets "X*Y" more value out of the points spent on Stealth than the
HVC-armed tank gets out of the *same* amount of points spent on the
*same* level of Stealth.

So yes, from the game balance point of view it does make sense. You can
get around it in other ways, eg by balancing the HVC and MDC costs for
*stealthed* tanks - which means that if you *don't* use Stealthed
vehicles, MDCs will be overpriced compared to HVCs. Such a Stealth
points cost is harder to get right than the multiplicative one - but
since the players never get to see this "extra points cost" fewer of
them will complain about it!

>From a *realism* point of view, which again is what you base your case
on, neither of these systems make sense at all - but the points system
isn't supposed to *be* realistic. It is supposed to reflect the actual
combat power of the vehicles involved to allow even battles between two
forces of the same total points value, and that's completely separated
from any "realism". 

Hell, the entire reason for technological progression in the real world
is that new technology is *NOT* identically cost-effective as old
technology! It is *better* - ie, you get more "bang for your bucks" if
you use the new stuff than if you retain the old unchanged.
Unfortunately you need to play large-scale campaign games (with time
scales large enough, or compressed enough, to allow the players to
develop and field new tech toys) to be able to get any sort of
correlation between "realistic" costs of tech systems from different
tech generations and their respective in-game points costs.

>Not to mention the conundrum of: Do you calculate the rest of the
>vehicle cost, then base FireCon on THAT number, then base Stealth on
>the NEW number, or vice versa?

If they're multiplicative it doesn't matter which order. A*B*C = A*C*B,
as long as you're not talking matrix algebra (and IMO any points
system, however accurate, which requires working knowledge of matrix
algebra is *way* to complicated!).

>Should Stealth affect FireCon, or should Firecon affect Stealth?

They reinforce one another, so they should both affect one another.
Which, of course, they do if they both are multipliers to the rest of
the vehicle cost rather than a fixed value :-)

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry