Designs systems

Brian writes:
> And Battle Tech, and most other games that offer "official" designs
> and a custom design section. "Official" designs tend to be more
> multi-purpose and usually are not built to exploit a particular system
> or rule. Custom designs sometimes are built to this purpose.

No, the problem with BTech (at least classic, I quit when the clans
came)
was not really the nature of the sample designs but the quite simply the
fact that the design system was broken.

E.g. there was no good reason to *ever* take less than maximum
armor. Some weapons (e.g. MGs) were not only suboptimal, but downright
dangerous to have (ever calculated how much damage an exploding MG ammo
bin does?)

The sheet mechs were built around the images in their licensed and house
artwork, so they ignored obvious clues like the above. Custom ones,
OTOH, 
chucked image and built for pure game effectiveness.

Likewise, in the old days of FT2 it was possible (downright simple, in
fact) to take any sheet ship and design a one that was better *in*
*every*
*way* for pretty much the same points. 

But this isn't the case with every game. Sky Galleons of Mars provides
very good sheet designs for example. DP9 systems look rather good. And
it
certainly doesn't *need* to be the case with any game.

I haven't tested FB design system enough to give an informed opinion,
but
it at least looks much better than the old system.

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