Re: Sa'Vasku Pre-Loaded Fighters

G'day,

 >Here's an idea for allowing Sa'Vasku ships to start with drone wombs
 >pre-loaded with fighter drones....
 >
 >Does this sound like a just price?  Any comments?

Sounds reasonable. I haven't had a chance to look at the price etc, but
the 
logic seems OK... maybe they were created long enough in the past that
the 
'wound has healed' or they actually came from another (off-board) 
vessel.... My first concern though (and something I'd have to think more

about) would be if this means some bright spark could bring on a womb
heavy 
vessel full of drones but not be paying the biomass penalty (and thus
isn't 
taking the disadvantage) of so many drones. Guess that's why the cost
would 
be so critical - as there's sort of a double/hidden cost to drone launch

beyond the physical biomass cost and womb space, there's also the loss
of 
PGs which often/always happens when you launch even a few grown drone 
groups - coming already prepared would remove that cost/constraint and
I'm 
not sure that's a good thing.

 >This could be extended to pod launcher nodes, at a rate of 3 points
per
 >pre-loaded pod.  The Sa'Vasku would still have to pay the energy for
the
 >first shot of any pre-loaded drone launcher nodes, but not bio-mass.

Nope don't like that one, drones I can see but not the pods. OK 
technically/theoretically its the same process different scale, mostly,
but 
I think this one could be far too easily exploited/twisted so I'd just
say 
that pods have too short a lifetime to be 'pre-grown' and stored. They 
don't suffer the time constraints drones do so the only gain you'd get
from 
coming ready loaded would be biomass wise and I think that's actually a 
dangerous thing to let the SV have as loss of biomass and the carry on 
effects is a crucial SV constraint/weakness.

 >This bio-mass could not be re-absorbed.

Do you mean pod/drone or both? So you can't leave pre-loaded pods full
and 
then use them as a biomass resource once you've been damaged? Yep OK can

see that one, but keeping track of which drone group you can/can't have 
back mid-battle could be a bit of a chore and a bit weird given our 
previous discussions on cannibalism ;)

 >I would also strongly suggest that the Sa'Vasku would only do this
when
 >they were at war and with only with ships in the front line.

Sounds reasonable, but from a gaming point of view how would that be 
defined.... scenario specific only and not for 'out of the box games'? I

know what you mean, I can just see it being something that's hard to 
actually govern/nail down generally game-wise.

Keep these good thoughts coming.

Cheers

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
GPO Box 1538
HOBART
TASMANIA 7001
AUSTRALIA
Phone (03) 6232 5018 International +61 3 6232 5018
Fax 03 6232 5053 International +61 3 6232 5053

email: beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au