Re: (FT) Point Value for Hulls

On 30-Mar-01 at 16:53, Bif Smith (bif@bifsmith.fsnet.co.uk) wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael Robert Blair <pellinoire@yahoo.com>
> To: <gzg-l@scotch.csua.berkeley.edu>
> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 12:33 PM
> Subject: Re: (FT) Point Value for Hulls
> 
> 
> > If you are going to vary point cost based on mass them
> > the bigger the ship is the LESS you should pay per
> > point of mass.
> >
> > Smaller hulls are more expensive to build per tonne
> > than larger hulls - economies of scale. One large ship
> > is much cheaper to build and operate, especially
> > operate, than any number of smaller ships carring the
> > same aggregate mass of cargo.
> >
> > The battle line wins again!
> >
> > Michael
> >
> This is something that I have been thinking about since the FB design
rules
> came out. The first is the crewing costs and therefore the running
costs of
> civilian ships and freighters. I may have missed something, but the
crewing
> requirments of ships (all ships, not just millatary) is based on their
hull
> size/mass. This should be altered to a lower figure for civilians of a
mass
> figure plus something. What I`m trying to say is their should be some
> advantage (in crewing costs at least) to running large civilian ships.
The
> other thing about large ships is they should cost more to build in the
> first place due to the longer construction times and the interest on
the
> capitol to build them. This would be a way a capitol ship would cost
more
> than a escort. I leave better minds than mine to work out the figures
<G>.

The problem here is bigger ships cost less per ton than smaller ships.
Otherwise why would oil companies build super-tankers?	In a one-off
game expect big ships unless something artificial is done to stop
them.  In our campaign we limited big ships with upkeep costs
of (Mass * .06)^1.6 in NPV.  This was pretty bogus also but we wanted
to force smaller ships and the upkeep on my BDN was painful.