Re: DS/SG vehicle construction

No, I'm not fully back on-line yet :-( This post is therefore an
illusion :-/

Matthew Smith wrote:

>Does anyone else think that it's about time the vehicle construction
>rules from DS2/SG2 received a re-vamp?

Yep. That work began quite some time ago, but I'm afraid that you'll
have to wait 'til DS3 or so before you see the results :-/

>The biggest weakness in the current system,
>IMO, is the required split into 5 size classes. 

That's the most obvious weakness, but from a game-balance point of view
it's hardly the worst one. Several others compete for that position -
eg. that there's absolutely no reason whatever not to put the maximum
possible armour on your vehicle or use any FCS worse than "Superior"
(as both armur and Superior FCS are seriously underpriced), that
Stealth is heavily overpriced for all vehicles, etc :-/

>Whenever I'm designing a 
>vehicle, it always seems that I have a few spare points left over (not
too >problematic) or that the total is just 1 or 2 points over the
capacity for the >vehicle size class. As far as I'm concerned, the most
important thing to do >in a new construction system would be to abolish
these, in favour of being >able to choose any capacity you like, but
obviously this throws up >problems in the game since so much is based
around size class. What >do you guys think?

Simple. Total up the capacity of the stuff inside the vehicle, divide
by 5, and round any fractions up.

>Something for Mr. Tuffley to put in the re-release of DS2, when it
>happens?

If the DS2 vehicle design system is updated, and I certainly hope that
it will be, then the resulting game won't be a re-release of DS*2* any
more than FB2 was a "re-release" of More Thrust. It'll be a completely
new edition - ie., it'll be DS*3* :-/

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."