Re: Points, was Re: grav

John Atkinson wrote:

 >>M2), but the roof is admittedly lower... if you have
 >>to sit inside it for a long time every inch counts :-/
 >
 >Now, I don't know the internal layout of the BMP-3.
 >Is it more likely to roll into combat with the troop
 >hatch (ie: the one in the roof, if it is so provided)
 >open or closed?

The roof hatches are pretty big, but I wasn't allowed to open them when
I 
had my look-around :-( Whether they'd be open or closed depends on the 
current situation - if it is pouring down rain/snow/HE artillery/NBC 
agents/whatever they'd most likely be closed :-/

 >>You got it in one. But on the same note intelligence
 >>isn't any more expensive than inefficiency - which
 >>is part of the reason why the BMP-3 isn't vastly
 >>more expensive in real life than the Bradley is in
 >>spite of its lower profile :-/
 >
 >So the ramifications on a point system is. . .

...that the points system has nothing whatsoever to do with the
real-life 
manufacturing cost of the vehicle; instead it is only concerned with the

vehicle's battlefield performance. Which I've said about two dozen times
in 
this thread already.

 >>Remember: About half what I write to you is
 >>toungue-in-cheek. You just have
 >>to figure out which half it which :-)
 >
 >Where have I heard this one before?

Thought you might recognize it. Do unto others, and all that :-)

 >>>>Signature factor: D4 = 1, D6 = 1.125, D8 = 1.25,
 >>>>D10 = 1.375, D12 = 1.5
 >>>
 >>>Stealth makes a vehicle cheaper?
 >>
 >>Sorry, I don't get what you're referring to here.
 >
 >Oh, I mixed up your signature factors and size
 >classes.

OK.

 >I'm backwards.

I've noticed <g>

 >However, this does raise another question. By your
 >program, a HMMWV with a TOW II launcher is more
 >expensive than an M-113 varient with TOW II launcher
 >(M901, etc).

If the *only* difference between them is the signature, then yes - the 
HMMWV would, and should, cost more POINTS since it is harder to hit (and

thus harder to kill, and therefore more useful in combat). As it should
be, 
since the points cost attempts to measure the combat effectiveness of
the 
vehicle.

But the signature *isn't* the only difference. The M-901 has heavier
armour 
(it doesn't have much armour, but the Humvee doesn't have *any*), which 
increases its points cost compared to the Humvee - if you look at the 
sketched points system in my earlier post, 1 level of armour costs more 
points than reducing the signature by 1 step would. The M-901 probably
has 
superior overall mobility as well (inferior on roads, superior 
cross-country), which also increases the points cost of the M-901
compared 
to the Humvee.

 >Why? It doesn't make sense to me that a
 >truck would be more expensive than a much heavier
 >armored vehicle.

The only reason it doesn't make sense to you, is that you still seem to 
believe that I design points systems to reflect some sort of
"real-world" 
manufacturing cost.

Tell you what (and I'm fully aware that you might be surprised and even 
shocked by this revelation): I don't.

I design my points systems as tools for balancing scenarios, which means

that they attempt to measure how useful a vehicle is on the gaming
table. A 
vehicle which has a smaller signature than an otherwise identical
vehicle 
(same armament, same mobility, same armour etc.) is more useful on the 
gaming table than that other vehicle, because the smaller signature
means 
that the enemy has a harder time hitting it so it survives
correspondingly 
longer. More useful on the gaming table means a higher points cost.

 >>I can't really comment on that since I don't have
 >>Heavy Gear, but your description suggests that the
 >>Heavy Gear design system was unbalanced or
 >>biased towards Gears - in a fashion similar to how
 >
 >It was balanced towards marginally capable vehicles
 >and/or vehicles with glaring design flaws.

Such as? Well, "any walker" to begin with, but apart from that?

 >And most of the published vehicles couldn't have won a
 >competition run by any nation I'm familliar with.

Unless of course their *real-world manufacturing or procurement cost*
was 
so much lower than that of their rivals that the rivals simply couldn't 
compete :-) Like, eg., Sweden's purchase of several hundred ex-DDR
BMP-1s 
and MT-LBs...

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com
"Life is like a sewer.
What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."-Hen3ry

oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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