Re: Points, was Re: grav

John Atkinson wrote:

 >>More useful on the gaming table means a
 >>higher points cost.
 >
 >Is that necessarily true? Under DSII rules, a
 >vehicle's signature has no effect vs. artillery, which
 >is what I generally use to kill off swarms of annoying
 >Size 1 vehicles with GMS.

Which takes longer to kill: a vehicle against which you have to use 
artillery because your direct-fire weapons have difficulties hitting it,
or 
a vehicle against which you can use both artillery *and* direct-fire 
weapons effectively?

 >My point in saying this is to say
 >that any points cost is necessarily going to be
 >unbalanced in certain situations.
...
 >If you restrict your analysis to
 >"how is it affected by direct fire weapons" then you
 >could come up with a 100% accurate solution, but once
 >you introduce combined arms into the equation, you no
 >longer have anything but rough guidelines.

Sure, I'm fully aware of this. In fact, that's exactly why I *don't* 
restrict my analyses to merely "how it is affected by direct fire
weapons".

Adding to Brian's comments:

Which points system do you consider to be better: the one which is exact
in 
some cases and gives rough guidelines in most others, or the one which 
gives rough guidelines in a few lucky cases and is outright misleading
in 
the rest?

I very much prefer the former. If the points system is to give even
rough 
guidelines for scenario balance, it has to measure the combat
performance 
of the various units in some way. If you just give them arbitrary points

costs - and any "real-world manufacturing cost" in a SciFi setting are
just 
that, arbitrary - you'll need massive luck not to end up with a points 
system which is completely misleading... yet that's exactly what you
(John) 
are asking for.

 >>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...
 >
 >You only make that sort of purchase because you don't
 >actually intend to fight a war.

No, you make that sort of purchase because BMP-1s and MT-LBs are far
better 
protected against shrapnel than the WW2-vintage soft-skin trucks you had

before, and because 800+ BMPs and MT-LBs move far more people than the
<50 
CV9040 you could've bought for the same money :-)

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."