Re: [FT] Tech Trees

Tomb wrote:

 >I've seen some people simulate older FT
 >designs (Dean G?) using waste space. This is
 >fine if all you are simulating is dated tech across
 >the board. It sort of is a good generic way of
 >handling older designs, though it would have
 >been nice to see some % quantification on how
 >much more space you should use per year or
 >whatever to give an across the board fair use.

In order to provide an exact percentage, I'd like you to specify:

1) Which specific power you're talking about (not all powers had access
to 
the same equipment at all times)

2) Which specific tech systems you're talking about (not all systems
have 
been reduced in size by the same amount over time).

3) Depending on how good metallurgists the builders were, the ship's
hull 
integrity is likely to go down as well as the ship ages - ie., the ship 
loses hull boxes "permanently" as it gets older :-/

Of course, then you need to take into account that many of the older 
designs have been upgraded with more modern equipment over the years, so

you need to know both when and where the ship itself was built and when
and 
where the updated tech systems were designed, etc.

Having said that, Dean's obsolecent/obsolete designs typically "waste" 
around 2-3% of the TMF (or 1 MASS, whichever is more :-/ ) to represent 
their age. Most of these old ships are supposedly from the 2nd Solar War

period.

 >OTOH, what if you're trying to simulate different
 >tech progressions? You have (as I see it) two
 >areas you can approach this from: Limiting
 >system types by "tech level" and affecting the
 >costs and or masses by the same degree.

Limiting systems is easy. Changing the masses and costs pretty much 
requires you to use fractional masses, or else you'll get very big jumps
in 
effectiveness for the smaller systems.

Roger Burton-West wrote:

>(1) Don't allow mixed-tech ships (e.g. Stingers on a human ship),
>because I find them ugly

Is this experience talking, or untested gut feeling?

>and the rules would need to be seriously rewritten to balance them.

I agree wrt the Sa'Vasku; they're too different from everything else to
be 
mixed easily.

I strongly disagree wrt Phalon and Kra'Vak tech. It is designed to mix 
easily with human tech, and priced accordingly.

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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