RE: [DS] Points system was [DS] Hidden Units and Recon by Fire

At 12:01 PM -0800 4/3/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:
>
>your first line says a lot.  Given that this is all about how armor 
>works in DS, there is a relevance gap between game mechanics and 
>reality.  In the long run, it would be possible, whether desirable 
>or not, to ALMOST[1] (I'll get to that caveat in a bit) completely 
>remove capacity from the vehicle construction system if points are 
>also used.  Why?  because a good point system should reflect the 
>combined effects of the vehicle, regardless of the means used to 
>reach that end.  Say you want a vehicle with X armor, Y speed, Z 
>other weapons systems, and n effective signature.  There are myriads 
>of ways, both within the current rules and using new rules, to reach 
>that end.  Make X Armor take up capacity.  Make it take up no 
>capacity, but cost more points.  No capacity, no more points, but 
>reduces speed - then allow an increase back to Y speed at cost of 
>capacity.  Less capacity left for Z weapons?  Build a bigger vehicle 
>in the first place, or allow for miniaturization of weapons.  A 
>bigger vehicle is easier to hit you say?  Allow stealth levels to 
>lower it back to n signature.	Or miniaturization.  But no matter 
>which system you use, if the points system is right, then the 
>combination of X, Y, Z, and n should cost the same number of points 
>no matter HOW it isd reached.	So why not just eliminate capacity 
>entirely for motive systems, Armor, signature, and weapons, and just 
>use a point system?  You can PSB any esthetic effect you want - my 
>heavy MBT with oodles of stealth may have the exact same weapons, 
>speed, and

[snip]

Hmm. The thing I'm trying to hit here is the ability to get a large, 
heavy, slow vehicle that is now slower because it has more armor on 
it than it did at the start of the design phase. Points are the final 
means of gauging something, we're looking at things before that.

If I take a given vehicle that is size 2, and armor 1 and then add 
more armor to it without changing anything else, it ought to go 
slower. Its the whole basic equation with armored fighting vehicles. 
Firepower vs speed vs protection. This is something that comes up for 
people like me (and designers, etc) who are comparing the various 
facets of their ferret vs someone else's ferret with the same engine 
and vs a WWII version of a very similar vehicle. The Mk1 ferret was 
called the field mouse and was considered the sports cars of the 
Armoured corps, the same isn't said about the Mk 4 Ferret with more 
armor and the same Rolls Royce B60 engine.

A Merkava is armored more than an Abrams or a Leopard. It is slower. 
It has a different emphasis. I'm not looking at Marks or Dollers 
here, just vehicle stats.

Remember, the original reason for this whole exercise was to provide 
an additional cost to armor on a given vehicle and push players to 
not have everything with max armor protection. If I can make a small 
recce vehicle with 1 armor and 2 size and still have a good amount of 
mobility, then the system should support that. If I make it a size 2 
and 2 armor, then I pay a tiny bit more per unit (3 points). Big 
deal. Everything is max armor. But, if that recce vehicle is now 
slower, and I have to use more capacity to speed it back up (or use 
capacity to make it go even faster at the original configuration) 
then I've added an additional dimension to vehicles that wasn't there 
before. It also cost more.

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