Re: [DSII] Heresy

On Thu, 04 Apr 2002 11:37:13 -0500, Indy <kochte@stsci.edu> wrote :

> I dunno. I mean, I do see your point, there isn't the same vast
variety
> of options as there are in FT ships, but I still have some variety.
You
> can limit this by not giving all your tanks fusion plants for engines.
> That'll limit some of the weaponry you can mount automatically.
> 
> > Doing my own designs, and self-limiting myself to Enhanced Firecons
for most vehicles (Basic is for low -tech, Superior for ultra-tech),
> 

Well, yeah.  Frankly, I try *not* to build the ideal vehicle -- if that
kind of thing was what I wanted, I wouldn't have purchased a whole bunch
of wheeled 
minis at ECC.  Everyone's got flaws.  Sometimes I don't buy the armor up
to the maximum level, maybe I'll put an undersized weapon in that
turret, or I'll 
pick slow tracked instead of fast.  Perfect is, like you say, boring. 
I'd rather have a force with character any day of the week.

What I was getting at, though, is that when I *want* to design that
Platonicly ideal tank for a given scenario, it's always the same. 
There's a good bit of 
variety at the low end of the scale, but not so much at the high end. 
This may well be realistic -- it's not my area of expertise, by any
means -- but I'd like 
more possibilites for "flavoring" the high-tech guys.

As I said a few minutes ago, though, getting rid of a lot of the
restrictions will allow me to do this.

> > Solution?  Beats me. 
> 
> What I mentioned above. Use different engines; that can dramatically
> change your weapons load-out. For my UNSC Colonial Armed Forces I
> have the majority of the tanks as NON-Grav (too far away from repair
> facilities; too expensive to maintain too many of them), and only a
> few have fusion engines (the Grav-mobile units, a very few others).
> Most of the tanks are hydromagnetic turbine, which limits the use
> of MDCs as well. So if I want a heavy-hitting gun, I am forced to
> go with HKPs (my Lahavs, Haifas, and Semtacs all use HMT engines,
> and use HKP guns). But they have their drawbacks/restrictions that
> MDCs don't, but hey, nothing's perfect. Right?  :-)

Certainly not!	Not anything that I know of, at least.	
 
> Now, this isn't an ideal solution. But it's an option. The ESU force
> that I am designing concurrent to my UNSC brigades have somewhat
> better units (being a little closer to their repair/supply
facilities),
> and have more fusion drives and MDCs than the UNSC counterparts - but
> unless it's a special vehicle or weapon, all have enhanced firecons.

Problem #2: I'm not desiging with any consistent background.  I tend to
have a vague idea of background for a given scenario, but I don't have
any 
particular future history in mind -- all I'm sure of is that I'm not
using anyone *else's*, since none of them allow me to do exactly what
I'm aiming for.  Time 
to change that, perhaps....

-- 
John Crimmins
johncrim@voicenet.com