Re: DS3 points systems and features

On Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 12:45:04PM -0800, John Atkinson wrote:
> system) and Heavy Gear's system.  Which is designed
> for anime-style silliness with walkers and which
> doesn't react well to trying to simulate modern
> military equipment either.  The main problem I have

[takes away John's crack-pipe]	You really ought to cut back on this
stuff, it'll kill you.	And its a thermal tag for target shooting.

Heavy Gear has, very likely, the most /coherent/ system for the scale
of modern military equipment at its complexity level, even compared to
custom-designed systems meant to cover the medium.  Put your hand over
the Gear section for 5min, and notice that the rest /is/ a modern
military equipment game.  Gears barely verge into that territory in a
real sense.  The problem with HG is its complexity; it works much
better as a squad-level game than something more, in my opinion,
simply due to the highly detailed nature of the underlying
representation.

> comes with the exponential cost of "perks", where a
> military vehicle with the features I expect in a tank
> (you know, NBC system, etc) become astronomically
> expensive.  In fact, the primary Southern MBT is not
> NBC sealed and doesn't have a machine gun (although
> there is a feature to mount one in a pintle mount). 
> Still costs 1.5 mil, BTW.

Yes, John, we know you're the final arbitor of everything a design
system should be.  Do sit down now.

(You, of course, neglect to mention what it /is/ armed with, and why
that its expected to be operating in the field with a /large/ number
of cheap support infantry, thus somewhat reducing the need.)

> Hrm. . . So what you're saying is that any pretence at
> point balance is inherently flawed and depends on
> scenario design and usage?

In truth?  Yes.  But damn if its not a handy guideline to go by until
you get enough experience under your belt with a system to get to that
level of understanding.

-- 
Alexander Williams (thantos@telocity.com)   |	 http://www.chancel.org 
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