Re: [DS] No Capacity was: Points system (fresh)

> Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 16:37:25 -0800 (PST)
> From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
>
> Other questions on the size vs. signature debate:
>
> Bridges and their MLC.  Let's say I've got a crappy
> little wooden bridge, and a highway bridge on the same
> table.  Let's say that the wooden bridge is rated to
> handle a 3 ton load, and the highway bridge is MLC
> 100.	Let's say that I'm defending this river.  I've
> got basically 4 threats.
>
> 1)Air Assault.
>
> 2)Assault Boats.
>
> 3)Wooden Bridge.
>
> 4)Highway Bridge.
>
> Now, with conventional forces, I know that the first
> three methods can only use light forces.  Any tanks
> have to roll over the highway bridge.  So the problem
> then becomes, can the defender project enough force
> over the river to secure the crossing to push his
> tanks over?

Or skim straight over the river with those big Soviet Hovercraft and
roll the tanks straight off.

> If your Uberbicycles with the firepower of an MBT are
> in the equation, then all of a sudden I have to worry
> about a blackhawk full of MBTs landing all over the
> place, or driving across this rickety bridge, or
> troops putting their Uberbikes on assault boats.  Bad
> news, and if I don't know that he's got that
> capability, then ALL the points balance in the world
> won't save me, especially since with a scenario like
> that he's going to outpoint me considerably (unless he
> is stupid).

Which is why the first rule in the Silhoette VCS is vehicle stats
should be limited by common sense as to what is approriate for the
setting.

Thus no tanks with contiuous fire laser weapons in HG and all the
tanks in Gear Krieg having Large sensor profile and ineffiecient
controls.

Does cause some problems with the munchkin tendancy.

> Oh, and that does bring up the issue of air assault.
> How do you balance the fact that a small, light
> vehicle is MUCH easier to stuff onto a
> helicopter/VTOL/Shuttle and land in the wrong place?
> Are you going to arbitrarily limit VTOL capacity by
> points?  And how does that interact with a vehicle
> that's really dirt cheap but big?

Silhouette does it by having a default size based on what the vehicles
carrying and making you pay [if your paying money rather than points
value points] to reduce its size. Thus a tank the size of a heavy
motorbike will cost 7 or 8 times what the tank would at normal size.
[Actually silhouette says you can't shrink a vehicle to that degree.
one fifth the size [which works out at one tenth the weight is the
limit.]]