Re: Mission Creep - Was Re: The new US Army APC the Stinger

On Mon, Jul 01, 2002 at 02:19:08PM -0600, B Lin wrote:

>In the third case what do the design changes cost?  In real life it 
>costs a lot of time, effort and money to make major design changes, 
>especially as you get further along in development.

In my prototype campaign rules, I've said:

]Ship design
]
]Spend 2 x (ship RP value) to get a fully worked-up design and readiness
]to start construction. This takes one strategic turn.
]
]Ship modifications and refits
]
]A ship modification is treated as a removal and then replacement of
]components. Work out the point value of the removed components, and 
]that of those which are added. The cost of designing and tooling up for

]this refit is equal to twice the total of these costs - though as a
]bonus, this makes the post-refit design available for construction from
]scratch without paying the full design cost for the new class.
]
]For example, if you are removing a pair of beam-1s in order to insert a
]3-arc beam-2, the cost is (2 x (6 + 6)) = 24 points.
]
]The cost of actually conducting the refit is the same value as
]calculated above - twice the total of (removed + added) systems.
]
]Note that some elements may not be changed in the refit process:
]specifically, the total hull mass and the number of hull boxes.
]
]Sa'Vasku are a special case. They may refit a ship to a larger hull
]mass; if all components of the old ship are used in the new ship (i.e.
]nothing is removed), they need only pay half the cost noted above, both
]for design and for construction.

I'd be interested to hear comments.

Cheers,

R