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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>

> > > Or 1d6, a 6 is "5 + reroll".  "This frigate that was
> > > budgeted at 65Mcr, uh, well, cost overruns, um,
> > > looks more like 111MCr....at the moment.	We're
> > > still a year behind schedule, though."
>
> John replied:
> > "Very interesting.	We've awarded the revised contract
> > to your competitors who submitted the second-best bid.
> >  You are under arrest on suspicion of high treason

Hmmm,,,,

This means that the competitor will have to start tooling up and
collecting
materials now. Another delay of unspecified length. Even if he takes
over
the first companiy's dockyard, his people will have to get the hang of
the
place. Did each competitor offer his own design or were both bidding to
a
common design ? If the designs were different, which one is he supposed
to
build ? Can he build company A's design ? At what cost ?  Does he have
the
capacity now to build the frigates ? They may be busy with other
projects,
or gone bust.

Well, you just mentioned you don't like campaigns with economics ;.)

> The AE approach is more along the lines of financial penalties for
> over budget and over schedule.  This means that bids tend to be padded
> a bit, as insurance, but it also means that we get predictable
> numbers.

But you still buy from the lowest bidder,  do you ? Which means
companies
must bid low (and risky), and may go bust if they risk too much. What
happens to the project then ? Another bone of contention is any change
to
the design after the contract is agreed on. Is it part of neccessary
development (to be paid by the contractor) or a change request (to be
paid
by the buyer) ? And now that he has the main contract, he can charge
anything he wants for the upgrades. IIRC, there have been fixed-price
defence contracts in the US. Don't think they actually worked that well.

Greetings