Re: (fwd) Re: [FT] F***ters [was: Operational game]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003 22:56:24 -0800, "Eric Foley" <stiltman@teleport.com>
wrote:

>> That's assuming you're using KV, isn't it?
>
>Not at all.  It takes the rules set for what it is, in such
circumstances:
>a generic system that can work across many genres.

The scatterguns aren't exactly generic. Though they have a mass and
point
value that you can use in a human-based weapon, they aren't modelling
anything
I've seen in other sci-fi universes. I don't know of any universes that
use a
single shot, shotgun-like weapon. Most use things that look a lot like
PDS
versus fighters. 

>If your house rules are allowing soap bubble carriers and aren't
allowing
>scatterguns, then as far as I'm concerned, it's your house rules that
are
>screwed up, because the system allows a perfectly good anti-soap weapon
as
>it is.

Perfectly good as it's unbalanced in its own right versus fighters.
Stopping
one unbalanced weapon system with another unbalanced weapon system isn't
helping matters. The lowly PDS is way underpowered compared to
scatterguns and
fighters, for instance. If a point system says, "Such and such a weapon
system
is completely useless, use this other system instead," there's a problem
with
the point system.

Now, I understand the rock/paper/scissors balance that occurs in
wargames. I
play American Civil War games, and it's easy to see this between
infantry,
cavalry, and artillery. They each have different effects on one another,
so
giving one generic point total for infantry, for instance, means that
the cost
is going to be unbalanced with regard to either artillery, cavalry, or
other
infantry.

However, this is a different case. PDS has an anti-fighter capability
and an
anti-ship capability. So do scatterguns. Scatterguns are far better at
killing
fighters than PDS. They cost more than PDS, but their cost is not high
enough
to justify their abilities. They can engage multiple targets without an
ADFC,
and they have a much higher average fighter kill rate.

In order to bring fighters and scatterguns into balance with PDS, we
must
really lower the cost of PDS; increase the cost of fighters and
scatterguns;
change the capabilities of PDS and/or fighters and/or scatterguns. Since
we
want to also keep the Fleet Book ships as viable, we want to do this
without
making changes -- unless absolutely necessary -- to the number of PDS
and/or
scatterguns on ships and without playing around with the point totals.
This is
why getting fighters and anti-fighter defenses balanced is so difficult. 

Allan Goodall		       agoodall@hyperbear.com
http://www.hyperbear.com

"We come into the world and take our chances
 Fate is just the weight of circumstances
 That's the way that Lady Luck dances
 Roll the bones." - N. Peart