Re: Large mass adjustments, was Re: [FT] F***ters

Stiltman wrote:

> >The formula Laserlight gave a link to gives reasonable results up to
around
> >TMF 250-300; larger than that that the ships get more and more
overpriced.
> >I'd prefer that to the current situation where ships get more and
more
> >*under*priced as the TMF increases, though :-/
>
>I think the whole idea is just whack-a-ding-hoy, frankly.  As you
observed
>in a spot that I snipped, carriers don't at all get an advantage for
larger
>ships to speak of, and the proposed solutions here have the effect of
>actually making smaller carriers _better_ because they can carry more
>fighters for the same point totals proposed.  By my calculations, the
>classic "soap bubble" design would be able to stack up 21% more
fighters
>just by virtue of it being mass 12 under this system.

I thought you didn't consider some more fighters to be a problem? Just 
increase your scattergun loadout by some 20% and you should be fine! <G>

Seriously though, fighter bays and the fighters themselves are also 
re-priced which makes your calculation a bit incomplete (Noam's web page

gives you the overall idea of the concept, but I'm not sure if it has
the 
latest set of figures). These revised fighter and bay costs are still in
a 
bit of flux, but basically the cost of a fighter bay drops to ~1xMass to

reflect its lack of combat power when empty while the cost of an
individual 
standard fighter is increased to 6-7 pts or thereabouts.

>What I would much prefer would be some form of system where any given
hit
>you put on a ship has a certain chance to take down a system as
"collateral"
>damage, and find a way to make the probability about the same across
any
>size of ship. The trick would be to find the exact probability of a
system
>loss that would allow a larger ship with more systems to lose those
systems
>at the same proportion as a smaller ship with fewer systems, without
unduly
>complicating either the ship design process or the damage assessment
phases
>of the game.

Apart from the "any given hit" bit, you have just described the current 
threshold system - as long as each "hit" takes out one full hull row on
the 
ship it does everything you're asking for <g>

Unfortunately the "any given hit" bit complicates matters enourmously. 
While it isn't particularly difficult to figure out the probabilities
you 
*want*, it is rather difficult to create a game mechanic which *gives*
them 
at all - and attempts to do it without adding large numbers of die rolls
to 
the resolution of every single hit scored has so far proved total
failures 
:-( (It gets even more difficult if you're restricted to using D6s, of 
course, since you need at least two dice to create any probability less 
than 16.66%...)

>If that could be done, though, that would be a far superior solution to
any
>sort of exponential coefficient on hull mass values.

Amen to that! That's a pretty massive "if" you're asking for, though :-(

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry