RE: Game balance (no longer really very VV-related)

Probably the best method is to un-abstract point costs and make
different portions of the ship utilize different resources.  For
instance, FTL and normal engines require Unobtanium. Nation A is lucky
and has a source of Unobtanium, Nation B has to import it's Unobtanium. 
Therefore, Nation A could build a particular FTL/high maneuver design
more cheaply than Nation B.

If Beam weapons require Quadlithium crystals as focusing elements and
Nation A has no indigenous supplies, while Nation B does, then Nation B
can build beam weapons cheaper.

On average, the Point costs for the same ship design built by the two
nations will be roughly the same (Nation A pays more for weapons, Nation
B pays more for FTL) but in practice, you will find that the economic
factors force substantial design changes that may not be "optimal" in a
strategic sense, but are the optimal choice for your
resources/capabilites.	For instance, Nation A may favor faster ships
armed with fewer beam weapons, but more missiles, while Nation B may opt
for slower vessels armed to the teeth with Beams.

Real world examples - Iraq spent large sums of money to acquire nuclear
materials, but did not end up with any nuclear weapons.  Iran has
indigenous uranium deposits but does not have the technology to fully
process it into nuclear weapon grade material.	The United States has
the uranium, the technology and facilities and the money to produce
nuclear weapons.  If we simply abstracted that nuclear warheads cost 1
billion dollars each, then every petty government in the world with a
billion dollars would own a nuclear warhead.  This is obviously not the
case, so I would use this example to encourage a purchasing system that
is less abstracted and has some level of detail to provoke differing
design philosophies.

--Binhan

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
[mailto:owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU]On Behalf Of Roger Burton
West
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 3:54 PM
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Game balance (no longer really very VV-related)

On Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 10:35:26PM +0100, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:

>But that's just the problem: unless your campaign rules are either very

>carefully crafted or so simplified that they don't include either
logistics 
>or recon, a battle-balancing points system WON'T give you a diversity
of 
>fleets in your campaign.

Thank you. I'd hoped there would be a sensible answer that I was
missing, and you have provided it.

>Because in a campaign, it is the ship's *strategic* value (let's call
this 
>SPV) which is important - and as I've discussed above, TPV =|= SPV.
IOW, no 
>matter which of the TPV and EPV systems you use in the campaign, the 
>players will very quickly figure out which ship designs give them the 
>highest *S*PV for the TPV or EPV points :-/

So EPV ought, for maximum balance/diversity, to be defined as equal to
SPV? (Which is itself probably some function of TPV - lowered for
expendable weapons, raised some fixed amount per-ship, and otherwise
furkled about with.)

R