Re: [GZG] SUS - Sa'vasku

On 3/9/07, Ian Downing <iandowning112@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Can you explain to a lurker why SV ships do not have non-structural
biomass?
> Both MT & FT2 say the ships are designed living entities, but ships
with pod
> launchers and drone wombs have to consume their own structure to use
them.
> That's like me consuming muscle when I exercise instead of fat. If in
> extremis (eg equivalent of starving, all reserves gone) then use
structural
> biomass, but it always seemed strange that SV ships destroy themselves
to
> fight. Did I join the list too late and miss this discussion?

If you punch an overweight person in the stomach, the fat still acts
as a protective cushion.

If you were going to carry biomass "fat" to build drones out of, would
you put it in the middle of the ship in a blob where it does nothing?
Or would you place it around the outside of the hull or along internal
"bulkheads" where it works to seal punctures, shore up structural
members, add to the structural integrity and protect the ship?

Note that the biomass for production is consumed is from the opposite
end of the biomass damage track. Does it not make more sense that the
SV would take their production biomass and put it to some good use
while it is not being used to produce drones, rather than just have it
sit there as so much useless mass?

In other words, the biomass damage track is sufficiently vague that it
could be interpreted, PSB wise, in any number of ways.

It might be interesting to come up with a biomass track for
production, so that a ship could not cannibalize itself beyond a
certain level. If that were the case, the SV ship design system would
have to be redesigned. In all likelihood the number of structural
biomass boxes would be lowered, so the ships would need their cost
re-evaluated, and probably lowered. The end result wouldn't be that
much different than happens now, except that a ship that never used
its drone wombs could be destroyed after all structural biomass is
gone even though it still has production biomass. You'd end up
lowering the tactical complexity of the SV, removing a sometimes tough
decision from the player's control, and making them a little less
interesting to play.

Then you'd get people arguing, "Hey, if it can use biomass to produce
constructs and drones, why can't it use that biomass to protect the
hull?" and we'd be back where we are now.

-- 
Allan Goodall		 http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com
awgoodall@gmail.com
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