Point system ideas (was: RE: 3 arc cost)

> Tim.Jones@Smallworld.co.uk wrote:

> On Wednesday, December 10, 1997 2:20 PM, PCARON [SMTP:Pcaron@cris.com]

The main objection to paying more points for extra arcs seems to be that the
extra points would not increase the cost of the
ship by enough to act as a deterant - since the mass of the ship
accounts for the bulk of its cost.

I think the problem here is not that points are a bad way to rate ships, but
that the current system rates mass too highly.

What do points represent? My view is that they (attempt to) represent the
combat utility of a ship under a range of conditions. (you can never do this
perfectly, but thats no reason not to try to come up with a good system)

So, what effect do the following groups of "systems" have on a ships combat
utility?

Offensive systems: contribute directly to a ships effectivness.

Defensive systems: on their own, these don't add much value to the ship, but
they do increase the utility of the offensive systems (by keeping them in play
for longer)

Drives: similar to defensive systems in that they're only really useful if
they're moving weapons around.

FTL: Combat utility varies according to how you see this working, but broadly
similar to defensive systems.

Mass: I've only listed this separatly, because we currently have to buy it as
a distinct system. However, I really consider this to be a defensive system,
since Mass provides damage
          track boxes - although the effectiveness of this as a defence
is limited by the number and distribution of the threshold checks.

This suggests that we really have two classes of item: weapons and things that
enable you to get more use out of weapons (which I'll call defences for the
moment).

To me this suggests that the point cost of a ship should be the total value of
its weapon systems multiplied by the total value of its defensive systems.

This would allow a more descriptive system, which simply describes how a ship
is in combat: you can build ships with 50 A bats but only one damage box, or
with one A bat and 50 damage boxes. Or you could layer a construction
system on top of this which could re-attach mass values to equipment.

What do you think?