SV: DS2 Balance and stuff.

> Brian Bilderback wrote:

> Not at all - from the game balance point of view. The combat value of

Certainly. But just like the Stealth level, a better mobility type lets the
better FCS do more with the extra fire opportunity types than a worse FCS
could. The coupling isn't as strong as for Stealth (player
skill comes into the mobility/FCS relation as well), but it is still
there.

If the points system doesn't take it into account, you need to decide
which mobility type you want to balance each specific weapon+FCS
combination for - in which case it needs to be overpriced on vehicles
with other types of mobilities. I tend to dislike such points systems in rules
sets which claim to be "generic", since they strongly
influence the players to conform to the same weapon/ mobility comboes
that the designer had in mind when balancing the system. They're OK in a rules
set designed for a specific background.

(Before anyone points out that the FB2 Kra'Vak in particular are designed in
exactly this way: No, I don't consider FB2 to be as generic as FB1 or FT2...
and judging from the "Combining Different Alien
Technologies" on p.3, neither does St^3 Jon :-/ )

> But as I said, most players - you included, it seems ;-) - won't

I added the smilies and grins to try and defuse any insult <g>

More seriously though: Both your counter-arguments were based on
background universe realism issues rather than points-value game
balance ones, which made them quite illustrative examples of what I meant. It
wasn't hard at all to see why Laserlight thought you were talking about
realism rather than game balance.

[snip Stealth discussion]

> OK, on this point I see and accept your arguement. making stealth

Oh, certainly. The change would be at least as radical as that between
FT2 and FB1 - the entire spaceship design system was re-made from
scratch in FB1. OK, the final FB1 points costs and overall abilities for
different ship classes ended up fairly similar to the FT2 ones, but the values
placed on the various component systems are very different in the two rule
sets.

> but you are winning me over on THIS point.

<g>