MHGC data/beta players (if you aren't, skip this)

From: Dave Dickie <ddickie@clipper.ssb.com>

Date: Sat, 18 Mar 1995 04:46:08 +0000

This is for Mega Hyper Galactic Conquest data or beta players, for
the purposes of discussing design deficiencies with the game (bugs
should just be sent directly to me via Email.... I'll put out bug
status in the general turn notes each turn).

For the basis of future discussions, there have been three MHGC
games thus far, alpha, data, and beta.  Alpha was the first game
(now defunct).  Data is the second game, which I am running for
my friends (the reason I started all this).  Beta is the beta
test of a "large" game.  Data is on turn 32, beta on 11.  The
following Email is intended to kick off discussions on the games.
This was sent by Keith in response to Email I sent him (ie, I'm
the ">" lines).

>Keith,
>
>        I think light cruisers are a little too powerful, and the scan
>range is excessive.  I don't think SuperScouts are worthless; they are
>much cheaper and are a non-warship, which makes them ideal from a
>border-patrol without pissing off the neighbors.

Three SSs can do the job of approximately five Scouts in border patrol.
That 40% savings amounts to 16 production units for each SS built and 4 per
turn for each maintained.  When you consider that most people end their
expansion stage with ~4 scouts, return on investment (ROI) for replacing
them is 40/4=10 turns.  Savings for newly built ships are 16EUs +
4EUs/turn.  These are acceptable until you consider that the 250 EU
investment in the tech, which, incidentally, is not a prerequisite for
anything except megascout tech (not particularly valuable), requires you to
build something like 5 new ss and maintain them for 8 turns or replace 5
scouts with ss and maintain them for 22 turns!  Add to this the fact that
between 1/3 and 2/3 of my border scouting can be accomplished perfectly
well by Light Cruisers (and they're then already built and available for
instant response), and my conclusion is that there are many better
investments than superscouts.

>I think Defenders need
>to get beefed up.  I may have to reduce the "fast chain" capabilities all
>together (from a attack/defense perspective) in order to make it reasonable
>to defend, since the LCs do move to far (and thus the fact that defensive
>ships are much cheaper from a tech perspective doesn't matter, since you
>can't guess where the LCs will attack).

I completely agree.  As a start, I suggest [3/5/3/5/0] for LCs and
[3/6/1/2/0] for Defenders.
>
>        EHC didn't work out as planned; I'm going to get back and look at
>it at some point, since the models I did indicated that it was worthwhile
>for MH and PH systems, marginal for H, and worthless for VH and EH... but
>people seem to be complaining that it is worthless on MH and PH as well.
>It is obviously critical as a stepping stone to CB.  Biofoods I think is
>a critical technology, but maybe I am wrong.
>
That was the way I expected them to shape up.  I think you succeeded more
with biofoods than with EHC.

>        I'll put out a new version of the rules soon with the fleet orders.
>