nys wrote:Sounds very cool, but this part confuses me:
"Players with better tech will be able to either include more stats for the same Mass, or else build a ship at a lower Mass and a comparatively lower cost. How the rules are setup, too, even if going for a lower Mass will not decrease your Construction Cost, it *will* decrease your Maintenance Cost."
Does this mean that smaller, higher-tech ships are cheaper to maintain than large "simple" ships? I kinda figured it would be the other way around or roughly equal. Or perhaps I'm just reading it wrong. Perhaps having lower maintenance costs could be a technology all by itself? Looking forward to more details.
I can see the reason for confusion. All Units Sizes are assigned what could be called a "maximum Maintenance Cost", which is currently equal to SIZ / 10 (SIZ / 8 would be closer to my original notes, but with the scale change at the last moment it is just easier to drop Maintenance Costs a bit, but I digress). This means that a SIZ 2 ship will have at most a Maintenance Cost of 1/5, while a SIZ 7 ship will have at most a 7/10 (0.20 and 0.70, respectively, for those readers that are allergic to fractions). This Maintenance Cost is further modified by the amount of Mass actually used compared to the Maximum Mass for a unit of that SIZ.
If we assume a SIZ 3 Destroyer has a Maximum Mass of 400, then a DD at 300 Mass would have a Maintenance Cost of 300/400 * 3/10 = 9/40 (0.23). Meanwhile, a DD at 400 (Maximum) Mass would have a Maintenance Cost of 3/10 (0.30). Therefore, building a DD that uses less Mass will result in a lower Maintenance Cost.
(Pardon me if the above is a reiteration of something mentioned elsewhere in this thread; I just got back from Origins and am working on 2 hours sleep)
Now, going back to your actual question, the Mass Costs associated with unit abilities will decrease as an empire gains more technical skill in those areas (i.e., increases Tech Levels). Assuming all Tech Levels are the same, a TL 0 empire's unit that weighs in at 1000 Mass would decrease to 500 Mass at TL 5. This difference in Mass allows the player to build the ship as a unit at a smaller size that before. For the sake of argument, let's say that the TL 0 ship is a SIZ 6 Cruiser, and that this is the minimum SIZ hull that the player can use to build a ship of this SIZ. Now, at TL 0, the ship's new Mass (500) drops it down to the point that the player can build a unit with those same capabilities on a SIZ 4 Light Cruiser hull instead. At TL 5 the Maintenance Costs for these two options would be something like this (note: these numbers are rough guesses, pending further development):
CL: 4/10 * 500/600 = 1/3 (0.33)
CA: 6/10 * 500/1000 = 3/10 (0.30)
In this particular example, the player can build a CA version of this unit with a bit lower Maintenance Costs (albeit only 0.03 EP/turn less).
Now, compare this to the original CA from TL 0:
CA-old: 6/10 * 1000/1000 = 6/10 (0.60)
Comparing apples to apples, the new CA would cost half that of the old ship to maintain, thanks to the effects of miniaturization. The cost of the unit would also incidentally go down, too, because less Mass is being used.
I still think I am not answering your direct question, but my mental gears just aren't turning. The short, concise answer (given after the long, rambling one, incidentally) is that a high-tech power will have miniaturized technologies to the point that they can fit them into less space (lower Mass Cost) which will both reduce its Construction and Maintenance Costs. This means that a unit with the same characteristics/abilities at your current Tech Level will be superior to its immediate predecessor at a lower Tech Level. In purely practical terms, this means that "a cruiser is a cruiser is a cruiser." For some examples, this would mean that in a Babylon 5 campaign set during the Earth/Minbari War, the Earth Hyperion Heavy Cruiser might have costs associated with it that are very similar to that of the Minbari Sharlin War Cruiser, but the Minbari have a massive tech advantage and their "cruiser" is a much better fighting ship. Or, in Star Trek, the Constitution and D7 may have nearly equal Mass and costs, but the slight technical disparities between the two powers might mean that one ship would have a bonus to one stat, or a deficiency in another (+1 Defense for the Feds, +1 Anti-Ship for the Klingons, possibly).
All in all, after actually reading the post after yours, I think Charlie answered the question much more succinctly, and it seems to jive with what I have stored away in my brain.
It is worth repeating, too, that the difference in miniaturization between TL 0 and TL 10 is 4 times, which means that while a very low-tech empire would be up very untenable odds if assaulted by a TL 10 opponent, it could still conceivably put up a spirited defense. If it is at TL 5 ("normal" Interstellar tech level), then the difference is reduced to 2 times from 4, vastly increasing the odds that the inferior power will be able to hold its own against the superior force.
