SpaceRoles:Resources

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Ship resources

A ship might have a variety of features and subsystems, depending on game systems employed. The following general categories we assume to have. - Speed and Maneuverability - Offense (Weapons, Targeting Systems etc.) - Defense (Shields, Hull Integrity, defensive weaponry) - Restoration (Damage Control Crews, Repair Materials) - Actions - might be heat, energy or anything else that limits how much the ship can do per a given time unit (typically a combat round)

Player Resources

Each player character is assumed to have certain resource that he has to manage over the course of each battle and each round. This typically means some kind of opportunity cost is involved or you have to spend limited resources. Opportunity costs means you have to choose between multiple options and can't use them all, limited resources means you can do something only a limited amount of time.

- Actions per round (might be something like 4E Standard/Move/Minor or like Torg penalties for performing more than one action.)

- Powers (might be something like 4E At-Will/Encounter/Daily powers).

Performance Gains

The effective performance / combat power of a vessel can be considered a function of its "normal" resources (R_Vessel) - without player activity - and the player abilities (R_Crew)

P = f(R_Vessel, R_Crew)

For example, a system might denote energy point cost to every activity a ship can do. Maybe firing Laser costs 10 points of energy and causes 10 points of damage. Each unit of movement costs another point. The ship has a total of 15 points. After the characters have performed their activities, the Laser requires only 9 energy points, might deal 12 points of damage against one particular enemy ship and the ship might have 20 points of energy, and it has already performed a 180° turn without any cost.

For balancing purposes, it is important to consider how much effect a ship crew has. You might set as a baseline that a crew that succeeds at every task it does without expending any limited resources from their own might increase the ships overall resources or performance by a certain percentage. Using limited resources improves this further. For example, using a 4E style approach, one might have:

- At-Will Powers used by all: +50 % overall combat performance.

- Encounter Powers used by all characters this round: +75% overall combat performance.

- Daily Powers used by all characters this round: +100 % overall combat performance.

So, the total performance would be: P = f(R_Vessel) * f(R_Crew)

Note that this overall performance gain affects all resource fields. It is important to check how various resources and improvements to resources work in concert together. For example, if an ability doubles a ships energy output, and all its abilities are based on the energy output (how fast it can fly, how much damage it inflicts or how many attacks it makes and how much shields it has), you have already gained a 100 % performance increase, since everything is tied to this resource. It is trickier if there are certain synergy effects between abilities - a higher speed might allow to get faster to the enemy and inflict more damage or avoid more damage, and this combined with an increase in weapon damage might be a multiplier.

Note also that normals Crews (NPCs, non-heroic characters) - short N-Crew - don't affect the ships effectiveness, they use the basic values: f(R_Vessel) * f(R_N-Crew) = F(R_Vessel).

The overall experience or skill of the characters should affect this performance gain, too. The overall experience could be based on level in level based system or skill ratings.

1) Characters with better experiences have a better chance to succeed at using their abilities.

2) Characters with better experiences have abilities that grant more bonuses.

Considering that some say that a certain "steady" success range is psychologically typically the most satisfying, approach 2 might be more favorable. But mixes of both could also be possible - for example, simply by achieving better results, an abilities effect is improved. A higher experienced character simply expects better results when using the same ability.