GM, I apologise if this constitutes a break of rule 2, but I didn't have enough time to write all the questions I had the first time I asked about the design. Some of these questions do have relevance to future designs and how we'll approach them, however.
1. When we were designing the R1, we envisioned it using either an SF or a PSF to power it. To actually achieve the design, our engineers (researchers? mathemagicians?) revised a new version of Fireball - the SPSF - despite us not including such a revision in the original design document.
With the blastshell, there are two in-design revisions that could've been done, one of which we tried to go for. The first in-design revision could've been making magegems more powerful so we could outfit smaller shells with the designs or make the HA1 ones cheaper. (We did not try to go for this one.) The second in-design revision that could've been making the PSF-C exert a constant force rather than a brief force. (We did in fact try to go for this one.)
If adding an explosive payload would've made the shell too expensive, couldn't the excess success of the 6+1 have gone to achieving one of these two revisions? (The R1 got a 2 to effectiveness but we still got the Fireball revision.) If not, which stats and in what circumstances allow for these in-design revisions to be completed or to spontaneously happen? (A low complexity/ambition design might be it, but to my understanding high complexity/ambition designs just result in lower bonuses/higher DCs.)
2. Instead of completing additional design goals, couldn't the 6+1 have instead gone to designing a version that, instead of detonating the PSF-C to give it extra range, instead detonated on impact? You said that a shell which had both range and an explosive payload would've been NE, but this just has the explosive payload, no range boost.
3. As another alternative, could the 6+1 not also have given us an NE version of the shell that had both a range boost and the explosive payload in addition to the one we got?
4. If none of the above could be done, were did the excess effectiveness go? What happens to a design when it rolls more effectiveness than it needs to succeed (presuming that 6 (after modifiers) results in successful design)?
5. You said that if it had been given an explosive payload it would've driven the price to NE. To my understanding, the only way to get something to be NE is to get an expense result of 1 or less, with more complex/large-scale designs assigning maluses to the roll rather than increasing the DC. Is this not the case? If it is the case, another question: if an ambitious design, such as ours, were to get a 1 for effectiveness, meaning the design failed or did little, would that give a bonus to expense (making it cheaper)?
5.1. Related to the above, in Sensei's game, Arstotzka's starting pistol had the Shoddy tag, which decreased reliability but also decreased its expense level by 1. (Removing the Shoddy tag increased its expense level but also increased its reliability.) Could we get something like that depending on how we roll and what we roll for?
6. To get some confirmation, how does revision ambition work? Say we were trying to get X, Y, and Z in a revision. If we designated X as the highest priority out of X, Y, and Z, would we have an equal chance of getting X as if we were to instead just trying to get X (with a low roll simply meaning we don't get Y and Z)?
Again, sorry if this breaks rule 2. If it does, I hope that it's at least significant enough and worthy enough to be worth it.
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Topic: Wands Race - [Arstotzka] {COMPLETED} (Read 375652 times)