About the TL 8 space colony, I agree at 470 TeraCr no single government
could afford that. Heck, the Imperium never built a ship that expensive
even with the resources a whole systems to use. I also agree with the
designers conclusion that the mistake was designing it as a space ship.
It would not be built as such. Unfortunately you will have to develop
your own sequences for space station design which you might not have the
time/energy for. I know that i regurlarly modify or add things to FF&S
to produce to me what are reasonable results.
When I tried designing that TL 8 compact car to test out the sequences I
got a fuel consumption for a ford escort type vehicle of 8 mpg. I
promptly made up my own powerplant table based on information available
to me. I added several powerplants and modded others. Actually Im off
the subject, Ill save this for another submission. Back to the Space
Station....
Maybe TL 8 is too early but goung up a TL or two wouldnt change things
much. Like you say the key is figuring out how to mod the rules. As
soon my Mid-Terms are finished I think ill put some thought into this.
The main thing that many people may not realize is that it is very
difficult to model multi parameter systems. You can get equations to
match quite well the way real systems behave..BUT..a)How many people want
to sit playing with an equation with a half dozen terms just to figure out
how fast your car will go. Thus ultimately it is up to the individual to
a certain degree to introduce the added level of detail for his/her
satisfaction. Altough in closing I will say that the game system
producer is wholly responsible for not handicapping the users with
systems that consistently produce unreasonable results (where
unreasonable is defined by the nature of the model). If a user has to
write new rules then why would he/she have bought the game in the first
place?
Tariq (Dont worry I still have 7 hours to write my paper so you havent
heard the last from me)