For our own little universe we used these 'standards':

Escort: 2
Frigate: 3-4       
Destroyer: 5-6           
Light Cruiser 7-8 
Heavy Cruiser: 9-11         
Battlecruiser:  12-14        
Battleship: 15-16         
Dreadnought: 17-18         
Super Dreadnought: 19-20     

The classifications are more or less based on the old Starfire system and in keeping with fiction like the Honor Harrington series (although the tonnage doesnt ramp up nearly as quickly as in that fiction!).

Obviously there is nothing 'official' here and different races might have different ideas for the classes (ie, some fictions rate Frigates as bigger than Destroyers or the same size, just with a different role etc).

If you want to really hideous weapons, nest some 'Range-based' weapons.

The trick or 'exploit' if you will is that the cost increase stays flat while the benefit increases geometrically (I believe that is the correct term).

So a R:9 3/1/1 weapon costs 24. Adding Range-based RoF increases that to 38 and change. So far so good. THEN adding in Range-based Damage/PEN  increases that cost to 104. However the weapon is FAR more effective at close range than that cost getting 81 effective attack at close range!

For best results, go with R:18, but that does drive the cost up to 208. Still, there is nothing that is likely to survive that attack and you can kill up to 6 hexes away. Even at medium range you are still quite deadly.

Yup, thats the real schtick IMO. Changing the formula kind of invalidates much of the work that has been done in source material and books like Brigade, the Cold Navy stuff etc.

Again, thats why I say leave it alone for Starmada X, but do something for the next version.

Perhaps put an entry in the FAQ concerning it so that the problem is 'officially acknowledged' but fixing it will have to wait. You can then include a link for players who want it fixed to point to a revised formula (either mine or whatever thing you find you like).

Well, I think everyone agrees that the formula is buggered. The intention and the result are both crystal clear...and it doesnt match. Result actual runs completely contrary to intent.

The proposed simple solution matches result to intention, but to me, leaves another hole. Whether that hole is important enough to fix, is up to the designers.

My opinion is that if you are going to open it up and perform surgery, you might as well get all the problems (or potential problems) that can be seen.

So, whats left is whether or not some of the effects of the changed formula are problems or not. But the basic problem can be corrected by adding 1 to each P and D and dividing the mess by 2 at the end, although I believe that will still result in cheaper weapons across the board for good or bad.

Honestly if its not viewed as big problem, then I dont see changing it. Obviously a lot of people are playing and enjoying the game as is. It works as is within an expected variation. It seems that a lot of people are getting their panties in a wad over it and since its not going to be possible to please everyone anyways, I'd say just leave it as is 'officially' and let people who want to change it do so (like anything else in the system). If MJXII ever gets to doing Starmada XI, then I think it is something that definately should receive some attention.

And increasing the other stats results in the same mulitplication of cost...you havent done anything to increase the value R over P or D.

They are anywhere where the cost of adding 1 weapon is the same as adding multiple weaposn with the same 'firepower'. For example, why use a 2/1/1 weapon when 2x 1/1/1 weapons are the same cost? The same applies to 3/1/1 weapons. Those are the easier to pick out, but there are others. For example, a 3/1/3 costs the same amount as 3x 1/1/3 weapons.
It occurs in many places on that table.

The larger number of weapons tends to be superior due to the fact that a single weapon is gone in a single hit whereas the multiple weapons are much harder to take out. This is especially true for the larger hulls and larger weapons which wouldnt 'double up' the hit chart as much.

Again, is it a huge discrepancy? No, I dont think so, but its definately there and I think there should be some reason to want to put a 3/1/1 on over 3x 1/1/1 if for no other reason than its easier to keep track of them all of the ship sheets.

In the more complex formula, a single weapon is always going to have a price break over equivalent dice in multiple weapons...the larger the weapon, the bigger the discount because the more vulnerable it is to losing it all in one attack.

So, to me, it just made sense to want to provide a true fix for the formula that preserves the balance between multiple weapons vs larger weapons.

Which is exactly what I was trying to get with the +.5 to each of those numbers (rather than +1 to each and then divide by 2).

And its very close the mark, but still leaves 'sticking points' as you can see by looking at andyskinner's post of the comparison. Its a far superior formula to the original, but my opinion was that if I was going to go in and 'fix' it, might as well fix it right for all the combos rather than still having various configurations that are still superior or inferior.

Since I'm using a spreadsheet, complexity of the formula didnt bother me a whit. I would wager that anyone who is designing ships is doing it on a spreadsheet these days, so I wouldnt be overly worried about keeping the formula simple. Anyone who is going to do it by hand can easily hand a little bit of formula compication...

Jimbeau:

It doesnt need a specific scenario to see it. Just design one fleet with all 3/1/1 weapons and another with all 1/1/3 weapons (everything else identical). Now fight it out a few times. You'll see that the 3/1/1 will always have the advantage over time (over time being key here...obviously luck is going to play a role, even with one side clearly superior). Now add Fighters to the mix and watch the 3/1/1 fleet mop up. They have more weapons and those weapons are 3x as effective vs the Fighters...like I said, its a huge swing.

To be fair, that is probably THE largest swing you are likely to get. Most will fall somewhere in between. Is it enough to wreck the game? No, not really. Is it enough to invalidate CR as a balancing mechanism? I think so. It make the CR a false number which is worse than no number IMO because people THINK its balanced when its not.

It all depends on the ships involved. A 1/1/3 weapon will be 50% more expensive than a 3/1/1 weapon and is one third as effective vs Fighters. That is a huge swing IMO. If you play with fleets that have roughly equal proportions of weapons, you'll be fine.

As I indicated above, the problems for us came when people who had no idea about the formula showed up with ships with high RoF weapons just because thats what they wanted to design. They were quite easily beating the 'non cheese' fleets by virture of having between 25-50% more weaponry. That is not a small margin...at all.

Of course if you are playing with fleets that are using weapons in the same proportions, you probably wouldnt need CR at all. Just balance it out to make sure everyone is using roughly the same power.

But the who purpose of having a CR in the first place is give a numerical indicator of that ship's relative power. With that formula error, it could be off by as much as 50%, but more than likely closer to 20-30%...still big enough to turn the tide in otherwise even contests.

And, FWIW, I didnt post it up there to try and force it on other people. You dont like it? Dont use it. Its not official. Its not going to BE official. You are safe. No one is going to come and ruin your game. Its all good.

I would caution anyone toying with the RPD+R method to play around with it a bit first as the weapons can become very cheap and thus ships are very fragile. As I said above, its hard to pack more defense on a ship, but with RPD+R it not hard to pack more (or more deadly) weapons on.

We tried RPD+R for a while and thought it felt really bad which is what led us on the quest for a new formula.

YMMV.

If you are using the v2.3 version I posted, it no longer has Expendable as an option. It allowed for a lot of ridiculous weapon exploits and we had pulled it from the sheet so that all of our players were on the same page.

Sorry for any inconvenience. Its not hard to add back into that list though. Here is a copy that has Expendable back on it.

andyskinner:

Here is a copy/paste of the relevant section of the email I sent to Daniel Kast concerning the current formula, the RPD+R formula, and the revised formula that we implemented. Hopefully this should explain why the RPD+R isnt really workable in the current design IMO.

Note that we've been using this modified spreadsheet now and it feels a LOT better. There are true decisions between upping RoF vs upping Pen/Dmg or just increasing the number of weapons on the ship...decisions that were not present with the original formula.

Here you go:

That said, as I'm sure your aware from the Forum that the base formula for the weapon cost is somewhat buggered. For a while, we just sort of ignored it and played for 'spirit of the rules', but after a few games, its become apparent that we needed to 'fix' the problem. We have some players that are more or less hardcore into design and some that are more casual and just throw whatever looks cool onto the ships and go from there. For the hardcore players, we have deliberately avoided trying to use 'optimized' weapons where possible, but it really cuts down on the options when you are avoiding using RoF (because it is, by FAR, the most efficient way to go in every way). The sticking points come when the casual players show up with ships that are 'accidentally' quite a bit better than the others simply because they plugged in a lot more higher RoF ships. The difference is very pronounced and even the casual players could see that certain ships were really MUCH more effective overall than others for roughly the same cost.

Ok, that gives the background.

I sat down with one of my more mathematically inclined (and excel skilled) friends and looked to 'solve' the problem. We think we have done so, but some of it requires the designer's original intent as well. So, here is what we've found and what we've surmised.

Ok, we understand that everything else equal, RoF is better to increase than PEN or DAM because it is more useful vs Fighters. We are implementing that with the theory that for ship to ship, there is little actual difference between a 3/1/1 weapon and a 1/1/3 weapon or a 1/3/1 weapon. There will be different 'flavors' from the three options, but total 'firepower'...ie, 'dice on target' will remain the same.

From that, lets assume we want to put 3 'dice on target'. Our options are a 3/1/1, a 1/1/3 (or 1/3/1), or 3 x 1/1/1 weapons. Under the current formula, the 3/1/1 provides a HUGE margin over the 1/1/3....the 1/1/3 is 50% more expensive (6 compared to 4) AND the 3/1/1 is 3x more effective vs Fighters. So you are paying less, but for quite a bit more capability (that is a 'double dip' in our opinion...you are not only paying less for the same capability, you are paying less for more). The 3x 1/1/1 option costs 50% more, but has the same AA capabilities. Its also slightly more survivable (there are more Battery hits on the latter ship, but not 3x more).

Also, under the basic formula, when dealing with a '1' RoF, you are never doing any good by increasing PEN or DMG. You are always better off simply putting more weapons on the ship. For example, a 1/2/2 puts out 4x as many dice on target as a 1/1/1, but cost exactly 4x as much SU and CR. So, having 4x 1/1/1 on your ship gives you the exact same ship-to-ship capability, but 4x the AA capability and is more survivable to boot....again, this is a major difference is capability between ships.

The same holds true as you go up the scale. Increasing RoF is economical...increasing the other stats results in diminishing returns vice just adding extra weapons.

Hopefully that was at least somewhat clear. I just wanted to demostrate just how far the deviation was between intended (RoF is more costly for more capability) and reality (RoF is less costly for more capability).

There have been a number of solutions proposed (including by me), but most dont really fix the problem. A few mitigate the problem, but it took a lot of futzing around with algebra to actually make a formula that we felt best imposes your original design intent without unhinging the rest of the game's mechanics (a very real danger when monkeying around with the foundations of the weapon costs).

We tried (R*P*D)+R first. It looks workable on the surface, but it causes other problems. For one thing, it means that the base weapons are too cheap overall, leading to way too much firepower compared to protection for ships. You cant do much to increase your defense, but this formula lets you pack on more weapons overall....considerably more in some cases. Also, it doesnt fix the 'break points' at 2/1/1 and 3/1/1. The cost for those options was still exactly 2x and 3x respectively of having equivalent 1/1/1s, but were more vulnerable.

The base formula we came up with is (R*P*D)+(3(R)+P+D)/5.

I know you have a mathematical bend to you, so I wont go through all the specifics, but what it does in the end is weight 'R' higher than P and D while not applying that multiplier completely across the larger weapons. The theory here is that a 3/3/3 weapon is still a total waste to fire at a fighter, so you should not be paying the same premium on the RoF going from 1/3/3 to 3/3/3 as going from 1/1/1 to 3/1/1. The simultaneous goal is to make sure that you are getting a substantial discount when employing a larger weapon than going with the equivalent number of 'dice on target' in smaller weapons. Again, this is to make sure that a 2/2/2 is more cost effective than 8x 1/1/1s because it is far worse vs Fighters and is far more vulnerable to be taken out completely (although this is dependent on the size of the ship, its always going to be present). So there has to be a reason to select a 2/2/2 over the 8x 1/1/1 and in our formula, that reason is about a 38% discount. That seems to be a good trade off. Similar trade-offs will occur evenly throughout the 27 combos of R/P/D. 

OK, that gives a great base to start from, but there is one final problem with it. Even though the current game's formula is flawed, it appears that the rest of the weapon multipliers and indeed, many of the calculations are predicated on weapons having that somewhat high inherent base cost. Using our forumla, weapons are still a little too cheap compared to what you have now (although RoF is properly weighted). So, to restore the situation, we've imposed a flat 20% increase in weapon costs. So, the final formula reads:

1.2*(R*P*D +(3(R)+P+D)/5)

This puts weapons back on par with current costs, but in the correct weightings. Its now more costly to put a 3/1/1 than a 1/1/3, but cheaper than going with 3x 1/1/1 (marginally). Again, the same will apply nearly evenly across the board, with the discount increasing as the weapons get bigger (and thus simultaneously more vulnerable to being taken out and and worse against Fighters).