[SS, MC] Size and efficiency issue

[lvk]

O-kay, there's me again with my Mass Combat issues. This time, with Spaceships Mass Combat from Pyramid 30.

Let's say we have a SM+9 Frigate:
TS = (100+100)x5x10x10 = 100,000
And an enormous SM+15 Battleship (for exactly 1000 times the cost of a Frigate):
TS = (1,000+1,000)x5x10x10 = 1,000,000

So, if we pay for 100 Frigates instead of one battleship, we would have 10 times cheaper and 10 times stronger force.
Why we do ever, ever want any Battleships in our fleet, if their TS-to-cost efficiency is 100 times worse than Frigate's?
An how we supposed to use this system for anything than THS-style SM+4 AKV spam?

That was kinda rant.
Now real questions:
1. What I'm getting wrong?
2. What should I do to play trad sci-fi / space opera mass-combat?
3. Errata maybe, please?

[Purple Haze]

Yes, it's broken. See here:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=79122

[lvk]

Thank you, I have missed thet somehow.
But any help in making the system right without too much houseruling will be appreciated!

[Novembermike]

This formula came from that other thread.

Avg dDR*dHP*dHP*HF*WB*TF / 200

If you took DR and WB to some exponent (say 1.5, but play around with it) then the larger ships would be more powerful than their smaller brethren. I'd choose dDR at minimum because it helps represent the ability of large battleships to shrug off the shots of smaller ships.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Novembermike

This formula came from that other thread.

Avg dDR*dHP*dHP*HF*WB*TF / 200

If you took DR and WB to some exponent (say 1.5, but play around with it) then the larger ships would be more powerful than their smaller brethren. I'd choose dDR at minimum because it helps represent the ability of large battleships to shrug off the shots of smaller ships.

That can work, though I'm not really fond of using dDR as a multiplier, since that varies widely for the same SM of ship. With the original formula (using DR+HP) a DR equal to HP give TS 1/3 greater than a ship with half the DR. Under your formula, it would have double the TS. Plus, unarmored ships would have 0 TS, regardless of the number of armaments.

The formula I think I'm going with is: (dDR+dHP)*HF*WB*TF*SF/K
•SF is "Size Factor", which is the Speed/Range for the ship's SM or 2xSM
•K is the Scaling Constant, which is 20 if using SM for size factor, 200 if using 2xSM

This can give TS based on a ship's Mass (the realistic option, which uses 2xSM and K=200) or on a ship's Area (appropriate for Space Opera, using SM and K=20).