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I personally like the system as it is. Seeing an MS with a "average" speed rating lets me know that even if another MS with the same rating can be slightly faster or slower, in effect they'll be on par with each other. But that's just my opinion, I voted for words.

Somebody should make a strategy centric game that I can play in.

Dicks.

Seeing a preview like Nader requested would be helpful. But I say overall its whatever makes the game run easier.

10 is not enough, and 20 can be confusing. 20 is not enough either. Our current scale has 25 grades and is a little small for me.

I am wondering if you guys can have a sensible discussion of what sort of a scale you would like to see for MS statistics.

I'm not going to change anything in this game, the current system works fine. But I am wondering if a number system wouldn't be better, and I'd like to get some opinions.

What I mean is:

Right now we use a 25point system of words for MS statistics, going from Perfect to Almost None -.

A number system would be something like a 100 point scale, where instead of an MS's armor being "Average", it would just be "50".

There are a number of things I like about both systems.

Pros of the Words system
- Words are pretty simple to understand. Average means Average, you don't have to know the relative scales of everything to know that Average means Average. If something's armor is 50, even on a 100 point scale you need to know what other things are relative to 50 to see if 50 is any good.

- It is not an exact thing. I don't like exact things because our battles are not computerized, they are written. Average + is better than Average but I think the difference between Average + and Average does not seem as big a deal as the difference between 55 and 50. The statistics are supposed to be guidelines, not things that a player points to and says "That bazooka shot shouldn't have caused me 3 days damage because my armor score is 52 and the Bazookas damage is 50."

Cons of the Words system
- It does not have as many qualifiers. In order to use a words system I need to use simple words like "Good" and "Bad" that are common sense and easy to understand. This limits how varied the scale can be because if I had "Very Good" and "Really Good" you wouldn't know which was better than the other, and "Very Very Good" is silly looking.

- In order to amend the above problem, we add the + and - signs, but that adds complication and unfortunately can and probably will confuse people.


Pros of the Numbers system
- Numbers cannot be confusing. 55 is better than 50. That's pretty simple.

- It is a larger scale.

- It would allow for a more exact definement of certain things. For example, armor types could reduce specific types of damage by specific exact numbers. Things like GM Sniper II's targeting visor could increase accuracy by a specific exact number. Weather effects could reduce accuracy by a specific exact number.


Cons of the Numbers System
- The scale is possibly too large. I'd want to make it 1-100 to make it simple, but 100 points on a scale is really too big for Gundam. There are not 100 different armor classes and there are not 100 different weapon accuracies. This can not only make the difference between numbers seem superficial, but gives room for people to be wrong. For example, a Zaku II J should likely have more armor than a Zaku Kai. But how much more? 1% more? 2% more? Doing guesstimated measurements for things that exact is likely to mean getting things wrong.

- It feels more exact to me, when I want things to be relative. I don't want players to think that because their armor class is 50 they can only take 5 shots from a 10 damage machinegun, which could be what a numbers system implies.


So, let me know what you guys would prefer. I may change it for a next game, if there is one.

Til all are one Scarth

Pilot levels are absent NPC squad members on the EFSF roster. They are present on every other roster page as far as I can tell.