Another consideration is that if we develop them now, it's a revision once we hit the combat turns. We should develop now, revise later, as revisions guarantee that we keep at least a functional unit, development is not so reliable.
bUT THIS IS OUR LAS- But this is our last action before the game starts proper. Wouldn't it be better to do risky design-type stuff at the start of a round so we would have two actions left over to prototype and fix it?
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I am really finding it difficult to justify prototyping. I was dubious about revisions in Prometheus where they replace the design, but that actually works because it is the only way to refine a design, otherwise the only way you get something that is good across the board is to get three great rolls in succession. So I am not entirely perfect at spotting the value of an action first thing. That said, prototyping, as far as I can tell, does nothing but show the rolls, which we get anyway if we just deploy blind. Knowledge is great and all, but... I mean, okay, it saves us resources spent on bad designs, but only a portion of a single turn's. It saves us from deploying a bad counter, but we could make a second counter for the same price, and a third in place of knowing what is wrong and then actually fixing it so that we have something that works, at which point we don't know the rolls and could be deploying a dud again... I was thinking that it might be good for massive investments, things that you don't want to dip into lightly, but anything massive-investmenty is too big to prototype, so that isn't even an option.
All I can think of is if we wanted to pull some secret weapon or pure technology action. The pure technology action we make something implausibly difficult, then check the result and incorporate the elements that sounded like they worked into a new design or revision while throwing out the stuff that didn't. Instead of that though, we could make three massive technology designs, build one of each, and then make our new designs with three times as much(or perhaps 50% more? To be completely fair? By factoring in the two turns...) exciting new odds and ends from the ultimately failed designs. As for a secret weapon. I mean, I guess. Just repeating something over and over until it is perfect, then unleashing a full turn's production on it with no warning would be dangerous, but the action-economy is abysmal...
It is not that prototyping is useless, it is just that it seems like it would always be weaker than the other options. It just really feels like it needs something more, or everything else needs less. Like maybe if rolls were never revealed without it, and we just had to guess the outcomes based upon battle reports? Or if prototyping gave the design +1? Or a reroll and take the better result? Or an option to reroll after seeing the roll it got? I dunno... I would just be surprised to find out that any prototyping happened.
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Topic: GODS RACE: F.O.P - Era two, Phase 2 (Read 17589 times)