New idea for equipment rules.

So I was thinking the old method we had for this was clunky and nasty to use. There has also been dispute regarding the method by which we choose weapons and equipment for our classes.

I was thinking of a simpler mathematical solution to this. However bear in mind that I suck at maths.

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So, first we must decide the relative values of the statistics of each piece of equipment. For my example we will decide all statistics are equal in weight.

Then we must decide which number the statistics should be "zeroed" on.

Example Standard Weapon Stats:

damage - 30 = 100
reach - 90 = 100
speed - 90 = 100
weight - 2 = 100
price - 250 = 100

So now we take a weapon we are thinking of adding and find out how it compares.

damage - 28 = 93.3 ((100/30)*28) 100 divided by the default then multiply that by the real stat.
reach - 95 = 105.5
speed - 99 = 110
weight - 2 = 100
price - 300 = 83.3 ((100/300)*250) Same sum but with the real stat first. Weight and price are worse the higher they are.

Then add up the total and divide by 5 to see how it compares overall.

98.42 is the answer so on balance it is a pretty standard weapon.

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Now with this you can do several things.

You could limit equipment on a points basis, each troop has X points(perhaps upgradeable).
You could limit equipment on a price basis, leaving room for easy money based upgrades. For example set a standard price of 1000 in game gold for each piece of equipment (though you could also weight the price).

Or you could do both, perhaps experienced troops get an extra X equipment points after X battles. But to use better weapons the kingdom needs to have purchased them for that army.

For example a horse costs 1500, or a sword costs 500. If the average stat of a horse was 200 it would be a badass horse but would cost you twice as much.

Oviously you would also be able to weight all of the stats differently, for example if you thought that price was les or more important you could give it 50 or 150 weight. Or like in future versions where equipment is not bought in match but on the strategic level, not count it at all.

Or if you were really good at maths unlike myself you could prob come up with some formula by which as a value increases its weight increases relative to other values. So a 10 point increase from 100->110 would cost significantly less than a 10 point increase from 190->200

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No doubt the initial formulation would be unbalanced. However it is easy to change the formula, standard prices, standard stats etc. It is also extremely freeform and unlimiting, which IMO is generally a plus.

Nice idea - gives more freedom than current system. But it also allow to create very unrealistic weapons - you can create something with 200 reach, 60 damage, 120 speed and 20 weight, and make it weapon ranked as "100" (actually 116.(4)), because of high price...
So I still vote for my own idea

Anyway - here's spread-sheath to quickly test how would it work. I also recommend it to find best "zero statistic value" as well as "weight of statistic" - just modify second and third row.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhQJbOpYrclpdE5WTGZyMTJkaHVYRExHcUE4T1Q4bEE&hl=en

Of course you could impose hard limits, and like I said make the value increase exponentially. Or make the strength of price half that of the other weapon properties. There are practically infinite ways to adjust it

It does not matter if uber weapons are theoretically possible. So long as they are just that, theoretical.