re: Replacing Cohorts, p.97
Is the reason why replacing one costs coin equal to Tier +2 (rather than say.. coin equal to Tier, or Tier +1) because they are about on par with other assets of the critical effect level quality? Is the rule about two downtime activities there to backburner the process? ie: the long-term project that would normally arise for permanent acquisition of a thing
I imagine it can’t cost your Tier, because at Tier 0 it would be free. Which would open up a Zerg-rush strategy with suicidal gangs (they’d be adepts. obviously. bonus points for Zealotry), which, if they didn’t also cost downtime to replace, could be game-breakingly free.
Obviously, this example ignores the fictional positioning of attempting to recruit gang members when your crew has the reputation for sending them to their death. (But I know I for one am not above occasionally exploiting game mechanics.)
So I suspect it’s a balancing thing. One downtime action can Acquire you a Thing of some sort, typically a tool, though you can acquire a cohort temporarily. Doing that multiple times can get you that asset permanently, so two actions to skip ahead seems fair–cheap, even, since you’re getting credit for having established a cohort already, rather than starting from scratch.
And the coin cost could be seen as shorthand for the cost of Acquiring those assets over multiple downtimes. Or a simplification of different conditions which might modify cost, like if the crew has expert gangs, or if it’s an expert cohort, or if the gang is a certain size, etc.
That’s just my best guess though, that it’s just a simplification of a rule. It also feels a little weird that it costs 2 Coin and 2 downtime actions to recruit 2 people (or 1 expert), but 6 Coin and 2 downtime actions to recruit 40 (or 1 expert), and I expect it would be fair to adjust those prices around to make the cost feel a little better/more appropriate.
I agree it’s a simplification, and that it sort of ignores fictional positioning – and perhaps that’s why I ask. But I really just want to know the reasoning – so I can apply the same (or a different) mentality to figuring costs for restoring another commonly destroyed “asset” – one that isn’t a mortal (or a group thereof) and probably not as complex to replace. A vehicle under crews with Like Part of the Family might be the closest example, but I am actually looking at other custom Cohorts that are equipment – figurative “vehicles”