SCOR values in MISN blocks

[sgqwonkian]

There doesn't seem to be a readme or modmakers guide article relating to MISN blocks. Could someone in-the-know please answer my questions here?

I've deduced that SCOR entries in MISN blocks (in mission.ini) don't work like SCOR entries in PAGE blocks. Instead of giving you points, they seem to change how many points other things of that category give you during the game.
For example, the ratings in the lifeforms, artifacts and technology entries effect the coin-values (also derived from COST) of those three categories by mission.

I've noticed that of the 21 entries in mission.ini (3 copies each - 1 per MISN - of 7 categories), 19 out of 21 have values that are powers of 2.

Is that significant or coincidental?

More importantly, do these values function more like thruster values (being the percentage of base value that the PAGE SCORs are multiplied by)
or more like bit flags (so that they must be powers of two or the sums of powers of two)?

If it's the later (bitflags), how are they interpreted by the system? What bitflag numerical value renders exactly 100percent of the SCOR value in a PAGE block or item COST? How would I get double COST? How would I get 2.75 times COST? Will using a non-power-of-two-summed value cause a crash? Is there anything else I need to know about this system before I start tinkering with it?

[Fingers]

These are indeed multipliers for the price of items in each category. The only reason for using powers of two was to allow easier division (16/128 instead of 12.5/100 for increments of one eighth) and get nice rational numbers out of it when re-multiplied with the skill level factors from distribution.ini. It's more or less an aesthetic choice

The game price of an item is COST * (category SCOR)/128 * (nebula SCRN) / 128 * (enemies SCRE) / 128