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Im sure that this has been discussed or thought of before....

Has anyone come up with a process for addressing the disproportional unit costs? And perhaps find a way to standardize them?

Lets say we start with an unarmed grot making the little guy 2 pts. Give him a S3 R12" Pistol adds 1 point. And so on through the unit types.

Example:
MC base cost 150 (a talos or wraith lord or some similar stats unarmed)
add wings + x points
add ignores cover to its weapon + y points

This would have the benefit of getting what you pay for accross army platforms. Although it would take a harsh monarch to impose their will on us landless peasants or a widesread community agreement (invoke the chaos symbol). It seems like this could bring some much needed balance to an already existing ruleset by appropriately handicaping obviously undercosted / overcosted units (Craftworld Wraith Knight vs Stompa come to mind.)

In this system all special rules from movement to being an independent character. From being a tank to a fast skimmer. This would be a pretty collosal organizational task that would require several overhauls as there would be a multitude of inconsistences and math needed. For instance would a S8 R 24" Assault 1 weapon in the hands of an ork vs the hands of an eldar cost the same?

Anyway just thinking about the old FASA Battletech Mech design technique. It seems like one could do something similar for 40k?

Thoughts? Interest in working on it?

There are a ton of great "universal" sci fi rulesets out there with built in unit creation, such as Fast and Dirty. Just use those to make your units, and then play those superior rulesets while your at it.

Back in 2nd edition (I know, it's not relevant at all anymore) weapons did not cost the same across the board. A Space Marine Heavy Weapon might cost 25 points, but an Ork Heavy Weapon (same stats) would only be 10 or 15.

Do you guys think it could bring balance to the force?

I think it's an iterative thing. Look at the Marks of Chaos, for instance. Giving something with higher toughness or more wounds a +1(++) or +1(T) is more expensive, etcetera.

So if you were to do that there'd need to be a 'tax' based on how high their other stats are. It could get pretty darn messy.

Also Grey Knights.

Eh, they do this in infinity, and end up adding junk to a unit profile to inflate the cost to the level they want it. Not a big fan of that.

Those universal systems I mentioned are all "generate points cost of base unit, then add multipliers for special abilities"

So a monster might be 100 points, +50% for wings, +50% for psychic powers, or whatever.

A purely linear system (+x pts for any options) won't really work. Either extreme hordes (s1t1 + maybe pistol) or maxxed models (give them everything plus the kitchen sink) will almost always dominate that way.

Perhaps adding at least a second power (+x%, or if a then b prices) would fit the desired system better. But there is infinite potential complexity. And more complexity will always be addable in a way to further balance it. But would make it harder to compare.

Using such a system as a guideline, then manually adjusting is probably optimal. After all, Biomancy does more on a FMC than a MEQ model.

First you'd need enough game experience to work out what everything's worth in the first place - and at that point you could just adjust the points for the models rather than trying to come up with an objective system for it.

I'm currently working on trying to balance unit costs. I'm starting with Grey Knights and Space Marines and then planning on working out from there.

I figure having a base cost for different stat lines. Then putting a value on the various armors, then adding set point values for weapons and wargear. If the prices of each of these is appropriate to its effect on gameplay, then you should be able to put any combination of these together and have it result in a balanced unit.

Note: some rules would likely have modifiers on the prices of other weapons or wargear due to the way they work together.
Ex: Units with wargear or special rules that give them a 12" movement would probably pay a bit more for template weapons than units that only move 6" in the Movement Phase.

The fist step on the road to better balance is costing at the point of interaction. 40k is all about unit to unit interaction .

So price up comparative unit worth first.(EG comp'are a units in game effectiveness to other units in game effectiveness.
This gives comparative costs of units as accurately as you can get.(As it includes all the synergistic elements within the unit.)

Then discover synergistic bonuses through play testing unit combinations.(To stop list spamming etc.)

Its as easy as that to write down, but takes loads of time to actually do it properly.. .