Building a warship?

[CDAT]

I am trying to modify the Defender from Field Report 2765 AFFS and keep coming up 38,000+ tons over weight just getting to the official ship to start from, the only stat that I do not have is how much food/water they start with but that only comes to about 160 tons. Has there been any major changes (erata/retcon) in how they are built that I am missing?

[Vition2]

Without more information about how you are modifying the ship, there are a few possibilities I can think of.

1- If you are increasing speed at all it will cut into the remaining tonnage quickly.

2- If you increase structural integrity significantly it will cut into it pretty quick.

3- The Defender is very close to max for weapons, so if many are added you are going to see fire control tonnage penalties.

4- I've noticed that sometimes, programs will include a significant portion of the cargo tonnage to be allocated to spare parts, and they pull this from the available cargo space.  At times it can be upwards of 10%, which, in the Defender's case, leaves very little extra room to play with.

Any combination of the above could also be the issue.

A more accurate assessment can be made if you tell us what modification you are adding to the design though.

[CDAT]

Right now I am just trying to get to the official stats, for a starting point. And that is where I am running into the issues, before making any modification, just using the printed information I keep coming up that the ship as printed is 38,000+ tons over weight. As for the spare parts it is set for 0%, as that was the first thing that I dropped to try and make weight, but it was not enough. The only other place that the printed states do not give a specific amount is the amount of air/water and right now I have about 160 tons there, so even if I dropped that to 0 that would not make any real differance to the amount over weight that I am finding it to be.

[Maelwys]

Well, presumably the only place for the stats are in the Field Report 2765 AFFS.

My suggestion would be to do the stats by hand while looking at the rules in SO, rather then relying on software. This way you can also compare each step (like engine weight, etc) and you might find the issue before going all the way through the design.

Of course, its also possible that the Defender writeup is wrong. It would hardly be the first bit of errata found.

[sillybrit]

CDAT,
As you've noted, the masses don't add up and, as presented in FR2765AFFS, the Defender should have a cargo capacity of ~32kt, not the listed ~106kt. My best guess is that the mass of the armament wasn't deducted from the running total, as the weaponry adds up to the missing ~74kt.

With IntOps having come out since the FRs publication, there's additional issues with both the design and fluff, such as the size of the ship and the stats for DropShuttle bays.

Re values for spare parts and food/water consumables, I'm guessing that you're using HMA given that they're a construct of that software, particularly the spare parts, and you won't see them in canon designs. Canon designs treat all such items as being part of the cargo. Unfortunately, like the other Heavy Metal products, HMA is badly outdated and also has some unofficial assumptions/features.

I'm also guessing that you allocated 11kt per DropShuttle bay per the IntOps rules to come up with your 38kt discrepancy. If you allocated 20kt/bay per the FR specs, you get the 74kt discrepancy I noted above.

[CDAT]

CDAT,
As you've noted, the masses don't add up and, as presented in FR2765AFFS, the Defender should have a cargo capacity of ~32kt, not the listed ~106kt. My best guess is that the mass of the armament wasn't deducted from the running total, as the weaponry adds up to the missing ~74kt.

With IntOps having come out since the FRs publication, there's additional issues with both the design and fluff, such as the size of the ship and the stats for DropShuttle bays.

Re values for spare parts and food/water consumables, I'm guessing that you're using HMA given that they're a construct of that software, particularly the spare parts, and you won't see them in canon designs. Canon designs treat all such items as being part of the cargo. Unfortunately, like the other Heavy Metal products, HMA is badly outdated and also has some unofficial assumptions/features.

I'm also guessing that you allocated 11kt per DropShuttle bay per the IntOps rules to come up with your 38kt discrepancy. If you allocated 20kt/bay per the FR specs, you get the 74kt discrepancy I noted above.

Thank you, that solves the issue that I was having.