As a sample, I'll re-build the Star League-era McKenna under these rules:
Original stats:
Tech: Star League (2750)
Introduced: 2652
Mass: 1,930,000 tons
Length: 1,405 meters
Sail Diameter: 1,560 meters
Fuel: 1,600 tons (4,000)
Tons/Burn-day: 39.52
Safe Thrust: 3
Maximum Thrust: 5
Sail Integrity: 7
KF Drive Integrity: 37
Heat Sinks: 6,325 (12,650)
Structural Integrity: 95
Battle Value: 214,414
Armor
Fore: 200
Fore-Sides: 250
Aft-Sides: 250
Aft: 143
Cargo
Bay 1: Fighters (25) 4 Doors
Bay 2: Fighters (25) 4 Doors
Bay 3: Small Craft (16) 1 Door
Cargo (255,382.5 tons) 1 Door
DropShip Capacity: 6
Grav Decks: 3 (45, 45 and 75 meter diameters)
Escape Pods: 30
Life Boats: 30
Crew: 97 officers, 404 enlisted/non-rated, 78 gunners, 180 bay personnel
Ammunition: 500 rounds NAC/40 ammunition (600 tons), 30 Barracuda Missiles (900 tons), 20 White Shark Missiles (800 tons), 20 Killer Whale Missiles (1,000 tons)
Notes: Equipped with 1,603.5 tons of ferro-carbide armor and lithium-fusion batteries. Original stat block had 2 doors for the cargo and none for the small craft, changed to 1 and 1.
Weapons: Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat)Type Short Medium Long Extreme Class
Nose (440 Heat)
1 NAC/40 (41 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
1 NAC/40 (41 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
2 NL55 11 11 11 11 Capital Laser
FL/FR (700 Heat)
1 NAC/40 (41 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
1 NAC/40 (42 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
1 NAC/40 (42 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
3 NL55 17 17 17 17 Capital Laser
2 AR10
(7 KW, 7 WS, 10 B) * * * * Capital Missile
LBS/RBS (2,700 Heat)
4 Heavy NPPC 60 60 60 60 Capital PPC
4 Heavy NPPC 60 60 60 60 Capital PPC
4 Heavy NPPC 60 60 60 60 Capital PPC
AL/AR (2,700 Heat)
4 Heavy NPPC 60 60 60 60 Capital PPC
4 Heavy NPPC 60 60 60 60 Capital PPC
4 Heavy NPPC 60 60 60 60 Capital PPC
Aft (900 Heat)
4 NL55 22 22 22 22 Capital Laser
2 AR10
(6 KW, 6 WS, 10 B) * * * * Capital Missile
1 NAC/40 (42 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
1 NAC/40 (42 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
1 NAC/40 (42 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
1 NAC/40 (42 rounds) 40 40 — — Capital AC
* By Missile Type (Heat factored as Killer Whale)
Changes: The new armour limit is 22,918.75 tons, but since the original McKenna only used ~44% of its armour cap, I'll do the same here. That yields 10,022 tons of armour, which I'll round off to 10,000. For ferro-carbide, that gives 8000 capital-scale armour points. We'll assign 1200 to the nose(=24 per slot, 48 per area, and 120 to the facing itself), 1500 to each side(=30 per slot, 60 per area, and 150 to the facing itself), and 800 aft(=16 per slot, 32 per area, and 80 to the facing itself). For a nose hit, you reach SI after doing 24+48+120=192 damage, as opposed to 200 for the original McKenna, but only if everything hits the same slot. As a result, it's generally better-armoured overall, but you'll start losing criticals sooner.
Critical space will need to be allocated. Let's count what we have.
There are 36 areas on a WarShip. Basic requirements take up 15 slots(1 fuel, 1 life support, 4 K-F, 3 avionics, 3 CIC, 3 FCS). Four bays will each take up an area. That leaves us with 17 areas that are unused, which could be allocated to capital weapons bays if needed.
There are 216 slots on a WarShip:
- 3 safe thrust is 9 slots for engines.
- One sensor per facing is 6 sensor slots.
- 10 doors and 6 docking collars is 16 slots.
- 3 grav decks take up 6 slots.
- The jump sail takes up two slots.
That leaves us with 177 slots. However, we haven't allocated heat sinks or weapons yet.
- There are 12 4xHNPPC bays, each of which will take six slots, for a total of 72.
- There are 12 NAC/40 bays, each of which will take up three slots, for a total of 36.
- There are 3 2xAR-10 bays, each of which will take up one slot, for a total of 3.
- There is one 2xNL-55 bay, which will take up two slots, for a total of 2.
- There are two 3xNL-55 bays, each of which will take up two slots, for a total of 4.
- There is one 4xNL-55 bay, which will take up three slots, for a total of 3.
That's 118 slots, leaving us 57 slots for heat sinks. 878 heat sinks are built into the McKenna, and this gives us 57*60=3420 slots for additional heat sinks. Using SHS we'd have 4298 heat dispersion, and using DHS we'd have 4036 heat dispersion(but we'd spend 2280 fewer tons doing it). For comparison, the original McKenna has 12,650 heat dispersion ability. That was somewhat overkill, but the reduced values created by these rules are too low right now.
Option 1: Knock a couple HNPPC bays off the ship. Those are the big heat hogs, and each one removed will drop the heat need by 900, and add 360 more slots for heat sinking. If we drop one HNPPC bay from each facing, we have a ship that generates 9940 heat firing everything and can sink 5738 heat. That's not quite as abundant as the original's heat sinks, but it's pretty good.
Option 2: Change my rule for heat sinks per slot. If it's 60 heat sinks(of any size) instead of 60 slots, the max becomes 8596 with DHS. That's not bad.
Option 3: Add a new piece of equipment, similar in principle to a radical heat sink or cooling pods. Maybe it would weigh 500 tons, take up an area, and let you sink 1000 heat once per battle(after which it's useless). This could mount 17 of them, which would let it keep firing for quite a while in practice.
I'm not 100% sure what's best here (I haven't playtested these, and it should be obvious now that I wrote the above post before creating this - downsides to house rules, tbh), but for sake of argument I'll go with #2.
We've added 8,396.5 tons of armour, and reduced heat sink weight by 2,027 tons, for a total weight increase of 6,369.5 tons. We'll just take that out of cargo, so it's now 249,013 tons of space.
Allocating everything as needed, you wind up with the attached record sheet. The ship is a little tougher than it would be under the official rules, and a little worse on heat sinking, but it's basically the same. And I think it looks more fun to play, because you actually get the sense that it's a seriously tough battleship with layers of defences to tear apart.