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[MedievalSteve]

Modifications to drives, etc.?

Jump fuel is not multiplying by parsecs. So it happily makes illegal ships.

Cannot install holographic controls on the bridge. OK, found them, see next.

Having to go to two places for the same system is annoying/confusing. Especially when optional accommodations comes up before staterooms.

Having to confirm additions after entering everything, when the add button is down the page after the selection expands (pushed offscreen twice for me) is confusing and superfluous. Specifically looking at weapons. A similar confirmation, albeit visible on the same line, was a major irritation for AnotherDilbert and others on my own sheet.

Thanks for having a run through, and for your feedback.

I'll add Jump fuel calculations back to my bugs list.

The "two places for the same system" is due to me following the build rules as laid-out by the High Guard book. There are many places that I considered changing where to find something, but in the end went with a direct-translation of the book layout - this has pros and cons of course, but the biggest pro is that a newbie following the process as laid out in the book will be able to find everything where it is 'supposed' to be.

For somebody who is used to the Ship Building process, they can 'jump' between the different steps freely just by clicking on the step buttons at the top.

I though that I had already removed all of the "confirm to add" buttons - but clearly have missed some of them. I will add that to my bug list for elimination wherever possible and move it to a more immediately visible place when I can't.

 

[MedievalSteve]

Some comments...

Some options should not be available at default. Here a TL-12 ship:
View attachment 5902
Neither TL-14 stealth, nor TL-16 armour should be available by default for a TL-12 ship.


You can have several drives, e.g. two different jump drives. See the Leviathan, HG p217.


The design system isn't a waterfall model, but a iterative method. E.g. we can't finalise the power plant, hence fuel tanks and crew, until weapons, screens, and sensors are installed.


Power plant fuel isn't correctly calculated?


If you default install power, fuel, and bridge, it is much easier to see how much space is required and left free.


Computers can be /bis and /fib.
A certain computer model is required to make the selected jump drive actually work. Don't present smaller computers by default?


There can be several different sensor packages installed. There are many other sensor options than the basic sensor package, it would be easier to select all of them in Step 7.


Weapon mounts can be left empty, e.g. a bay or barbette mount can take up space, but contain no weapon. A triple turret can contain less than three weapons.


Turret weapons take no space, only the turret takes space. A fully loaded triple turret is only 1 Dton.
Both turret weapons and the turret itself can consume power, e.g. a triple laser turret consumes 13 Power; four per weapon and one for the turret.


High Burn Thrusters are the same as Reaction Drives, they can go higher than 6 and take a percentage of the ship (and lots of fuel...)


Drop tanks do not consume space inside the hull, they are installed outside the hull, increasing the total tonnage of the ship, which affects drive performance.


It's not "200K Cr", it's "KCr200" or perhaps "200 KCr".


Many optional systems should probably be presented together in other steps, e.g. a detachable bridge is an alternative to a regular bridge, not an optional addition. Sensor options in the sensor step, accommodation options in the accommodation step a.s.o.


Docking Clamps allows carrying spacecraft outside the hull, increasing the total tonnage of the ship, which affects drive performance.


Crew: Commercial ships don't generally require a separate Captain, it can be one of the Officers or e.g. a Pilot.
Commercial ships require one officer per FULL 20 crew, i.e. crew/20, round down. The value can be 0.
Some crew positions are rounded up, some are rounded down, see examples in the ships. Generally Engineers are rounded up, and e.g. Administrators are rounded down...


There are no "single staterooms" and "double staterooms", only staterooms. They generally only berth one person, but can berth two people in a pinch.


Cargo: You can leave space unallocated as reserve for upgrades, so all available space should not necessarily be automatically allocated to cargo.


It's inconvenient to add small craft and vehicles in the Finalise step, after crew and accommodations are set, invalidating the design.


Some values might be more convenient as percentages, e.g. Staterooms as a percentage of crew and passengers, Common Areas as a percentage of total stateroom space, or Escape pods as percentage of carried crew and passengers. That way you don't have to redefine them everytime something changes.

Thanks for this comprehensive lot of feeback!
1. I've obviosuly broken the Tech Level validation rules at some point - added back to my bugs list.
2. I hadn't considered multiple drives of the same type on a single ship. I will look at implementing that.
3. You should be able to jump between steps whenever you like. I stuck with the layout of the High Guard build process as 'default', but the app will allow you to complete the ship building steps in any order you like.
4. I'll go back over the power plant fuel calculations again, added to the bugs list.
5. Default install of those three items has been buggy, it is supposed to auto calculate all three that you have mentioned, so if you are not seeing that behaviour - onto the bugs list it goes!
6. /bis and /fib are available once you install a computer - validation rules are supposed to prevent installing computers too small (added to bugs list).
7. Alternative sensor packages are available by the dropdown list, other options are in Optional Systems (that's where to find them in the rulebook).
8. Drop tanks - already discussed above.
9. Where to find options -
"The "two places for the same system" is due to me following the build rules as laid-out by the High Guard book. There are many places that I considered changing where to find something, but in the end went with a direct-translation of the book layout - this has pros and cons of course, but the biggest pro is that a newbie following the process as laid out in the book will be able to find everything where it is 'supposed' to be.

For somebody who is used to the Ship Building process, they can 'jump' between the different steps freely just by clicking on the step buttons at the top."
Oh, and the Detachable Bridge is an Optional System which modifies the cost and weight of an existing bridge, not a standalone type (see page 51).

10. Docking clamps should be adding to the weight of the overall ship. I did have that working, but many things have changed since that implementation (take down 1 bug, 10 more appear). I'll add it to my list of things to check.
11. Crew calculation should be correct to the High Guard rules, I'll add them to my to-do list for checking again. You can override the auto-calculated numbers anytime, so it should allow you to remove 'Captain' if one is auto-calculated, and set any crew type to 0 anytime you like.
12. It is true that a stateroom is a stateroom, and can be configured either way. The calculation of weight and cost does not change between the two. I'll put a note in there about it: The two different inputs represent a "stateroom currently configured for 1", or a "stateroom currently configured for 2" personnel. I tried to implement this a few ways, but it kept getting stuck on an 'all or nothing' calculation (all configured single, or all configured double), but will keep looking for ways to improve.
13. The all leftover space is allocated as cargo space is directly from the rulebook.
14. Adding small craft and vehicles at the end invalidates the design? The reserved space for those are already determined by the Optional Systems installed to hold/dock them. I'm not sure what you mean by this one - please could you elaborate further? You can customise crew complements at any time you like.
15. Showing percentages would be useful, I'll look at implementing that.

Oops! Missed a couple:
Weapon mounts can indeed be left empty, the rules do not state that they can't be.
The cost/weight and power usage should be calculated correctly - added to my to-do list for checking.
High-burn thrusters also added as an item to check.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I have an accessibility issue.

I have very poor eyesight and the bright colours and white background make it unusable for me.

Is there a way to get a dark mode version of it?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

14. Adding small craft and vehicles at the end invalidates the design? The reserved space for those are already determined by the Optional Systems installed to hold/dock them. I'm not sure what you mean by this one - please could you elaborate further? You can customise crew complements at any time you like.

Adding small craft changes the ship. The Finalise step should just be about adding up and checking the ship.

Adding small craft changes the crew hence quarters, so I have to go to several steps to adjust the ship.
Adding small craft in clamps changes the size of the ship hence drive size hence fuel hence crew hence quarters, so I have to rebuild half the ship in the finalise step...


Note tonnage is not mass, it's size (space).

HG'22, p5:
GENERAL
Ships are measured in ‘displacement tons’ or d-tons:
a 100-ton ship displaces a volume equal to one 100
tons of liquid hydrogen (one d-ton equals roughly 14
cubic metres).

In HG, 1 ton = 1 displacement ton ≈ 14 m³. Space, not mass.


So, as e.g. small craft in clamps or drop tanks are added the size of the total craft changes which impacts drive size, fuel allocation, etc.


It would be much more convenient if small craft were added at the same time as the docking type, and the clamp/hangar/docking space was automatically sized for the selected small craft. I.e. let the user select a small craft and a docking type and let the software do the necessary calculations.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Philosophical comments / Enhancement suggestions:

Nothing is fixed, everything is a variable, everything changes other things: Size of ship and size of hull are different and both are variables. TL controls everything, but is still a variable. What happens if I make the ship at a higher or lower TL (space and cost)? What happens if I run out of space and increase the hull a bit?


There are far fewer actual decision points than is apparent at the surface. Installing a J-4 drive is one actual decision point with lots of downstream consequences such as required power plant, fuel requirements, computer, crew, staterooms, etc. that are not decision points and should not need manual intervention.
All of the required components should be allocated with the jump drive and total space and cost of ship updated immediately, and removed if the drive is reduced. That way the designer can easily see the true impact (space&cost) of a jump drive, or any other system.

As is, e.g. fuel is calculated and allocated when you go to the fuel tab and change something. You can't see the true cost of the drives or other systems until the entire ship is done, and then you have to redo the entire ship if you want to free some space by reducing the drive. Cumbersome.

If you separated the data and calculations from the interface layer you could easily recalculate dependent values without the user visiting all the tabs.


Designing a small simple ship like a Scout or Free Trader should be just a few decisions: Size, drive performance, carried vehicles, passengers, done. The rest is just more or less automatic calculations that the software can do much faster and better than the user.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Let's build a Scout:

Step 0:

So far so good.

Note that we must allocate some systems such as power plant, fuel, bridge, staterooms for the crew, so the "0 tons used, 100 tons free" is a fantasy...


Minimum hull size is 5 Dt in HG, to prevent abuse of tiny drones.
There is no upper limit to hull or ship size in MgT2. 100 Mton hulls are possible, if a bit pricey.


Step 1:



Cost of armour is way off, it's MCr40, but should be MCr1.2.

I should not have to look up what type of armour is appropriate at TL-12. The type of armour used should change if I change the TL. I should just have to say 4 points of armour, and let the software handle the minutiae.


Step 2:

So far, so god.

Again, we have, by necessity, required a lot of other components to make the ship work, so tonnage used and cost are not the actual costs we will calculate later. With large enough drives, we may already be over tonnage, making the ship impossible to build, but we won't find that out until far later...

We might want oversized drives to accommodate e.g. the craft in docking clamps and drop tanks, and that might differ between different drives. Each drive individually can be hardened and/or protected by armoured bulkheads.


Step 3:

I should not have to worry about the TL of the power plant, unless I want to manually override the TL default. A default Fission plant is not appropriate for most craft, especially a jump ship, as Fission plants can't power jump. A TL appropriate Fusion or Anti-matter plant should be default.

With the selected drives and hull 60 Power is needed (50 minimum), but only 45 Power allocated. The default allocation should round up?

It is quite possible to use a fractional ton power plant, see Ship's Boat, p140, but that is not possible in the manual input field.


Step 4:


Until I change the jump tank value, jump fuel is not calculated or allocated correctly.

Power plant fuel is not correct. (PP/10, round up, min 1 Dton) is for four weeks. 8 weeks requires 2 Dton.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Step 5:

Bridge is calculated, but not added to the ship until I change the bridge to a small bridge and back...

Where does Bridge power come from?


Step 6:

/bis and /fib not included in the price of the ship.


/bis not taken in consideration for Bandwidth for running Jump Control.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

After clicking through all mandatory components, this is the view I would like to see already in Step 2:

After selecting a J-2 drive, the ship requires at least 70 Dtons of semi-mandatory (automatic) components, meaning I have only 30 Dtons left to play with.


That is not what the software tells me:

 

[Arkathan]

Input fields should have a border, fill, font characteristic or underline to make it easier to find. Had to poke around on the page the first go to find where to change from the default of 1000 tons for size

 

[ross]

When you start making calls to restrict the build rules, you limit the utility. My view is that it should be robust and cover all the published options, even perhaps allowing for some user created additions like @Arkathan’s spreadsheet does.

Don't want to restrict the build rules. just want a ship builder for Charted Space/Third Imperium

 

[Terry Mixon]

Don't want to restrict the build rules. just want a ship builder for Charted Space/Third Imperium

And most of those rules are applicable. So aren’t, but they are High Guard.

 

[IanBruntlett]

Hey all!

I've developed a new web-app for building ships! It's designed using the updated High Guard rules. Please check it out via the Traveller Tools page on the Mongoose Website.

I've had a quick look at it. Does/will it support space stations as well? Good luck!

 

[Sigtrygg]

Any chance of a dark mode version so I can see it?

 

[ross]

Is anyone else having issues with the “assign to” drop down and adding small craft?