Excel Ship Designer

[DigrizJB]

Honestly, I always use custom crew because I don't see the need for double turret gunners. Maybe +50% or+30% What does the B team do during combat?

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

"From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose."
- Randall Jarrell 1945

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DigrizJB]

What I am doing now for my own campaign is re-building "official ships" and then downgrading the TL to make them a better fit. So rather than updating each time I find an issue, let me add a few more items and I'll let you know when I am done on Sunday and you can publish one update. Each time you update, I have to re-enter all of the data in a new sheet.

 

[DigrizJB]

CLASS: GHALALK, HG 2022 pp. 242-244

I think this is a misinterpretation of the HG Rules, published MCr = Bridge 250 x Holographic 1.25 = 312.5 + Command 30. = 342.5 (x2)
Your SS calcs (Bridge + Command) = 280 x 1.25 Holo = 350 looks correct.

For the Command and Aux bridges, should it calculate the tons of an entire second bridge + the 40 ton command, as it does for the cost? Or am I not understanding how the SS should work?

"A command bridge adds 40 tons to an existing bridge..."

 

[DigrizJB]

Are these the correct prices for the large bay weapons? If there's errata, could you provide a link? The prices in the spreadsheet make more sense.

 

[DigrizJB]

If the tables are correct...

 

[Arkathan]

I have no idea how some of those got in there... ... would love to blame it on anything other than my eyes crossing. Some look like me missing the change from HG1. Others... ???
Anyway, I went through the books and made prices match the new editions... with one exception. I refuse to make a Medium Neutron Laser Bay cost the same as a Small Neutron Laser Bay. I stuck with the old book value of MCr 35. That MIGHT have been the issue with the Large Missile Bay as well in the initial conversion, but it now matches HG2022.

Clarified the Add command bridge, and changed the Aux Bridge calculation.

Current Version: 2023.08.13.

 

[DigrizJB]

Not sure what is going on here, I have to circle back and read the modular hull rules. The HG cost is exactly the modular tonnage cost - the calculated cost. So minus 260 MCr rather than plus 260 MCr 520 vs 1040?










Also the MIL HULL is not carrying over to the record sheet:

 

[Arkathan]

Thanks again!
Sigh... Yes. The Yes box is supposed to subtract that from the cost, since a module's hull costs half a standard volume of the same amount. 25K/dTon vs 50k/dTon. Fixed. It wasn't adding the module or other alt-Hull configs either on the Record Sheet. Now totals all but Armour.

Current Version 2023.08.13a.

Ship Designer: Get it here

 

[adzling]

Love your work Arkathan, thank you so much!
Q: are you planning on building a google sheets version?
Bonus Q: would a multi-ship sheep be possible (i.e. multiple ships in one document, one tab per ship?)

thanks!

 

[Arkathan]

Thanks and You're welcome.
I try not to step on other people's toes, and (IIRC) Andrew W has a google sheet. That's one reason I stick to an old version of Excel, without buttons and functions, so the free version works. (Plus I'd have to learn Google docs... Not a big deal since I usually learn new software by brute forcing my way through a Mega-project.)
My Schtick is separating the HG steps into tabs, so that would be a hard one to implement.

 

[Galadrion]

Bonus Q: would a multi-ship sheep be possible (i.e. multiple ships in one document, one tab per ship?)

thanks!

Hm... the K'kree version of Voltron?

 

[adzling]

Hm... the K'kree version of Voltron?

haha of course "sheep" = "sheet"

 

[adzling]

Thanks and You're welcome.
I try not to step on other people's toes, and (IIRC) Andrew W has a google sheet. That's one reason I stick to an old version of Excel, without buttons and functions, so the free version works. (Plus I'd have to learn Google docs... Not a big deal since I usually learn new software by brute forcing my way through a Mega-project.)
My Schtick is separating the HG steps into tabs, so that would be a hard one to implement.

I haven't seen Andrew's google sheet, did he post to this forum somewhere?
I totally get your choices and they make sense, thanks for all your work!

 

[Arkathan]

Technetium 98's Google sheet
https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/google-sheets-ship-designer.123625/

AndrewW might not be Google. The link on pg 8 of this thread no longer works, and ADD (or boredom) kicked in about 12 pages into a forum search. If he doesn't pop in and provide the link, try PMing him.

 

[adzling]

thanks Arkathan, Technetium's google sheet is dead/ no longer available.

i'll look for AndrewW's work, thanks for the pointer.

 

[ChrisJ]

If you're in the mood for some QOL suggestions here are a few.
1) A section to add in a list of small craft (so they appear in the ship sheet page (hand type in Ship name and cost, and don't discount cost for 10% for standard design of the mothership.
2) Separate entries for ammunition of the cargo page - I often forget when I have a multi ammo type ship (sandcasters and missiles usually, but sometimes torps), how many Tons I allocated to each ammo type, and then I need to add that to ship description so I can remember - plus I need to remember how many tons on mount for Bays.
3) Auto suggest the cargo for logistics supply as per High Guard pg 53 "supplies spares and stores" - leave it for the designer if they want to allocate this amount of stores - but having the calculation made for me would help.
If your not in the mood - ignore this post and I'll carry on using your excellent excell sheet!
Cheers
Chris

 

[Arkathan]

If you're in the mood for some QOL suggestions here are a few.
1) A section to add in a list of small craft (so they appear in the ship sheet page (hand type in Ship name and cost, and don't discount cost for 10% for standard design of the mothership.
2) Separate entries for ammunition of the cargo page - I often forget when I have a multi ammo type ship (sandcasters and missiles usually, but sometimes torps), how many Tons I allocated to each ammo type, and then I need to add that to ship description so I can remember - plus I need to remember how many tons on mount for Bays.
3) Auto suggest the cargo for logistics supply as per High Guard pg 53 "supplies spares and stores" - leave it for the designer if they want to allocate this amount of stores - but having the calculation made for me would help.
If your not in the mood - ignore this post and I'll carry on using your excellent excell sheet!
Cheers
Chris

As I said a few posts up, I need to revamp the cargo tab, so I will look at these when I do.

 

[AndrewW]

Thanks and You're welcome.
I try not to step on other people's toes, and (IIRC) Andrew W has a google sheet. That's one reason I stick to an old version of Excel, without buttons and functions, so the free version works. (Plus I'd have to learn Google docs... Not a big deal since I usually learn new software by brute forcing my way through a Mega-project.)

Nope, not me. Never had a Google sheet.

 

[Dalton Calford]

It would be interesting if the whole ship design paradigm were shifted.

Ship design is currently based upon "pick hull" -->"try to fit items in hull to meet specifications."

But, given that items are based upon "percentage based items" and "fixed sized items,"

You can select all your fixed sized items, as a total volume, then add up all the percentages of the percentage based items, and that gives you your hull.

ie., you pick performance items (jump, fuel, etc) along with armour and anything else that is a percentage.

Lets say that adds up to 65%. That means that all the fixed volume items is 35% of the ship - so you can pick all your mission item things like cargo, passenger staterooms etc. Lets say your mission items add up to 285 dtons - well 285dtons is 35%, so the ship size is 815 dtons.

This makes ship creation alot easier as you build out your ship based upon your design needs vs playing a guessing game between what will fit into the hull you picked.

 

[Arkathan]

While that works for non-propulsion components like weapons, shields and cargo, it doesn't work so well for propulsion, which is based on Hull volume.
I set an approximate hull, fill it with what I need, and then increase hull size until it fits... or dump stuff that I don't really need to make tonnage. Either way, using any sort of spreadsheet for that makes it easy. For mine, I wanted a tab for each step in the HG flowchart so I don't have to scroll TOO far down the page.