Could anyone please tell me how you reduce the stress of your ship in the new shipbuilding rules?
Yeah, I found the SBM lacking in that regard too. I made up my own:
"
Structural Reinforcement":
Hull size Cost (per point decrease)
Diminutive 250 per point of structural space
Tiny 500 per point of structural space
Small 750 per point of structural space
Medium 1000 per point of structural space
Large 1500 per point of structural space
Huge 2000 per point of structural space
Gargantuan 2500 per point of structural space
Colossal 5000 per point of structural space
As you can see, it becomes rather expensive for big ships (as it's paid per structural space - for example, the Hyperion has: stress 12; basic stress for hull size 20, -2 due to military-grade hull, -6 due to structural reinforcement; cost 6×68×2000, +10% for military grade hull = adding 897600 credits to the ships total cost), so it is usually only done for military vessels. (OK, so the Hyperion doesn't really have 68 structure... it only says it does... but for the example lets assume these 68 were right...)
Even more disturbing for me were the weapon swap possibilities... come on, see what you can arm an average fighter with - but make sure you don't drink anything at the same time, as you might experience some explosive exhalation when being confronted by the possibility of a Starfury with... Quad-Linked Solar Cannons! (and no, I don't care that it would be too expensive for PC's to plausibly do - my experience has shown me that if it's possible in the rules, some munchkin will find a weak-willed GM who allows it... oh, well, one has to expect such things from a first try at shipbuilding rules... let's home Mongoose makes enough profit to stzay in business a looong time, so I can get a revised shipbuilding system supplement some day...)