Ship design - rounding and non-standard components

[wintertraveller]

When designing ships, do you allow non-standard component sizes, such as an armory sized for 4 marines instead of 5 (.8 tons instead of 1 ton) or a medical bay with 2 beds instead of 3 (2/3 of four tons)?

Which components can or cannot use fractional sizes such as a 20.4 ton m-drive or a power plant that is sized for only 17 power points?

To what decimal is the standard fractional component such as a hot tub that is sized at .25 tons. Is this recorded as .3 tons?

Is there a good source of a summary of which components must be handled in units of a full ton? I believe power plant fuel always roundup to a full ton, but my impression is there is some variability in how other components are handled.

Thank you for any guidance on these questions. Cheers

 

[Terry Mixon]

When designing ships, do you allow non-standard component sizes, such as an armory sized for 4 marines instead of 5 (.8 tons instead of 1 ton) or a medical bay with 2 beds instead of 3 (2/3 of four tons)?

Which components can or cannot use fractional sizes such as a 20.4 ton m-drive or a power plant that is sized for only 17 power points?

To what decimal is the standard fractional component such as a hot tub that is sized at .25 tons. Is this recorded as .3 tons?

Is there a good source of a summary of which components must be handled in units of a full ton? I believe power plant fuel always roundup to a full ton, but my impression is there is some variability in how other components are handled.

Thank you for any guidance on these questions. Cheers

Power plants can be as small as 1 PP. I design ships with decimal point down to .01 without blinking.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

When designing ships, do you allow non-standard component sizes, such as an armory sized for 4 marines instead of 5 (.8 tons instead of 1 ton) or a medical bay with 2 beds instead of 3 (2/3 of four tons)?

Not generally, but if you must...

I would not allow the full benefit, say a DM+1 on some important roll. Perhaps a half-size Med bay would allow a Medic check without penalty, but no DM+1?

Each four tons attributed to medical bays supports the treatment of up to three patients so long as there

I would certainly allow e.g. a 6 Dt med bay.

Which components can or cannot use fractional sizes such as a 20.4 ton m-drive or a power plant that is sized for only 17 power points?

Any component of variable size that does not specifically say use whole Dtons. Armour and drives certainly can as per small craft in HG. HG, p138, Military Gig:

To what decimal is the standard fractional component such as a hot tub that is sized at .25 tons. Is this recorded as .3 tons?

Whatever you can be bothered with. If a component is 0.25 Dton, I would like to say 0.25 Dt, but my spreadsheet would calculate with 0.25 Dton, but display 0.3 Dton by default. If it's important I would force it to display more decimals.

Is there a good source of a summary of which components must be handled in units of a full ton? I believe power plant fuel always roundup to a full ton, but my impression is there is some variability in how other components are handled.

It should be written in the description of the item if it has to be rounded up.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Power plants can be as small as 1 PP. I design ships with decimal point down to .01 without blinking.

I made some rather small drones, before they were banned, e.g. 1.8 Dton small craft:
https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/fighters-fighters-fighters.118672/post-898771

Or how about a 0.09 Dt drone?
https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/tiny-drone-fighter.118767/post-899724

 

[Condottiere]

It depends.

If you understand the underlying basis of how the ship component function, or, if it's a game mechanism to minimize munchkinization.

With fission power plants, you can make the assumption some degree of overhead is necessary, to shield the environment from radiation.

 

[rinku]

Half size and 1.5 size staterooms as a thing go back to Classic. There might be some reason for minimums, but a four person version of a 5 person thing should be fine to scale accordingly, just as scaling up a 5 person thing to be a 6 person thing would be.

You might need to pay an overhead to get a nonstandard component made up, but a Referee level you can just rule that need has already meant it's commercially available.

Classic, MGT1e and T5 are fairly big on standard drives. Which does make a bit of real world sense. If you're building a watercraft and an already commercially available power plant exists that's about half of what you need, you're more likely to install two of them than go through the design and production process to make a single big one, unless there's a significant performance advantage. Aircraft are usually built around engines.

So it's also fair if you want to rule that commercial craft are limited to stock drive sizes, especially if you make them a bit cheaper as a result (in effect the Standard Design discount already does that). Military and specialist ships don't have to fit that, though.

(Edit) A further thought; some things pretty much should come in standard sizes. Missiles spring to mind.

Does not mean you can't have all sorts of interesting variations, but a 110% size missile is going to need a custom launcher.

 

[AndrewW]

believe power plant fuel always roundup to a full ton, but my impression is there is some variability in how other components are handled.

Power plant fuel for small craft though can be fractional.

 

[phavoc]

When designing ships, do you allow non-standard component sizes, such as an armory sized for 4 marines instead of 5 (.8 tons instead of 1 ton) or a medical bay with 2 beds instead of 3 (2/3 of four tons)?

Which components can or cannot use fractional sizes such as a 20.4 ton m-drive or a power plant that is sized for only 17 power points?

Yes. For most things there is nothing wrong with scaling up, or down, to accommodate your needs. A prime example - an armory module sized exactly for 4 marines. It's literally a secure closet to store a few weapons and ammunition. It's also a bit of a misnomer - it should be an arms locker. An armory has an entirely different use and thought process behind it. I generally try to stay away from fractional sizes unless you are building a tiny ship like a shuttle. For starships I prefer to keep things at 1Dton or greater just for easier math and building. After all it's important enough to call out, so it needs to be of some size.

For ships I always use standard rounding - less than .5 I round down, more than that round up.

For vessels that are already getting into fractional stuff, use the same idea but on the 2nd significant digit after the decimal.

To what decimal is the standard fractional component such as a hot tub that is sized at .25 tons. Is this recorded as .3 tons?

Is there a good source of a summary of which components must be handled in units of a full ton? I believe power plant fuel always roundup to a full ton, but my impression is there is some variability in how other components are handled.

Thank you for any guidance on these questions. Cheers

 

[mavikfelna]

Power plant fuel for small craft though can be fractional.

Actually, all power plant fuel can be fractional. This was explicitly allowed in Deepnight Revelations 4, page 78. Thought it does put a minimum of 0.1 tons.

 

[Condottiere]

Small Craft Catalogue contracts that to two weeks operational time, or one twentieth of a tonne.