Ship masses: do it ~right~!

That........ was a faster response than I expected. Thanks.

Now, I'll use your examples against you. The 2001 ship, from what I saw, had less than half -- maybe a third -- of its space taken up by what an EV scenario would consider "outfits." Even though it was a habitation ship with no instant-travel hyperdrive, the engines and the power source murdered its available space. I expect the same of Borg ships........ and I won't bother with the solar sails. Argh.

By the way, when I mentioned using the length to make mass calculations, I was referring to its use as a modifier of the "additional mass" percentage, not a direct factor in the total.

( MS-06F Zaku II: "Do these vernier engines make me look fat?" )

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Originally posted by NTiOzymandias:
**That........ was a faster response than I expected. Thanks.
**

Not at all. 🙂

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**
Now, I'll use your examples against you. The 2001 ship, from what I saw, had less than half -- maybe a third -- of its space taken up by what an EV scenario would consider "outfits." Even though it was a habitation ship with no instant-travel hyperdrive, the engines and the power source murdered its available space. I expect the same of Borg ships........ and I won't bother with the solar sails. Argh.
**

I think you're confusing reality and fiction again. This is, and I repeat, a game.

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**
By the way, when I mentioned using the length to make mass calculations, I was referring to its use as a modifier of the "additional mass" percentage, not a direct factor in the total.**

And what I'm saying is that the modifier you propose is not and cannot be a constant. You would need to change the modifier according to a complex and arbitrary system involving length, total volume, the purpose of the ship, the design philosophy and the level of technology used in it's creation.

Better to keep it simple, I think.

Dave @ ATMOS

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Originally posted by NTiOzymandias:
**< snip>I expect the same of Borg ships...</snip>

<snip>I was referring to its use as a modifier of the "additional mass" percentage, not a direct factor in the total.</snip>**

Just on this, I think you missed the point of the Borg vessel example. The volume of a cube, where x is the length of any given side, is x cubed. The volume of a sphere of the same length (assuming the radius r is half the length) is 4/3 * pi * (r cubed).

Assuming the two vehicles are constructed in a similar fashion from similar materials, the cube weighs a bucketload more than the sphere, even though they're the same length.

See what I mean?

Dave @ ATMOS

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(This message has been edited by pipeline (edited 08-15-2002).)

Pipeline,

I completed a conversion for all the ships in Nova, EV, and Override. Some of them are close, but some are wildly different. I can post it if you want. Its in text format (BBEdit).

I found a problem while computing in the Aurora Carrier (295). This ship has a fighter in the second set of weapons fields, but no bay. Also, while adding up the masses for the Thunderforge, the Triphammer has no mass assigned in Nova.

Should the total mass additions for ships which carry fighters include the computed mass for the fighters? I added it up this way, but I can take out the fighter mass.

One interesting?! item that turned up. The Valkyrie in Nova is a heavier, but weaker ship than the Starbridge. But the Starbridge computes out to be much heavier than the Valkyrie because of the heavier weaponry. Technological advances? For instance the newer Starbridge uses Tritanium armor, while the Valk uses older and heavier armor, in the original construction as it comes from the shipyard?

But some of the Pirate and Rebel ships seem to be overloaded.

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Originally posted by JohnnyAndrews:
**< a number of pertinent comments>
**

Thanks for all that. You'll find that these have been corrected in Nova 1.0.2, as that's exactly why I made this formula.

I should clarify; the currently available build of Nova has incorrect data in this respect. The new build has it fixed, using new formulae. 😄

Dave @ ATMOS

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So are you updating the length values? It might be advisable, even though they don't effect the ship performance. For one thing, they give the player a more vivid picture of how the designers concieve the ships, and also, it looks rather careless and slipshod if the designers have put ridiculous values in them.

For example, the luxery liner (Or whatever the EVN name for it is) is only 30 meters long, but it has a complement (passangers and crew) of 300 doesn't it? The liner thus is less than half the length of a 747 (~70 meters) yet it still carries 3/4ths as many people (The 747 can carry about 400), which means it is in fact more crowded than a full 747. Not very luxurious it sounds to me.

Now, now, pipeline, everyone knows that Borg spheres are always much smaller than Borg cubes in terms of length/diameter. Borg pride themselves on perfect specifications for their vessels. Therefore each three-dimential shape (or class of ship if you will) they use for their ships (cube, sphere, that sort of flatish thing, that diamond-complex-shape-type thing used in that one Voyager ep. with the Borg queen in it, etc.) is always the exact same size within its shape-class. I cannot put enough stress on this point ;). The only exception to the rule is the more armored attack-cube, which is smaller than the less-armored one, but it still remains much larger than a sphere and has a different appearance to it entirely from the original cube.

But if we ignore this obvious error in your Borg-ship-design-knowledge ( :p), you have a very good point. And look at the different shapes used in the game. Some are fairly long and flat (and somewhat wide), but with little height. On the other hand, some are much more bulkier and taller, while having a shorter length.

In short, 😛 and I agree (not necessarily in that order, but almost decidedly so).

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Originally posted by SD:
For example, the luxery liner (Or whatever the EVN name for it is) is only 30 meters long, but it has a complement (passangers and crew) of 300 doesn't it? The liner thus is less than half the length of a 747 (~70 meters) yet it still carries 3/4ths as many people (The 747 can carry about 400), which means it is in fact more crowded than a full 747. Not very luxurious it sounds to me.

Except for the fact that the Luxury Liner is MUCH wider and taller than a 747 with multiple decks. But, I do agree that it is slightly out of proportion.

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Originally posted by P-Psycho:
**Except for the fact that the Luxury Liner is MUCH wider and taller than a 747 with multiple decks. But, I do agree that it is slightly out of proportion.
**

That, and the fact that the model changed halfway through the design stage (so did the description). I guess it needs to be updated to be about 250 metres long. We must have missed that, so I'll chalk it up as a bug.

Still, the number of people here that are still failing to realise that this is just a game amazes me. 🙂

Dave

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Quote

Originally posted by pipeline:
**That, and the fact that the model changed halfway through the design stage (so did the description). I guess it needs to be updated to be about 250 metres long. We must have missed that, so I'll chalk it up as a bug.
**

That length would make much more sense when you look at the Luxury Liner and how it compares to the Pirate Carrier in (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/desktoppics/Pirate-Carrier(1024x768).jpg")this(/url) image. It is described as being "speedy through hyperspace" however. Will you keep it's mass below 200 tons? Their "mild shielding" also eclipses every other ship in Federation Space except for Destroyers and Carriers. I rather like flying one. I hope we haven't inadvertantly killed the best light freighter in the game.

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Originally posted by Myriad:
**I hope we haven't inadvertantly killed the best light freighter in the game.
**

Probably, because it was never meant to be one. 🙂 Never mind, though; as far as I'm aware the Starliner will only be out very slightly in it's mass estimates, so it shouldn't have changed much.

All the best,

Dave

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I must be doing something wrong...

The Leviathan in 1.0.2 says it has a mass of 10,000 but using the formula I get 4422.

4000 (Cargo Space) + 20 (Free Space) = 4020 (Basic Ship Mass)
4020 + 10% = 4422?

Are my math skills just lacking or was the Leviathan not changed?

(edit) Well looking around at the other ships like the Lightning it appears that the formula wasn't put into pratice in 1.0.2. Is this to be done in a future release? (/edit)
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(This message has been edited by Ragashingo (edited 09-05-2002).)