I've been at the drawing boards again. After thinking about it, there seemed
to be a few useful(?) reminders to those who want to do a bunch of designs.
SO:
How to Design a Traveller Vehicle Quickly (Rob's Rules)
(without using a computer)
Rule#1: If it doesn't matter, don't worry about it. The most critical example
of this is power consumption for electronics on most vehicles. Unless a vehicle
is extremely small, the total of these values is almost always neglible. Thus,
you can size your power plant at the beginning of the process based on an
estimate of power required for weapons, environmental controls (only if grav
plates are being used), and grav/thruster use. There are a couple of rules of
thumb to remember. "Full environment" (basic env, basic and extended life
support, grav plates and inertial compensation) uses 1MW/displacement ton. If
your vehicle is heavily armored, the three most massive components are likely
to be the hull, the grav drive, and the power plant. You can fuss with these
numbers to get a good estimate of grav performance.
Rule#2: Decide what is critical first, and set your hull size accordingly.
For example, I wanted a TL12 small vehicle carrying a Plasma-B gun. Energy
on that is 13.5 MW, dictating a power plant of at least 6kl. Usually I build
vehicles around 1)the weapon 2) The accomodations (i.e., if you need roomy
seats for 16 people, this will drive the rest of the design) or 3) The speed.
Rule#3: Decide what factor is being optimized, and ignore the rest--this usually
means that in working on a combat vehicle I set the armor and weapon and let the
speed come out to be whatever it will be, or in building an inexpensive vehicle
I don't add any "chrome", or in building a fast vehicle I avoid as many massive
add-ons as possible.
Rule#4: Having one vehicle makes a variant very easy--something like the 4 Tiger
class vehicles I posted a while ago took 40 minutes to do the first, and maybe
10 minutes apiece for the others, even including the time to write everything
down again, because 95% of each one was copied from the previous one.
Rule#5: Unless it really doesn't work, finish every design: Real governments
have put some dreadful designs in the field, based usually on a false concept
of the conditions the vehicle would face, and there is no good reason that things should be any better in the future. So unless the hull is too small to
stuff everything into, or you've put so much armor on that it can't possibly
fly, finish it. (And assign it to that country/world you don't like...)
Rule#6: Governments don't care what it costs. I have the dubious pleasure of
working for the U.S. Army as a civilian engineer, and this is certainly true.
So when I'm doing military vehicles, I pile in the sensors and other chrome.
How much is 5% extra capability worth in combat???