Re: (2994) Ship design

> Date: Tue, 8 Oct 91 13:09:43 CDT
> From: [email removed] (Michael A. Surman)
> Subject: (2994) Ship design
>
> I have a question concerning the starship design rules.  Do special
> control panel add-ons benefit from the computer CP Multiplier?
> If so, then why do all the ship designs included with the system
> use so many control panel units?

Yes.  As to the second half of that question, I am forced to say that I don't
know, and I haven't got my books so I can't look it up.  It's generally agreed
here, though, that one add-on per relevant crew member should be the maximum
allowed (you can only stick your head in one HUD display at a time, so more are
wasted), which means that controls are installed by :

1.  Picking the computer, which allows you to calculate crew requirement
2.  Installing enough HUDs and so forth for the crew
3.  Filling in left over CP requirments with control panels.

> For example, the Type S Scout/Courier has 181 control panel units;
> on a ship that can be run by ONE PERSON!  Since the ship also
> has a holographic heads-up display (Which, if it gets the
> multiplier, provides 3000 CPs.) why does it need so many control
> panel units?  The Referee's Manual is not clear on this, can
> someone clarify this for me?

As I understand it, a control panel is really no such thing--think of each
dial and switch in an airliner's cockpit as being a 'control panel unit.'

As to the Scout/Courier, a 32MCr ship (for example) at TL15 needs 4800cps,
so the single HoloHUD unit with the multiplier of 15 for a 1bis computer
only provides 5/8 of the requirement, leaving the rest to be filled by
those 181 control panel units (@181*1.5*15= 4000cp---but my cost was an off
the cuff estimate.)

> One other thing.  The Encyclopedia lists the Type S as having an
> emission level of faint.  From what I see in the tables the emission
> level should be moderate.  The power plant is less than 1000Mw
> (emission level of faint), the ship is less than 1000 tons
> displacement(+1 level to moderate), and no EMM is listed leaving
> a level of moderate.  Is this just a typo, or am I missing
> something?

You missed something.  (Sorry!)  Less than 1000MW is faint, but you must
be under 20 tons to suffer an increase in emission level due to size.  A
100ton ship with less than 1000MW is faint.

> Lee Eilers


Hope this is of some help to you...


Rob Dean