Funny my ships keep coming out 10-15% cheaper. You may be doing something
wrong but if u are building a starship especially a merchant vessel here
are a few tips that will save u money and cargo space.
1. Decide on cargo space first.
2. Make Hull streamlined and not Airframe.
3. Don't put in EM Mask. Don't need it and not worth it either.
4. On cargo ships atleast u don't need Elecvtronic Circuit Protection.
5. Go for as small a maneuver drive as possible.
6. Go for smallest possible P-plant even if it means Agility 0. With the new
rules P-plants are really fuel hungry. It makes agility harder to reach but
a lot fewer MT ships have high agility anyway. The way rules are set up
the smaller the ship the more likely it has high agility. Somehow seeing
a 100,000 t dreadnought pull agility 6 was a little hard to envision in old
High Guard.
7. Try to approach the 30/90 day limit on fuel for duration. It is not necessary
as long as you can keep it over 14/42 higher is preferable on Merch ships and
some warships with long loiter times (SDB's etc).
8. Try small staterooms for crew not bunks. Book suggests that bunk are for
vehicles etc I think. If requiring a large stateroom price it 250,000
not 400,000 as mentioned in Ref's book under accomodations. This is not
in the flowchart part unfortunately.
9. The Dweeb who designed the Subsidized merchant is wrong. He also bungled
the patrol cruiser(see my earlier posting). Subsidized merchant works
with Comp Model 2bis and reduced endurance I think its 22/66. Cost is higher
too but still less than old Traveller & High Guard costs.
10. Problems appear at low tech levels where High Guard or Traveller old
designs CANNOT be directly translated. So consider this a new game and just
downgrade those designs until they can fly.
Ameer Z. Sulaiman.