Calculations and CAD packages

Martyn J. Wheeler [email removed] writes:
> They're not really circular, they are mutually interdependent.  As I
> implemented it, you can change the power plant output and the agility
> will be adjusted; you can change the agility and it will find the
> power plant size by iteration.

Quattro Pro calls that a "circular reference", and there are several
such in my MegaTraveller starship design worksheet.  Because I use a
spreadsheet, I can customize it for whatever I want to optimize in the
design by putting a formula in the data entry cells.  For example, if a
design requirement is a certain agility, I put the a formula for total
power required in the cell for power plant size.  Then I go to the
summary page and press "recalc" until the thing either converges on a
solution, or "blows up" indicating that the design is impossible and I
have to try again.

> The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a two-level
> design system.  I could really use a quick method of generating
> designs in addition to the detailed one.  If GDW wanted to keep the
> basic rules simple, a _Starship Operators Manual_ with the complex
> design rules.

Me too.  One thing I would like is to be able to get the "advanced"
design rules for *EVERYTHING* in one book, so it's all in one place.
Everything from lasers and CPR guns to starships, aircraft, watercraft,
tanks, grav vehicles; all in one book.

> Now what I could *really* use is a Computer-Aided deck plan layout
> system, preferably integrated with the design parameter system so I
> could do everythign at once.  The characters in my campaign are far
> too keen on boarding inoperative ships...

I tried one of the available CAD packages several years ago.  I came to
the conculsion that it would work well, except for a couple of things:
First, I would need to sit down and create a library of parts for every
common object on the starship (chairs, stateroom furnishings, consoles,
hatches and iris valves, etc).  Then designing a starship would actually
be easy and fast, probably faster than doing it by hand.  Finally, I
would have to find a large plotter: dot-matrix printouts just don't cut
it, either in size or quality --- one of my pencil sketches would be
better.  Since I couldn't afford the kind of plotter I felt I needed to
do good deckplans by computer, I have up.

[email removed]
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                                                 Science-Fiction Adventure
                                                         in the Far Future