RE: RE: Hull size table

Dan Corrin [email removed] wrote:
> I was just sitting down to deisgn a ship design aide for the new
> rules. The first thing was to convert the "hull size table" to a
> formula, because I have always disliked even sized hulls. One doesn't
> see descrete sizes of automobiles, nor are we in Niven's universe with
> iscrete sized General Products hulls.

> Below is the hull table I got from plugging values into the
> correct formulae for a sphere. L was calculated from volume:
>       vol = 4/3 pi r^3 (where L = 2*r)
> and the material value from:
>       surface = 4 pi r^2, and multiplied by 0.01 to get a 1cm volume.

> Note that in the 30 Ton - 20,000 Ton  range the figures are quite
> similar, but outside those values significant deviation occurs.

For the hulls from 1 to 10 tons the text in the Tech Book gives a hint:
cite from page 2, Configurations (under the Hull siye table)
"Hulls of 10 tons or less in displacement are elongated six-sided blocks, and
 are assumed to be laid out in a utilitarian form."
This will result in some inaccuracies, if a sphere hull is assumed. But all in
all I think the only cause of the values in the tables is the cut down of
fractions in calculations.

For the larger hulls, you should take into consideration that the errors of
your formula are within 10% of the MV given in the table. The same is true for
the length. This shouldn't bother you, especially if you compare it to the
section of the text talking about Deck plans, which says:
"When comparing the final number of grid squares used on the deckplan to the
 rated tonnage of the vessel's design, allow 10-20% leeway."
Your calculations are more exact than those in the table, so keep them. A
deviation of 10% in the hull volume does not much damage. If I'm correct in
my observation, that the calculated values for smaller hulls are smaller than
those in the table, and the values for larger hulls are greater, there should
be no problem, because with increasing displacement, the part of the volume
devoted to the hull shrinks significantly. And of corse the Hull Form and
Configuration Table give much more error margin than you could include
using your formula.

One more thing: There are no Asteroid hulls any more. I will use the
Megatraveller rules for this. Will there be any rules for hollowing out
asteroids?

Juergen

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Juergen Kirsch
Institut fuer Informatik, Universitaet Bonn
Germany
[email removed]