Reverse Ship Building?

[sniperbbb]

I am rather new to this game still and looking through the guides, it seems most of the ship design guides seem to be backwards and cause cramping.

This may not be so important in building swarmers and pships due to the nature of the ships but building your big ships and you have specific ratios in mind for attk/hp ACU and ABS you would design the systems first.

IE

Design Weapon(s)
Design Special(s)
Design Computer(s)
Design Armor(s)
Design Powercore
And finally
Design Ship

Is it just me or does this seem to be the better way to go?

[thezerg]

That's how i design it. But some players like the other way better. I dont know why though. it does seem like youd need to cramp some designs at the end to fit

[Chronos]

Cramping? I haven't had trouble with cramping.

The optimum space for a component to take up is constant after a certain ship size. So as long your hull is large enough for the standard rules to apply, you'll always know what amount of space your components are going to take up. Just send the rest to your powercore. Then all that's left is dividing up your energy quota.

Now, while you could do it the other way maybe just as easy or easier, I've always done it this way because I have a much tighter rein on the resulting ship's cost. Because a ship's cost, for standard rules, should be all but completely dependent upon it's hull.


(Added:) If you're using one special, for health, and one shield. It is relatively, relatively mind you, easy to balance them via math for maximum effect.

[sniperbbb]

Its not so much for hull space per say as it is for energy. Total component weight not including the core is 56 for me. But when designing when you have a predefined energy output makes it hard to get the ratios you want.

IE

I want a a ship with 1:10 attack:HP ratio. Building the ship and core first may cause my ratios to change.Or a may even run out period.

If you desging your components first, you know how much energy your components will need so you can build you core to order and the your ship.

[thezerg]

You can calculate your ship cost within 20k creds even designing the hull last and rounding multiple times when designing

[FTP]

I can make entire ship designs with a pen and some paper (and prefably a pocket calculater)

[Chronos]

You could use math, I guess. I'd try, but it'd mean I'd have to do more field research to refigure all the formulae.

Let's see, using s# shields, c# computers, one special (for health) and one weapon...

Find the optimal s# set of shields for x energy, assign the total percent to S(e), where e = energy. Find the ratio of special to shields by solving something like:

(d/dx) (S(r*e) + 1.0) * Sp((1.0 - r)*e)  =  0

Where Sp(e) equals the health you get from the optimal special for e energy. One of the solutions should give you the percentage (r) of energy to put in shields for e energy to attain the best net health you can get when you assign e energy to health. If t is the total energy for your shields and special, then the s# set for (r*t) energy would be your shield set and your special would get ((1.0 - r)*t) energy.

For your attack, it'd be something similar. Find the c# set of computers for x energy, total percent = C(e). Then you'd have to solve my weapon equation replacing the energy for ((1.0-r)*e) and C(r*e) for the computer percent.

Then if you can solve those two systems of equations for the resulting net health and net attack you could find the ratio for any energy e with the side benefit of having all the equations needed for a twinked out ship.

Of course, if you can't solve those systems for the net health and attack, well, you can still twink out you ship, you just can't find determine the ratio in that direction.


Yes, yes, very roundabout and a lot harder than it needs to be. But you really would only need to do it once. And the side benefits are hefty... I guess.