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Updating the Stat Template for Starships
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)


Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10286
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy

PostPosted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 7:53 pm    Post subject: capital ships Cargo Capacity Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
This isn't hugely important to me, but one of the more useless stats on most capital ships is Cargo Capacity. The most use I ever get out of it is it gives me something to take away when I'm doing a variant stat of some kind.

Don't you post your ships for everyone to use? You may not use that stat, but other people do. Cargo capacity in tons is not useless in play because in the game, cargoes by default are measured in tons.

CRMcNeill wrote:
The thing is, volume of usable cargo space arguably counts for more than tonnage. As a truck driver, I'm only concerned with weight because there are hard legal limits on how much my truck can weigh and how that weight is distributed. The physical limitations on weight of cargo is entirely subordinate to the mass of the cargo itself and how much I can fit into the space allotted for it. Sure, there are stability concerns at the upper end (which is what I was trying to represent with my cargo and starship performance thread), but that's far less of a concern for starships than it is for road vehicles or ocean-going vessels.

I appreciate your knowledge and experience, and I do not disagree.

CRMcNeill wrote:
Whill wrote:
...Just a simplification with averages to make the game more readily playable. Without it, then you are doing more arithmetic to calculate how much volume a cargo takes up...

...Since weight varies wildly by cargo, it would actually simplify things to use something like the chart from Tramp Freighters to tell you how much a given volume of cargo weighs, which in turn tells you how much the performance of the ship is degraded.

The base cost and weight table (and luxury goods expansion chart which is in the book)? Like anything, if you make an expanded chart based on that, I'd be interested in seeing it. But consider this example for my point...

Quote:
MERCHANT GUY: I have the last 300 tons of high tech that needs vacated from my warehouse before the governor repossesses it. How much of it can you can you haul away this week?
FLEET GUY: I only have a Marauder Patrol Corvette available to transport it. There is already is some other cargo in there. What is the volume of your cargo?
MERCHANT GUY: I don't know. It is sitting in the north east corner of my warehouse. But I know it is 300 tons.

Most would-be cargoes are measured in tons. Even with your chart, math would be involved to calculate the volume of it. And for most ships that we know the game stats of (and even have external images for too), we don't have a detailed deckplans to even begin calculating cargo hold volume. So you would be making up cargo volumes for your stats, just to then require more math to be involved to convert cargoes from tons to cubic-meters or some other unit of volume in play. So dealing in volume exclusively would complicate game play for the sake of realism.

If you remove the tonnage, I personally will still use your capital ship stats. But why remove it when other people will use it? You don't have to remove it. You could just add cargo volume stats to them, leaving what is already there be. But of course, do what you must with your stats.
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CRMcNeill
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Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 12:25 am    Post subject: Re: capital ships Cargo Capacity Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Cargo capacity in tons is not useless in play because in the game, cargoes by default are measured in tons.

Yes, but how often has anyone actually used it?

Quote:
The base cost and weight table (and luxury goods expansion chart which is in the book)? Like anything, if you make an expanded chart based on that, I'd be interested in seeing it.

That's the one. Notice that it already listed metric tonnage by cubic meter, so the table wouldn't need any conversion at all. You'd just have to run the numbers in reverse to get the tonnage from the meters^3, not the other way around.

Quote:
But consider this example for my point...

Quote:
MERCHANT GUY: I have the last 300 tons of high tech that needs vacated from my warehouse before the governor repossesses it. How much of it can you can you haul away this week?
FLEET GUY: I only have a Marauder Patrol Corvette available to transport it. There is already is some other cargo in there. What is the volume of your cargo?
MERCHANT GUY: I don't know. It is sitting in the north east corner of my warehouse. But I know it is 300 tons.

Most would-be cargoes are measured in tons. Even with your chart, math would be involved to calculate the volume of it. And for most ships that we know the game stats of (and even have external images for too), we don't have a detailed deckplans to even begin calculating cargo hold volume. So you would be making up cargo volumes for your stats, just to then require more math to be involved to convert cargoes from tons to cubic-meters or some other unit of volume in play. So dealing in volume exclusively would complicate game play for the sake of realism.

That's the thing, though. Unless you're hauling bulk cargo that can be poured in/sucked out, the dimensions of the cargo and/or packaging would be of vital importance in the shipper's determining of whether or not they could haul something in the first place. Consider a YT-1300, for example. It may be able to carry 100 metric tons of cargo, but to carry such cargo internally would require that it be packaged individually in crates that can be hand carried up the ramp and into the ship's cargo holds.

You wouldn't just dump 300 tons of high-tech electronics on the floor of the cargo bay; they'd be sealed in protective packaging, stacked on a pallet and sealed with some sort of wrap or other dunnage material to keep the whole mess from toppling over onto the floor in the event of a sudden jolt. So what are the dimensions of a standard pallet in the SWU? In the RW, they're ~1.1 meters on a side, and can be stacked over 2 meters high with product.

What if it's a 300 ton repulsortank? Sure, the ship may be able to carry that much weight, but are the cargo bay doors big enough to get it in the ship (granted, the Marauder is nearly 200 meters long, so that is plausible).

Trust me, people who transport stuff would've long since taken this sort of thing into consideration.

Quote:
If you remove the tonnage, I personally will still use your capital ship stats. But why remove it when other people will use it? You don't have to remove it. You could just add cargo volume stats to them, leaving what is already there be. But of course, do what you must with your stats.

I doubt I'll change anything. It's just that the existing cargo capacity system offends my professional sensibilities.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)


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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy

PostPosted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 8:28 pm    Post subject: Re: capital ships Cargo Capacity Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
I doubt I'll change anything. It's just that the existing cargo capacity system offends my professional sensibilities.

No doubt. Understood.

Quote:
That's the thing, though... Trust me, people who transport stuff would've long since taken this sort of thing into consideration.

I'm not even people who transport stuff and I personally do take this sort of thing into consideration. On the medium freighter I designed, I created a 2D deckplan, decided on a deck height, and calculated the volume of each of the four cargo bays and some other rooms that could be used for specialized cargo. I calculated the size of the openings for the cargo moving on and off the ship. I put a good deal of thought into cargo logistics. But you and I are not typical gamers in this regard.

This game is not a transport simulation game. Cargo transport is never the reason for the game – It is an excuse for adventure. Most GMs would even bother with the simple arithmetic of that chart involved in converting weight to volume. The cargo logistics wouldn't matter. Hauling "300 tons of high tech" is just a reason for the story to go from planet A to planet B. No one is going to roleplay out crate busters moving cargo in and out in holds unless it is a brief scene to introduce a character with dialogue or interrupt it with an action. Most all cargo logistics take place "off screen" so the details aren't that important to most gamers.

I was just trying to point out that most gamers that would use your ships would use the cargo capacity stat and no other cargo details. In the last two weeks, there have been over 4,000 unique visitors to the Rancor Pit Forums (and this is not counting bots and worms). Most of these people are lurkers, and I'll bet a lot of them use your ships. On behalf of all the silent ones, thanks you.
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