Mathmatically-Challenged Cats

[WKE235]

What would be REALLY useful, would be a formula that would project how many engines would be needed for x number of AP's based on a core weight of Y, that takes into account the additional weight that the added engines contribute to the final design z.

Is there anyway to come up with a formula in Excel for this situation?

Quick and dirty, try this.

 

=ROUNDUP((AP*(M-TEAI))/(T1E-(AP*M1E)),)

 

Where

 

AP = Action points desired

M = Current mass

TEAI = Tonnage of engines already included in M

T1E = Thrust of 1 engine

M1E = Mass of 1 engine

 

Why the TEAI? My Excel sheet formula is (using the varibles you listed)

 

=ROUNDUP((AP*M)/(T1E-(AP*M1E)),)

 

I design my ship with no engines (except Jump Drives), get the total weight (M), decide on the AP I want, select the desired engine (T1E and M1E) and plug them in. The TEAI doesn't do anything.

[Paradigm]

What would be REALLY useful, would be a formula that would project how many engines would be needed for x number of AP's based on a core weight of Y, that takes into account the additional weight that the added engines contribute to the final design z.

Is there anyway to come up with a formula in Excel for this situation?

Quick and dirty, try this.

 

=ROUNDUP((AP*(M-TEAI))/(T1E-(AP*M1E)),)

 

Where

 

AP = Action points desired

M = Current mass

TEAI = Tonnage of engines already included in M

T1E = Thrust of 1 engine

M1E = Mass of 1 engine

 

Why the TEAI? My Excel sheet formula is (using the varibles you listed)

 

=ROUNDUP((AP*M)/(T1E-(AP*M1E)),)

 

I design my ship with no engines (except Jump Drives), get the total weight (M), decide on the AP I want, select the desired engine (T1E and M1E) and plug them in. The TEAI doesn't do anything.

In case M already includes some engines.

[Pandaemonium]

Another possibility for planning: some of the ship components are valued at their proportion to the total ship's weight (engines, fuel tankage, defensive systems), while others are valued based simply on the number present (sensors and other bridge systems, weapons, jump drives (unless you're planning for warp assaults)).

 

If you total up the weight of the systems valued by their number and compare that with the percentage of the total weight not committed to the proportionally-valued systems, you can figure out what the total weight needs to be and, from that, the weights of the individual proportional items, like engines.

 

With the hypothetical 'Curious Cheetah', there are 7900 tons of number-valued systems and, as it turns out, 84.2% proportionally-valued systems, leaving 15.8% of the ship's total weight for the 7900 tons which, by an amazing coincidence, works out to a round 50,000 tons. (For a Mk III Nuclear Engine, with 1000 tons of thrust and 100 tons of weight, i.e., a 10:1 ratio, you get 1 AP per 10% of total ship's weight that is engines, so, to get 8 AP, you need to have 80% of the ship's total weight be engines.) The 'CC' also has 1000 tons of fuel tankage (2% vs. 10% for a Pathfinder), 100 tons of hull plating (.2% vs. 10% for a Pathfinder) and 1000 tons of force shields (2%).

 

If you don't want to figure out desired percentages for non-engine systems, you can simply compare the totalled weight for the systems chosen (10,000 tons for the 'Curious Cheetah') with the percentage of the total weight not being used for the engines (20% for the 'CC') to get the total weight (10,000/.20=50,000) and the engines' weight (80%/20%=4 times the 10,000 tons; or 80%x50,000; or 50,000-10,000=40,000 tons) which, with the weight of an individual engine gives you the number of engines needed (40,000 tons/100 tons-per-engine=400 engines). It works very quickly in practice. Really.

[Azuth]

Huh?

 

Where are those Advanced Black Market Goods

[Tokmok]

Hello

 

When designing cargo-ships one should consider the following

100000 Cargo bays cost 15 mill Raw materials

 

 

Alternative 1

A standard in-system cargo-ship with 100000 cargo bays and 2 AP´s is capable of hauling 100000 tons of cargo to the homeworld.

 

Alternative 2

Here we equip the ship with Mk II Fusion Engines(2000 thrust) but the ships total cost is still ca 15 mill RM´s

At 9 AP´s the ship has 46610 cargo bays and

 

the total in-system cargo-capacity is 209745 tons (The average over 2 turns)

 

Alternative 3

Here we still use engines with 2000 thrust-rate but we now give the ship 18 AP´s

The ship still is based on the 15 Mill RM´s cost.

The ship therefore has 7353 Cargo bays

 

But now the average in-system cargo-capacity is only 66176 tons

 

So the best option for a cargo ship with Mk II Fusion engines is to have 9 AP´s

 

For a 1000 thrust-rate engine the number is 5 AP´s

For a 2000 thrust-rate engine the number is 9 AP´s

For a 4000 thrust-rate engine the number is 18 AP´s

 

thanks tokmok

[PhaseDragon]

Tokmok has an excellent grasp of the concept.

[DWillard]

Tokmok has an excellent grasp of the concept.

Except that at least for most in-system convoys, I prefer to keep the AP at an even number.

 

In Tokmok's example (alternative 2), he uses 15,013,500 RR. For 1500 less RR I could have a 10 AP ship with 41700 Cargo Bays. That's 208500 in-system cargo capacity/turn (consistently; not more one turn then less the next turn). Even though that's an avarage of 1245 less cargo/turn, I would rather have the even AP for practical purposes.