Ship logic.

[Hern]

Was wondering about the ship logic in the game. There are obviously 4 classes but many things are a bit eschew just thought I would run them by those here.

First the weights, logically a several light fighters should fit in the cargo hold of a light merchant vessel, medium in medium merchant, and heavy in heavy merchant. Why do they weigh as much? Seems like saying a C-5 weighs the same as a fighter but can carry several fighters of the same class or an aircraft carrier that is only twice as heavy as the many aircraft it can carry. A heavy fighter would weight about half as much as a light merchant vessel (If that). Or does the heavy fighter class include capital ship attack vessels and if so, I don't see the distinction in the lower classifications of vessels and logically there would there not need to be a capital ship class?

Second upgrades, this is really a two part section.

First, seems the equipment sizes are locked and not proportional to ship size ex.. a class 9 shield on a fighter, no problem but would merely take max damage based on the surface area being covered by each face thus reducing the max damage blocked by each face for for, aft, port and starboard (or half for front and aft) if absorption was based per square meter covered by each shield face. For example, for a light fighter with a class 9 shield, shield power could be based on 1/4 the total surface area covered for each quad so a ship 10x larger would have shields 10x more powerful (not so if you calculate the actual area, but used to demonstrate shields are automatically more powerful with this setup with larger ships). This scale could also be used for weapons allowing the same weapons to be mounted on all ships, but limit the power of its weapons to the size of ship and such a calculation would automatically take into account the size of the ship to compute weapons damage. This would give a much more distinct difference between the classes of ships and much more flexibility in ship specs.

Second space on upgrades, upgrades could be more fluid if based on the size of a ship by using percentages for each package. There are exceptions to every rule, missiles would be a good one. This would make most sense especially with armor being the amount of material used to cover a light fighter, and the compared to the amount of material used to cover a capital ship, should translate to cheaper armor prices for smaller ships with equivalent armors. Miniaturization of high power items, on the other hand, should come with a price. Could tie shield power requirements for upgrades by size as well.

Ship sizes could be a little more consistent. I know one ship will never make everyone happy but, take merchant ships for example, go from a llama or dodo to a plowshare and get some heavier weapons but, 1/2 speed for twice the weight and half the cargo space... LOL. Upgrade to heavy and get more than double your original cargo space...errr just put turrets on the llama or dodo?

Would milspec be easier to manage if it were a package/conversion as opposed to an original purchase? Could also charge to have it changed back to stock.

[chaotical]

And why can you fit a plowshare inside another plowshare?

[RedAdder]

Maybe the plowshare is taking the other plowshare in tow ..

I mean, you only need to put the cargo inside a hull if it needs to be protected from radiation.

[Keller]

And why can you fit a plowshare inside another plowshare?

Perhaps they're beating the Plowshares into Swords?

Many of the sizes and masses of the ships and items in the game require tweaking. I'm sure eventually they'll all be sorted out.

Hope This Helps,