A few things to consider when evaluating starships for this kind of exercise: are you looking at just the ship stats (i.e. spreadsheet calculations) or just deck plans, or a combination of both? By which ruleset are you making the evaluation and are all ships compared by that same standard?
Agreed, we can only really compare ships of the same edition, using that editions rules.
I only use ship's stats. Deck plans can change the size of rooms, but not the number of "staterooms".
Canonical small ship designs - by which I mean those in the 100-200 dton range especially in the CT era - are notorious for not following their own construction rules.
Bah, the Referee can always break the rules.
The rule stating that designs within 20% of the calculated tonnage are "close enough" muddies the waters even further. How much variation do you allow and still consider ships comparable?
I don't see the problem; 20% bigger just means larger rooms, not more cargo or "staterooms".
To add to AnotherDilbert and Blue Ghost's discussion on the Hammer and the Type-S:
1. Can any Book 2, 100 dton, Drives A ship be profitable as a freighter?
Hell, no. Sticking by RAW we can get 20 Dt cargo (and a single stateroom), netting us up to kCr 20 per jump, but the costs are about kCr 84 per jump. Even J-1 and 30 Dt cargo is not even remotely enough.
2. I'm not sure of AnotherDilbert's comment about the Hammer being "neither cheap nor flexible".
I should be more specific, I didn't mean to disparage any design:
Cheap: The Hammer uses a custom hull which costs MCr 20, the Scout uses a MCr 2 standard hull. That alone makes the Hammer much more expensive. As far as I can see the Hammer could just as well use a standard hull and be just as cheap as the Scout.
Flexible: With flexible I mean ships that can reallocate space at need (without a few months in the yard). For example see Blue Ghost's idea about replacing fixed tankage with collapsible tanks above or the Modular Cutter. The Scout is certainly not flexible, and neither is the Hammer, even if it is much better with a reasonable cargo hold.
With the budget ship I tried to create flexibility on the cheap by placing all available space in regular shaped cargo hold, allowing standard-sized functional modules to be exchanged easily.
I get the Scout to be base MCr 35, MCr 31 as standard:
Code:
3 34,7
USP # Dton Cost
Hull 100 Dt 1 100
Configuration Cone 2 3
Scoops Streamlined
Armour 0
Jump Drive A 2 1 10 10
Manoeuvre D A 2 1 1 4
Power Plant A 2 1 4 8
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-2, 4 weeks 2 40
Bridge 1 20 0,5
Computer m/1bis R 1 1 4
Staterooms 4 16 2
Cargo 3
Turret-2 Beam 1 Turret 2 1 1 2,6
Air/raft 4 Dton 1 4 0,6
Nominal Cost MCr 34,7 Sum: 3 34,7
Class Cost MCr 3,75 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 31,29
And the Hammer MCr 52, or MCr 47 as standard:
Code:
-8 52,2
USP # Dton Cost
Hull Custom 1 100
Configuration Cone 2 21
Scoops Streamlined
Armour 0
Jump Drive A 2 1 10 10
Manoeuvre D A 2 1 1 4
Power Plant A 2 1 4 8
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-2, 4 weeks 2 40
Bridge 1 20 0,5
Computer m/1bis R 1 1 4
Staterooms 3 12 1,5
Cargo 15
Turret-2 Beam 1 Turret 2 1 1 2,6
Air/raft 4 Dton 1 4 0,6
Nominal Cost MCr 52,2 Sum: -8 52,2
Class Cost MCr 5,68 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 47,04
Note that it is 8 Dt over-sized.
