"Ultimate" ship building questions

[david.wendelken]

I started designing my first two T5 ships this week.

I have some questions:

Can I use two P2 canopies to power a J4 instead of a single P4 canopy?

Can an "Ultimate" Stateroom and other personal space items count as 30% more space for passenger demand since it's 30% more efficient? Ditto for crew comfort?

"Ultimate" consoles count as easier to use so one is less likely to have accidents, etc., on ship ergonomics ratings?

For other items not explicitly mentioned, can "Ultimate" items be considered to take up 30% less space?

 

[robject]

I started designing my first two T5 ships this week.

I have some questions:

And fantastic questions they are! Good for the errata pile, too. I'm typing them up as I read along.

Can I use two P2 canopies to power a J4 instead of a single P4 canopy?

Tell me your thoughts and opinion first.

Can an "Ultimate" Stateroom and other personal space items count as 30% more space for passenger demand since it's 30% more efficient? Ditto for crew comfort?

"Ultimate" consoles count as easier to use so one is less likely to have accidents, etc., on ship ergonomics ratings?

For other items not explicitly mentioned, can "Ultimate" items be considered to take up 30% less space?

Maybe.

And, to which other items do you refer?

 

[david.wendelken]

Ok, I'll expand a bit on dual collectors (C2s) to power a J4.

1000 ton hull (code K)

A C4 would be code V, a C2 would be code K.

Code V collector in a K hull takes up 200 tons.

Code K collector in a K hull takes up 100 tons.

Two code K collectors would take up 200 tons.

If both are feeding their power into the jump drive at the same time, could they power the drive to a J4 rating.

Why do that? Well, if you're building at Tech level F, you can't build a single C4 at standard levels of quality.

 

[robject]

Why do that? Well, if you're building at Tech level F, you can't build a single C4 at standard levels of quality.

Your logic is perfectly sound, and I think that you are following a correct process with precedent in the rules themselves. Do you have any conclusions or observations about Collectors, then? Do you think there may be a potential errata item? (I do).

 

[david.wendelken]

Your logic is perfectly sound, and I think that you are following a correct process with precedent in the rules themselves. Do you have any conclusions or observations about Collectors, then? Do you think there may be a potential errata item? (I do).

As far as using 2 separate collectors to supply the energy, one could argue that, at Tech Level F, the technological limit isn't the size of the collector, it's the ability to pull energy out of it fast enough. In that case, one might argue that it can't be done at all.

I guess it's a bit like batteries. Chained 2 together one way, you get the same battery voltage twice as long, chained together another way, you get twice the voltage for a regular battery lifetime.

I had expected that using two C2 collectors would require more space than one C4 collector, but it turned out that wasn't true. I didn't realize that until I responded to your query.

A closer look at the drive formulae on pg 337 shows something interesting.

The collector formula does not have a + X at the end of the formula like Antimatter and Jump drives do.

That means two A2 drives take up more space than one A4 drive, ditto for the jump drives.

However, the Manuever drives have a -X on them. They get relatively bigger as you want more performance out of them.

As antimatter, power plants and collectors all supply power, the same chaining issues apply to all three.

It's quite clear to me that jump drives don't chain in such a way as to allow one to jump farther.

If we had Rocket powered manuevering drives, chaining them might work (assuming they would fire at the same rate, otherwise one would go in circles). But we have manuever drives which manipulate gravity, so I don't think they would chain together.