Tuesday, June 16, 2020

What would be a different Ship Design System for Cepheus Engine?

So in a Metric based and Delta-V Budget Cepheus Engine Ship Gen with a Spreadsheet You can imagine it as a Table with Rows of Components and Columns of Attributes: Category (engineering), Module (Propulsion, Fuel, Power), mTon (mass), dTons , cost, ops (man-hour/day), and maintenance (man-day/week).  

Delta V Budget
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhDvp9FaFkI
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjXYBTOC5Ls
What will be different is that there will be Notes on the Spreadsheet guiding the creation - and KPI as you build it. KPI like DVB (delta-V budget), Operations Man-hour/day, and Maintenance Man-Hour/week,  and Benchmarks - Commercial Freighter, Passenger Liners,  Tramp-Freighter, and Destroyers.

Opportunity Costs as a KPI. When I made our ships in Bob's Traveller game I had to calculate the Opportunity cost of DTONs to make an Informed Decision. What is the Market Value per Ton of Cargo. 

I notice as KPIs got complicated I just needed to know higher than or lower than X. My brain started bogging down. 

Its weird when there is a LARGE amount of Working Memory required in some game-related tasks that can be reduced by organizing the data with KPI and baselines. So I want a Tramp Freighter BUT I want X trade-offs. No one wants a game system that reminds them they're BASIC, except me. 


It's funny that people can't sell Spreadsheets and its to expensive to make a program. Although what is Sell-able is the Art, Fluff, Economic consideration, and tested Scenarios. Like many Open Source Models (like Blender and Linux) the Free tools (spreadsheets) compliment the Service/Product being sold. A spreadsheet I can use on a Tablet would be useful as I run a game on VTT. 


I made about 3 Videos of how to use my GURPS traveller spreadsheets - one is a builder another is a Comparative analysis of Operating Costs of several ships. 

Update

I'm taking a break, got burned out doing the fun stuff of writing and designing. Its like eating something you love, it can make you SICK so I have to pace myself, BUT I have to make sure I don't lose my place. I do this to rest and learn after work. 

To do
  1. Prep the Basic Outline of the Computer Design System, Draft 1. 
    1. Some Basic TL9 Computers. TL9 being 2050s to 2200s 
    2. Share the Sample Spreadsheets (200510 Cepheus Engine Variant Rules).
    3. Some basic Software for TL9 and up. 
    4. Some Basic Robots: Humanoid and Quadruped form Pre-Draft 1 Objectives.
  2. Update my 20130819 Sci-FI Notes
  3. Re-write the Scout Events (200607 Scout Creation). I realized I learned a lot by the time I got to Soldier Events that there was a BIG difference in the writing quality of the Events. 
  4.  Proceed with Next Careers. The goal is to have a Working Draft of each. 
  5. Working Draft of Equipment, Robots, Ships, Hazards, and Combat. Combat is pretty far down in priority.  Hazards and TURN-Based Hazard resolution would be interesting - making Game Challenges into Apolo 13 challenges I think would be great. Especially if it is framed as a Business, Disaster, Emergency etc... 

  1. Planning

    1. Purpose and Function. 

      1. Key Concepts.

        1. Trade-offs

        2. Budgets

        3. Delta-V Budget

        4. Man-hour/day

        5. Man-day/Week

        6. Technical Debt. 

    2. Benchmarks

      1. Commercial Freighter 

        1. Cost

        2. Upkeep: Man Days and Materials

        3. Cargo

        4. Budget Breakdown

      2. Passenger Liners

        1. Cost

        2. Upkeep: Man Days and Materials

        3. Cargo

        4. Budget Breakdown

      3. Tramp Freighter

      4. Pirate Ship. 

      5. Smallest Warship: Destroyer

  2. Engineering

    1. Engineering KPI

      1. Delta V Budget

      2. Maintenance. mh/d 

      3. Operation  mh/d

    2. Propulsions

      1. 5-10% mTons 

    3. Fuel

      1. 10-20% mTons

    4. Jump-Drive

      1. 10-20% mTons

  3. Controls

    1. Bridge/Command

    2. Sensors 

    3. Computers

  4. Crew Requirements

    1. Quarters

    2. Life support

    3. Amenities

  5. Function Modules

    1. Cargo

    2. Workshop

    3. Medbay

    4. Docking-bay

    5. Hangar-bay

    6. Crafts

    7. Drones

  6. Defenses

    1. Point-Defense-Lasers

      1. Micro-meteors and debris.

      2. Kinetic Rounds. 

    2. Combat Drones

  7. Finalize

    1. How to Iterate

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