Hello Guys, As a first rule for construction times, what do you all think
about using the square root of the mass as time in months for construction
time? Thus a 100 mass unit would take 10 months to make, while a 4 mass unit
would take 2 months to make. Time taken is considered to be wartime
construction times where the shipyard is taking 7 days a week to make.
Also, I would like to see if anyone has ideas about making a new "system"
called cargohold. Cargoholds are immune to needle beams, and each take up 1
mass unit. If one assumes a set volume (to be specified by the game users, not
the game rules <grin>), then cargo ships can have an
allocation to non-weapon systems that makes sense, instead of stating
that the damage done to the ship outright determines how much damage is done
to the cargo itself. Thus, a mass 40 cargo ship, which can only have 4 mass
units of weaponry, can now have an additional 16 cargo units, with the
remaining "50%" of the ship treated as other warships are treated - as
having drives, lifesupport, staterooms, etc... If we go with my idea that each
mass unit holds 250 cubic yards or cubic meters (for those of you who use more
sensible metric conventions), which I arrived at by assuming the values given
in FT II and by approximating the volume of an M1 Abrams tank, then we can now
begin to add a little more "flesh" to the system...
Comments? Oh, one more thing. In private email, there has arrived a situation
where one of us thinks you need one Fire Control per needle beam absolute, and
another thinks you need one Fire Control to control a bunch
of Needle Beams - assuming they are firing at the same "targeted
system". Could someone point out the correct path to follow in this instance?
> On Wed, 4 Dec 1996, Hal Carmer wrote:
> Hello Guys,
I'd rather think that the opposite would be the case - the bigger it is,
the longer the building time per mass becomes. At least it seems to work
like that for naval warships...
> Also, I would like to see if anyone has ideas about making a new
One problem here: If the cargo holds are 'systems', they'll only get destroyed
by treshold checks, not by structural damage. However, a cargo
hold is basically - structure... so if you blow the structure away, you
blow the cargo bays/state rooms/whatever.
> In private email, there has arrived a
I'm pretty sure that the needle beam rules states your second case (one FC per
targeted system) explicitly.
Regards,
Date sent: 5-DEC-1996 08:58:22
> Hello Guys,
Doesn't this make larger ships too easy to build?
> Comments? Oh, one more thing. In private email, there has arrived a
A Needle beam requires it's own firecon. A pair of Needles can share a firecon
if, and only if, they are both firing at the same system. Not the same system
type mind you, but the exact same system.
Date sent: 5-DEC-1996 09:08:20
> Hello Guys,
Assuming 6 months to make a dreadnaught, not an unreasonable assumption,
try mass/10 months. A mass 4 ship would take about 12 days to build.
A mass 60, 6 months and a mass 100 10 months.
> On Wed, 4 Dec 1996, Hal Carmer wrote:
I disagree, at least as far as the end of WW2- consider a ~30000 ton
battleship- a reasonable fast peacetime (modern non-carrier capitals
haven't often been built, as opposed to completed, in wartime) construction
time is about 2 or 3 years, so that gives a capital ship building rate of
10000 to
15000 tons/year.
Taking a destroyer as 1500 tons, that's 5 to 8 weeks building time, which
seems too short to me. As a yearly rate I have no problems with it; I just
think the vessels would tend to be built and completed in, say 2 or 3 batches
with longer build times per ship. Building time is often decided by the supply
of critical items such as
engines and guns/turrets. The original dreadnought, HMS Dreadnought of
1906, famously was built in a year and a day, by fitting her with turrets
already built for Lord Nelson and Agamemnon, which were delayed as a result.
SNIP
> Regards,
Anyone here know how long it took to build the Bismark, or any of the US
battleships? Better yet, what about the world war I ships? Generally speaking,
I figure the ratios will be about the same. Assuming a volume of 250 cy per
hull mass, a 100 mass ship will be 25,000 cubic yards. In naval
terms, this would equate to about a 19,200+ wet navy ton ship. I don't
have enough "history background" to say what it should be, since I am
definitely "wet behind the ears" <grin>.
> On Wed, 4 Dec 1996, Hal Carmer wrote:
> Hello Guys,
If it works for you, fine. I think you are allowing too fast of capital ship
construction however. I suggest that rather than coming up with a formula
system you instead just guestimate it. Decide arbitrarily how
much time you want escorts/cruisers/capitals to take in construction and
then just think up a reason to justify it. Consider how long (# of campaign
turns) the campaign will last, how fast you want fleets to be able to grow,
and how quickly you want a race to be able to recover from a bad battle result
(keeping in mind its homeworld could be pressed). Doesn't have to be
mathematically reasonable, only give the results you want. After all, you can
justify anything with a little imagination.
> Comments? Oh, one more thing. In private email, there has arrived
You need one Fire Con per target, the second case. The best example is given
on page 18 of Full Thrust, in the last half of the third paragraph under
'NEEDLE BEAMS:'
> Hal
> Chad Taylor wrote:
It would seem reasonable to have a base time plus some random number generated
by say a die roll to determine the exact time per ship. This would work in
campaigns where the actual time to complete has several determinants that
might affect its outcome. The random amount should be
close per ship in the same type\class, but also some variation with
unknowns.
Example: (Roll random modifier once per class)
Supership
Time to complete: 24 months + 3D6 months.
Capital
Time to complete: 18 months + 2D6 months.
Cruiser
Time to complete: 12 months + 1D6 months.
Escort
Time to complete: 6 months + 1D6 months.
If two or more of the same class of ship are to built, reduce construction
time by 1D6 for each ship in class built after the class ship. I do like the
idea of mass contributing to the base construction time, but this is only a
rough idea. The random portion could account for variation in supply of
critical parts(beam weapons, fire control, toliet paper supply,
etc.),
war effects, economy, etc.
> On Thu, 5 Dec 1996, Mike Miserendino wrote:
> It would seem reasonable to have a base time plus some random number
This
> would work in campaigns where the actual time to complete has several
How about even more random. Each turn you roll a d6 for each ship
underconstruction and keep a running total. You then base the total points
needed to finish the ship on the size of the ship being constructed. You could
decrease the total needed per ship in some way to account for mass production.
You could also switch die types to show various rates of construction, perhaps
a player could use a d8 to show lots of overtime being put into constructing a
ship at an increased cost or use a d4 on a low priority ship to save costs. If
the gamemaster keeps the totals secret from the players (giving "descriptive"
statements at the end of each turn only) this could add something to play.
Kind of like this-
Use a d6 for:
-normal construction rate.
Use a d4 for:
-low priority construction, reduce cost by some amount.
-for first construction of a ship type.
Use a d8 for:
-high priority construction, increase cost by some amount.
Number of points needed for an Escort: 25 Cruiser: 45 Capital: 75
Something like that anyhow. Just a thought.
Hello Folks, Using another game system called GURPS, it is listed in the GURPS
VEHICLES book (either version) that a displacement ton is roughly 35 cubic
feet. There being 27 cubic feet to a cubic yard, and having done my
calculations for FT II in cubic yards, it remained for me to convert some of
today's ships into "mass units" for Full Thrust.
According to the information from HARPOON, a naval minitures game, the USS
IOWA displaces 46,177 tons, carries some 2,753 crew, and has some 25 weapons
mounts.
Converting the displacement tons to cubic yards, and then to "Mass units" with
a mass unit equal (roughly) to 250 cubic yards, the value of the IOWA would be
59,859 cubic yards, and 239 Mass units.
If we assume time equal to square root of mass in months, then the IOWA would
have taken 15.45 months to complete. That is a tad over the 1 year and one day
that was mentioned earlier, but then again, we are talking about two different
ships, and we are talking about two different countries building yards. In
general, I don't like the idea of any ship taking less than a month to build,
so if the list feels that construction
rates should be equal to mass/10 months, then a minimum construction
time should be inplemented. In the IOWA, such a ship would have taken 23.9
months to make (which is decidedly longer than the 15.45 <grin>). I propose
that any ship taking less than 1 month in construction, automatically gets
upgraded to 1 month in construction time. This would make any ship under 10
mass units all take the same amount of time...
Just as a "joke", anyone want to build a BB with 240 mass? Bet you could have
some real fun piloting one of those on the board <grin>....
Hello Folks, Thanks for answering my question regards to needle beams and
their use with respect to fire controls. My "adversary" was correct <grin>.
With respect to the question raised about the use of the needle beam, I think
the smallest "sting ship" that I am willing to build is a light cruiser, hull
22. With 2 shield generators, 2 needle beams, 1 submunitions pack, a speed of
6 along with a FTL drive, the needle cruiser
comes in at 197 points (yes, I stole my copies back - but I gotta give
it back after work tonight...). I just did a mock battle (playing with myself?
I suppose you could say that <grin>) with the light cruiser versus the stock
heavy cruiser. The light cruiser took 5 points of damage, before it was
utterly destroyed in one fell swoop. The Heavy cruiser took 2 fire control
hits before it too was utterly destroyed.
REASON: One minor "flaw" with the needle beam is that you need to be within 9
inches of the enemy ship in order to use it. This means that when he decides
to "bug out", you are within the 6" danger zone. From the CA's point of view,
the CL will always be able to keep on his tail because it moves 6 to the CA's
4. No matter what, the CL will hound the CA due to the fact that the CA must
commit something close to virtual suicide in order to jump. This will result
in a likely capture of the CA. Reasoning thus, I figured that the CA would be
willing to risk the jump, rather than risk the assured capture, and had it
jump. I happened to roll a 6 for the jump, thus destroying the CA, and
inflicting another 16 points of damage on the CL, thus destroying it too...
Had I taken two of my CL's versus the CA, things would have been different.
POSTULATE: Needle Beam use requires some heavy screened ships capable of
withstanding heavy fire. Had I used even one less screen than I had, the CL
would have been toast. Larger ships with higher damage ratings would look more
attractive, expecially since larger ships can carry more such weapons. I would
most likely consider a proper mix of ships to be one where both normal beams
and needle beams are working in conjunction of each other. Likely targets for
Needle beam weaponry should be capital ships with high levels of screening,
with the screens being an alternate high priority target, allowing the other
ship of the lines to pound it into submission. All in all I think I will
experiment more with the CL design, and use that as a "softening up" type ship
class.
QUESTIONS: Did anyone ever create the equivalent ship to a "fire ship"? Those
of you who know your history would recall the Spanish Armarda fell victim to
specially prepared ships loaded with combustables, that were then pointed
directly at enemy by the English. The crew would leap overboard at the last
possible moment, and watch as their erstwhile ship tangled with the enemy
ship, and then burned it to the waterline. Such a tactic could be used in FT
if "automated" ships are allowed. These ships would be hulk freighters doomed
for the scrapyard anyhow, and sent directly towards an enemy fleet. Said ship
with a decent FTL drive would then automatically engage, and attempt to either
self destruct (ie with a roll of a 5 or 6) doing the full undamaged hit value
of the ship in damage to all surrounding ships witin 6 inches, or it would do
1d6 points of damage to
all ships in 6" (roll 2-4), or just not do anything on a roll of a 1.
New proposal to the damage rules for attempted FTL entry: Give each ship class
an actual FTL "mass" rating. Subtract the FTL entry ships mass from the
largest mass rating from the surrounding area of the FTL entry ship's mass.
This becomes the modifier to the FTL entry chart. For example: escort class
ships have a zero mass, cruiser class have a 1, capital class have a two,
super ships have a 3, and planets have a 4. Thus, an escort ship surrounded by
2 ships, one another
escort, and the other, a cruiser, attempts to jump to FTL. Subtracting
0
from 1, leaves a plus 1. This means that the jumping ship adds +1 to
the jump entry table. Had it been an escort trying to jump away from a
supership, then the values would have been 3-0, or +3 to the FTL entry
roll. In addition, the jump table would now be re-arranged such that no
entry is now a 4, 1d6 damage points is a 1-3, and full destruction is a
5-6. This way seems more "logical" to me than it currently is, and also
keeps people from using "robotic fire ships"...
Having fun with this game...
Hello List, Just so you can see where I got my figures from, using Full Thrust
II, on page 15, they give volumes for main battle tanks as requiring 12 cargo
spaces. The M1 Abrams, is a tad over 1600 cubic feet in volume (supposedly),
such that 1600 divided by 12 leaves us with roughly 134 cubic feet per cargo
space. Since there are some 50 cargo spaces per "Mass unit", there would be
some 50 times 134 cubic feet per mass unit, or
roughly 6700. Dividing this by 27 will give the cubic yardage of 248 -
rounded nearest 5 or ten number to 250.
How about making the First ship of the Class cost 50% more and be of variable
construstion time and then having follow on units of the
same design proceed according to schedule/budget? During WWII
destroyers and non-Capital ships were produced very quickly with
precise construction times.(In the U.S. at least.
> Chad Taylor writes:
@:) How about even more random. Each turn you roll a d6 for each ship @:)
underconstruction and keep a running total. You then base the @:) total points
needed to finish the ship on the size of the ship @:) being constructed.
@:) Kind of like this-
@:)
@:)
@:) Use a d6 for:
@:) -normal construction rate.
@:)
@:) Use a d4 for:
@:) -low priority construction, reduce cost by some amount.
@:) -for first construction of a ship type.
@:)
@:) Use a d8 for:
@:) -high priority construction, increase cost by some amount.
@:) Number of points needed for an Escort: 25 @:) Cruiser: 45 @:) Capital: 75
I like this but I don't see any reason to arbitrarily assign
required "construction points" to _types_ of ships. Why not just have
it depend on the mass, or maybe even better on the cost of the ship?
It should take an average of 7(.14) turns to roll up 25 points on a single d6,
13 turns to roll up 45 points and about 21 turns to roll up
75 - so we're talking something like seven turns per class on
average. To roll 100 _cost_ points (pretty near the maximum cost of
an escort) would take about 30 turns, so I would suggest rolling 5d6 per turn
until your total has reached the cost of the ship you want to build. Increased
(or decreased) production can now be handled simply
by varying the number of d6s to be used, thus relieving non-RPG people
like me of the task of procuring hundreds of expensive weirdo dice (I'll just
order my pink and beige d6 blocks from American Science & Surplus, thank you).
In sum:
Roll <=3d6 per ship per turn for decreased construction speed. Roll 5d6 per
ship per turn for normal construction speed. Roll >=6d6 per ship per turn for
increased construction speed.
When the total rolled equals or exceeds the cost of the ship, the ship is
completed.
This system could be modified to work on the basis of mass, and that might
make things somewhat more tractable (note that a 700 point ship will take
about 40 turns to build with this system) but I don't know if it'd be more
realistic. In any event, you can always change the numbers around to suit your
particular campaign.
While all these conversions between units of measurement are going on, I feel
I should point out that the speed of light is approx. 2x10e9 furlongs per
millifortnight...
> Hello Folks,
Remember that the displacement volume is only the submerged portion of the
hull- the hull above the waterline and the superstructure would add a
great deal of volume.
> If we assume time equal to square root of mass in months, then the
That time was a publicity stunt; 22 months for the pre-dread HMS
Majestic was considered impressive in the late 19th century. Most dreads
would be in the 3 to 4 year level: IIRC, some French pre-dreads took 9
years!!!
snip
> Just as a "joke", anyone want to build a BB with 240 mass? Bet you
More Thrust's Supership rules would cover it...
> Hal
Cheers,
> Hal wrote:
> Anyone here know how long it took to build the Bismark, or any of the
I did a little checking and got the following time periods and dates. I used
the date laid down to the completion or commission dates.
Bismarck - 50 months (7/1/36 to 8/24/40)
Tirpitz -52 months (10/26/36 to 2/25/41)
Gneisenau - 38 months (3/35 to 5/21/28)
Scharnhorst - 43 months (5/16/35 to 1/7/39)
Pocket Battleships - 50, 38, and 41 months
Iowa - 32 months (6/27/40 to 2/22/43)
New Jersey - 32 months (9/16/40 to 5/23/43)
Missouri - 41 months (1/6/41 to 6/11/44)
Wisconsin - 39 months (1/25/41 to 4/16/44)
King George V - 45 months (1/1/37 to 10/1/40)
Prince of Wales - 51 months (1/1/37 to 3/31/41)
Some Other BBs
Hood - almost 48 months
Rodeny - 60 months
Yamato - 49 months
WWI Iron Duke class and Queen Elizabeth class - about 28 to 30 months
Portland (CA) - 36 months (2/17/30 to 2/23/33)
Indianapolis (CA) - 31 months (3/31/30) to 11/15/32)
Baltimore class CAs - about 24 months (1941-1943 to 1943-1946)
Admiral Hipper class German CAs - about 36 months
What does this all mean? It seems that industrial capacity is very important.
The US construction during WWII was quick compared to other countries and even
their own prewar construction (CAs from 3 years to 2 years). When a country is
involved in a war, construction time can drop, if they have the industrial
capacity to do so. The largest BBs of WWII took about 4 years to build (the
Iowa's are an exception). I did not include the tonnage but that should be a
factor but I was just looking for overall completion time.
I like Chad Taylor's idea of rolling a die each month and varying the die
depending on how much is spent, etc. I would then have the amount rolled equal
the mass constructed that month with the non-systems mass being
completed first and then the selected systems completed as the total allows
until the full mass is met. Then a shakedown cruise of d4 months before the
ship is fully active. If the ship is in combat before the shakedown, a
threshold roll is required the first couple times a system is used. On a 6 it
fails and is marked off until repaired at a base. Also a partially completed
ship could be pulled from dockyard to be included in a major battle which
could lead to some interesting scenarios. Also subsequent exact copies of a
ship built at the same dockyard
would have a +1 modifier to each construction roll. Under these rules
with a d6 construction rate, a mass 80 ship would take about 2 years for the
class ship and 20 months for copies, a mass 32 cruiser not quite a year for
the original and 9 months. Quick work when compared to WWII but 4 years is a
lot of game time to wait for a capital ship, chalk it up to advances in
technology
> Mike Wikan wrote:
It does make sense to reduce cost and time for additional ships of the same
class, but variable time(though reduced) would be realistic with all the
factors that are involved in ship building. A constant rate could equate to a
shipyard outside the war zone and unaffected by supply problems as well as the
current economy.
Excerpts from FT: 6-Dec-96 Re: Campaign rules? by
rpaul@worf.molbiol.ox.ac
> While all these conversions between units of measurement are going on,
1.804, really... that was a physics problem freshman year. A particularly easy
one, since the conversion was listed in the front of
the book. ^_^
> Rob Paul wrote:
Actually, displacement volume will account for the entire ship. The amount of
fluid displaced by the ship is equal to the weight(calculated with gravity) of
the entire ship. A 40k Ton ship will displace 40k Tons of fluid.
> On Fri, 6 Dec 1996, Hal Carmer wrote:
> QUESTIONS:
Sort of, during one battle an opposing fleet entered the table under FTL right
on top of the enemy fleet. The resulting damage brought up the idea of using a
massed escort (two mass) attack that would purposely do the same thing. The
escorts would try to FTL in on the enemy fleet (best guess) while the cruisers
and etc. would enter normally at a safe distance. Any escorts that survived
would then engage with a submunitions pack (or maybe launch a missile if they
are mass 4). To add insult to injury the escorts would then attempt to close
to within 6" of as many enemy ships as possible and FTL off of the board
(again going for the proximity damage). Could cause a lot of damage, because a
bunch of ships could be within 6" of an escort when it goes FTL.
> Hal
Hello Dean, A sincere thanks for looking up the construction times. Could you
add in the tonnage as well? It would make for a more complete set of data
points to work with.
Regards to Maiden Voyage: regardless of why the ship is in action, the maiden
voyage should have a chance for problems. Instead of making a threshold check
in the major way, why not make just two "checks" total. The first during the
maiden voyage itself. The second immediately upon the first combat the ship
suffers. Treat the first combat check as being one threshold check worse than
it really is (ie the first check fails on a 5 or 6, the second on a 4,5, or 6
etc...) this simulates the potential for a crew not knowing it's ship very
well. Once a crew has been on a ship for a set time (don't know what to
specifiy as the time limit) said crew now checks thresholds in the first
combat normally. For example: if it is specified that the time needed for a
crew to become familiar with it's ship is equal to 2 months per class value
(ie escort is class 1, cruisers are class 2, capital ships are class 3, and
super ships are class 4), then a CL would require a 4 month shakedown period
to avoid having their first combat get the worsened threshold check. Thus,
said CL, on it's maiden voyage, gets one threshold check just for the maiden
voyage. If that works out ok, and another 6 months go by before combat, said
CL checks thresholds normally. On the other hand, if said CL sees combat
before the 4 months are past, it takes it's combat threshold checks as the
worsened values... Just a thought...
> On Fri, 6 Dec 1996, Hal Carmer wrote:
> Regards to Maiden Voyage: regardless of why the ship is in action, the
total.
> The first during the maiden voyage itself. The second immediately
Hey, I really like this idea. I like the idea of using an extra (or worse)
threshold check to simulate the problems of a maiden voyage. You could expand
upon the idea to show the crew quality as well. Maybe a green crew (never seen
combat) will have a one worse threshold check roll when first entering combat.
Perhaps an "elite" crew could have a one improved threshold check. I have been
trying to think of ways to show crew status (under various conditions) for
some time. I haven't liked the idea of modifying the rolls of damage dice (all
weapon systems don't work
the same game-mechanic wise) and hadn't thought of just using threshold
checks. You could argue that in a reality where most targeting is done by
computer the best way to show crew impact is to show how well the crew "knows"
its ship.
> Hal wrote:
It's the amount of water displaced by the ship. Much easier to use metric, so
1 tonne = 1 cubic metre. We always assume 1m = 1 yd, 1cy = 1m^3, and 1 ton = 1
tonne when roleplaying (half of us can't understand imperial, and the other
half can't understand metric, so we simplify).
> Converting the displacement tons to cubic yards, and then to "Mass
By an amazing coincidence, I figured 1 Mass = 250m^3 on the basis that a bay
for 1 fighter = 1 mass, and taking an estimate from the scenes of the cobra
bays on B5. Well, it seemed like a good method to use at the time anyway...
(hmm, this figure gives a Mass of ~320,000 for a Star Destroyer...)
> If we assume time equal to square root of mass in months, then the
Just to add something in here, a Richard Rostrom posted the following to
rec.arts.sf.science about a year ago:
---- Begin quote
: True. If I remember correctly at its peak the ship building program was:
producing 3 freighters a day...
The U.S. Maritime Commission built 5,777 ships in 1939-1945. That's an
average of 2.6 ships/day for the _entire_ war; most of that came after
Pearl Harbor, so the peak was probably about 5.
: a destroyer a week
The US launched over 300 destroyers and over 500 destroyer escorts between
Pearl Harbor and V-J Day: roughly 900 DDs and DEs in 45 months, i.e. 2
destroyers or escorts every three days, almost _five_ per week.
: and a small aircraft carrier every three months.
The US launched a _fleet_ carrier almost every month: 39 in 45 months.
And
over _120_ escort carriers.
_And_ 6 battleships and over 50 cruisers...
---- End quote
I don't know how many shipyards were used by the US during WWII,
but we're talking _one_ country (okay, it's a big country), with
1940s technology. A whole world, in the 23rd century (seed an asteroid belt
with robotic factories?) wouldn't find this pace at all difficult.
> propose that any ship taking less than 1 month in construction,
Instead of using construction times for ships, just give each type of ship a
value for how much effort is needed to build it, and assign each world an
industrial value for how much effort they can put into ship building each
month. If the world can build 100 Mass of ships each
month, then this could be ~7 destroyers, or one fleet carrier - choice
of the player.
You might want to limit the amount of resources that could be put into
building a single ship though - maybe 25% of the total available.
> Rob Paul wrote:
Yes, but that accounts only for its weight, not its volume; we were talking
about surface vessels on earth for comparison with. The portion above the
waterline may vary widely, eg
1) a submarine 2) a battleship 3) a cruise liner
submerging any of these will increase its displacement, but not its internal
volume. The sub will have proportionately the smallest amount of its volume
above the w/l, the liner will have the greatest.
Cheers,
> On Fri, 6 Dec 1996, Mike Miserendino wrote:
> Rob Paul wrote:
Eh... yes and no. Hal was trying to convert displacement tons into ship
_volume_, not ship _mass_. A 40kTon ship will displace 40kTon of fluid
(water, usually <g>) or else it sinks, but the _volume_ displaced is the
volume of the part of the ship below the waterline. Looking at many modern
ships, this is less than half the total volume of the ship.
> Rob Paul wrote:
I thought when you mentioned displacement volume you were referring to
"displacement volume" for what it is(amount of fluid displaced by the weight
of the ship) and not the internal volume of the ship.
> 1) a submarine 2) a battleship 3) a cruise liner
Curious, but what is the significance of the volume above the waterline?
I
could understand the surface area above the waterline might be important for
wet navy scenarios to determine the amount available for surface weapons, etc.
> Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> _volume_, not ship _mass_. A 40kTon ship will displace 40kTon of fluid
Yes, I understand after Rob Paul mentioned it. Another point to make is that
if internal volume is be calculated based on mass, a conversion rate would be
required for each material type used, unless we just assumed mass equates to
one volume measure. A conversion rate might be appropriate for tech levels and
alien technology(e.g. a composite might have more mass than an advanced
composite, thus an advanced composite ship would have more internal volume
than an equal mass composite ship). Just something to ponder.