Re: Gunboats in FT...

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Message text written by INTERNET:FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk

"Exactly. The correct roundings are never defined. As most ships (that
you 
are going to build in a game) are FTL capable military hulls, the 
rounding question is the often tricky case of exactly 0.5.

- If 0.5 is rounded down, you have nothing to gain by adding one mass to

an even mass ship
- If 0.5 is rounded up, it opens up a vista of optimizations. To wit,
you
should *never* build an even mass ship, because a ship with one mass
point
less has the exact same stats (bar mass itself) but costs less"

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I prefer to give an extra damage box but not system space for odd mass
hulls. This explains why all the standard hull ships are even masses.
But does not prohibt them. 

Jon, please address this in the FT3 and the Fleet Book.

Brian Bell
pdga6560@compuserve.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pdga6560/fthome.html