Re: UNSC designs

>"Nose A, Wing Type B, Cargo Section M, and Thruster Section L - add up
>their costs/mass and come up with a final number". Of course, it occurs
>to me the FT construction system may make this... problematic in a few
>respects. Anyone have a good suggestion?

It's still possible to do, it just takes ALOT of advanced planning.

Start with a set of acceptable final MASSes for the fleet. Each MASS
should
be such that 10% is a whole number. For example:

MASS 20 (FF)
MASS 30 (DD)
MASS 50 (CL)
MASS 80 (CH)
MASS 100 (BC) ...and so on. These are not suggestions, just numbers
thrown
out for the sake of example.

Take the 5 MASSes above, and that gives us 5 Drive Modules. Let's just
set
Thrust 4 as our arbitrary fleet standard, and that makes or combined
FTL/Drive module equal 30% of any finished MASS. The above examples
would
give:

Drive Module A - MASS 6, POINT COST 12
Drive Module B - MASS 9, POINT COST 18
Drive Module C - MASS 15, POINT COST 30
Drive Module D - MASS 24, POINT COST 48
Drive Module E - MASS 30, POINT COST 60

Now let's say that we want to put a Drive Module E on a MASS 80 (CH)
ship
for a little faster vessel (NOTE: we're still within the confines of our
modular system). The "E" has 20 MASS allocated to Thrust, which is 25%
of a
MASS 80 Hull, making Thrust 5 instead of 4.

You can then branch into weapons, defence, cargo, hangar, etc. modules
to
your hearts' content. Keep in mind, however, that it all has to fit into
the acceptable MASS framework that was worked out in the first step.

Modular construction IS possible in FT, but takes a great deal of effort
to
do well.

Schoon