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On Wed, 6/18/14, Jim Kundert <gypsycomet@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: [TML] Re: Daily digest for tml@simplelists.com
 To: tml@simplelists.com
 Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2014, 5:11 PM

 On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 7:18 PM, Phil Pugliese
 (via tml list) <nobody@simplelists.com>
 wrote:

 I
 believe the original CT '20% fudge-factor rule' was
 intended to avoid making ship design too complicated.

 GDW/DGP moved away from this when they made the MT rules
 soooo complicated that they couldn't even follow the
 rules themselves! (ie: 'Shattered Sh*ts' et al)
 IMO, it's just no fun anymore when that
 happens...

  GDW stopped making statements about
 deckplans, and DGP decided to ignore the rules altogether.
  The "fudge factor" was specific to deckplans,
 not to construction math.  At least, it was back then.  T5
 has a similar approach to construction math, then tells you
 the effects of going over or under the hull's putative
 size.

 Shattered Ships designs showed every indication
 of being done with a flawed spreadsheet. I know the work on
 my private one was ongoing, so the idea that an in-house
 design spreadsheet might be flawed is not in the least bit
 surprising.

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Makes sense & also would explain a lot of things...

I, myself, always followed the construction math pretty rigorously but would I was much more lax when it came to actually mapping the ship out...

Haven't done that in a while though.

As a side note; I note that Mongoose has 'retrofitted' the 'Plankwell' class BB's with meson shields commensurate w/ their importance.
I still remember reading the supplement that detailed the IN Spinward Marches ships, reading the text about the Plankwells 'suffering high losses'<sic>, looking at the stats, noting the puny class-3 meson shield (the other BB's had the max, class-9) & thinking, "No wonder they keep blowing up. Jackie Fisher has been reincarnated & is back at work again!".

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