On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 8:28 AM, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Postmark <xxxxxx@btinternet.com> > wrote: >> >> Alternatively, you could make it a maintenance nightmare! Minimum inter >> deck spaces . . . > > > IMTU, smaller ships have interiors which resemble the Millenium Falcon: > pipework and ducting wandering through the interior spaces, to the extent > that most deckplan squares (save for those in the cargo holds) count as > Difficult terrain. > BTRC's "VDS" (Vehicle Design System) has some neat rules for trade offs on volume, mass, price, etc. Now and then reading them, I get inspired to play with a rule along the lines of : "Volume for a component can be changed by up to 25%, with an inverse 10x change in maintenance time (and thus cost) and headaches" Say you take a 10% reduction, and trim your 10 dton M-drive to 9 tons. You'd be taking a 100% increase in maintenance time/cost - so the normal 4 hours a week (or what ever) becomes a full days work, and there's a lot of less-standard widgets that are smaller and more expensive that need replaced. "Yeah, the M-Drive is tight packed. Most of the work on it has to be done from outside the hull, and I'm talking even routine maintenance, not just big repairs. " - flashback to scene of Han and Chewie working on the Falcon on Hoth, climbing around on the outside of the hull.
