Mass Values for Ships & Vehicles

[CRMcNeill]

So, in another topic, I mentioned it would be nice if WEG had included Mass values for starships, as it would help with calculating how a given starship drive would perform when installed of ships of different sizes.

I know other games have used mass values as a measurement of relative size instead of length; the Serenity RPG was one that I know for sure.

Is this something anyone else has used? If so, how did you calculate, and what standards did you use to generate the mass values, not just for ships, but for speeders and other vehicles, too?

EDIT: Specifically, have you used it IN STAR WARS D6, and how? I'm aware other systems use this rule, so I want to see how it could be adapted to SWD6.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

In Traveller. Classic Traveller. Not in Star Wars.

[Zarn]

I didn't use mass, I used volume. I just said that metric tons were metric tons with water, so 1 metric ton = 1000 kg = 1000 l. I assumed that the inertial compensation made density irrelevant.

[Ray]

[Naaman]

In all honesty, the relative mass of the ship is only relevant if the different drives also have power ratings.

Accelleration equals force over mass, so we would also need a power or force rating for the various types and degrees of drives.

This would then require us to make a few different drives or enngines, and give them power ratings. But then we divide those numbers by the ship's mass, and we get its maximum speed....

So its the combination of engine and ship that results in the ultimate "space move" stat.

So the mass rating would only matter if we wanted to spec out a limited number of engines to be used in the galaxy.

Alternatively, you could spec out engines according to their general purposes or accordingto performance category.

For example, you could have the different degrees of "V8," (300 horsepower, 400, and 500), and three degrees of "Inline 6," (200, 275, and 350 horsepower), etc...

[Zarn]

Or, you know, perhaps not - because you'll then also implicitly start worrying about acceleration and stuff, and then we're deep in delta V and Tsiolkovsky territory.

I usually run loosely with the following rules - inertial dampers make, for the most part, the physics internally irrelevant. There'll be shaking and sparky control boards, but you don't have to worry about turning too hard and making yourself a half-inch thick smear over the internal walls. If the inertial dampeners are damaged or otherwise disabled, everything shuts down hard - you're drifting in space.

However, physically fitting stuff inside a ship is still a problem - which is why I consider the 'metric tons' not a measure of mass, but a measure of volume. If it fits, unless there's story factors saying something else, the ship will take off and not have a measurable decline in its performance no matter what the density of the cargo is.

Which means that there's no problem having a big bulk freighter with an insane top speed. You might have some handwavy square cube thing going on with the inertial dampeners if you don't like that idea and want to keep your bulk freighters ponderous and slow - perhaps they don't scale particularly well with volume - but for me, I'm just saying that slower drives are 'more efficient' and therefore bulk freighters are slow.

Basically, I don't want to start doing numbercrunching to find a Hohmann transfer for my ship in Star Wars - Star Wars is firmly in the 'push the button and it goes' category for me. Unless, of course, there's some story reason why something's more difficult than it usually is.

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]