How many cubic meters for each 'ton' of cargo space?

[Mamatried]

I see this more as a space than a weight issue.

I have taken the A-24 Sleuth as the example here.
The ship is listed with 2 Metric ton capacity.

If we say that a cargo crate is 1m3 then the ship can fit 2 of them. These are the base bulk cargo on board, and all food supplies, spare parts and other parts are parts of consumables.
A empty ship can have 20 tons of consumables and 0 tons of cargo listing and being statted as a 0 load.

However the same ship is also fully loaded if the same two crates are empty, meaning that we have taken up the cargo space, though with empty crates and a "0" weight, but still no more room....the space does not allow this.

Now we are on a run where we have 2 crates of metal allowys, each crate wighs 3 tons, for a total of 6 Metric tons, or 3x the listed load of the ship.
Now we have the same 2 crates, the same 2 MT space filled with 6 ton, of course this should give some penalties on the affected ship systems, more engine power needed, ship is harder to manuver etc etc, it may be slower etc etc.
However the cargo alotment of 2 metric tons has not been exceeded so the crew has no skill roll penalties, the only penalties is on the actual ship stats.

now they decide to bring along another crate, same size, but it is empty, now the ship is overloaded, the added crate does not normally fit and must be stored in the crew areas, this makes it a distraction, needs to pushed aside, stepped over etc et , and the crew suffers in effectively running the ship, reciving penalties on their skills.

Is there a maximum to be fitted, yes...2 metric tons of space, and the wight..while not irellevant it still takes second seat.
What would be maximum then`? I would say as long as it fits.
2 crates each 1m3 in size fits in the ship no matter the wight, however any wight above the ship's 2 ton listing comes with penalties.

I base this on a earth container ship, holding 1000 containers all empty is still a fully loaded ship. The same ship is equally fully loaded with each container full of cargo.
penalties depending on how much the wight is or how much cargo space is exceeded or both .

Heavy load with no speace exceeded - penalty to ship consumables, speed, maneuver.

Cargo space exceeded, even with empty fright crates is penalties to ship crew operation, as the added crates are in the way (constantly)


So to me it is space over wight and 2 different types of penalties given, of course both can be applied.

the ship is heavy, and has taken on extra cargo now both the ship stats and the crew rolls are penalized.
Ship is heavy but no cargo space exceeded then only the ship stats suffer
ship is light but the cargo space is exceeded will now penalize crew operation

[FVBonura]

The average Load on a ship like the A-24 Sleuth would be 10 one-meter cubes at 200 kg each for a total of 2,000 kg or 2 metric tons. Most loads are air, because of voids and packing materials. A a skid of metal ingots is a rarity and if you are planning to move that much ore/bullion, you need a bigger ship.

Bottom line: if you don't exceed 2mt, and your load is balanced, you can fill the internal volume of the ship as long as you don't mind losing access to the engine room and other vital areas on the ship.
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Star Wars Deckplans Alliance
Star Wars Prequel Commentary

[Mamatried]

[Impaler]

Given that the A-24 Sleuth is a light scout and blockade running ship that would have no buisness hauling dense things like metals or ore I think we cam be confident that it has internal volume for storage well over 2 cubic meters as the likeliest cargo would be things like high tech components, medical supplies etc which are well below 1 MT/m^3

Ultimalty all real world freight vessels have both volume and weight constraints each of which must be respected, but game stats are one or the other, never both. Volume constraints can kinda be stretched by filling passenger spaces with cargo, starting first with empty cabins and then spilling over into common areas and passegeways. Given that most StarWars light freighters seem to have internal layouts that resemble glorifed space-Winabego's rather then say for example the passenger/cargo space ratio seen in a Semi-Truck you really could get some significant extra cargo into a ship by doing so. I think may sources state standard passenger count/cargo conversion metrics.

Mass constraints seem like they would be even looser as unless your piling up enough super dence material to structurally compromise the payload bay floor it seems the cargo weight should be of minimal impact give the vehicle speed and climb rates seen in StarWars. I think it's reasonable to say that vessels can hold their entire rated cargo mass before any speed/agility compromises are felt. Overloading on mass should then perhapse follow a standard formula of some kind, maybe each 25% over costs 1 speed and manuver rating with a cap of double the rated weight.