Editing VB-Basic Ship Creation (section)

==The Class Design Window==
Open the [[Class Design]] Window {{key|F5}}. You should see a window that is mostly a huge blank space. The first step is to create a new class. Press New in the bottom left hand corner. 

''Note: If you can't see any buttons at the bottom then check you are running in a resolution of at least 1280x1024, or select "Reduced Size Windows" in the "Miscellaneous" submenu of the main game menu.''

Some text will appear in the white expanse as the program adds a few basic systems to this class. This is just the summary view though, so switch to the Design View tab. You will now see the list of available components. Bridge, Crew Quarters, Engineering Spaces, etc. 

There aren't many because in Aurora you not only have to design the ships, you have to design most of the components as well. Before we get into how to do that, lets take a quick look around the class window. Across the top, starting from the left, are the name of the Empire, the Class Name, the Type, the Hull, the Build Points (Cost to build) and a set of checkboxes. 

The '''Class Name''' will have been generated automatically based on whatever theme you selected during game creation. if you want to change it you can either press the Rename button and type a name or press Auto Rename, which will pick another name from the current theme. Select Name allows you to select a name from many lists of Empire Themes.

The '''Type''' is either a Ship or a Planetary Defence Centre (PDCs). There are some difference between the two, such as no engines or shields on a PDC, but for the moment we will only be designing ships so leave that dropdown alone. 

'''Hull''' contains a huge list of hull descriptions. This is purely cosmetic and you can choose whatever you like. So you can have a 1000-ton dreadnought or a 50,000-ton frigate if you wish. The actual size of the ship will depend entirely on what systems you add. This is because as time advances, ship sizes will generally increase so I saw no point in assigned fixed hull names to particular ranges of hull sizes. For example, modern destroyers are larger than battleships from the mid-19th century. You can also reclassify a class at any time so you may create an early cruiser which you re-designate as a destroyer as your technology advances. If you want a new hull name, click New Hull and type in a new name. Your design will change to that hull type.

'''Build Points''' is the total cost of all the systems on the ship plus the cost of the armour and is the amount of wealth that will be required to pay for the ship. The raw materials that will be required can be found in a list in the bottom left and should add up to the build points. We'll leave the checkboxes for now and come back to them later.

In the '''Components''' section on the far right, which lists every component added to the design, some basic systems have already been allocated to the design, including some armour, crew quarters, fuel storage, engineering and a bridge.

Down the left hand edge in the '''Primary Information''' section are details on armour, shields, the total number of Hits to Kill (HTK) and the build time for the ship. 

The '''Exact Class Size''' is the size of the ship in Hull Spaces (HS, equal to 50 tons). This will also be the size of the ship for the purposes of active sensor detection.

'''Armour Rating''' is the thickness of the [[armour]] and can be increased or decreased by clicking the small arrows to the right of this box. 

'''Armour Area''' is the surface area of the ship based on the assumption it is spherical in shape.

The '''Armour Strength Required''' is equal to (Surface Area / 4) rounded up. Armour sufficient to meet this requirement is automatically added to the design as it gets larger. If you increase the thickness of the armour then each extra 'layer' is added to the previous one. As the total size of the ship and therefore the total surface area increases with each layer of armour, each additional layer will be cover a greater area and therefore require greater strength than the previous one. Each type of armour in Aurora has a different strength rating per hull space so as tech increases you will need less hull space dedicated to armour to meet the Armour Strength Required. As less armour also means a smaller ship, extra layers of armour will also be smaller. 

''For example, at the moment you have the technology for Duranium Armour, which has a strength per HS of 5. The armour area is 14.1. Dividing by 4 gives us a Required Armour Strength of 3.525. As Duranium has a strength per HS of 5, we need 3.525/5 HS of armour, which is 0.705, rounded to 0.7. As you can see on the design, 0.7 HS of Duranium Armour has automatically been allocated. If you had High Density Duranium Armour, which has a strength of 6 per HS, you would only need 3.525/6 = 0.6 HS of armour. Obviously this make little difference at the moment but as ships get larger and armour gets stronger, it can make a significant difference.''

Try increasing the Armour Rating to 2. The ship is now slightly larger and there are two layers of armour so the surface area has increased to 16 and the armour strength to 8. Duranium Armour is armour strength 5 so we need 8/5 = 1.6 HS of armour. Put the Armour Rating back to 1 for now. You don't really need to remember any of the details. Just remember that increasing the armour thickness or increasing the size of the ship will increase the amount of armour required and researching new armour tech will reduce the amount of armour required for future designs.

'''Armour Columns''' is the 'width' of the armour. The armour system in Aurora combat is similar to that of an old FASA game called Interceptor. The armour is represented by a block of 'boxes' with the width based on the size of the ship and the depth based on the thickness of the armour. Each weapon type has a damage template which determines which armour 'boxes' are damaged. [[Missiles]] tend to crater the armour while [[lasers]] cause narrower but deeper damage. Some weapons, such as [[railguns]], have a high rate of fire and cause more overall damage than lasers but because that damage is split among many small hits, they tend to sandpaper armour rather than penetrating as a laser does. Any damage hitting in a location where all the armour has been destroyed will penetrate and cause internal damage. It is possible even for a well armoured ship to get unlucky and receive several hits in the same location, which will result in armour penetration and [[internal damage]]. That internal damage could even set off a string of secondary explosions, so a Hood-style catastrophe is possible. Equally, if a ship has hits distributed all over the armour and doesn't lose any key system or suffer secondary explosion, it can withstand quite a lot of punishment

We'll come back to Shield Strength and Recharge a little later.

'''Internal HTK''' (Hits to Kill) is the total HTK rating for all of the ship's internal systems. More on this later.

I'll come back to '''Power Systems''' later.

In the '''Life Support''' section, the Required Crew is the total crew required for all the various systems. Only 23 at the moment because we haven't added anything to the design. Life Support is the total crew possible based on the number and type of crew quarters. A standard Crew Quarters system provides accommodation for 250 crew. If you have too little life support, a message will appear in the Design Errors box in the bottom right.

'''Load Time''' is the estimated time to load a freighter, colony ship or troop transport design.