Editing VB-Class Design (section)

==Side Bar==
[[File:ClassDesignSide.png|thumb]]

===Crew accommodations===

'''Deployment Time''' is the amount of time the ship is likely to be deployed in deep space, in month. This number can be fractional and/or less than 1 but must be greater than zero. Ships deployed on long missions without suitable accommodation to keep the crew happy will suffer from low crew morale, which in turn will affect the performance of the ship. Crews forced to work in overcrowded conditions will be equally unhappy. '''Tons per Man''' shows the multiplier for the deployment time. '''Capacity per HS''' shows hows many crewman will be supported by 1 HS of crew quarters. '''Accom HS Req''' is the number of hull spaces required for the crew and '''Accom HS Avail''' shows how many have been added to the design.

'''Crew Berth''' is the design Crew requirement. If the Deployment Time is less than 0.5 months, the required crew is halved. If the Deployment Time is less than 0.1 months, the crew requirement is reduced by 2/3rd. '''Spare Berth''' shows the spare capacity after allocating crew quarters to meet Crew requirement. If a ship has a hangar, this is shown on the class summary as "Flight Crew Berths" rather than "Spare Berths", providing accommodations for the crews of any parasite craft. '''Cryo Berth''' shows the amount of [[Cryogenic Transport]] capacity, this allow the crew to pick up survivors without causing overcrowding or compromising their life support systems.

===Passive defense===

'''Exact Class Size''' is the size, in HS, of the craft and its [[armor]] . The amount of armor is calculated based on the total size of all the components of the craft. The calculation is iterative, as the ship must consider the effect of adding armor to the size of the ship. It starts with the base sum of the sizes of all the components of the ship and treats this as a "void volume." The '''Surface Area''' is then calculated from this number and for some reason divided by 4. Multiplying by the desired '''Armor Rating''' gives the required '''Armour Strength'''. Strength is then converted into two values: the number of '''Armour Columns''' by dividing by '''Armour Rating''', and the weight of the armor by dividing by the armour value per hull space of the best armor technology for the empire. This armour weight is then added to the ships components and used as the new '''Exact Class Size''' for the next round of calculations. Eventually a stable solution is reached and the final amount of armor is determined and added to the ship design. The benefit of armor techs is that the same amount of protection can be granted for less weight, or the same weight can provide more protection when the armor tech is increased.

'''Shield Strength''' indicates the maximum value of any energy [[shields]] the ship has. '''Shield Recharge''' indicates how many units of shielding are recharged every five seconds Shields use fuel to operate and recharge. '''Internal HTK''' is the sum of the HTK values for all components on the ship. 

===Power Systems===

Power Systems provides information about the ship's engines and reactors. '''Engine Power''' is the sum of the power of all engines included in the design. '''Max Speed''' is determined by the ship's size (in HS, rounded up) and engine power by max_speed = total engine power / size (in HS, rounded up) * 1000 km/s. '''Jump Rating''' is the number of ships that can jump alongside this craft, and '''Jump Distance''' is the maximum amount of uncertainty in the size of the jump arrival circle. '''Reactor Power''' is the total amount of reactor power the ship's reactors provide. '''Power required''' is the sum of the power-per-5-seconds requirements for all energy-draining systems on the ship. If the ship's reactors don't provide enough power, the weapons will take longer to recharge.

===Build and Load Time===

'''Build Time''' (yrs) is how long the ship would take to build from scratch. This factors in the empire's shipbuilding rate tech and the size of the ship (see the update on Shipyards for details about ship build times).

'''Load Time''' (DHM) is the base load time for freighters, colony ships, and troop transports. This base value is 50 hours per cargo bay and cryogenic transport bay, plus 10 days for any number brigade-sized troop transport modules. This number can be reduced by cargo handling systems (the load time is divided by 5 times the number of cargo handling systems) by commercial spaceports (load time divided by spaceport level + 1), and by the logistical value of the ship's task force and commander, as well as the governor at the colony where loading or unloading is taking place.

Example: A freighter has five cargo holds (5 * 50 hours = 250 hours base load rate). Adding two cargo handling systems would reduce it by (2 * 5 = 10) to 25 hours, which represents the amount of time it would take to unload an uncommanded ship using only the ship's own facilities at an uncontrolled location (such as our asteroid outposts). Unloading at a level one spaceport would cut it by 2 again, to 12.5 hours. A 15% task force logistics bonus would multiply it by 0.85, to 10.625 (but only if the ship is operating in the same system its Task Force Staff is located), and if the colony governor has a 25% logistics bonus, it would be multiplied by 0.75 and wind up at 7.9 hours. Finally, the ship's captain's logistics bonus is used as well, so a 10% captain's logistics rating would multiply it by 0.9, to 7.17 hours. As can be seen, cargo handling systems, spaceports, and good personnel can drastically reduce ship load times and speed up interplanetary commerce and transport.

'''Materials Required''' sums up all the TNEs required for the ship's components and its armor. The sum of these tonnages represents the build cost of the ship.