Editing VB-Class Design (section)

===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.