Introduction

Star Cruisers Naval Architect Manual is generally a good system, it allows speedy design of ships for games, with minimum fuss. The problem is that in several areas it is unclear. This document hopes to sort out some of the problems of the system. In accordance with an apparent concencous on the Etranger list, no changes to NAM have been made below, only clarifications.

Power Plants

The formulae for power plant masses are:
 

Plant Type	Mass per MW
OC MHD	20
OM/NC MHD	15
NM MHD	10
Fission	66.67
Fusion	33.33

Prices for MHD do not seem to follow a set pattern, but fission plants cost roughly MW/4, and fusion plants MW/2 (in MLv).

Stutterwarp Drives

The volume of a stutterwarp drive is proportional to the cube root of it's power rating (Cuberoot(P)). Mass and Price are based on volume x the multiplier.
 

Drive TL	Volume Multiplier	Mass Multiplier	Price Multiplier
OC (14.5)	10	1.333	0.3
OM/NC (16.05)	12.5	1.125	0.75
NM (17.5)	13.5	1.125	1.25

Crew

It should be noted that you always round up in crew calculations (so a ship with 31 crew needs 2 medics, not 1). Another point to note is that the engineer crew requirements are all of the format 1+MW/x. Thus the smallest engineering crew is 6.

As per the official errata, workstations cost 30,000 Lv (50,000 for small craft), but as per the description of the workstation in the equipment guide, the workstation lacks the software it requires to do it's job.

Accommodations and Life Support

The formulae given is unclear. Each accommodation requires a mass of 10+ 0.1* cubic meters, not a requirement of 10 tons for the entire ships accommodations. Thus the example should read:

Kennedy, 100 accommodations @ 25 cubic meters each, each accommodation masses 10+2.5 = 12.5 tons. The 100 accommodations mass 1,250 tons.

This mass is mostly life support. The life support supplies, due to their low specific gravity can only be a compressed gas, oxygen. Food, scrubbers etc. are included in the accommodation mass.

Weapons Systems

Several points to be made about weapons systems.

Firstly, by the notes (but not the example) every turret and remote communicator requires a dedicated target computer.

Secondly, missile bay mass excludes the mass of the missile carried. The differences in bay volume: missile volume seem to be explainable by some missiles being space efficient boxes, and some being cylindrical.

Thirdly, gun towers are poorly defined. A gun tower is a laser on a pylon, giving an excellent arc of fire, but no armour protection and a high Radar Cross Section (RCS = 100). Each tower can, be definition only have a single, unarmoured turret. Additional turrets or armour will restrict the arcs and essentially be a jack turret or normal turret in a funny place, with none of the advantages.

Gun towers also increase your size. Each tower adds 10m to the profile, but don't count any beyond two (one each side).

Thus, a 30 meter wide hull, with gun towers either side (like a Kafer BB) will have a Radial Profile of +2.