[swordtart]

Except:
The rocket could be divided up into a number of separate rockets which could be fired separately so that all the acceleration does not have to occur at once

This to me says that the whole package is considered as a single rocket regardless of how you choose to divide it at design time to provide firing options.

I do not contest that if you want to have flexibility at run time you need to build that in at design time (with additional cost in linkages or the requirement for multiple firing actions). I simply contest the assertion that you treat each combination as a separate instance of the rocket booster and have to calculate the space accordingly.

Other components don't take up more space because you decide to link them differently.

As for ADQ&A I don't have a complete collection the only reference I could find was in 8_1 where we have this.

Q Please clarify rocket boosters! (For example -- how long does a rocket booster last, etc.)

A Each booster burns for 1 second and accelerates 1,000 Lbs. of vehicle 10 mph.

A pretty generic question but the answer is that rocket boosters are made up of multiple 10lb sub-rockets. So our 180lb package is 18 rockets. Again nothing here that tells me that each firing combination takes up a whole number of spaces (only that it takes up 1 space per 100lb of rockets overall - in the case of 180lb of rockets, 2 spaces total).