GURPS Spaceships Design Spreadsheet

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

The Auxiliary Craft panel on the Design table sheet is not working... at all. All I see are the headings lines for Saved and Official ships.

That should be working, but I'll make sure to do some double-checks.

Originally Posted by DaltonS

Could you please add an "Unshielded" option to fission reactors, air-rams, and reaction engines? It doubles the power or thrust delivered by removing shielding, making the hull section a bit "hot" ("Hazardous Drives and Power Plants" SS7 p.23).

That should be do-able. Am I correct in my interpretation that these are the systems that should have the Unshielded option? Am I missing anything?

• Power Plant - Fission Reactor
• Reaction Engine - Nuclear Light Bulb
• Reaction Engine - Nuclear Saltwater Rocket
• Reaction Engine - Nuclear Thermal Rocket
• Jet Engine - Fission Air-Ram

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

That should be working, but I'll make sure to do some double-checks.

I think it's working in Open Office, but I can't seem to figure out the whole process reliably. One of my ships is in there, but I can't figure out how I got it to finally show! I'm stoopid, I know.

If you would, can you or someone else please explain how this spreadsheet should be used in reference to saving ships and loading them? Then, making new ships?

Am I to use File>Save? Or the Save button? Do I use the Import Ship button to work on previous designs?

I can't get the Rest Ship button to do anything, unless it's just so slow in Open Office on my i7/8GB/SSD computer that I'm not giving it enough time to actually clear the Design Table.

Thanks a lot!

[DaltonS]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

That should be working, but I'll make sure to do some double-checks.

It seems to be an intermittent fault. The last time I tried it I got Official craft but not Saved ones. I'm using the Open Office version btw.

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

That should be do-able. Am I correct in my interpretation that these are the systems that should have the Unshielded option? Am I missing anything?

• Power Plant - Fission Reactor
• Reaction Engine - Nuclear Light Bulb
• Reaction Engine - Nuclear Saltwater Rocket
• Reaction Engine - Nuclear Thermal Rocket
• Jet Engine - Fission Air-Ram

Yes, that would be the complete list. On a side note, GURP Mars p.33 mentions an NTR with an oxygen afterburner "which can multiply thrust by up to 4 times, but requires liquid oxygen equal to half the hydrogen fuel consumption value." The cost is 50% more. (Note that the fuel consumption value ratio is by volume, not mass: the O2/H2 mass ratio would be 8/1.) Not sure what this would do to ISP or delta V. Makes me wonder about the feasibility of afterburning air-rams or ram-rockets (feeding H2 in an O2 atmosphere, or O2 in a methane or H2 one).

Dalton “still trying to build an Astrotel Mars Cycler” Spence

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

It seems to be an intermittent fault. The last time I tried it I got Official craft but not Saved ones. I'm using the Open Office version btw.

Note that it culls the list based on TL and Mass. If the saved ship is of a higher TL or is Superscience and the ship you designed isn't then it'll be filtered. If you don't have enough carrying capacity, between Hangar Bays, Vehicle Docks, and Upper Stages, then the ship will be unavailable.

Originally Posted by DaltonS

On a side note, GURP Mars p.33

GURPS Mars is a 3rd Edition Product, meant for use with Vehicles 2nd Edition.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Stripe

Am I to use File>Save? Or the Save button? Do I use the Import Ship button to work on previous designs?

I can't get the Rest Ship button to do anything, unless it's just so slow in Open Office on my i7/8GB/SSD computer that I'm not giving it enough time to actually clear the Design Table.

Thanks a lot!

Use the buttons to save a ship into the Save Sheet. Use File -> Save to save the entire Spreadsheet. As I said when I ported these macros, they are slow as molasses in Januyary in OpenOffice 3.4, LibreOffice, or other newer versions of the OpenOffice family. On my machine (which is an OCed AMD running at 4Ghz) these macros take 10 seconds to run in Excel; in OpenOffice 3.2/3.3 they take maybe 20 seconds. In OpenOffice 3.4 or LibreOffice they can take a minute or two. Just let the macros run, there should be a confirmation dialog that pops when they have completed. There's really nothing I can do to fix this, as it appears they did something that throws a giant wrench in the speed of the Basic parser in the newer branches of OpenOffice.

[Dammann]

I've been avoiding updating Open Office for reasons like this.

It's been a while since I had a look at the Spaceship Design Spreadsheet. It almost makes me want to start running a sf campaign again, with ship fights and stuff.

[DaltonS]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

GURPS Mars is a 3rd Edition Product, meant for use with Vehicles 2nd Edition.

Which is why it was a "side note". :) Still, adapting it to 4E Spaceships would be ... interesting.

Dalton “peeking over the shoulders of giants” Spence

[DaltonS]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Note that it culls the list based on TL and Mass. If the saved ship is of a higher TL or is Superscience and the ship you designed isn't then it'll be filtered. If you don't have enough carrying capacity, between Hangar Bays, Vehicle Docks, and Upper Stages, then the ship will be unavailable.

The culling doesn't seem to take vehicle docks into account. If there are 2 or more consecutive vehicle docks in the same hull section, the maximum auxiliary craft size should be vehicle SM-2. If all six hull systems in a section are docks the max size would be SM-1, but there should be a core system in that section to hold it together (unlike an upper stage).

Dalton “can you say 'MC-100 modular cutter'?” Spence

PS.: Apparently Vehicle Docks and Streamlining don't mix. If that is so, it should be mentioned on the Optional Rules sheet. (So much for my Fly-Back Booster. :( )

[NastyGuns]

LibreOffice 3.6.2.2 doesn't want to open the file at all. It hangs somewhere. I've left it running over night and nothing.

I can open the Excel version, but all the dropdowns are empty. I've tried it both with and without the macros. Still no luck.

Maybe I just need to find myself a repository with an older version... now, off to wade through posts to find the valid version...

And just an FYI (you may already know of this...) but... www.business-speadsheets.com provides a free online converter from VBA to OO under the Resources tab. Link should take you directly to page though. Actually this may not be what I was thinking it was. Anyhow, this is definitely just an FYI, not a request to rewrite anything.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by NastyGuns

LibreOffice 3.6.2.2 doesn't want to open the file at all. It hangs somewhere. I've left it running over night and nothing.

I can open the Excel version, but all the dropdowns are empty. I've tried it both with and without the macros. Still no luck.

Maybe I just need to find myself a repository with an older version... now, off to wade through posts to find the valid version...

Due to the speed issues with the Macros I highly recommend sticking with OpenOffice 3.2/3.3 anyways. While the Macros run fine in newer versions, including some of the newer versions of LibreOffice, they killed the Basic compiler somehow.

For a simple version you can download and not have to worry about messing with I recommend the the PortableApps version of OpenOffice 3.2 Portable

Originally Posted by NastyGuns

And just an FYI (you may already know of this...) but... www.business-speadsheets.com provides a free online converter from VBA to OO under the Resources tab. Link should take you directly to page though. Actually this may not be what I was thinking it was. Anyhow, this is definitely just an FYI, not a request to rewrite anything.

The issue I've had isn't with the conversions but rather with the creeping slowness at which the Basic compiler accesses information on the spreadsheet and with the slowness with which it runs through loops. I can make relatively simple loop Macros which take forever to run in the newer versions of OpenOffice/LibreOffice but which run fine in the older ones.