GURPS Spaceships Design Spreadsheet

[Langy]

Java can parse XML files just fine. It may not have any prebuilt classes for XML parsing, but that doesn't mean much.

1. What if my ship is so simple it doesn't need 20 systems? What if it only needs like 16 or something? What happens with the open hit locations? Do I just leave them blank...and then if a blank spot is hit, I roll again? If I use the spreadsheet to expand a system to more than one location, it ends up duplicating the system. I can see how this would be useful, but what if I don't need 2 of the same system?

Each system is defined as 1/20 of the mass of a spaceship. It doesn't matter if you only need sixteen systems - a ship is always twenty, otherwise certain things (specifically engine performance and fuel use) won't work right.

So, always make ships in 20 systems. If you can fulfill all the requirements for a ship in less, just fill out the rest of the systems with something else - cargo bays work well, since they're free.

2. When I buy a cannon or missile rack, it appears to come with a certain amount of ammo. What if I want more or less ammo? Can ammo be purchased separately?

Yep. You can stick 'em in a Cargo Bay, and they cost $100,000 per ton for cannon ammo or $1,000,000 per ton for missiles. You can see how much each bullet/missile weighs in the Consumables section of the PDF.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Langy

Java can parse XML files just fine. It may not have any prebuilt classes for XML parsing, but that doesn't mean much.

Apparently it does in the javax libraries, but I've never used them beyond as a part of Swing. From the way it looks much of what I've learn in the database class is directly applicable. (Heck, I think Java for Dummies even explains it.)

[Kuroshima]

While XML is fine and dandy, I personally prefer full fledged databases. SQLite can be used from Java, supports ACID, a big percentage of the SQL standard, and it is fast and small.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

While XML is fine and dandy, I personally prefer full fledged databases. SQLite can be used from Java, supports ACID, a big percentage of the SQL standard, and it is fast and small.

I don't need a full database, I just need the content of the books turned into a format that's easily imported and exported to and from the program with minimal fuss and that's human readable enough for hand-edits, no overhead and maybe compresses well if I feel like doing that. XML is a good, open, standard designed almost specifically for that purpose.

I would probably use XML with a different extension and, if I can manage it, throw it into a ZIP wrapper if it's worth the effort.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by congo

It would be nice to include Fuel tank (water) besides normal fuel tank to modules to simulate for this emergency high thrust fuel reserve.

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

The fuel tank thing would take a *LOT* more wrangling than I care put into it at the moment.

Can I put a vote in for Fuel Tank differentiation too? I want to add one tank linked to a MHD Power Plant for extended duration (and have that duration listed in the ship stats for that matter) and a different set of tanks for the Reaction Engines and their delta-V increase. This is probably easier by making multiple entries for Fuel Tank in the systems tab, as Fuel Tank(MHD), Fuel Tank (Reaction- Fusion Torch/Water), etc.

Also, I don't know if this is me and my reading comprehension skills or the spreadsheet, but I can't see how the weapon damage values for guns and missiles link to what's in the weapon table on SS1p68, they seem to be lower by a factor of 10 in the spreadsheet. The weapon table shows dDamage, so it's not that.

And Lasers list damage type as "burn", when they should have "burn(2)" with the armour divisor.

ETA: It's my reading- the errata page says gun/missiles damages have been cut by 1/10- http://www.sjgames.com/errata/gurps/4e/spaceships.html, though it would be nice if the errata page reprinted the whole table with corrections instead of how it's presented now.

[Dark_Daemon]

Excellent tool, thanks for making it.
One annoying thing: in move, mps is rounded to the nearest whole number, rather than having one decimal point. I've looked around, but most of the necessary cells to fix that are hidden within the sheet, so no such luck. I'd be awesome if you could fix that, or at least give me a hint where to look for a solution. From my experience, it probably stems from a cell formatting issue, but I could very well be wrong.

Edit: Footnote numbers do not correspond correctly. Issue occurs in a TL 12^, SM+6, force screened craft.

[ericbsmith]

Posted version 1.18, hopefully fixing the Footnotes bug and allowing mps to go to three decimals. There were actually several bugs in the footnotes; if you notice any more please let me know.

[Dark_Daemon]

Any idea on how to easily transfer data from a filled out 1.17 to the empty 1.18? Re-inputing four ship's worth is not appealing.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Dark_Daemon

Any idea on how to easily transfer data from a filled out 1.17 to the empty 1.18? Re-inputing four ship's worth is not appealing.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way of copying the data from one sheet to another. Maybe I'll look into creating a Macro that will handle some of the work, but right now there isn't one.

[ericbsmith]

Version 1.19a Posted:

http://gurpsland.no-ip.org/zip/Spaceships119.zip

http://gurpsland.no-ip.org/zip/Spaceships119.7z

This is a biggie, so I'm considering it a Beta build and posting it separately from v1.18.

This update includes:
-Full Excel 2007 compatibility (and, presumably, Excel 2003 & 2010)
-Preliminary support for Spaceships 7

All the new systems and most of the options from Spaceships 7 are present except for the rules for Smaller Systems. I'm still not sure how exactly I'm implementing those, so they're still on the far back burner. Right now I want to concentrate on fixing any errors in the present systems and ship options, as well as looking over any bugs I may have introduced in adding these systems.

I've adjusted the core Macro to fix the compatibility issues with Excel 2007. I still have no idea why the Macro was causing a lockup in Excel 2007 - apparently it was getting stuck in an infinite calculation loop - but I was able to adjust the Macro so that it exists the loop after a single iteration rather than getting stuck in the loop.

I also had to create a new Self-Signed Security Certificate for the Macros. This means you will probably be prompted to accept the certificate again. If you want the Macros functionality just say yes.