On Apr 28, 2015, at 6:25 PM, xxxxxx@comcast.net wrote:
> Thank you for the effort you put into creating the QSDS and for being willing to answer my questions.

I'm glad to see that someone is still using it after all of this time.

> Any help I can get is more than I have been able to figure out on my own.

I'm happy to help however I can; if I don't remember something or my notes aren't clear, I'll say so.

> TNE FF&S Chapter 5. B doesn't, at least that I've found, does not calculate or a layout the USD like the QSDS. The dividing the sensor range by 30,000 was drawn from the combat rating rules in TNE FF&S Book 3: Weaponry.

Yes; I'm responsible for the USD layout in QSDS (and by extension, I suppose, most T4 starships).

In my notes I have a Word document, probably from Dave Golden, that tries to reconcile Greg Porter's rules for sensor use with spacecraft combat ranges and the data produced by FF&S.  Included in those notes are a set of USD values for sensors, that relates the USD to the FF&S short range so that FF&S_Range = 3km * 10 ^ USD_Value.  In other words:

USD  FF&S Range
0    3km
1    30km
2    300km
3    3000km
4    30,000km
5    300,000km
6    3000,000km
7    3,000,000km

The notes also mention a spreadsheet that generates sensor suites.  Although I haven't been able to locate that spreadsheet, it is probably where the sensor data in QSDS came from.

> One item I have not tried to figure out is the Crew requirement for the jump drive, maneuver drives, or the sensors. How where the crew requirements calculated for  the jump drive, maneuver drives, sensors, communicators, bay weapons, meson screens, and power plants?

Ah, that's a good question.  I can see in the QSDS spreadsheet:

Meson Screen
 - TL-dependent crew modifier value times (Volume_in_Tons * 0.105)
 - All meson screens built at TL-11 for crew purposes.

Bay Weapons
  - There may be something odd going on here, the calculations are:
    For TL-9 200-ton PA bay, crew is 14.5375 times the TL-12 crew modifier (should probably use TL-9 modifier instead)
    For 125-ton bays, crew is hardcoded as 5 in the spreadsheet (I'm not sure why).
    For 100-ton bays, crew is 8.8467 times the appropriate TL-dependent crew modifier for the TL of the bay.
    For 50-ton bays, crew is hardcoded as 1 in the spreadsheet (I'm not sure why).

Drives and Power Plant:
  - For drives below 50 dtons, crew is 1 per 30 dtons of drive.
  - For drives 50 dtons or more, crew is 1 + 1 per 100 dtons of drive.

Sensors and Communicators
  - Crew is # of systems times TL-dependent crew size modifier value
  - For sensors, the number of systems is hard-coded in the spreadsheet (basic=1, improved=2, sm.mil=4, med.mil=5).
  - For communicators, spreadsheet computes crew based on systems included in the package (basic/improved=2, advanced=4)

TL  Crew Modifier
9   0.66
A   0.45
B   0.30
C   0.20
D   0.13
E   0.08
F   0.05

---Guy "Wildstar" Garnett
xxxxxx@prismnet.com