Ship Construction System

In Shattered Stars, ships are designed using the Ship Construction System, or SCS. The SCS allows you to customize your ships using DP, or Design Points. Each type of ship has a certain number of Design Points available for you to spend on things like weaponry, defenses, FTL drives or strike craft. This system is not only for ships - it also works for space stations or orbital defense platforms. You just need to omit the engines.

Design Point Costs
Each item has a cost in Design Points. When you equip a ship class with an item, you subtract the cost of that item in Design Points from the total available Design Points.

Weapons
Weapons are essential for military vessels. When adding turreted weapons (kinetic or energy), you multiply the cost of the individual weapon by the amount of turrets you are equipping the ship with. So, to equip a ship with 10 20cm railguns, you will need to spend 40 DP.

Kinetic Weapons

 * Railgun: 1 DP per 5 centimeters of barrel diameter (a 20cm railgun will cost 4 DP).
 * Coilgun: 0.5 DP per 5 centimeters of barrel diameter (a 20cm coilgun will cost 2 DP)

Energy Weapons

 * Laser: 1 DP per 10 megawatt (MW) of power (a 20MW laser will cost 2 DP)
 * Plasma Beam: 1 DP per 5 centimeters of beam diameter (a 20cm beam will cost 4 DP)
 * Plasma Cannon: 1 DP per 10 centimeters of barrel diameter (a 20cm plasma cannon will cost 2 DP)

Missiles
NOTE: Don't worry about ammunition for missiles. You can fire them as much as you want, unless you yourself choose to roleplay that particular facet of combat. Otherwise, don't pay attention to ammo.
 * Warhead: 1 DP for a warhead equivelant to 1 ton of TNT.
 * Missile Banks: 0.5 DP per missile. Multiply this by the cost of the warhead. So if you have 10 missiles with 2 ton warheads each, it will cost you 5 DP.

Defenses
Defenses are essential parts of any ship which might see combat - without them, you're pretty screwed if things get hairy.

Armor
Armor costs 1 DP per 10cm of thickness. Different ship types have limits on the armor you can equip.

Shields
Each shield generator costs 3 DP, with an extra 2 added onto the cost of the previous generator for every additional generator you have. So, the first generator costs 3 DP, the second costs 5, the third costs 7, fourth 9, etc. This stacks, so with four shield generators the total cost in DP is 24 DP. Different ship types have limits on the number of shields you can equip.

Point Defense
Each point defense (anti-missile and anti-strike craft) turret costs 1 DP. Point Defense is necessary if you want to protect your ship from missiles and strike craft.

Hangars and Strike Craft
Strike Craft are small ships which can be easily carried by almost every class of vessel. They can serve as bombers, fighters, or interceptors. They are capable of being a decisive weapon in battle, but are vulnerable to point defense - not as much as missiles, however. Strike Craft, due to their small size, cannot be fitted with FTL drives and are incapable of operating independently of the "mothership".

It costs 3 DP per strike craft. If the number of Strike Craft exceeds the Construction Posts of the ship, then any extra Strike Craft that are added cost 5 DP per strike craft. So, if you build a Destroyer with 28 CP, you can equip 28 Strike Craft at a cost of 84 DP. If you want to equip 30, however, then it will cost you 94 DP - the extra 2 that exceed the limit cost a total of 10 DP.

Sensors
Sensors allow your ships to "see". Without them, your ships will not be able to detect enemy ships or indeed anything at all.

Long Range Sensors
Long Range Sensors are capable of detecting ships and energy signatures, as well as planets, star systems, etc. They cannot give you specific details, however.

Long range sensors cost 2 DP for every light year of range below 3 LY. After this, there is an extra 5 DP cost added onto the cost of the previous LY of range. So, 1 LY of range costs 2 DP. For every extra LY you add to the range, it will cost 2 DP - until you go over 3. The fourth LY of range will cost 7 DP, the fifth will cost 12 DP, the sixth will cost 17 DP, etc. This stacks like shields, so in total 6 LY of range will cost a total of 42 DP!

Short Range Sensors
Short Range Sensors are essential for combat and in-system exploration. They have a much shorter range than Long Range Sensors, usually not able to detect anything outside of a few AU. They can give you a great many details on what they do detect, however, including armarments, atmospheric composition of planets, etc.

Short range sensors cost 1 DP for every AU (astronomical unit, the distance from the earth to the sun) of range. So, 10 AU of range will cost you 10 DP.

Propulsion
Propulsion systems, either FTL (Faster-Than-Light) or STL (Slower-Than-Light), are necessary for your ships to get around. Space stations can be created if you omit propulsion systems.

FTL Drives

 * Warp Drive: 15 DP
 * Hyperdrive: 20 DP
 * Ripspace Drive: 30 DP

STL Engines
STL engines cost 2 DP per engine. All ships require at least one engine, however some larger classes may require more.

Ship Types
The amount of Construction Posts you can put into each ship is flexible. You are able to add four additional Construction Posts on top of the base. So, for instance, a frigate can be built with 19 construction posts instead of only 15. The first three additional construction posts give you another 10 DP each, but the fourth only gives you 5 DP. So a 19 CP frigate will give you 185 DP to play with.

Corvette

 * Size: 50-100 meters
 * Construction Posts: 5
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 100cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 1
 * Notes: Corvettes are unable to use strike craft.

Frigate

 * Size: 100-200 meters
 * Construction Posts: 15
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 300cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 4
 * Notes: None

Destroyer

 * Size: 150-300 meters
 * Construction Posts: 25
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 500cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 6
 * Notes: None

Cruiser

 * Size: 250-400 meters
 * Construction Posts: 35
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 700cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 9
 * Notes: Requires at least 2 engines

Battlecruiser

 * Size: 350-550 meters
 * Construction Posts: 45
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 900cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 11
 * Notes: Requires at least 5 engines

Battleship

 * Size: 500-700 meters
 * Construction Posts: 55
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 1100cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 14
 * Notes: Requires at least 7 engines

Carrier

 * Size: 600-900 meters
 * Construction Posts: 65
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 1300cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 16
 * Notes: Unlike other ships, Carriers are able to hold more fighters than they have Construction Posts before the penalty kicks in. They can hold twice as many fighters as they have Construction Posts (CP * 2) before the cost of the fighters increases. Requires at least 6 engines.

Dreadnought

 * Size: 600-1000 meters
 * Construction Posts: 75
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 1500cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 19
 * Notes: Requires at least 12 engines.

Superdreadnought

 * Size: 900-1700 meters
 * Construction Posts: 100
 * Maximum Armor Thickness: 2000cm
 * Maximum Shield Generators: 25
 * Notes: Requires at least 20 engines.