OBT Forum
General BattleTech => General Discussion => AeroTech => Topic started by: Cryhavok101 on January 29, 2017, 12:19:00 PM
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With many thanks to Dragon Cat and Daryk(from the official forums) for their help troubleshooting, advice on layout, and suggestions for improvement, I present to you:
Battletech Warship Calculator using Strategic Operations rules rather than Aerotech 2.
Most Current Link (Updated 5-6-17): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rKDdKk5b4wjZcsDrkciN03oQIZTjteRwh4Nh6wGY_Oo/edit?usp=sharing
Edit: Link is view only, to make a usable version, go to 'File' and select 'Make a copy'.
Edit: For anyone who didn't know, this sheet doesn't work in other spreadsheet programs. It uses formulas that don't translate from one to another. Here (https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6388102?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en) is a link to instructions on using google sheets offline.
Instructions:
Green Fields need user input.
Light Grey Fields are automatic functions.
Blue is important totals.
The first thing you should do is go to File, and select "Make a Copy" this will create a separate version just for you, rather than everyone trying to use the same one.
If you need to clear a field just select the cell and hit delete.
Some of the limitations on items in the rules I was not able to get to function on this sheet, so you will need to use this in conjunction with the rules for items in the books. (For example, the rules only allow one mass driver on a warship, but you could put dozens on this sheet if you wanted)
The choice to have a Lithium Fusion Battery or not is included in selecting the type of K-F drive you want.
The weapons and equipment section has everything including bays, cargo, ect. This is not a TRO entry, and for the sake of not overwhelming the sheet, I needed to combine these into one section on the sheet.
Several Things are named in a different order than you may be used to, in order for google sheet's automatic functions to group them together on the lists. Things like Lasers' name starts with the word 'Laser' (IE 'Laser Large ER'). In addition to Lasers, other names like this are Bays, Cargo, Naval scale Weapons (Start with Naval), Capital Launchers, Subcapital Weapons, Gauss of all types (except naval).
Any infantry carried, whether marines or otherwise, are included in the bay personnel. Simply assign bays in the weapons and equipment section, and the number of bay personnel will increase appropriately. The battle armor bays have 3 types 4-, 5-, and 6-man bays respectively. If you want any bay personnel to have quarters outside the bay, simply add these as passenger quarters of the type desired.
One thing that came up as a question while working through stuff with Dragon Cat and Daryk, is that of marines. While some ship's stats list marines as a separate line, Strategic Operations doesn't mention any specific entry for them, and as I understand it, that inclusion is a holdover from old rules systems. My understanding is that these are handled by adding infantry bays to the ship, and possible quarters as well (via passengers). My guess as to why this is is that you can send marines out of your ship to board a hostile ship, so they use their own battle value (which you can calculate using custom infantry rules, I even have a link for another sheet that helps with that, in my signature), and are treated as a separate entity from the ship itself, though if they are on it when the ship is boarded, they can of course defend it. That is my guess. Either way, current rules do not have the marines as part of the ship any more than it treats other transported units as part of the ship, and this sheet reflects that.
Last item is, that I use passenger quarters as a catch all for any quarters you want to add beyond the calculated crew needed (the minimum), so that is where you would add extra crew if you wanted to.
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Has gone through several updates, and bug fixes, so if you need to, grab this link again for the most updated version.
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Each time I open it as an Excel it reports an error that it has to fix, I'll look at it and see if I can figure out what.
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I just noticed ER Medium Laser (IS) is missing every other laser appears to be there
It's still very cool
MAD-4A use it online and you don't need to worry about the Excel errors that's how I tend to use it just open the link
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I just noticed ER Medium Laser (IS) is missing every other laser appears to be there
It's still very cool
It was there, but mislabeled lol. It was called 'Laser Medium ER (ISmall)' the effects of inputting huge mind-numbing lists by hand lol. It's fixed now, I just deleted the 'mall'.
Each time I open it as an Excel it reports an error that it has to fix, I'll look at it and see if I can figure out what.
Google Sheets isn't really compatible with Excel, and unfortunately has to be used online. If you follow the instructions to make a private one for yourself, it will still be accessible from online. I've never tried downloading it as an excel document, but I can tell you I know for a fact, half the formula I used to make this monstrosity work, won't work in excel. Excel can do the same things, and do a lot more, but the more it can do also makes it so the things I was trying to do, would have been a lot more complicated, so google sheet's simpler version of those same things, don't work in excel.
I tend to use this only for the design portion, and once designed, write it up either on a record sheet or in a TRO style block, and save it on my hard drive as a text file. You can also save them as a PDF, which I have seen Dragon Cat do, but you can't mess with the fields when it is that way.
I should also mention that this is nor very phone friendly either... at least not friendly on my phone. Not sure if anyone was planning on trying that, but there it is, just in case.
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Google Sheets isn't really compatible with Excel, and unfortunately has to be used online.
I don't have on-line, only here at school.
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Google Sheets isn't really compatible with Excel, and unfortunately has to be used online. If you follow the instructions to make a private one for yourself, it will still be accessible from online. I've never tried downloading it as an excel document, but I can tell you I know for a fact, half the formula I used to make this monstrosity work, won't work in excel. Excel can do the same things, and do a lot more, but the more it can do also makes it so the things I was trying to do, would have been a lot more complicated, so google sheet's simpler version of those same things, don't work in excel.
Few office automation software are compatible (in spite of what everyone says).
It is just a way for the vendors to keep people prisoners of their products.
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Most Current Link (Updated 2-25-17): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vIkkuPFdquzNWIw3fyXM9NYsEI_DQMSli3Lgyw2gLLs/edit?usp=sharing
Updated to add:
Caspar and Caspar II technology, along with ARTS fighter and small craft bays.
Please let me know if I messed anything up and didn't notice.
Some Notes:
- Once you select the robotic control system in the weapons and equipment section, you will also need to change all three standard quarter types over to the matching drone system as well.
- ATAC and DTAC have a similar effect as C3 networks, and as such they have a similar effect on the unit's BV. This is something one would need to figure out when preparing forces for the battlefield, like any other C3 network. The percentages involved are listed on page 193 of Interstellar Operations.
Future Update Plan:
- Add fields for Pilot and Gunnery Skills so Battle Value can be given adjusted for those.
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Most Current Link (Updated 4-8-17): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Cg9RVZLCR_Ka5A7gqNoFPR2bOvl3BiLIUjpzRJEQiJA/edit?usp=sharing
Added the ability to make jumpships with this sheet as well.
The Major changes for users are:
- The "engine type" field, which allows you to select station keeping or maneuvering drives.
- In the "K-F Type and L-F Battery" field you can now select "Standard" and "Standard with K-F Battery" as options.
Notes:
- It is important to set your safe thrust at exactly .1 if you are using a station keeping drive. This will affect certain formulas.
- For a JumpShip, make sure to select both the station keeping drive and one of the two new K-F types.
- I only just noticed that the * foot note in the "Advanced Aerospace Unit Base Engine Formulae" chart on page 147 of Strategic Operations says Warships can have station keeping drives, so have fun with that if you like, as this sheet definitely allows it.
Next update I am planning will be to include primitive JumpShips as well. I have no time frame for when that will be done though.
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New Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rKDdKk5b4wjZcsDrkciN03oQIZTjteRwh4Nh6wGY_Oo/edit?usp=sharing
I left this version as view only, and you can make your own editable copy by going to 'File' and selecting 'Make a copy'.
Made several updates to the sheet.
- Fixed an error in the c-bill calculations
- Added pilot and gunnery skill fields to the sheet, which will modify the BV2 as appropriate
- Added the ability to create primitive jumpships.
- Rearranged several fields to fit with the changes.
- Added second sheet with TRO style info blocks
For the pilot/gunnery skills simply select the skills from the dropdown list and the BV2 will update accordingly.
For primitive jumpships, there are three important fields different than other ships. The first is you must select the 'Primitive' K-F drive.
The second is you must enter a Year of introduction (this is located near the ship's total tonnage and name). This is less about when the ship was introduced and more about the technology it is being built with. If you are making the ship in 3150, but using 2150 technology, put 2150 in this field, not 3150, as the sheet will do it's calculations based on this date.
The third is jump range. Primitive K-F drives have a range from 15 to 30 light years, and the K-F drive's weight is based on this range.
If you are not making a primitive jumpship, the year of introduction and jump range should be able to be left blank. If not let me know and I will try to figure out what is going wrong with it.
You can also now select standard or primitive docking collars for the ship.
I also added a second sheet that displays info in a several blocks, in more of a TRO style display. This is a work in progress. Right now it doesn't copy paste well, without needing some formatting, however as it is, it has made my life easier when putting things in such a format. There are more blocks of info going off to the side, so scroll until you get to the last one to see them all.
The only thing I wasn't able to add was the cargo bays section of a TRO style entry, because of the nature of them and how they can be split in any number of ways, I can't set this up to make them populate like the rest of it. Still, that is a easy part to type out yourself when transferring this info into a document.
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For anyone who didn't know, this sheet doesn't work in other spreadsheet programs. It uses formulas that don't translate from one to another. Here (https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6388102?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en) is a link to instructions on using google sheets offline.