The biggest step in ship design, is to choose the hull that you will use for the ship. Once this hull size has been determined, all other calculations and such are based on this.
The hull sizes are based on various factors, and can be selected from the following choices:
These tables show a lot of information, which includes:
This size value is not actually used in SFB at all. Instead it is used here to further break down the original SSD Size Class, which gets a bit too limiting in this system. This size code will generally be referred to a lot through the construction system.
The rough guide is a list of actually construction ships and where they conform in these rules.
This is the amount of boxes on the SSD that need to be devoted to control systems (such as bridge, auxiliary control, flag bridge, emergency).
The actual SFB size class of the ship.
Probably one of the most important values here. This column tells you how many boxes the SSD will contain. This will include everything except for the sensor, scanner and damage control. It must contain all power, weapons, hull, armour, control and other systems, and if probably going to be the most limiting factor here. Note that some early years ships stop at a certain hull size, and thus have a maximum limit to their SSD boxes.
While the tables will show a range for this value, you must select an exact amount of SSD boxes that your ship will have. Once chosen, this value will be used for some other parts of the construction process, such as figuring out how many weapons your ship may contain.
The amount of excess damage boxes the ship has.
This is the move cost of the ship, detailing how many movement points the ship will get for each point of power it supplies to movement.
The power cost to provide the ship with life support, keeping the crew alive.
The turning rate of the ship.
you will notice a couple of things with these tables. The first is that, the larger the ship, the slower it is, the less manoeuvrable it will become, and the more life support it needs. However, it will have a much greater capacity for holding things. Similarly, the reverse is true. A smaller ship is faster and more nimble, but can not hold as much.
The second thing you will notice, is that some of the values are not absolute. For example, a medium sized Late style Colonial Warship has a control rating of 5, while having a manoeuvre class of C-D.
For example, a Colonial Warship with 76 boxes on the SSD is termed a Moderate sized ship. This means that it is Size Class 3, will have 4 Excess Damage boxes, a Movement Cost of 0.66, a Life Support cost of 0.66 and a Manoeuvre Class range of B-C.
This means that you have to provide at least 5 boxes worth of control systems, but you can choose the actual manoeuvre value of the ship, which could be either C or D. You'd probably want to choose C.
Absolute values in any table in the ship design system, are not open to change. If the table lists that your ship has a Life Support cost of 1.5 and you want it to be 1.0, then the only choice you have is to get a smaller ship.
What this means is that warships and ships of the line will have the better values in the range, while reserve ships, freighters and the like will have the lower values. However, at the end of the day, you are free to choose what actual value you wish. I suggest when you do this, you look at some ships already designed and then, using the fluff text, figure out a value around your fluff text. For me, a ship is not a ship without some fluff, and as you write it, you may notice yourself giving the ship values that you may not have originally considered.