A proposal

[Cap'n Crunch]

Horry: I like the idea of using existing ships for reference.I just think that perhaps players could use the different types of ship instead of templates from existing ships because of the fact we don't have the weights of every type of ship. In fact, there are few remaining examples of these known ships.

Your idea could reduce the gap of using different techniques but it could also widen the gap in performance between different types of ship. In your proposal, different types of ships have different performances. If you compared a light boat of an inferior type and a heavy boat of a high performance, and implemented your system, the resulting gap in performance would be even bigger than original.

I have an alternative: (weight of ship x type of ship) + (dimensions of ship x type of ship)

The type of ship factor would be a fixed number based on what ship you have. The constant of the factor used for multipying the weight of ship would be different from the one used in multipying the dimensions. The result would then be fitted into an upper and lower limit of health points and speed based on the how big your ship is and what type it is.

Edited August 14, 2011 by Cap'n Crunch

[Capn Frank]

Horry: I like the idea of using existing ships for reference.I just think that perhaps players could use the different types of ship instead of templates from existing ships because of the fact we don't have the weights of every type of ship. In fact, there are few remaining examples of these known ships.

If you knew any wooden vessel's hull length, width, and its draft you could find the vessels weight with about 99% accuracy without knowing the vessel's hull type or construction. In the Excel file, there is a cell that gives the vessels draft according to the scaled attributes of length, width, and weight. Since the model's weight is not going to be used, and there is no easy way to know what a Lego vessel's draft would be, there is going to be some error in knowing what the models weight would be.

[cb4]

If you knew any wooden vessel's hull length, width, and its draft you could find the vessels weight with about 99% accuracy without knowing the vessel's hull type or construction. In the Excel file, there is a cell that gives the vessels draft according to the scaled attributes of length, width, and weight. Since the model's weight is not going to be used, and there is no easy way to know what a Lego vessel's draft would be, there is going to be some error in knowing what the models weight would be.

The draft of a full hull model is normally pretty well defined - I can tell you mine, but the problem is going to be with waterline models. I suppose that the draft could be estimated based on the type of ship and its other dimensions. Does your data for real ships give a reasonable looking curve if draft is plotted against beam and width, or is it a scatter?

[Capn Frank]

Does your data for real ships give a reasonable looking curve if draft is plotted against beam and width, or is it a scatter?

I actually have not tried that; I don't know why I have not thought of it earlier. It shouldn't be a problem to figure it out relatively quickly. If I remember (I sometimes can easily forget on my way home ),I'll check tonight.

Phredit:

Graphing the product of length and beam actually yielded very satisfactory results.

In the graph below, x=(length)*(beam), and y=weight

I had also tried the polynomial with a power of 2 and a linear function, and the exponential shown above had the best r squared value.

[Horry]

If I understand you both correctly the proposed method could be used to calculate reasonable results for the game. So I'd like to bring this project back on track and get some more work done.

I still need some feedback for the boarding rules and we still need a fourth player if I remember correctly.

Phred, would you be willing to make an adjusted excel sheet that gives the "weight" of a MOC after inserting the dimensions? I would gather information on dimensions of all kinds of historic vessels and their respective weights so that there would be a pool of data. The formula used for the MOC-weight could choose the weight of the historic ship that would be the most accurate match for the MOC.

[cb4]

If I understand you both correctly the proposed method could be used to calculate reasonable results for the game. So I'd like to bring this project back on track and get some more work done.

I still need some feedback for the boarding rules and we still need a fourth player if I remember correctly.

Phred, would you be willing to make an adjusted excel sheet that gives the "weight" of a MOC after inserting the dimensions? I would gather information on dimensions of all kinds of historic vessels and their respective weights so that there would be a pool of data. The formula used for the MOC-weight could choose the weight of the historic ship that would be the most accurate match for the MOC.

Well, my ship is now near enough to completion it could probably be entered into the game.