The full spreadsheet it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing
I categorized each gunship based on its mass (freighters are always freighters):
<= 40 tons: light gunship
41-80 tons: medium gunship
81-120 tons: heavy gunship
>120 tons: super-heavy, or freighter, or corvette.
Let's concentrate on light, medium, and heavy gunships (and let's ignore IAVs for now). Some thoughts:
- Light-gunships should be fast and should trade-off armor mass to get more speed. Their standard armor should be relatively low--around 3 tons [by "standard armor" I mean the armor mass at which they don't incur a speed penalty or bonus.] Their max armor can vary, but they should pay a huge penalty (2-4 points) on speed for super-heavy armor and above (> 6 tons).
- Medium-gunships should have a max speed around 20-21. Their standard armor should still be around 3 tons, but their max armor can be heavier (9 tons) in exchange for a moderate speed penalty (1-2 points).
- Heavy-gunships should in general be slower (max speed 19-20). Their standard armor should be around 5 tons (heavy armor) and their max armor should be 12 (incurring a moderate speed penalty of 1-2 points).
- All of the above can be bent or broken by specific ship classes. For example, maybe the Britannias are fast (speed 23) even though they are heavy. The trade-off is that they should be much more expensive (in terms of hull prices).
- Sapphire-class yacht: No changes needed.
- Wolfen-class gunship: I think we should either lower maxArmor to 9 or reduce the number of segments. 2 segments feels too few to me. I can make a big difference in combat, so I'd rather reduce the maximum armor mass.
- Freyr-class gunship: We should do the same thing as the Wolfen.
- Ronin/A, B, C: I think the /A can have 3 std/6 max armor, while the other two classes should have 4/8. [Chalk it up to improvements over time.]
- Manticore-class heavy gunship: The Manticore is already slower than normal, so it should have standard armor of 6 tons. But I think we should bring its max armor down to 12 (and then only with a minor penalty of 1 point). I would also increase the default thrust: its ratio is way off compared to other heavy gunships.
- Centurion-class heavy gunship: The Centurion is fine, but I think it shouldn't get a speed bonus for having lighter armor.
- Britannia-class heavy gunship: The Britannia should match the Centurion for armor (6/12).