http://www.geocities.com/pentapod2300/nam2/cuberoot.htm
The formulas in NAM are flawed because large starships -- especially armored ones -- will have outrageously large number of hull hit points.
For instance, look at a cylindrical hull comperable to the SC stats of the Kafer Alpha. Based on GDW's values for Signature and Profile ( from both the Radial and Lateral viewpoint) a Kafer Alpha BB:
The formulas, according to NAM, for an armored hull are:
and
Note that plugging the Armor Volume formula into the Total Hull Hits formula will cause the "( Armor Multiplier)" terms in the numerator and denominator to cancel out leaving the simplified formula of:
Here is one possible fix for an armored hull's hit points.
I suggest taking the cube root of the Level of Armor Protection value in the Total Hull Hits formula:
For my Kafer Alpha BB reverse design:
Applying the same variant formulas to the Punyuang example in NAM, we get:
Since the Kennedy is really armor level one, taking any root of one is still one, leaving that craft unchanged.
Here is a handy table of cube roots for armor levels 1 to 20. Armor Cubroot Armor Cubroot 1 1.00 11 2.22 2 1.26 12 2.29 3 1.44 13 2.35 4 1.59 14 2.41 5 1.71 15 2.47 6 1.82 16 2.52 7 1.91 17 2.57 8 2.00 18 2.62 9 2.08 19 2.67 10 2.15 20 2.71
I think using the cube root gives a reasonable boost to any armored starships hit points, without being excessive ( like my reversed Kafer Alpha shows happening with the official NAM formulas).
To take the cube root of X press.
And you now have the cube root of X.
Note the "e^x" key may require using the "inv" key on your calculator, depending how your function keys are laid out.
Also you can substitute "log" for "ln" and "10^x" for "e^x" and get the same answer.
Here is a walk through, solving for the cube root of 8. Enter 8, display reads: 8 Press "ln" display reads: 2.07944 ... divide by 3 and press "=" display reads: 0.69314 ... now press "e^x" display reads: 2 So the cube root of 8 is 2 ( since 2 * 2 * 2 = 8).
If you have any questions about the above, please email me.