Autocalculate/suggest jump drive required size

[Thrake (OP)]

I guess I'm not the only one... HEre's what happens to me: I design a ship and from the begining I know I want a jump drive on it. I add everything I want and then I start creating a new jump drive to fit the size of my ship. I commonly need to design 3 jump drives to find the right one that isn't too big yet big enough to fit on the ship when taking into account extra room for crew and armor.

It would be a nice addition if the game could tell what the minimal drive size should be to allow a given ship design to jump in the design window, or if the project window could tell how small a ship mounting said drive has to be to be able to use it.

[Iceranger]

The 'extra' tonnage a jump drive can jump is its capacity minus its own tonnage. Just keep in mind there will be extra crew space and armor put in place, so leave some slack there. Crew and armor are not easy calculations to make.

It is typically easier to first design a jump drive, then design your ship to fit in its capacity.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10999.0 this might help when designing a ship.

[Migi]

Personally I find that most of the time I want to design a ship which fits inside a shipyard I already have, therefore the tonnage of the ship is a known value.

[Graymane]

Use iceranger’s tool he mentioned above, it does exactly what you are asking for and a lot more.