SECTIONS determine formulas used.

I'm such a dumbass. I'm not out of the woods yet. Basically, there are many different METHODS of calculating Quantity, DTons and Costs. This means that I have to create if statements for the different calculation methods. That is a large formula script in the cell that would be a future headache. 

I realize I have to make up to 3 Factors, columns that will be filled in. Example would be Armor. Armor needs the Hull Dtons and Cost and the Armor Value. 3 factors to encode.  

Different Methods are the following: 

1. (second to the easier) Hull - Dtons x Cost per Dton.
2. (next hardest) Armor - Hull Cost * % and Cost - this has Hull embedded in it. I have to allow Encoding/Inputing of these values. s
1. X is the Hull Dtons, and Y is the Hull Cost.
3. (Easiest) Components - Qty * Dtons and Cost.  
4. (Hardest) Power Plant and Drives have a performance relative to the Hull.  this is going to need a match index where the column is determined by Dtons and Row is determined by Model. If I make different kinds of Power Plants I'm going to have a more complicated formula. 
   

By Easy that's probably a Night to figure out. Hardest is the unforeseeable difficulty. 

Problems Delegated to the Book. Fixing the Technical Debt of the Ship Design system. 

1. Organization of Categories. Sections Like Hull, Armor, Engineering etc… are important to be better organized - not only do they help in determining what Formulas the system will use BUT it helps in performance metrics. 
1. Engineering will determine how many Engineers and Maintenance staff is needed. 
2. Payload vs Propulsion - Delta-V calculations of efficiency needs this to be well defined. One problem is the Engineering cannot just be propoulsion as Power Plants and Jump Drives are not part of the Delta-V propulsions. 
2. Thrust and Specific Impulse and Mass Flow rates. Wow thats complicated till you have games that reward you mastering them, the way you learn the Probabilities in TRPGs and make more calculated risks. The technical debt here is that if the Players and the GM’s will make exceptional parameters. Example of exceptional parameters are Missiles and Drones. Their performances are very different since they have much less payload. Ships, Small Craft, and Drones/Missiles. The ability to make more customizations. Example would be pure Electronic Counter Measure Missiles and Drones - the kind of technology that would allow a prepared inferior force take on a much more capable force. 
3. Hulls, Surface Area, Lift Body, etc.. its not a linear relationship: Surface area vs volume - anyone who buys in Bulk will know the packaging is a large % of mass the smaller the units. Fixing this is understanding the construction limits - like why 750,000 cubic meters is the reasonable volume of our Cargo Vessels (24,000 Twenty Foot equivalent units, 20ft containers are roughly 2Dtons or 30 cubic meters). The Technical DEBT here is the scaling of Hulls - because we need it to scale well because the same Formula will be used for Space Stations. 
1. Metrics about the space elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator?wprov=sfti1 Have to be incorporated -  the space elevator determines our ability to both create space stations and habitats that can house a large population.  Heck to CE you make a space elvetor
4. LESS TABLE REFERENCES!!! just formulas like in GURPS Traveller and Mongoose Traveller.  

Other Problems

1. Brain getting used to Delta V. a 100Dton Courier with 50dtons of fuel, having 25K km/s of delta V - enough for Earth orbit (getting out of earth is not included) is enough for a 15k kms Trip to Ganymede 100km orbit as Compared to a 200Dton Trader with only 9.5K kms - good for 250km Earth orbit to 200km mars orbit. 
2. My brain is not used to thinking of the Merchant Trader with less ΔV than the Courier. But it should make sense since the Trader has double the Dtons.
3. That the proportion of Fuel to rest of ship is going to be 15% to 55%. Ships with a lot of ΔV will have a larger amount of fuel. 
4. That FUEL to Cargo ratio - and Cargo is also the Humans. That ships with MORE fuel as a % of the ship will have HIGHER per unit cost. Bundling a Passenger. the COurier ship has 260k of fuel costs divided to the 2 staterooms. Thats about 160k per 
5. I don't know how to calculate duration. How long are these 15kms is going to be? what if I burn more fuel? how long will it take? 

Delta V Mapt Github