Frontier, it's time you balanced ALL ships and internals- Size/Mass.

[kofeyh]

One could almost say consistency in design leads to choice on nuance and organic strengths and weakness rather than choices based on handwaved incentives

This is ostensibly my point, in a particularly coherent statement (something I otherwise struggle with). Indeed.

There's two facts you forget to mention above: The Anaconda costs almost 30 times that of the Vulture, and nearly twice that of the Beluga.

Price (alone) is a terrible differentiator. It's also a terrible balance point. Little more needs be said, to be fair.

 

[kofeyh]

The fact that the T-10 has triple the Anaconda's hull mass means next to nothing and only matters when you start stripping them down for exploration builds, something FD clearly thinks the Conda should do well, as long as you ignore it's supercruise turning speeds.

It's fine until a specific example when it doesn't matter because the developer obviously intended the outcome. You seem to be arguing the effect is as a consequence of planned cause. It isn't though. Anaconda became an exploration favorite because it has 400t hull mass, the largest number of internal bays of any ship, combined with an FSD-to-Mass ratio that no other ship shares. Including actual exploration ships.

It's also a very good combat ship, a very good passenger ship and a very good armed trader. This wasn't designed intent; Frontier just love that ship so like any doting parent, lavish on it. It's closer to natural selection at work; if nature provides a strong advantage, that will become the dominant result.

Frontier nerfed python in 2015 to better balance versus other combat ships because it pretty much outclassed them: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...have-a-look)?p=1592391&viewfull=1#post1592391

"This puts the flight model in a better place for a large fighting based ship and also leaves room for the other fighting ships to come so they can be more manoeuvrable than it"

In a bit of a giant circle, Krait now fits about where python was, handling wise; so there's even more competition in the mid level ship range. Krait does not outclass Python; it's an alternative approach. I think there is definitely room for Anaconda to get it's version of the Krait.

Q4 strikes me as a very good time for that to happen given Exploration changes planned. A very good time indeed. More (genuine) choice is good. Krait in fact is an excellent example of exactly that.

 

[GoldenSilver484]

Do you mean twice? As the FAS is 480 tons

but anyway



Which is part of the reason for suggesting a rebalance so mass does make sense across the board.

Even if it was a rework of the modules and hull masses so they performance was similar, just have the ships internally consistent, as opposed to all the odd comparisons you rightly pointed out.

I derped, I meant to say that the FAS's hull mass iis slightly less than half of the Corvette's.

The problem with a rework is that every single module C5 and up would need to have their mass values changed.
Ship wise every single medium and large pad ship, a few small pads too, would need to be updated, both with hull masses and possible core/internal upsizes for the newly reworked modules to maintain current ship performances.

We all know FD wouldn't bother with the effort it would take to do this and even if they did, players would complain about needing to re-engineer their ships.

It's fine until a specific example when it doesn't matter because the developer obviously intended the outcome. You seem to be arguing the effect is as a consequence of planned cause. It isn't though. Anaconda became an exploration favorite because it has 400t hull mass, the largest number of internal bays of any ship, combined with an FSD-to-Mass ratio that no other ship shares. Including actual exploration ships.

Frontier clearly thought no such thing; they nerfed python for basically being the same sort of aberrant outcome, the Anaconda had already become. I am quite sure Frontier would be the first to admit they probably should have solved Anaconda at the same time as Python.

They didn't. Hindsight is always 20/20. They cannot correct the past; but they can surely improve the future.

You seriously don't think FD knew what they were doing when they gave the Anaconda a C6 FSD and 400t hull? They knew it would give it a stupidly high stripped down range or else they would've given it a comparable hull mass to the original 1000t T-9.

The Python was nerfed because it could easily outperform any combat ships that were released at the time on top of being the best medium pad multirole ship in the game, a title it still holds.

Honestly I believe they should just add 150-250 tons to the Anaconda's hull mass and be done with it. Oh noes for the explorers who would loose a few lightyears.

If they become trapped they can contact FD support, since they give players back ships they lose legitimately all the time, a transfer out of a system they're stuck in because of an update would be a no brainer.

 

[kofeyh]

You seriously don't think FD knew what they were doing when they gave the Anaconda a C6 FSD and 400t hull? They knew it would give it a stupidly high stripped down range or else they would've given it a comparable hull mass to the original 1000t T-9.

I have learned over a number of years to not assume anything with respect to FD. This is, again, assuming cause and effect. It would be an assumption that they intended Anaconda to be the top exploration vessel. They made a change to ensure other combat ships would not be ostensibly replaced by Python; yet seemed to not apply the exact same thought process to Anaconda at the time, despite it being the same sort of over-achiever.

They aren't going to touch Anaconda. So if they won't (because they won't; it's been said as much) then they can only really make other ships a more relevant comparison. Or add something to provide better choice. Again; my money quietly is on Q4.

 

[Morbad]

Maybe they don't consider jump range to be the sole defining factor of an exploration vessel...

 

[znôrt]

I have learned over a number of years to not assume anything with respect to FD.

it's actually simple: they improvise.

 

[kofeyh]

Maybe they don't consider jump range to be the sole defining factor of an exploration vessel...

.. apparently neither is having the largest internal module count and 8 utility slots and 9 hardpoints. And yet here we are.

--

Frontier are human; they can't possibly know all potential outcomes of choices before they make them. Anaconda is just a product of its time. Like Python. It just arguably didn't have the same logic applied to it, despite being a similar scenario, for differing reasons. Anaconda is still far and away the single most common ship newer players tell me they want.

It is what it is; I tend to think they are a little older and wiser now. Q4 is a great chance to offer some options in that space; much like they just did with Krait.

 

[kofeyh]

it's actually simple: they improvise.

Quite the contrary; you can think of Frontier like a very large ship. It will have a course plotted and set and will make revolutions at a certain speed to travel that course and if that's not in the same direction the community is going, or the outcome of that isn't working, then Frontier, much like the ship, have to change direction. This can take time due to the momentum gained, and there can be resistance due to that momentum.

Frontier work very hard. But they aren't perfect, they make mistakes and take time to change fundamental decisions. Sometimes that will mean improvising on the spot (eg mission changes); sometimes it's deeper design that just will take weeks or months to refactor. And they have finite resources, so will only ever be able to achieve so much, in any given period.

I'm okay with Frontier looking to see how the can offer more choice; over contextless extreme change. If that means adding some ships and shifting the balance point that way? So be it, if addressing through rebalancing existing offerings is simply too difficult to get the community on board with.

Again; Krait shows this can result in better choice, versus just nuking something and assuming this will solve; which ignores the sh*t fight that would be associated. If Frontier can do something similar with respect to Anaconda, then really we end up with more choice and some gap closure at the same time.

It helps to remember Elite: Dangerous is now essentially about five years old, and being a little pragmatic about such things isn't entirely unwise.

 

[znôrt]

Quite the contrary; you can think of Frontier like a very large ship. It will have a course plotted and set and will make revolutions at a certain speed to travel that course and if that's not in the same direction the community is going, or the outcome of that isn't working, then Frontier, much like the ship, have to change direction. This can take time due to the momentum gained, and there can be resistance due to that momentum.

could be. there is a clear roadmap at the company level, which is to grow. that this translates into solid products actually being developed is still a long shot.

particularly rapid growth (not to mention hypertrophia) has its costs and inherent dangers. one of it is erratic direction, i've seen that myself more than once. a company with a blooming business model and promise which starts to hire frantically on all levels (creators, builders, specially managers) becomes increasingly difficult to manage. teams are not consolidated, there's pushing around and trampling of initiatives in management to seize opportunities and even game of thrones type scenarios. everybody runs around shouting "focus! focus!" while they all together just create a big contradicting mess. i've seen very promising companies loose most of their advantage or even not survive this phase, even if they had the talent and perfect market opportunity. there are some signs of this in frontier at the pure business or pr level. how many initiatives have you seen announced with fanfare lately which have been discontinued promptly and often without explanation just weeks or months later? focused feedback sessions announced just to be cancelled? this is a clear symptom of erratic and uncontrolled direction.

this is also noticeable at the game design level. true, no risk no gain, there is nothing wrong if such and such idea doesn't work and is scraped, quite the contrary. but so many? multicrew, powerplay, cqc, the sorry state of trade, pushing for pvp without a proper pvp infrastructure, ... some of these are actually quite old, from before the big push. just compare the initial vision with the final product, improvisation just shows through all pores.

anyway, i'm not criticising improvisation per se. it can produce very good stuff, much of elite actually is. at the end, no matter what the big shots boast about, it's all about what the humble craftsmen are allowed an able to do with what they're given, when (and if at all) they're left alone to do some actual work. but, and thus my answer, you just can't make assumptions on a system that constantly improvises.

 

[GoldenSilver484]

I have learned over a number of years to not assume anything with respect to FD. This is, again, assuming cause and effect. It would be an assumption that they intended Anaconda to be the top exploration vessel. They made a change to ensure other combat ships would not be ostensibly replaced by Python; yet seemed to not apply the exact same thought process to Anaconda at the time, despite it being the same sort of over-achiever.

Considering that the Anaconda was the "big one" back when the game launched, it isn't that much of an assumption to say FD intended for the Anaconda to be the best ship for any given task.

They aren't going to touch Anaconda. So if they won't (because they won't; it's been said as much) then they can only really make other ships a more relevant comparison. Or add something to provide better choice. Again; my money quietly is on Q4.

Since the release of the Cutter, Corvette, T-10 and now the buffed T-9, the Anaconda has competition in all roles except exploration.
I'd be surprised if a ship wasn't released in Q4 that is more suited for exploration. Granted, I'd much prefer they release the Panther Clipper, but eh, I'm not really an explorer and when do I use an Orca or DBX.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Because my curiosity sometimes gets the better of me, and because my Wednesday golf date with my Dad was called on account of thunderstorms, in a fit of wild number crunching, I decided to see just how weird the numbers provided by the game are compared to the only "realistic" number we have: internal volume. I decided to borrow some of the work done by Nebohtes to calculate what percentage of volume an individual component takes, though in an attempt to simplify things, I used a very rough "best fit" calculation, which results in smaller components having a larger volume than numbers he came up with.

So, here's the numbers I got for a selection of ships, sorted by the difference from the average density of ships in general. Included is the mass of ship hulls if the density was constant across all hulls:

Ship	Current Mass of Hull	Volume	Density	Difference in Density from the Average	Corrected Mass of Hull	Core Modules	Optional “Large” Modules	Optional “Small” Modules	(small) Hardpoint Modules	Volume Used	Difference in Volume Used
Anaconda	400	101072	0.0040	17%	2341	8532	14	26	60	44113.3	44%
Beluga Liner	950	230465	0.0041	18%	5339	6689	10	24	26	33066	14%
Federal Corvette	900	190720	0.0047	20%	4418	8532	20	20	60	53645.8	28%
Type-9 Heavy	850	157616	0.0054	23%	3651	4512	23	26	20	48949.3	31%
Orca	320	57502	0.0056	24%	1332	1781	5	16	20	12922.4	22%
Hauler	14	2509	0.0056	24%	58	34	0	11	4	434.95	17%
Type-7 Transporter	350	54591	0.0064	28%	1265	782	9	10	12	16798.1	31%
Imperial Clipper	400	47672	0.0084	36%	1104	1969	6	28	28	15387.8	32%
Imperial Cutter	1100	117240	0.0094	40%	2716	12825	26	12	56	73409.4	63%
Python	350	26772	0.0131	56%	620	3101	8	18	36	21051.3	79%
Type-6 Transporter	155	11567	0.0134	58%	268	264	2	24	7	4640.4	40%
Asp Explorer	280	18800	0.0149	64%	436	800	3	16	20	7328	39%
Federal Gunship	580	38857	0.0149	64%	900	2726	5	28	32	15594.2	40%
Federal Dropship	580	31359	0.0185	80%	726	1956	4	34	28	12304.1	39%
Fer de Lance	250	11915	0.0210	91%	276	1088	1	19	38	4916.15	41%
Sidewinder	25	741	0.0337	146%	17	29	0	6	6	271.5	37%
Vulture	230	6486	0.0355	153%	150	663	2	12	20	5254.2	81%
Eagle	50	1066	0.0469	202%	25	82	0	10	7	526.1	49%
Cobra III	180	3191	0.0564	243%	74	283	0	30	14	1650.3	52%
Diamondback Explorer	260	3259	0.0798	344%	75	457	0	28	20	2019.8	62%
Diamondback Scout	170	2002	0.0849	367%	46	277	0	14	16	1140.7	57%

As you can see, density roughly follows relative ship size (small ships are denser than big ships), though the Hauler is definitely an anomaly. In general, though, all big ships are too light, and small ships are too heavy. Smaller ships also make better use of their internal spaces than larger ships, but there's two anomalies this time: the Imperial Cutter, and the Hauler (again). On average, 43% of internal space is taken up by known modules, with the ships that utilize their internal spaces best being the vulture and python, while the ships with the greatest wasted space are the Beluga Liner, Hauler, and Orca.

Looking at these numbers, if the mass of the Anaconda's hull was brought in line with the average density, the hull alone would weigh nearly twice that of fully kitted out multi-role Anaconda. When you add in all its components, a 7A FSD wouldn't be able to move it, Frontier would need to add a larger FSD size to give it enough jump range, and it's the smallest of the unambiguously large ships in the game.

 

[XW_Ziggy]

Nice job! +rep

It's a shame that this entire thread is guaranteed to be ignored.

FDev use handwavium, not mathematics - so you can't use mathematics when reasoning your side of the argument. What FDev want you to do is buy an Anaconda, An Anaconda ship kit, and lots of Anaconda paint jobs.

 

[Sylveria]

Nice job! +rep

It's a shame that this entire thread is guaranteed to be ignored.

FDev use handwavium, not mathematics - so you can't use mathematics when reasoning your side of the argument. What FDev want you to do is buy an Anaconda, An Anaconda ship kit, and lots of Anaconda paint jobs.

Well, they can definitely "try" to ignore it- but it's not going away.

 

[Stealthie]

For me, the two primary variables that need to be considered are integrity and weight.

Divide the integrity by the weight and we get a factor which we can call a ship's Specific Integrity.

It should be noted that integrity doesn't consider the size of a ship.
Basically, you can keep shooting a ship in the same place and you will eventually reduce the hull integrity to zero.
A ship's hull is simply considered a "pool of health" that diminishes as a ship is attacked.

Anyway, here's some numbers...

Ship	Weight	Integrity	Sp. Integ
Beluga	950	504	0.53
I Cutter	1100	720	0.65
Python	666	468	0.70
F Corvette	900	666	0.74
T10	1200	1044	0.87
FDS	580	540	0.93
T9	850	864	1.02
Cobra 4	210	216	1.03
DBX	260	270	1.04
FGS	580	630	1.09
FAS	480	540	1.13
A Challenger	450	540	1.20
Cobra 3	180	216	1.20
I Clipper	400	488	1.22
Krait	320	396	1.24
Vulture	230	288	1.25
A Chieftain	400	504	1.26
DBS	170	216	1.27
Asp X	280	378	1.35
Orca	290	396	1.37
Dolphin	140	198	1.41
Viper 4	190	270	1.42
Eagle	50	72	1.44
FdL	250	405	1.62
T7	350	612	1.75
T6	155	324	2.09
Asp S	150	324	2.16
I Eagle	50	108	2.16
Anaconda	400	945	2.36
Viper 3	50	126	2.52
Keelback	180	488	2.71
I Courier	35	144	4.11
Sidewinder	25	108	4.32
Adder	35	162	4.63
Hauler	14	180	12.86

As has already been said, for the most part it seems as though small ships are much stronger than big ones - which is kind of plausible seeing as how they're smaller and likely to be more rigid as a function of size.

It also raises any number of rather baffling anomalies though.
Why is the Empire's top-end ship barely more robust than a Saud Kruger cruise ship and the Federation and Alliance equivalents are little better?
Why would Lakon be building the AspX out of something that's 30% tougher than the DBX if it's intended to be an exploration ship?
Why is the Clipper so much tougher than the Cutter?
And, of course, why is the Anaconda so much tougher than anything comparable, with only much smaller ships being tougher?

It might seem a bit OCD to worry about this stuff but the point is that if all the ships were modeled (mathematically) in a consistent manner, all the wackiness would either be avoided at the design stage OR they could deliberately make ships wacky but still be plausible and consistent with every other ship.

 

[Vasious]

For me, the two primary variables that need to be considered are integrity and weight.

Divide the integrity by the weight and we get a factor which we can call a ship's Specific Integrity.

It should be noted that integrity doesn't consider the size of a ship.
Basically, you can keep shooting a ship in the same place and you will eventually reduce the hull integrity to zero.
A ship's hull is simply considered a "pool of health" that diminishes as a ship is attacked.

Anyway, here's some numbers...

Ship	Weight	Integrity	Sp. Integ
Beluga	950	504	0.53
I Cutter	1100	720	0.65
Python	666	468	0.70
F Corvette	900	666	0.74
T10	1200	1044	0.87
FDS	580	540	0.93
T9	850	864	1.02
Cobra 4	210	216	1.03
DBX	260	270	1.04
FGS	580	630	1.09
FAS	480	540	1.13
A Challenger	450	540	1.20
Cobra 3	180	216	1.20
I Clipper	400	488	1.22
Krait	320	396	1.24
Vulture	230	288	1.25
A Chieftain	400	504	1.26
DBS	170	216	1.27
Asp X	280	378	1.35
Orca	290	396	1.37
Dolphin	140	198	1.41
Viper 4	190	270	1.42
Eagle	50	72	1.44
FdL	250	405	1.62
T7	350	612	1.75
T6	155	324	2.09
Asp S	150	324	2.16
I Eagle	50	108	2.16
Anaconda	400	945	2.36
Viper 3	50	126	2.52
Keelback	180	488	2.71
I Courier	35	144	4.11
Sidewinder	25	108	4.32
Adder	35	162	4.63
Hauler	14	180	12.86

As has already been said, for the most part it seems as though small ships are much stronger than big ones - which is kind of plausible seeing as how they're smaller and likely to be more rigid as a function of size.

It also raises any number of rather baffling anomalies though.
Why is the Empire's top-end ship barely more robust than a Saud Kruger cruise ship and the Federation and Alliance equivalents are little better?
Why would Lakon be building the AspX out of something that's 30% tougher than the DBX if it's intended to be an exploration ship?
Why is the Clipper so much tougher than the Cutter?
And, of course, why is the Anaconda so much tougher than anything comparable, with only much smaller ships being tougher?

It might seem a bit OCD to worry about this stuff but the point is that if all the ships were modeled (mathematically) in a consistent manner, all the wackiness would either be avoided at the design stage OR they could deliberately make ships wacky but still be plausible and consistent with every other ship.

Should factor in Hardness too

The Cobra Mk.III and Keelback have the same hull mass, but the Keelback not only has more than double the armour but also 45 to 35 hardness giving it damage reduction to more class 2 weapons than the Cobra MkIII
Just as the Sidewinder has more Armour than the Eagle but the Eagle has higher Hardness, closing the gap when class 1 weapons are used

 

[Stealthie]

Should factor in Hardness too

The Cobra Mk.III and Keelback have the same hull mass, but the Keelback not only has more than double the armour but also 45 to 35 hardness giving it damage reduction to more class 2 weapons than the Cobra MkIII

Well, no.

That's the point.
There shouldn't need to be any "hidden fiddle-factors" such as hardness.
The "hardness" of a hull should simply be a function of it's size, weight, material and construction method.

It doesn't matter if it's Ferrari or Dacia building, say, a suspension wishbone.
the wishbone's capabilities will simply be a function of the previously mentioned variables.

Don't get me wrong.
For all we know, some of this stuff is buried somewhere in the design parameters of the ships.
I'm pretty sure, for example, that creating a scatter-graph of ship volumes vs integrity would show some kind of a trend dictating that a ship's integrity reduces as it's size increases.
I'm equally sure, however, that there are a lot of anomalies too.

Point is, all this uncertainty could be removed by modelling all the ships consistently, which would then allow the dev's to say, for example, "Okay, we want this ship to be especially tough" and then they'd be able to add material (and weight) or select a superior material (thus increasing the cost of the ship) for it's construction.

Seems like what we have now is somebody just looking at the existing library of ships and deciding that one ship should be "somewhere near" a couple of others and just manually twiddling the numbers to suit the intended role.
For the most part, they're doing a decent enough job (IMO) but it's a bit frustrating when there are glaring anomalies and it could all be so much simpler with a bit of effort.

 

[House0fDerp]

Well, no.

That's the point.
There shouldn't need to be any "hidden fiddle-factors" such as hardness.
The "hardness" of a hull should simply be a function of it's size, weight, material and construction method.

It doesn't matter if it's Ferrari or Dacia building, say, a suspension wishbone.
the wishbone's capabilities will simply be a function of the previously mentioned variables.

Don't get me wrong.
For all we know, some of this stuff is buried somewhere in the design parameters of the ships.
I'm pretty sure, for example, that creating a scatter-graph of ship volumes vs integrity would show some kind of a trend dictating that a ship's integrity reduces as it's size increases.
I'm equally sure, however, that there are a lot of anomalies too.

Point is, all this uncertainty could be removed by modelling all the ships consistently, which would then allow the dev's to say, for example, "Okay, we want this ship to be especially tough" and then they'd be able to add material (and weight) or select a superior material (thus increasing the cost of the ship) for it's construction.

Seems like what we have now is somebody just looking at the existing library of ships and deciding that one ship should be "somewhere near" a couple of others and just manually twiddling the numbers to suit the intended role.
For the most part, they're doing a decent enough job (IMO) but it's a bit frustrating when there are glaring anomalies and it could all be so much simpler with a bit of effort.

Not sure I fully agree with this as there is no other variable that does what hardness does in this game. Hardness interacts with weapons to create differing levels of effectiveness between ships that would in theory have differing actual hardness and thus react differently do various given forces applied to them.

Unless you're not objecting to hardness as a factor, just to it being hidden. In which case I'd agree.

 

[GoldenSilver484]

Well, no.

That's the point.
There shouldn't need to be any "hidden fiddle-factors" such as hardness.
The "hardness" of a hull should simply be a function of it's size, weight, material and construction method.

It doesn't matter if it's Ferrari or Dacia building, say, a suspension wishbone.
the wishbone's capabilities will simply be a function of the previously mentioned variables.

Don't get me wrong.
For all we know, some of this stuff is buried somewhere in the design parameters of the ships.
I'm pretty sure, for example, that creating a scatter-graph of ship volumes vs integrity would show some kind of a trend dictating that a ship's integrity reduces as it's size increases.
I'm equally sure, however, that there are a lot of anomalies too.

Point is, all this uncertainty could be removed by modelling all the ships consistently, which would then allow the dev's to say, for example, "Okay, we want this ship to be especially tough" and then they'd be able to add material (and weight) or select a superior material (thus increasing the cost of the ship) for it's construction.

Seems like what we have now is somebody just looking at the existing library of ships and deciding that one ship should be "somewhere near" a couple of others and just manually twiddling the numbers to suit the intended role.
For the most part, they're doing a decent enough job (IMO) but it's a bit frustrating when there are glaring anomalies and it could all be so much simpler with a bit of effort.

Hull hardness isn't a "hidden fiddle-factor", it's displayed in the statistics tab on your right hand panel, is a ship specific value and directly affects the hull heath of a ship when a weapon hits it.

It makes the fact that smaller ships appear to have stronger integrity pointless because that Saud Kruger liner may have more "integrity" than the top Imperial warship, but that warship takes substantially less damage from all weapons that don't have a high armour piercing value.

Unless you're also saying a weapon's armour piercing doesn't matter since it's also a "hidden fiddle-factor", even though it's front and center in the outfitting and is also on an equipped weapon's info page in the modules tab.

 

[Captain Willard]

The ships are balanced "well cept for the annie" STOP the crying. Get off the porch if you can't keep up with the big dog solo players.

 

[Sylveria]

Seems like what we have now is somebody just looking at the existing library of ships and deciding that one ship should be "somewhere near" a couple of others and just manually twiddling the numbers to suit the intended role.

I'd have to agree with this statement based on the 5 or so most recently introduced ships.

Of all of them, once I really took an in-depth look at stats, internals, etc. I came to the conclusion that most were almost carbon copies of existing ships with just a few tweaks to make the handling different- but with different aesthetics/external hull. As to the intention of such decisions- it's debatable, but it could be that they were introduced solely as competitor variants to existing ships (such as the FDS/FGS/FAS vs Chieftan/Challenger) instead of just trying to "color within the lines" to avoid rocking the boat.

The Krait gets close to the Python for multi/omni-roling- but it doesn't quite capture the same in regard to cargo capacity and such. Main difference being (IMO) implementation of the Fighter Hanger for a "same but different" feeling to enhance optional choice. The T-10 being built around the T-9's hull but given a "combat" treatment in regard to hardpoints/internals is another good comparison.

Not really sure how they develop them- whether they start by size (large/medium/small with X dimensions), and fill in the internals- or they start with internals and then build a hull around them, but I'd have to say it definitely looks like the former when you take a really close look at the entire ship line. The latter would be a better way to build consistency, however- because all in all you're making sure everything is fundamentally accounted for before you slap a hull around the internals.