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Ivheard people talkingabout the mass of ships and imkinda curious about this.Is itat all likeMechwarrior where each chasis can only have so much weight/mass,and you have to deside whether you want it in weapons, sheilds, speed etc.? I realize its not the same just wondering if its basicly the same workings.

The ship chasis has a mass rating that it can support and each component has a mass and power consumption rating (except reactor, it only has a mass rating). Power consumption comes into play with how beefy your reactor is. It takes alot of fiddling to get the ship stats you want and also get it all to fit and work.

There are two main stats you have to worry about when loading weapons, shields, etc...

Mass and energy.

Mass is a ship stat. Each ship can only handle a certain mass on it. Any attempt to load something which will cause the mass to go over will give you a message about overloading and you simply can't load that item.

Energy is a stat you get from the main reactor you put on the ship. Certain items like secondary armor don't use energy, but pretty much everything else does. (Everything but an astromech adds mass)

So when you look at your ship at a space terminal, you'll see the current and maximum numbers for mass, energy, and chassis hitpoints.

On every item, you and your shipwright will have to decide what's important. For example, when you have a weapon like a cannon built, do you put experimentation into reducing mass, energy usage (the first two just so you can install it), armor hitpoints, component hitpoints, minimum damage, maximum damage, effectiveness versus shields, effectiveness versus armor, capacitor energy used per shot, or refire rate (etc)? Do you go for more lower level items that take up less mass/energy, or fewer but more powerful weapons that take up more mass/energy per item? Do you go without a missile launcher?

As long as you have the mass and energy, you can install items. Another problem is that the ships that can handle larger masses like a Y-Wing aren't going to be very maneuverable compared to a lighter ship like an X-Wing, A-Wing, etc.

Some people like using the bigger ships to have more stuff. Others like the lighter ships to be more maneuverable. Of course, every ship has its own balancing act as far as "weapon A vs. weapon B vs missile launcher C" and all that, and then you might have to go through the process all over again after you qualify for higher level components or a new chassis type.