The concept of MVAM is one that looks great on screen, but translates horribly into gaming. It creates so many questions and issues -- questions and issues the writers of a TV show can conveniently ignore -- that I doubt it's possible to come up with a simple, easily workable, let fully simulationist rule set for it. I chose to go with something a little on the "simple" side.
I may at some point sit down and come up with a more precise list of what must be bought multiple times and what does not have to be, but I don't have such a list at present, nor the time to prepare one. (It never fails to amaze me how quickly my time seems to vanish. ) By and large I think that you and the other members of this list who want to create ships with MVAM are capable of exercising common sense and good judgment when deciding what does and does not require duplication, based on the guidelines given in Spacedock.
As for the Size of the sub-ships, I most definitely do not agree that each should be -1 from the Size of the combined ship. Not only does that strike me as illogical, it seems contradictory to the one example of this technology we've seen on the screen. (Heaven knows, I'd love to see more.) The Prometheus, as a Size 7 ship, certainly does not split up into three Size 6 ships. There may be occasion and reason to revisit the current rule on the Sizes of the subships in future iterations of Spacedock, but I'm not prepared to engage in any research or speculation on the issue right now.
After all, I have to finish writing up rules for creating de-assimilated Borg characters for Don's ST: Voyager core rulebook project.
And then tomorrow I have to go back to work on the Wheel of Time RPG.
Steve Long
[This message has been edited by Steve Long (edited 12-10-2000).]