Before you can design your vehicle, you're going to have to ask yourself a few questions:

• What level of technology is the vehicle being designed at?
• Where does the vehicle primarily operate, and can it operate in other environments?
• How big is the vehicle?

The first step in designing a vehicle with this system is to determine its Volume, Linear and Area factors. As a rule of thumb, you may assume that every tonne of vehicle equals about a cubic meter of Volume. Civilian vehicles tend to be a bit bulkier than military vehicles; you can multiply your tonnage by 1.5 or 2 to compensate for that.

Find your Volume on the table below, and read across to find your Area and Linear values. If the Volume you wish to work with does not appear on the table, find the smallest Volume that is larger than the Volume you wish, and use its values.

If your Volume is greater than 1,000, you can determine the Area and Linear values as follows:

• Divide the Volume you want by 1,000. If your Volume is still over 1,000, divide it by 1,000 again. Keep track of how many times you have to do this until your Volume is 1,000 or under.
• Find your new Volume on the table. As usual, if you don't find the exact Volume you need, pick the smallest Volume that is larger than your selected Volume.
• For every time you had to divide your Volume, multiply the listed Area by 100 and the listed Linear by 10.

But what if you're designing something tiny? In that case, treat your tonnage as kilograms instead. Then divide your Volume by 1,000, your Area by 100 and your Linear by 10. If you're trying to design a vehicle in grams scale, do this again, though many game values will start to break down.