[Emperor's Child]

Let me take a stab at it, since I think I now get it.

The Graph shows the ship as it is hit by the number of shots you depict on the top. On the left side it is completley undamaged, on the right side it is as damaged as the last shot will make it. If you run out of color before you get to the right side of the chart, the ship is destroyed. The left side of the utility lets you describe the ship to the model, components, shields, etc. The bottom of this area is a section that lets you put in how much tonnage you dedicate to both shields and armor combined. The top slider bar allows you to adjust from 100% shields to 100% armor tonnage, or any combination inbetween. Every time you hit generate the model will shoot the number of shots you list, and you can see how your ship fares as it progresses from right to left. You should see the blue part on the top showing shields first go away, and then you will begin to loose internals.