A Question About Tonnage

[leo knight]

It's been a long time since I lost my treasured first edition LBBs. I seem to recall there was no mention what a ton was until much later, perhaps in 'Traders and Gunboats'. I have a set of Judge's Guild blueprints of the original Book 2 ships, and the ratio of volume to tons varies widely. The scout works out to be about 25 tons (351 cubic meters), and the 600 ton merchant would be about 300 tons now. I remember trying various rules of thumb for my own designs, and being simultaneously relieved that I now had an 'official' ruling, and irked that it nixed some older designs!:smirk: When did they nail down a ton at 14 cubic meters/ 2 squares?

 

[skyth]

I'm pretty sure High Guard has that information.

 

[far-trader]

...When did they nail down a ton at 14 cubic meters/ 2 squares?

LBB 2 page 21 under Deck Plans:

"Deck Plans: If the referee or the designer should feel that detailed deck plans for a ship are required, then they may be drawn up using square grid graph paper. The preferred scale for the interior should be 1.5 meters per square, with the space between decks put at about 3.0 meters. One ton of ship displacement equals approximately 14 cubic meters. Therefore one ton equals about two squares of deck space."

Might not have been in the first edition, that's from the second, c1981.

 

[Icosahedron]

LBB 2 page 21 under Deck Plans:

"Deck Plans: If the referee or the designer should feel that detailed deck plans for a ship are required, then they may be drawn up using square grid graph paper. The preferred scale for the interior should be 1.5 meters per square, with the space between decks put at about 3.0 meters. One ton of ship displacement equals approximately 14 cubic meters. Therefore one ton equals about two squares of deck space."

Might not have been in the first edition, that's from the second, c1981.

It wasn't. That stuff and those charts are all new to me. In fact, I'm wondering how much other information is lurking in the later editions that I'm still unaware of, cos I've never really run a comparison...

It was in LBB5 (2nd ed) though.

 

[GypsyComet]

I have a set of Judge's Guild blueprints of the original Book 2 ships, and the ratio of volume to tons varies widely. The scout works out to be about 25 tons (351 cubic meters), and the 600 ton merchant would be about 300 tons now.

Remember that the JG plans didn't always include the non-habitable spaces.

 

[leo knight]

Remember that the JG plans didn't always include the non-habitable spaces.

True, but I was going from the overall volumes of the hulls. The title is "Starships and Spacecraft", by Dave Sering, copyright... 1979! The scout is a familiar looking wedge 4.5m high, 18m wide, and 26m long. The volume of a pyramid is 1/3 area of the base x the height. The diamond shaped base is 40.5 sq. m. times 1/3 the height, or length in this case, is 351 cu. m. or about 25 tons. The subsidised merchant, type M, is a long series of boxes with chamfered edges, 57m long, 8m high, 8m wide. This gives 3648 cu. m. or about 260 tons!The only parts that protrude are the turrets, some radiator fins on the drives, and a forward sensor dish.

I suspect I have OCD, or even Asperger's, when it comes to deckplans. I try to adopt a casual attitude, but then I start calculating volumes and counting squares. I even find myself counting floor and ceiling tiles, and trying to calculate the tonnage of rooms In Real Life! Perhaps we should start a support group? "Square Counters Anonymous"?

Of course in step 2, the "higher power" would be the Ancients.