Computers!!!!

[Gallowglacht]

OK, lets look at the question another way. Speaking as someone who worked with computers on a naval ship, do Traveller tonnages for computers seem ridiculous to you, or are they easy enough to accept?

ps, thanks for the answer.

 

[BillDowns]

It's not really that easy, but I guess so. The biggest reasons, though, are not computing power. It's the physical i/o connections. Using the SPY-1 as an example, each of those planar arrays had almost 2000 elements, each of which has to be connected to controls and power. Power requires size. The control computer in your car may be a box 1" x 6" x 12", but the single transistor that controls the voltage level from the battery is about 4" in diameter and 2" thick.

My issues with Traveller's computers are that TL does not affect the size or cost of the computers and in real life, it does.

 

[shadowdragon]

my understanding of the design sequences is that the dtons required per component are for the component itself, not access spaces. so a 17dton m6 drive needs additional space for access if you wish an engine room, or little extra m^3 if mounted on the exterior in a nacelle. if i am wrong, that would explain a lot, but then if i want to build an extremely compact craft, what are the actual component sizes. i see this as a major contribution to deck plan errors, as some seem to see one way and others ..... well you see what i mean.

 

[far-trader]

Indeed. And while it's not specifically said I took my (old) 1/2 rule of deckplan design (posted elsewhere) vs component size from the only concrete example given, that of staterooms. A stateroom requires 4tons in the design sequence. For deckplans it is stated that about half that is the actual stateroom and the other half is connecting and common space. It seems reasonable to apply it to other items.

The fact that the component is only taking up half the volume in the deckplan compared to the stated design volume does not necessarily mean you can make a smaller ship though. Any more than saying you could make a smaller car since there's all that space around the engine. It's there for critical clearances, function, form, and maintenance among other reasons.

I think that my 1/2 rule makes more sense than saying a 12ton component takes 12tons of deckplan space, but oh hell let's just add another 16tons of empty deckplan space around it for working and between it and the bridge to get there. That would lead to scenarios like "hey, let's put some cargo in that 16tons of empty space" and never mind the consequences since the rules don't say you can't. And what's to stop you at adding 16tons? And all without increasing the hull size and requiring bigger drives and more fuel all of which costs more creds. You have a hull of Xtons and that's all you can put in it in my opinion. I'd gladly accept even the 20% slop allowed. But most cannon designs seem to think they meant 200%.

Besides, it's a game, and an engineering section or whatever without room to run around and things to hide behind or squeeze between wouldn't be nearly as much fun

 

[szurkey]

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[BlackBat242]

If you look at things closely, many official deck plans really unravel.

For example, the CT book 7 design for the 200t Empress Marava Far Trader.

If you count the "1.5 meter" grid squares, and have a reasonable deck height (2 squares = 3 meters [9' 7": 8' floor-ceiling plus 1' 7" interdeck space for girders, wiring, equipment, grav plates, etc]) (which gives 2 squares per dton), then the deck plan is for a ~450dton ship.

Even with hull rounding, etc, calculating the hull volume from the length/width/height dimensions listed gives ~600-800dt worth of hull volume.

Real nice, eh?

 

[aramis]

And people have been griping about it since the 1980's.

 

[pendragonman]

Some have been griping since right after public release.