Errata - that difficult subject

[snrdg082102]

Hello once again with possible WBH errata

The example for the Atmosphere Related Details 3 Step 7c Daytime Rotation Effects is using 1.9 for the value of R. R is the Rotation-Luminosity Factor determined in Step 7b which in the example is 1.09.

WORLD BUILDER'S HANDBOOK (875, 1989)

Page 66, Atmosphere Related Details 3 Step 7c Daytime Rotation Temperature Effects Example (correction): In the example change all values of 1.9 to 1.09 in the formulas. The correct formulas and calculated values are: 1.0 degrees x 1.09 = 1.09 degrees C per hour; 336 hours x 1.09 degrees = 366 degrees C; and the most that can be added determined by the absolute limit formula (95+273) x 0.1 x 1.09 is 40 degree C.

 

[sfchbryan]

Errata to the Errata - Referee's Manual (Craft Design)

Now that I am working on fixing FSOSI, (yes, I am going to fix all of the ships) I have run into a couple of issues with the crew.

Support Personnel.
1. The errata dropped the non-command crew (Z-Cc) in the steward calculation. For military craft, that has to go back in. Otherwise the ship doesn't have clerks, cooks, finance, supply, etc.

2. The subordinate craft have no pilots or maintenance crews. Oops.

Change as follows:
Accomodations, Step 7 - Starship and Spacecraft Crews

For Military Craft:
Stewards (Cs)
Cs=((Cc÷8)+ (Z-Cc)÷50) - round fractions up (There will always be a position for Willie Stockdale.)

Add to Maintenance Crew:
Subcraft:
Cm=(H+A)÷400 (round fractions up)
H=Hull Cp
A=Hull Displacement ÷100

I dropped the CP multiple - using it shows that 400 50 ton craft could be supported by 8 personnel. You might get in that craft, but I wouldn't.

In our example (Using VF-12 Fleet Carrier):

400 TL 12 50-ton Craft (Fighters)
0.72x10x12=86.4
((86.4+0.5)÷400) x 400 craft

Gives us 87 maintenance crew for fighters, 1 per 4.5 craft, or about 50% less than COACC maintenance requirements.

Which in turn will adjust the REMF (Stewards, Medical & Frozen Watch) numbers (800 pilots, assuming a 2 man crew for the fighters and 87 additional maintenance crews. (Don't forget the 13 personnel that man the TV-12 tanker vehicle) as well as the accommodations.

 

[sfchbryan]

Craft Design - Launch Tubes for subordinate craft.

I know people are putting them in carriers, but where did anyone come up with the specifics?

 

[whartung]

I know people are putting them in carriers, but where did anyone come up with the specifics?

You mean besides watching "Battlestar Galactica"?

What specifics are you referring to?

 

[sfchbryan]

You mean besides watching "Battlestar Galactica"?

What specifics are you referring to?

Power - Volume - Weight & Price.

I've been digging through MT redesigns of CT ships. (See Azhanti High Lighting as an example) There were several of them in the TML - unfortunately, all I have is the final form output.

Otherwise, it would take days to launch 400 fighters (VF-12 Fleet Carrier example again).

 

[Swiftbrook]

Not looking at any errata, just the original text.

p. 60 "Launch Facilities: ...... Launch tube allow up to 40 craft to be launched per turn. Recovery at the same rate.:

p. 82. "11 Rapid Launch Facilities. .... volume equal to 25 times the largest craft which they will launch. .... Cost Cr150 per Kl." No power requirements given. I guess they are rubber-band powered.

As for maintenance for small craft, in the original formula (Qf = Q + R) R is for the number of small craft. I.E. one maintenance person per small craft.

 

[sfchbryan]

Good thing it wasn't a snake.

Thanks.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello sfchbryan,

Thanks.

In Traveller's Digest (TD) 13 Joe D. Fugate Sr. provided and MT ship design example with updates in TDs 19 and 21. In 2008 Donald McKinney with the help of Joe D. Fugate Sr. published on his site an article correcting the issues discovered in the original article. I have a copy of Donald's article which may or may not help in your efforts. If you do not have a copy and would one please contact me by email and I will sent you a copy.

 

[whartung]

p. 82. "11 Rapid Launch Facilities. .... volume equal to 25 times the largest craft which they will launch. .... Cost Cr150 per Kl." No power requirements given. I guess they are rubber-band powered.

Not needed. You just point the ship down and they fall out like marbles.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello whartung,

Not needed. You just point the ship down and they fall out like marbles.

In the StarCarrier series by Ian Douglas there are two ways to rapidly launch smaller craft. The fastest method is the equivalent of Traveller's Rapid Launch Facitily. The second method appears drops the craft into a rotating chamber with the nose pointing towards an opening in the chamber when the opening matches one in hull the craft drops out.

 

[Swiftbrook]

Hello sfchbryan,

In Traveller's Digest (TD) 13 Joe D. Fugate Sr. provided and MT ship design example with updates in TDs 19 and 21. In 2008 Donald McKinney with the help of Joe D. Fugate Sr. published on his site an article correcting the issues discovered in the original article. I have a copy of Donald's article which may or may not help in your efforts. If you do not have a copy and would one please contact me by email and I will sent you a copy.

I believe that is the article contributed to by our community. I know that I at least was a contributor/error spotter to a rewrite of the original article. I wonder, is it permitted to upload it? Might it already be on our sight somewhere? It was on DonM's site. Might check out the archive here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160313044210/http://dmckinne.winterwar.org/trav.html

Link Here

Direct Article PDF here

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Swiftbrook,

I believe that is the article contributed to by our community. I know that I at least was a contributor/error spotter to a rewrite of the original article. I wonder, is it permitted to upload it? Might it already be on our sight somewhere? It was on DonM's site. Might check out the archive here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160313044210/http://dmckinne.winterwar.org/trav.html

Link Here

Direct Article PDF here

Thank you for the link, one of the links on FFE errata has not been updated and my attempts at finding Donald's stuff has been unsuccessful.

I may have missed the release of Donald's Integrated Timeline does anyone know if FFE has published the document?

 

[Swiftbrook]

Hello Swiftbrook,

Thank you for the link, one of the links on FFE errata has not been updated and my attempts at finding Donald's stuff has been unsuccessful.

I may have missed the release of Donald's Integrated Timeline does anyone know if FFE has published the document?

I went backwards in the archive and found version 2.1 of the timeline here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121111164528/http://dmckinne.winterwar.org/trav.html

I have a slightly older version on my computer that doesn't have the black book cover. The file shows version 2 but the interior text shows 2.1.

 

[snrdg082102]

Evening PST Swiftbrook,

I went backwards in the archive and found version 2.1 of the timeline here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121111164528/http://dmckinne.winterwar.org/trav.html

I have a slightly older version on my computer that doesn't have the black book cover. The file shows version 2 but the interior text shows 2.1.

I downloaded version 2.1 back in 2008 and then again in 2013 when I couldn't find the earlier one.

Thank you for the link.

 

[Carlobrand]

On the subject of ship design:

One of the things that has always vaguely troubled me about MegaTrav ship design is this: for craft of 100 dT or over, there's no designated place to sit. Smaller craft include rules for crew positions, larger craft tend to fold them into the other spaces. By long tradition, for example, deck plans tended to assume that the total tonnage for engineering including a bit of space for the engineers to get about (when they paid any attention to the ship's specs, that is).

That was reasonable, up until MegaTrav. MegaTrav introduces the need to plan for life support and grav plates and such, and power for same, and space for same. So, if you want life support for your engineers, you plan life support for your entire engineering volume. Or you don't, and you carve their work space out of your already badly abused accommodations volume. (Or you fudge your deck plans a bit.)

Now, here's the thing: that stuff can get expensive. In Mr. Fugate's Regal design, for example, 670 megawatts, about 250 dTons and 200 million credits are expended bringing life support to spaces that, when operating, are as likely to see a living presence as the inside of a nuclear reactor or a turbine engine - except of course for the bit of space housing the control panels and the crew manning them.

One could argue that life support in the spaces is useful during maintenance except that real-world examples of engineers maintaining large machines don't tend to include life support arrangements. Air circulates into the workspace from the compartment, or blowers are put in place to keep air circulating in there, or the workers wear protective gear. 200 million credits is quite a bit to spend to avoid having to use blower fans or protective gear, and those dTons added to the cargo space brings her a small step closer to giving Regal enough space to bring her up to Jump-4.

Point is this: if in the design rules we say that each crewman needs a fixed 1dTon of space for crew positions (enough for a workstation and a bit of corridor to access it), we no longer have to bring life support to spaces that are 95% machinery to begin with. Same applies to the weapons systems - we save there as well. Might also save on grav plates, depending on how you feel about crew doing maintenance in zero-G. (I'm told that can be rather tricky, but it wouldn't be the first time that engineering considerations put the workers in an awkward position.) The result is less power used and more space available to bring the MegaTrav ships a bit closer to the old High Guard examples. We actually end up saving a lot of space by carving a bit of space out for crew positions.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Carlobrand,

One of the things that has always vaguely troubled me about MegaTrav ship design is this: for craft of 100 dT or over, there's no designated place to sit. Smaller craft include rules for crew positions, larger craft tend to fold them into the other spaces. By long tradition, for example, deck plans tended to assume that the total tonnage for engineering including a bit of space for the engineers to get about (when they paid any attention to the ship's specs, that is).

That was reasonable, up until MegaTrav. MegaTrav introduces the need to plan for life support and grav plates and such, and power for same, and space for same. So, if you want life support for your engineers, you plan life support for your entire engineering volume. Or you don't, and you carve their work space out of your already badly abused accommodations volume. (Or you fudge your deck plans a bit.)

Now, here's the thing: that stuff can get expensive. In Mr. Fugate's Regal design, for example, 670 megawatts, about 250 dTons and 200 million credits are expended bringing life support to spaces that, when operating, are as likely to see a living presence as the inside of a nuclear reactor or a turbine engine - except of course for the bit of space housing the control panels and the crew manning them.

One could argue that life support in the spaces is useful during maintenance except that real-world examples of engineers maintaining large machines don't tend to include life support arrangements. Air circulates into the workspace from the compartment, or blowers are put in place to keep air circulating in there, or the workers wear protective gear. 200 million credits is quite a bit to spend to avoid having to use blower fans or protective gear, and those dTons added to the cargo space brings her a small step closer to giving Regal enough space to bring her up to Jump-4.

Point is this: if in the design rules we say that each crewman needs a fixed 1dTon of space for crew positions (enough for a workstation and a bit of corridor to access it), we no longer have to bring life support to spaces that are 95% machinery to begin with. Same applies to the weapons systems - we save there as well. Might also save on grav plates, depending on how you feel about crew doing maintenance in zero-G. (I'm told that can be rather tricky, but it wouldn't be the first time that engineering considerations put the workers in an awkward position.) The result is less power used and more space available to bring the MegaTrav ships a bit closer to the old High Guard examples. We actually end up saving a lot of space by carving a bit of space out for crew positions.

CT LBB 2 Starships and CT LBB 5 HG 2e lump controls, crew stations, machinery, passageways, and other details into the component of which they a part of. A bridge requires a certain amount of space which includes crew workstations, access space between them and through the hatches leading to and from the bridge. A 4 ton stateroom devotes approximately 2 tons of actual living space for the passenger or crew member occupying with the remaining space allocated to passage ways, common areas, and other accommodations.

In my opinion and experience onboard four submarines, one surface ship, and a number of other berthing facilities MT's attempts are better than HG for deck plans. Of course MT still has some of the same characteristics that make drawing deck plans a sloppy mess and does have cost issues. Then again the authors were trying to make a complex system relatively easy to use but folks not trained to do architectural drawings or engineering.

 

[Carlobrand]

...CT LBB 2 Starships and CT LBB 5 HG 2e lump controls, crew stations, machinery, passageways, and other details into the component of which they a part of. ...

That's my point. CT didn't deal in minutiae. MT does, but it leaves some ambiguities. Those ambiguities can result in disagreement as to the proper application of such things as basic life support and grav plates that affect design.

...In my opinion and experience onboard four submarines, one surface ship, and a number of other berthing facilities MT's attempts are better than HG for deck plans. ...

Agreed.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Carlobrand

Originally Posted by snrdg082102
...CT LBB 2 Starships and CT LBB 5 HG 2e lump controls, crew stations, machinery, passageways, and other details into the component of which they a part of. .

That's my point. CT didn't deal in minutiae. MT does, but it leaves some ambiguities. Those ambiguities can result in disagreement as to the proper application of such things as basic life support and grav plates that affect design.

[FONT=arial,helvetica] Originally Posted by snrdg082102
...In my opinion and experience onboard four submarines, one surface ship, and a number of other berthing facilities MT's attempts are better than HG for deck plans. ...
[/FONT]

Agreed.

In my opinion CT does not properly address the application of life support or grav plates which is spread out through out the internal spaces that are occupied the crew and passengers. Everything in CT is a broad brush stroke to make the design progress and drawing of deck plans easy and fast.

Technically I would think that life support and the grav plate requirements should be calculated on the hull volume not being used for fuel storage. Unfortunately, the MT craft design rules as far as I can tell requires life support and grav plates requirements to be based on a craft's total hull volume. This is, in my opinion, the same thing as CT lumping passage ways, common areas, sanitary facilities in with a stateroom.

 

[infojunky]

In my opinion CT does not properly address the application of life support or grav plates which is spread out throughout the internal spaces that are occupied the crew and passengers.

See, I have differing view here, being that the bridge slice covered a lot of the incremental volumes of those subsystems.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello infojunky,

In my opinion CT does not properly address the application of life support or grav plates which is spread out through out the internal spaces that are occupied the crew and passengers.

See, I have differing view here, being that the bridge slice covered a lot of the incremental volumes of those subsystems.

I do not believe that the bridge slice of life support and grav plating cover components like engineering, cargo spaces, staterooms, labs, workshops, hangars, or other components not associated with the bridge that designers may add.

However, if there are no bulkheads separating the bridge from other components I would agree that you can say "that the bridge slice covered a lot of the incremental volumes of those subsystems."

I believe that a certain amount of life support and grav plating should be allocated separately to each component that can be occupied by the crew and/or passengers. Unfortunately, none of the spacecraft design rules in my opinion assign life support and grav plating to the ship's internal volume that is occupied by the crew and/or passengers for the entire time they are onboard. However, when life support and grav plating is mentioned allocating the requirement for power, volume, weight, and/or price to the entire internal volume is better than just stating they are part of the hull. Actually CT LBB 2 Starship does assign a cost for life support per stateroom. Sadly, I cannot seem to find any information in CT LBB 5 HG about life support cost, which does not mean the information is not in the book.

MT's approach, in my opinion, is to allocate life support and grav plates using the ship's total internal volume is better than the CT approach of acknowledging a ship has them and by associating the cost of life support to just the number of staterooms. Calculating life support and grav plating based on a ship's total internal volume in my opinion creates redundancy, okay a lot of redundancy.

The MT forum hosted on Yahoo a while back, a few years ago, I asked if one could apply the requirements for life support, grav plating, and inertial compensators to each component occupied by crew and passengers. The response was that the requirements are applied to the ship's total internal volume per the rules on MT Referee's Manual p. 81.

My apologies for skipping back to the original post.
Going back to Carlobrand's original post on December 25th, 2016 04:23 AM the first line is: "One of the things that has always vaguely troubled me about MegaTrav ship design is this: for craft of 100 dT or over, there's no designated place to sit."

CT hulls >= 100 d-tons do not designate any places to sit either in addition to the lack of information on life support, other than the cost mentioned in CT LBB 2 Starships, or grav plates. CT small craft list seating requirements which are, in my opinion, slightly different between CT LBB 2 Starships and CT LBB 5 HG.

Another comment is "Now, here's the thing: that stuff can get expensive. In Mr. Fugate's Regal design, for example, 670 megawatts, about 250 dTons and 200 million credits are expended bringing life support to spaces that, when operating, are as likely to see a living presence as the inside of a nuclear reactor or a turbine engine - except of course for the bit of space housing the control panels and the crew manning the."

MT is applying the requirements for life support and grav plating to the hulls total internal space while CT has a cost for stateroom life support and hand waves life support and grav plates for the rest of the hull's internal volume. My opinion is that the hull volume occupied by crew and passengers like the bridge and staterooms should have life support and grav plating calculated from the start. Allocating life support and grav plates to other spaces that are rarely frequented should left to the designers decision.