CT Only: Fixing the Type S (Sulieman)

[mike wightman]

Yup. If you assume half height for the upper gallery, avionics and possibly the cockpit then by square counting I make it the full twenty tons. I continue to assume that the location 16 is mostly part of the engineering section.

 

[kilemall]

Yup. If you assume half height for the upper gallery, avionics and possibly the cockpit then by square counting I make it the full twenty tons. I continue to assume that the location 16 is mostly part of the engineering section.
View attachment 3839

That sounds like flavor text for the Seeker. Is it?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That'd be the center of volume, right?

Yes.

 

[mike wightman]

That sounds like flavor text for the Seeker. Is it?

No, it's from the scout/courier write up in A:0

 

[Grav_Moped]

Yup. If you assume half height for the upper gallery, avionics and possibly the cockpit then by square counting I make it the full twenty tons. I continue to assume that the location 16 is mostly part of the engineering section.
View attachment 3839

I don't think that works out with the hull geometry, but otherwise yeah.

And yet another indication of what the original W. H. Keith design may have looked like. Tonnage was allocated up there for sensors or whatnot (accessed by ceiling panels, if that was a consideration), then someone decided it needed to be used to provide a parallel path to the drives and turret without checking whether that would actually fit the space.

The forward cargo bay was probably the nose gear well at first, then someone got the idea of using the aft cargo bay for modular bridge components (and then as a lounge) so the dedicated 3Td cargo bay got shoved down into the nose gear well. And then since it was a lounge area, the cargo hatch it would have started with was downgraded to an iris valve.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Think of it this way.

• 20 (displacement) tons = 280m³
• 280 / 1.5 / 1.5 / 3 = 41.48148148148148 deck squares

Call it 41-41.5 deck squares for a full sized deck area/volume.

The LBB S7 deck plans show a bridge (with two acceleration couches in it) that amounts to all of {counts patiently} FIVE DECK SQUARES for the bridge. So where's the "rest of the bridge tonnage" to be found?

Well ... obviously ... the remainder would be "spent" elsewhere in the deck plan design.
Strictly speaking, you'd have another 36 full deck height squares that would need to be allocated elsewhere throughout the ship ... and obviously, using crawl spaces of 1-1.5m tall in that accounting would correspondingly increase that quantity of deck squares needed (because, low ceiling crawl spaces). You can also allocate "some" of those 36 extra deck squares to access corridors between compartments in order to "sort" everything in an appealing architectural plan kind of way.

The way that I think about these questions is to do a first order computation of "how many deck squares for this many tons?" so as to define the area/volume that stuff needs to fit inside of. That computation (tons*14/1.5/1.5/3 ... round as needed) then gives me a decent approximation for where the bulkhead walls ought to be and how much area/volume they ought to encompass in the deck plan. After that, it then becomes a matter of "carving up the space inside those bulkhead walls" in ways that not only contain stuff (like drives, staterooms and so on) but also permit accessibility and "walk space" within those areas so they can be moved around in (so they look "habitable").

Speaking of which, I think I might have made my bed icons too short (1.75m instead of 2m long) which will necessitate yet another revision of the deck plans I've been working on.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Yes.

Thanks! And since the drives are the heaviest non-hull component, the center of mass will probably be aft of that. So, I can't shift the landing gear forward of the original location. *sigh* Back to the drawing board....

 

[Grav_Moped]

Speaking of which, I think I might have made my bed icons too short (1.75m instead of 2m long) which will necessitate yet another revision of the deck plans I've been working on.

The beds are fine. The problem is that marketing keeps supplying out-of-specification passengers and crew....

(This is an issue I noted while owning an old BMW motorcycle -- the bike was exactly what it needed to be for Sound Engineering Reasons, and if you didn't fit on it that was your problem, not theirs.)

 

[mike wightman]

Don't forget:

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.
When allocating space within the ship for deck plans, assume that only a portion
of stateroom tonnage must actually be in staterooms; the remainder should be used
for common areas and other accomodations for the crew.
Finally, a leeway of plus or minus 10% to 20% should be allowed. If the final
deck plans come within 20% of the tonnage of the ship specifications, then they
should be considered acceptable.
Keep completed deck plans available for use in campaigns and adventures.

And:

The Bridge: All ships must allocate 2% of their tonnage (minimum 20 tons)
to basic controls, communications equipment, avionics, scanners, detectors, sensors,
and other equipment for proper operation of the ship.

So the devil is in the detail - what is the "other equipment for the proper operation of the ship".
Life support and environment machinery? Gravitics? Spare parts, makers, tools... all of which require access and storage.

 

[Grav_Moped]

The way that I think about these questions is to do a first order computation of "how many deck squares for this many tons?"

I come at it from the other direction: build the box (hull shape and dimensions) to the right size, then slice it up (decks, compartments), then figure out how the blocks of components fit into the volume of each slice.

The clearest example of this is in my football-shaped Type S. Drives and fuel are 55Td, and I wanted a bulkhead at the equator. So, it didn't really matter what shape the drives were, and I needed to bring 5Td of "fuel" above that plane. Laying out the drive bay just meant finding how tall the end slice needed to be to have 15Td volume.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Don't forget:

And:

So the devil is in the detail - what is the "other equipment for the proper operation of the ship".
Life support and environment machinery? Gravitics? Spare parts, makers, tools... all of which require access and storage.

True, but one needs to avoid double-counting. You don't get to claim 4Td of the bridge as access hallways through the quarters deck, then turn around and slip an extra stateroom into that space. Or in this instance, declaring the ship's locker to come from bridge volume, then using that space for cargo.

Edit: I mean, you could, but own up to having house-ruled it so others can decide whether or not it's a fair house rule. For example, I could easily see carving data banks for an XBoat out of bridge tonnage, or even perhaps a bit of elbow room for the pilot.

 

[kilemall]

Don't forget:

And:

So the devil is in the detail - what is the "other equipment for the proper operation of the ship".
Life support and environment machinery? Gravitics? Spare parts, makers, tools... all of which require access and storage.

Big one would be ships locker and airlocks. Landing legs. Type S should have a lot of automation.

I always figured life support was proportional to staterooms and inertial dampening to m drive. General gravitics might be reasonably charged to bridge especially for greater then 2% of the used tonnage.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Big one would be ships locker and airlocks. Landing legs. Type S should have a lot of automation.

I always figured life support was proportional to staterooms and inertial dampening to m drive. General gravitics might be reasonably charged to bridge especially for greater then 2% of the used tonnage.

I see most of those things as implicit in the individual components (staterooms, cargo hold, etc.) and probably just stuffed into odd corners or inter-deck spaces.

But yes, personnel airlocks and ship's locker can be bridge tonnage, if not double-counted/re-purposed.

The rest hides in the 20% drafting error margin...

 

[mike wightman]

Have you studied the bridge allocation of the other ships in S7, the Safari Ship, the merc cruiser etc?

Note that when MT did away with the bridge you had to account for all sorts of systems not mentioned in LBB2, except as "other equipment for the proper operation of the ship" - control stations, sensors, comms, gravitics

 

[infojunky]

I always figured life support was proportional to staterooms and inertial dampening to m drive.

Internal Compensation is part of the Maneuver drive in Book5

 

[mike wightman]

Where does it state that?

Tech level requirements for maneuver drives are imposed to cover the grav plates integral to most ship decks, and which allow high-G maneuvers while interior G-fields remain normal. Fuel consumption for maneuver drives is inconsequential, and is assumed to be part of the power plant consumption, regardless of the degree of maneuver undertaken.

Doesn't mention acceleration compensation, only grav plates, and grav plates and acceleration compensation are separate systems - see the fluff in ship descriptions and S:7 (and MegaTraveller onwards).
Note it doesn't mention the gravitics as part of the maneuver drive, just a requirement for high g maneuvers.

 

[Vargr Breath]

All of the deck plans for Traveller are, I think, set up for firefight scenarios on the ships. No real hard thought was given to getting them right. GDW was a wargaming company and I think they wanted the extra room to play out battles. Start doing deck plans right and you start losing battleground. I always thought this was why the plans were somewhat oversized.
Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Deck Plans, as long as they are somewhat close.

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm, time to study the Snapshot deckplans again...

 

[Vargr Breath]

Don't forget:

And:

So the devil is in the detail - what is the "other equipment for the proper operation of the ship".
Life support and environment machinery? Gravitics? Spare parts, makers, tools... all of which require access and storage.

Jeep- Just Enough Essential Parts.

 

[Vargr Breath]

The cargo hold really needs a large hatch to load larger items, despite not being original?

In the original it was not a cargo hole, so it didn't need a large hatch. But maybe on this version a larger hatch might not be a bad idea.