How big is a bridge?

[rancke]

According to CT ship design, the minimum size of a bridge is 20T. However, when you examine canonical designs, none of them have 40 squares worth of space dedicated to the bridge -- not even if we count Avionics as part of the bridge.

So here's my question: How big is the actual room that the crew refers to as "The Bridge", and what else is included in the 20T, but located elsewhere?


Hans

 

[Maladominus]

According to CT ship design, the minimum size of a bridge is 20T. However, when you examine canonical designs, none of them have 40 squares worth of space dedicated to the bridge -- not even if we count Avionics as part of the bridge.

So here's my question: How big is the actual room that the crew refers to as "The Bridge", and what else is included in the 20T, but located elsewhere?


Hans

When they say 20tons, I doubt they were talking exactly about habitable space inside the room. 20 tons IMTU also includes all the necessary equipment, electronics and avionics, circuitry, most of it hidden away behind the walls, underneath the floor, tucked behind console panels, things like electrical wiring, etc, etc.

20t does seem a bit excessive for smaller starships such as a basic 100dton Suleiman Scout. But for a 400dton far trader, it is not unreasonable (again my opinion), given that a 400ton ship will require a somewhat larger crew, and somewhat more electronics and control room to operate such a ship.

 

[far-trader]

My basic general take from CT, on all deckplan/design bits, is a breakdown of about half explicit/shown components and half hidden/unspecified elements (see this link for another older take on it: One-Half Rule Guide of Deckplan Drawing for CT and here for an example of my general application of it: Beowulf Deckplan though in this example the fifth workstation is off the "bridge" in the Captain's Office).

In the case of the Bridge (components and elements required for operation of the ship) I work it out as (per 20 tons):

5 tons for 5 workstations, the actual "bridge" for the crew to operate on

2 tons for the ship's locker(s), containing required crew tools and gear including Vacc-Suits, generally adjacent to the bridge or airlock(s), of that 2 tons generally it's broken down further by half into half actual storage (1 ton) and half adjacent access space (1 ton). It may be a single location or multiple.

3 tons for the airlock(s), being 6 open squares adjacent to the hull with the actual mechanical systems in the overhead. Like the ship's locker(s) this may be a single location or multiple.

10 tons left over for unspecified and usually not noted or drawn components, like landing gear, fueling hoses, contra-grav lifters, attitude control thrusters, avionics, commo, sensors, etc. Anything you can think might be included in ship operation but not specified in the design rules as elsewhere.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi

Here are some figures from some ships I've drawn up in the past trying to lay out brdges for some ships I was trying to put together.

This 1st figure shows a small 3dton cockpit style layout (in green) in comparison to a 20dton more open type bridge (in red), which includes a number of special sized (long & thin) 1dton consoles lining the walls, a view 1 dton viewscreen forward, and acouple small spaces aft for either lockers, a computer server room and/or a small coffee type mess.

The green cockpit style bridge was something I put together for a 300dton GURPS Traveller (Inter Steller Wars era) 300dton merchant vessel. In GURPS Traveller Inter Steller Wars a 3dton cockpit is allowed for ships of this size.

Here is an image of the upper and lower decks of the 300dton GURPS Traveller Ship for reference showing how the bridge fits into the rest of the ship. In general though after putting together these drawings I began to suspect that 3 dtons was probably really too small for such a ship, unless you assume that stuff like avionics, sensor electronics and other such stuff is located elsewhere outside the bridge.

On the other hand the red bridge was just an idea I had kicked around to make something more along the lines of the style of bridges you might see in a Star Trek type setting.

This next image is another similar idea for a 20dton bridge where about half the space is consumed by more standard sized ( 1.5m x 3m) 1dton modules lining the walls. In this layout the forward middel module would probably be some form of Star Trek-like view screen.

Finally here are some small writeups (with figures) that I had put together for a small 100dton merchant and a 200dton Yacht, both outfitted with 10dton bridges. I think that my drawing of the 100dton ship was based on a very early draft of a a ship statted out by Robject using an early version of the T5 rules, that Robject had posted on the Public T5 Forum last year, Though I can't remeber if the 200dton drawing was based a similar posting for a Yacht based on those rules or if they are based on the Mongoose Traveller rules.

http://members.cox.net/psjn/Pocket%20Trader.pdf

http://members.cox.net/mnvdet/Y200a.pdf

In general the 100dton bridge is assumed to include several equipment racks, a computer server room, and small coffee-type mess (with a Fresher adjacent to the bridge) while the Yacht is more long the lines of a scaled down version of some of the designs I showed in the figures above with consoles lining the walls and a large window (with heads-up design, etc) located forward.

Anyway, I don't know if any of this is of use to you, but thought I'd post it just in case.

Regards

PF

 

[WarriorKnight]

I got hooked on the "Starhunter" series a few years ago & loved the "lounge" look of the bridge so several of my deckplans include an area w/a couch,chair & "coffee" table.It drives a couple of my players crazy cause it doesn't fit their design style idea of what a bridge should be.
Theres also a one or two square "galley" & a fresher.

 

[Icosahedron]

I agree with much of the above. Those drawings in particular show that 20dT isn't all that big, especially for a ship of 400dT+.

In addition to the control panels, etc, I include:
A Ready Room for meetings, coffee, etc. On a larger ship this might be a separate room, but a smaller one may just have some seating in a corner. 2-4dT.
A fresher 0.5dT
An airlock 0.5 - 2dT
A Ship's Locker, a small strongroom for storing weapons, cash, etc. 2-4dT

So those items account for 0.25 - 0.5 of the available space.

The bridge for a 400dT merchant I'm running at the moment has this:

Controls, wiring and maintenance crawlways: (33%) 7dT
Cockpit area: 5dT
Ready Room: 3dT
Locker: 3dT
Airlock: 1dT
WC: 0.5dT

For a 19.5dT total (approx - not bad for a deckplan ).

The cockpit area is pretty cramped, and I could see a different layout using a smaller ready room and locker to provide more cockpit space.

Personally, I'd go for a default of 1/3 control gear, 1/3 cockpit space and 1/3 supplementary space, and then tweak to taste.

 

[atpollard]

I always liked to use the basic 2% as the 'bridge' itself.

I block out 2 dTons of bridge space (and 1 bridge crew station) per 100 tons of ship.

I tend to lay out the chairs, controls and walkways within the bridge space and fill in around them with 'electronics'.

 

[aramis]

I always took landing gear out of bridge tonnage, and 2 airlocks as well.
Physical bridge 1Td/100Td
Avionics 0.5Td/100Td

 

[WarriorKnight]

I had never thought of taking landing out of bridge tonnage,always took it from cargo.Never really stuck hard & fast to the 20t rule.If the 20t was a hard fit I usually said the heck with it & made it look right to me.One of my gaming group is a rules lawyer gonard who frets every little square, & just about has a cornary if the deck plans are off.(but it doesn't bother him in the least that the A2 is double the size it should be;but let one of us do up a deckplan thats off by even a few squares & he spazs).

 

[rancke]

Actual size of some bridges

Number is squares (i.e. halves of a dT). Number in parenthesises is including avonics.

100T X-boat: 7 (15?)
100T Scout/Courier: 5 (9)
200T Far Trader: 12
300T Close Escort: 4 (9)
400T Subsidized Merchant: 20
400T SDB: 26?
1000T X-boat tender: 23


Hans