Makign Deck Plans

[Vanyon]

In the old High Guard book it mentions that 1dTon is approx 14 meters cubed.

In all the deck plans I see each square is 1.5m on a side.

Taking the cube root of 14 it come to around 2.4 (yeah I rounded off for convenience), for a cube 2.4m on a side.

Is there a reason why the deck plans use the 1.5m on a side?

How do you work out how many interior squares you have for things like cargo bays etc... based on their tonnage?

I think I missed something as I used to know this, but cannot find anything for it now.

 

[Border Reiver]

1dton is 2 deckplan squares. each square is 3m. high giving 2 x 1.5 x 1.5 x 3 = 13.5m³. This is incidentally the volume of 1dton in Megatraveller.

 

[Icosahedron]

Two 1.5m squares, with a deck height of 3m, equal 1dTon.

I don't know why deck plans use 1.5m squares. I use 1m squares on my deckplans - they make for better corridor widths on small vessels, I reckon.

 

[Border Reiver]

I think it is because 1.5m is approximately 5'. The 5' square has been an RPG/Wargame convention for a long, long time.

 

[Valarian]

There's a spreadsheet knocking around somewhere which calculates the used tonnage as you fill in the squares to draft out a deckplan. I've got an OpenOffice version that does the same thing back at home. PM me with an email address if you'd like a copy. You may find that the Excel version is in the files section (fLibrary).

[EDIT] Not sure if this is the same one I'm thinking of ... http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/forumdisplay.php?f=96

 

[tim_manley]

snapshot used 1.5m squares..

Hmm... I should pull out my old traveller boxed games... my youngest is 10 now and he might be able to play them, and enjoy them. My two oldest never had any interest (dad's the geek, mom was the cool one... hoping kid 3 got some geek genes )

 

[GypsyComet]

If you go with 1m square grid and a slightly higher deck-to-deck clearance, then you're looking at 4 squares per dton.

 

[atpollard]

If you go with 1m square grid and a slightly higher deck-to-deck clearance, then you're looking at 4 squares per dton.

I design ships on a 1 meter grid and then overlay a 1.5 m grid.

A 1 m grid will encourage more reasonable space sizes. How many 5 foot wide halls and doors do you typically encounter in the real world?

The actual grid should match the combat scale for the system that you use. It just makes life easier.

 

[tim_manley]

The actual grid should match the combat scale for the system that you use. It just makes life easier.

Bingo! Just makes it easier if your consistent.

 

[Vanyon]

Hmm, well thanks for all the advice. I am going to give this a shot on something around 1000 tons as a setting for a suspense/thriller style adventure for my crew.

When done should I post it up and have you all take a look and laugh and tell me if I did OK?

 

[tim_manley]

Hmm, well thanks for all the advice. I am going to give this a shot on something around 1000 tons as a setting for a suspense/thriller style adventure for my crew.

When done should I post it up and have you all take a look and laugh and tell me if I did OK?

Awesome! I'd love to see it

 

[far-trader]

Just one late to the party note, a remark to those who think 1.5m scale corridors and doors are much too wide, you are taking that too literally and imagining some zero dimension structure and a single simply dressed person in no hurry.

Factor in the thickness of even a simple wall on each side of a corridor, and hand rails for zero-g safety, and then try to get two people passing, in vacc-suits, in a hurry, one leading panicked passengers away from the hull breach and the other carrying tools and a hull patch to fix the problem, and then tell me that a (nominally) 1.2m (4') corridor is too wide or that the (nominal) 1m (3') doorways are too big

The 1.5m scale is a very good one for space ships if you apply a little thought to the reality underlying the simple deckplans with lines for walls (instead of dimensioned walls) and icons for doors and such (instead of actual dimensioned features).

Deckplans (most anyway) are NOT architectural drawings. They don't need to be for the game.

 

[DaveChase]

Just one late to the party note, a remark to those who think 1.5m scale corridors and doors are much too wide, you are taking that too literally and imagining some zero dimension structure and a single simply dressed person in no hurry.

Factor in the thickness of even a simple wall on each side of a corridor, and hand rails for zero-g safety, and then try to get two people passing, in vacc-suits, in a hurry, one leading panicked passengers away from the hull breach and the other carrying tools and a hull patch to fix the problem, and then tell me that a (nominally) 1.2m (4') corridor is too wide or that the (nominal) 1m (3') doorways are too big

...

Deckplans (most anyway) are NOT architectural drawings. They don't need to be for the game.

If you ever get a chance to tour a WW2 sub take it. Then you will know exactly what Far Trader is talking about.

It changed my mind greatly after my visit to Pearl Habor on ship interiors. I was always trying to squeeze more into a ship plan until then.

Dave Chase

 

[GypsyComet]

Apropos of little, a lot of SF on TV or the big screen is shown with very wide corridors. In a meta-story sense this was obviously done to provide room for cameras and crew, but it certainly colors my sensibilities for high-tech shirt-sleeve-environment starships. 1.5m corridors don't bother me at all.

 

[Icosahedron]

Much depends on how much space you have to spare. I have no objection to 1.5m or even 2m corridors on multi-kton vessels, but you may not have the luxury on smaller craft.

My deckplans are drawn with finite wall thicknesses taken from the rooms rather than the corridors. ZG handrails can be run along the ceiling - ask any bus passenger - and once you lose gravity it really doesn't matter.

IMTU (which doesn't subscribe to ephemeral, politically correct safety paranoia) ships are designed primarily for their long term convenience rather than tenuous once in a lifetime 'what if' scenarios. My ships are safe, but they're not OTT anti-suicidal.

Of course, you guys across the pond do the same thing with your roads - you just don't appreciate space conservatism. Take a look at the 'passing places' on English country lanes - they work.

There are plenty of doorways and junctions on a ship for people to stand aside and tip their caps to passing traffic.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Hmm, well thanks for all the advice. I am going to give this a shot on something around 1000 tons as a setting for a suspense/thriller style adventure for my crew.

When done should I post it up and have you all take a look and laugh and tell me if I did OK?

1000dt might be a bit big for a first attempt.

 

[Valarian]

Hmm, well thanks for all the advice. I am going to give this a shot on something around 1000 tons as a setting for a suspense/thriller style adventure for my crew.

When done should I post it up and have you all take a look and laugh and tell me if I did OK?

1000dt might be a bit big for a first attempt.

Vanyon should now have the deckplan layout spreadsheet to help count the squares vs. tonnage. When using this to aid layout, 1000dt isn't necessarily too big.

 

[Vanyon]

TY very much for those too Valarian.

The initial deck plans are done already. Drawn by hand on graph paper. I am going to try and get those scanned in on Saturday.

I am downloading the free Open Office software to work with those files and will have a go at them this evening.

So far I am very pleased. however it did raise some questions.

In the book it talks about how a standard stateroom is 4dtons. Then it mentions that at least half of that goes toward life support, halls, and other miscellaneous items associated with living like a galley. Yet the sample deck plans show staterooms as a 1dton graphic (meaning it is a 2 square x 2 square area). So the other 3 dtons of the room go to the halls, galley, and? Lounges?

Or am I reading that wrong?

Also,for some ships I notice spaces like trophy rooms or workshops. In High Guard the rules for ship construction there had rules for those. MGT so far doesn't. Should I just take out the straight dtons for this as if I were adding another stateroom of that size? Or if it a lounge, can it be part of the spare dtons for the staterooms?

 

[tim_manley]

TY very much for those too Valarian.

The initial deck plans are done already. Drawn by hand on graph paper. I am going to try and get those scanned in on Saturday.

I am downloading the free Open Office software to work with those files and will have a go at them this evening.

So far I am very pleased. however it did raise some questions.

In the book it talks about how a standard stateroom is 4dtons. Then it mentions that at least half of that goes toward life support, halls, and other miscellaneous items associated with living like a galley. Yet the sample deck plans show staterooms as a 1dton graphic (meaning it is a 2 square x 2 square area). So the other 3 dtons of the room go to the halls, galley, and? Lounges?

Or am I reading that wrong?

Also,for some ships I notice spaces like trophy rooms or workshops. In High Guard the rules for ship construction there had rules for those. MGT so far doesn't. Should I just take out the straight dtons for this as if I were adding another stateroom of that size? Or if it a lounge, can it be part of the spare dtons for the staterooms?

Each square on the paper is assumed to represent two squares (one above it). So two squares on the paper is really 4 squares, and 1 dton.

So two square stateroom on the deckplan is 1dton. But, in the CT deckplans staterooms are 6 squares, or 3dton.

Staterooms: Quarters for the crew and passengers are provided in the form of staterooms containing sleeping and living facilities. Each stateroom is ufficient for one person, displaces 4 tons, and costs Cr500,000. In some starships (especially exploratory vessels, military ships, and privately-owned starships), double occupancy is allowed in staterooms. No stateroom can contain more than two persons however, as it would strain the ship's life support equipment. A commercial ship must have one stateroom for each member of the crew.

I think the "rule" followed is 3 dton (6 squares) for the room itself then 1dton reserved for hallway and space (2 squares).

 

[Valarian]

The spreadsheet only counts the squares (dividing by two for the allocated dt) and distributes the tonnage based on the codes you give. The examples are purely my interpretations of a starship design and may not agree with the canon Traveller. They are designs for my own ATU rather than "official" designs.

As Tim states, a 2x2 room (4 squares) is 2dt.