Makign Deck Plans
- Thread starter Vanyon
- Start date
Just remember, each square used is 0.5dt.
The 2x2 cabins I use are compact crew quarters, 2 berth with a bunk, bunk storage and shower unit. This is mainly due to the restriction on occupancy. If I could do crew barracks on a ship for Traveller, I would. I have done so for Star Wars deckplans.
The 2x2 cabins I use are compact crew quarters, 2 berth with a bunk, bunk storage and shower unit. This is mainly due to the restriction on occupancy. If I could do crew barracks on a ship for Traveller, I would. I have done so for Star Wars deckplans.
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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
For the subsidized liner, I can see that applying, but the typical Scout ship might have two crew (double occupancy) and 3 paassengers. A 1.5 meter corridor seems wide for that number of people.
As an alternative, narrow corridors, redundant paths and separation of Passengers from Crew would go a long way towards resolving that issue.
Do you have a URL for your plans ?
I've taken to using Colonial Chrome and Kitaryn Design, or is that you ?
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far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I think a typical Scout (in service) is likely to have 8 people aboard (double occupancy of all 4 staterooms).
And again I don't think you're really appreciating the reality of structures, nor (to add another reason) the psychological needs of "space".
I do like the idea of zero-g rails on the ceiling for a couple points. It is out of the way most of the time and as noted in zero-g "up" doesn't matter. However I don't see it working for many more reasons. Having two sets on opposite "walls" is desirable (if not required) to allow passing. If you use the ceiling then where is the opposite set? On the floor? Also the natural orientation will still be important as that's how all your features are arranged. Ergonomically the walls make sense, the ceiling doesn't.
As for putting the wall thickness entirely into the cabins, that only works (and not well even then) when there are cabins on both sides of a corridor. And you lose twice the space in the cabin then. Or will you then suggest we slide that into the fuel voids? And then the lost volume of the fuel voids gets pushed into the hull exterior?
The best method is to treat the lines as the center of the wall. Half the wall intrudes into the corridor (or whatever) and half into the space on the other side. I use 0.3m wall thicknesses giving a "clear" corridor dimension of 1.2m wide. Now subtract another 0.1m on each side for railings and features and you're down to 1.0m wide. If you start with 1.0m wide and subtract the same reasonable dimensions you're down to 0.5m wide and restricted to walking sideways and not wearing any bulky gear (like a vacc-suit) or carrying much of a load.
Which will require even more "dead space" than is taken by the 1.5m corridor. Small ships cannot afford the "luxury" of that. Large ships certainly can and they should, even military ones.
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
If you want two rails, run them in parallel at either side of the ceiling, they don't need to be on opposite faces. IMO the ceiling is a more natural orientation than a wall, since the ergonomic way of using handrails in ZG would be to shimmy along them hand over hand with your body parallel to the rail rather than trying to align yourself at 90 degrees to it. At least while you're following a ceiling rail, branch corridors are still at either side rather than forming chasms and chimneys as they would for a wall alignment. That would be most disorientating.
Again, it depends on how much time ships spend in ZG IYTU. It doesn't feature significantly IMTU.
As for putting the wall thickness entirely into the cabins, that only works (and not well even then) when there are cabins on both sides of a corridor. And you lose twice the space in the cabin then. Or will you then suggest we slide that into the fuel voids? And then the lost volume of the fuel voids gets pushed into the hull exterior?
Dunno. I'm not quite sure what you're describing there. I'm not the most prolific deckplan designer, but I've found no insurmountable problems so far. If your corridor is against the hull, you don't need any wall thickness. Works for me, YMMV.
Nope to both. I haven't got any deckplans online, not even the Traveller ones. I'll have to see if I can dig some out.
Your concept is exactly correct, but your dimensions are too large. A standard wall in a house is closer to 0.1 meters (4 inches) thick. A typical wall in a cruise ship is less than half that. A railing would extend about 0.08 meters (3 inches) into the corridor (or could be set into the thickness of a 0.1 meter wall). A 0.3 meter wall is roughly equal to a CMU block wall with a brick face - more clg/floor thickness to leave room for structural elements and AC ducts.
There is actually nothing wrong with wide corridors, except that they steal space from the more important rooms. NASA accepts 1 meter as adequate for a hatch and 1.5 meters for the working room imediately adjacent to it. Personally, I view long corridors as a sign of bad design unless required by the function of the space (like a hotel). Short corridors off of large public spaces function better.
If you are so concerned about loosing gravity, design a tail-sitter with small decks and tall ladders.
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Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
Wow, yeah, I hadn't noticed that figure. My internal walls are not much thicker than the doors - certainly no more than 0.1m. Stiffness is down to high tech construction and materials. I figure some form of hollow, insulated metallic trellis, faced with plastic laminate. Bulkheads are a different matter, of course.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Yep, I'm well aware of my dimensions, and 0.3m works fine, for me. YThicknessMV for your rational, I'm just offering my reasons for mine. You know a wet wall in house construction is about double the standard and add to that space for built-ins, pocket doors, and such and 0.3m is about the least I can see working. It's also a good figure for bulkheads so I don't have to mess with multiple dimensions, just note the difference in function.
As for handrail intrusion, I won't argue cm except to say that even dm makes things easier (for me). And no I don't imagine anyone using a railing in zero-g in some awkward perpendicular manner just because it's mounted on a wall.
Gee, NASA requires 1.5m working space at a 1.0m hatch, what interesting dimensions (that's exactly what I get in my method )
Yes long corridors can be a sign of poor design. Don't look at me, I just work with the customer's requirements. If they want a long slender streamlined space-ship you can't avoid long corridors and less than ideal distribution of spaces. But if one can arrange the corridor such that both sides of it are taken up by staterooms you've lost nothing. Even better if you can make your common space integral to the corridor you've actually gained space.
I'm not terribly concerned with losing gravity, but it's a possibility that needs to be addressed when designing space craft. Besides, hand rails in the usual arrangement are useful even with gravity, unlike the ones mounted on the ceiling. Check out cruise ship hallways, hotel hallways, even some office hallways, and I think even military ships. Many have railings, and they'll never lose gravity You may also notice just how wide many of those hallways are. Granted some military corridors are turn sideways and inhale to pass but there are other issues that make that a poor comparison. Like corridors on space craft being more than just a way to move around the craft, they're also partly your "above deck" spaces so being able to lounge in a corridor without being in the way is handy.
Tail sitters are a different beast entirely but you'd still want hand holds since zero-g is zero-g.
As for handrail intrusion, I won't argue cm except to say that even dm makes things easier (for me). And no I don't imagine anyone using a railing in zero-g in some awkward perpendicular manner just because it's mounted on a wall.
Gee, NASA requires 1.5m working space at a 1.0m hatch, what interesting dimensions (that's exactly what I get in my method
)Yes long corridors can be a sign of poor design. Don't look at me, I just work with the customer's requirements. If they want a long slender streamlined space-ship you can't avoid long corridors and less than ideal distribution of spaces. But if one can arrange the corridor such that both sides of it are taken up by staterooms you've lost nothing. Even better if you can make your common space integral to the corridor you've actually gained space.
I'm not terribly concerned with losing gravity, but it's a possibility that needs to be addressed when designing space craft. Besides, hand rails in the usual arrangement are useful even with gravity, unlike the ones mounted on the ceiling. Check out cruise ship hallways, hotel hallways, even some office hallways, and I think even military ships. Many have railings, and they'll never lose gravity
You may also notice just how wide many of those hallways are. Granted some military corridors are turn sideways and inhale to pass but there are other issues that make that a poor comparison. Like corridors on space craft being more than just a way to move around the craft, they're also partly your "above deck" spaces so being able to lounge in a corridor without being in the way is handy.Tail sitters are a different beast entirely but you'd still want hand holds since zero-g is zero-g.
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far-trader
SOC-14 10K
D'oh! :nonono:
No, you're right, I messed up my units there. I meant cm where I said mm and dm where I said cm. I'll go correct that.
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