Scout/Courier Deckplan Breakdown

[aramis]

Uh, what? We're redefining the ton? Or rather, we're inferring that they must have calculated the cubic meterage available from the offered dTons and then designed plans around a 2 meter ceiling height? Which means they ignored that bit on page 5:

"Since the square grid scale used for deck plans is 1.5 meters squares, a ceiling height of three meters means that two floor squares, extended floor to ceiling equals four 1.5 meter cubes or about 14 cubic meters (1.5x1.5x1.5x4=13.5 cubic meters), or one ton. ..."

And then they ignored the very nice graphic on page 6, which incidentally tells us there's no room for the usual between-decks equipment like grav plates and environmental equipment and such - because they're using those cubic meters for halls and rooms instead. Which leaves us carving room for that equipment out of the fuel tanks. Which still makes the ship wrong.
[snip of rant]

The Type S plan predates the supplement in question. Actually, if you look, I used the plans, not the text, in my analysis. And I allowed for 2.1m floor to floor. (If you look carefully in the graphics I've done, you'll see it.) The text was by Marc, but that plan was by Bill Keith. So... that leaves which is more absurd?

The plans are a decent fit to a 2m deck, including the 7.5m height.
Noting the 50% rule - only half the space of an item is the item itself - the drives being 16 squares of presumably full height - that's the only space that works correctly in 3m tall squares. The drive tonnage is 15Td. But... off to sketchup... as I just realized that the fit of 2m decks into a 7.5m hull may in fact work with engineering (and only engineering being 3m - and explain the wall in the upper deck as well.

In looking at it, I just realized also the base calculation is wrong - the pyramid base is snipped on the back - the 24m wide is 1.5m forward of the base. The actual base is wider.
Sketchup calculates the volume of the 7.5m shell at 1166m^3.

Since I only just started using the version that calculates volumes... through careful use of groups, I can fit things in, get actual volumes...

 

[GypsyComet]

On the other hand, you're "paying" 20T for the bridge when bridge and avionics put together amounts to 4½ T. That's 15½ T you have to account for somehow on the deck plans.

And since the Upper Gallery is supposedly where the "active duty" sensor suite is located, that is legitimately part of the Bridge volume.

 

[aramis]

Ok... before and after my game, I crunched the walls in, putting 0.1m bulkheads between all walls and decks, then checked the compartment volumes (using sketchup).

I used 2m decks except for engineering, and shifted the after chunk up and the lower down by 0.5m. The "alt" is moving the lower deck to under engineering.
I get something close to reasonable.

This doesn't count any of the exterior "junk" - like the turret ball, the extensions on the drives, or the landing gear when extended.

	m³	Td₁₄	TD₁₃
Lower Airlock	0.93	0.07	0.07
lower cargo	9.5	0.68	0.7
Upper forward (Airlock)	6.97	0.5	0.52
Upper Middle (Gallery)	50.89	3.64	3.77
Upper Aft	24.52	1.75	1.82
Engineering (3m)	129.87	9.28	9.62
Mission bay	63.75	4.55	4.72
Landing Gear	19.58	1.4	1.45
Air/Raft	51.24	3.66	3.8
Aft Hall	32.29	2.31	2.39
Commons Area	44.25	3.16	3.28
Forward Hall	12.46	0.89	0.92
Stateroom PA	25.74	1.84	1.91
Stateroom SA	25.74	1.84	1.91
Stateroom PF	22.06	1.58	1.63
Stateroom SF	22.06	1.58	1.63
Bridge	18.48	1.32	1.37
Avionics	8.67	0.62	0.64
Total	569	40.64	42.15
"Bridge" Br, Av, MB, LG, AL	111.41	7.96	8.25
Staterooms	184.6	13.19	13.67
Alt Lower Cargo	31.54	2.25	2.34
Alt Lower Airlock	4.3	0.31	0.32
Alt Total	594.41	42.46	44.03
Alt "Bridge" Br, Av, MB, LG, AltAL	121.75	8.7	9.02
Base hull shell,	1166	83.29	86.37

Note the two collumns: one is using the canonical 14 cubic meter dton; the other is the 13.5 cubic meter described in the section on deckplans.
The drive extensions look to be 2 extra tons, and the turret extension about 1/2 ton. It's undersized, but not quite as bad as Carlo seems to think. And it is proportional.

 

[aramis]

I just took and figured out the volume using a 7.5m tall, 24m wide, hexagonal back (short vertical sides of 0.5m)... which is a better match to what's shown in the illo on the bottom right corner of page 17 of Sup 7... but also note that the actual base width is wider by about 3m... those cuts in the back.

Not counting addons... 1319.88m³. within the 10%
The turret ball and the drive extensions will up this a bit. To almost exactly 1350m³.

We've been looking at the wrong base area by making it a rhomboid pyramid. I'll futz with it some more later... but that hit me while talking with Cryton about physics and math. It's a pair of triangular pyramids and a wedge, both with the corners clipped. I'll see if it will let me attach the sketchup file... but not right now.

Oh, and I remeasured the PDF.
the plans show 21x1.5m squares, with the tip 4 squares and a pixel past that, and then the 1/3 square out the back for the drives. She's 38m overall as drawn. Using the illo to show the intent was not in fact a rhombus back, but a hexagon, it's within 10% of the large Td, and within 7% of the small Td (of MT and of the deckplan rules.)

Spoiler

With a 3.0 meter floor-to-ceiling
height, one floor square (1.5 meters by 1.5 meters by 3.0
meters) equals 6.75 cubic meters. Two such squares equal
13.5 cubic meters, or approximately one ton.

 

[lspitz]

A very long time ago, I calculated the volume of the Type S hull. It is, essentially, four right tetrahedra spliced together. Any cross-section of one of these, taken parallel to its base, is a right triangle, and the dimensions of said triangle are a simple function of its position on the long axis. So I set up the equation and integrated the area function over the length, from bow to stern, to find the volume of one tetrahedron, and multiplied by 4 to get the total volume of the ship.

1350 cubic meters. You can nitpick about the little corner clipoffs at the stern in some illos, I suppose, but I doubt that they add up to more than 10 cubic meters.

My conclusion back then was that regardless of whether or not the published interior layout makes sense, the hull does actually encompass the canonical volume. I had never considered that the decks might be only 2m high; that makes a certain amount of sense now that I think about it.

 

[Patron Zero]

Here's a radical non-canon and most heretical idea, why not base the tonnage of a ship upon it's internal displacement rather than the accumulative totals as a whole as now such are determined ?

I'm the first here to pass out the torches and pitchforks such knowing how the suggestion is likely to be received but before fully discarding the notion perhaps see what such might offer.

I do get that the absolute number-crunching is essential in naval-military vessels but merchant ships and other 'non-combatant's should have a bit more leeway in their construct within obvious and reasonable limits.

 

[Tekrat04]

The easiest way to calculate the volume of a wedge is to treat it as right angle pyramid with the back end as the base.

The formula to calculate the volume is: Area of Base * Height / 3

For the purpose of the calculation I'm going to the dimensions in CT S07 pg. 17. Since this is the only place that I've found that states explicitly the dimension of the Type S.

Length 37.5m
Width 24m
Height 7.5m

For maximum accuracy we need to use the width if the corners were not mitered and that is 25m.

So the math goes (25m*7.5m/2)*37.5m/3 = 1171.875m^3 or 86.8 dT

The mitered corners do account for about 10m^3. Bringing the final volume to 1162m^3 or 86dT. Short of the 100dt that the stats states.

@Aramis your analyst is first class. But you are giving credit where no credit is due. The evidence is overwhelming that the graphic artist did not do his homework in regards to the design of the Type S. His goal was make it look good not make it work.

 

[aramis]

The easiest way to calculate the volume of a wedge is to treat it as right angle pyramid with the back end as the base.

The formula to calculate the volume is: Area of Base * Height / 3

For the purpose of the calculation I'm going to the dimensions in CT S07 pg. 17. Since this is the only place that I've found that states explicitly the dimension of the Type S.

Length 37.5m
Width 24m
Height 7.5m

For maximum accuracy we need to use the width if the corners were not mitered and that is 25m.

So the math goes (25m*7.5m/2)*37.5m/3 = 1171.875m^3 or 86.8 dT

The mitered corners do account for about 10m^3. Bringing the final volume to 1162m^3 or 86dT. Short of the 100dt that the stats states.

@Aramis your analyst is first class. But you are giving credit where no credit is due. The evidence is overwhelming that the graphic artist did not do his homework in regards to the design of the Type S. His goal was make it look good not make it work.

I've noticed in my (limited) dealings with him that Bill Keith was a details guy. The pyramidal formula, using a 6.5m tall, 27m wide diamond base pyramid plus a 1m thick, 27m wide, 37.5m long triangular prism, brings the volume right close to 100Td.

Note also: Bill Keith does not draw them as diamond pyramids, but as a pair of right pyramids on either side of a short triangular prism. In other words, his scoutship designs have flattened edges, not sharp ones.

Therefore, it's far more reasonable to accept that Bill did the math, too (especially since most of it can be done by hand) and be within the 10% figure, simply doing it with graph paper and drafting tools. The accuracy level of Sketchup is far more than I can do by hand (mostly due to patience issues), but it's not impossible. (My initial run was done by using graph paper and a 0.75m gridding, and using trapezoidal prisms for the upper and lower decks... back in about 1985.)

The more I look at Bill's designs, the more I notice he was pretty damned detail oriented. And those details can be very much accurate.

The Upper Gallery probably belongs in bridge tonnage, as well... And I notice I forgot to copy it from my spreadsheet... so I just edited to put those back in. Brings the bridge tonnage up to about 12. tons. Half the turret tonnage (about 0.9 tons) probably also should count, bringing it up to about 12.9 tons.

Bottom line: it's close enough at 2m decks to be a reasonable interpretation of an only mildly inaccurate deckplan, and well within the accuracy level doable with pencil and paper.

 

[Carlobrand]

...Bottom line: it's close enough at 2m decks to be a reasonable interpretation of an only mildly inaccurate deckplan, and well within the accuracy level doable with pencil and paper.

No it's not.

Heh heh! I'm sorry, I love doing stuff like that.

Okay, help me out here. Bill Keith is responsible for which drawings? The one in The Imperial Fringe appear to be credited to someone named Chris Purcell, and it looks like a pyramidal scout courier - a rather squished pyramidal scout courier, 'cause it looks wider and not as tall in the image. Then the deck plan in Traders and Gunboats is credited to Chris Purcell, but the scout courier on page 9 is credited to Keith - except there's no scout on page 9. There's one on page 13 that looks good, and then the squished one from Imperial Fringe on page 17.

There's a scout on page 50 of The Traveller Book that looks like the pyramid with a bit extra "pyra" over the upper and lower decks; it's credited to Keith. Then there's also a Keith scout on page 64; looks more like that central wedge with pyramid wings that you were discussing. He does nice work.

Unfortunately, that leaves us with the deck plans done by Chris Purcell. Only you folk who were around when these were being produced might know him or his work style, but I'm looking at a Purcell Scout/Courier deck plan that describes it as 7.5 meters tall - with an inset picture that makes it shorter and wider - and then a Purcell Seeker deck plan that is clearly 9 meters tall though the ship is supposed to be a converted scout. (Maybe it was miscredited.) And, none of the Supplement 7 deck plans, all credited to Purcell, come close to fitting their descriptions. The Subsidized Merchant gives me 64 dTons of stateroom space for its 13 staterooms. The Far Trader gives me 10 staterooms in something like 70ish dtons - hard to calculate that one - and a generous 88 dTon cargo deck for my 61 dTons of cargo. Gazelle offers 47 dTons for 8 staterooms. The artist is clearly drawing to fill the space and make the deck plan look good without considering the actual mechanics of the design system.

While I applaud your effort to explain away the scout's discrepancies, it's just one example of a consistent pattern. The simple fact is Supplement 7 wasn't intended to be accurate; it was intended to look good and give players something they could use to draw a battlemap from if they wanted to do a Snapshot-style melee on one of the ships. I don't think anyone actually thought there'd be players compulsive enough to count each and every square - or if they did, they figured those players were in the minority and not worth spending double or triple the time and effort to create the product.

We're a special breed, us nitpickers.

(Although I have to say I'm growing fond of your image of a low-ceiling scout with ductwork running through the corridors. It has a certain romance to it. I might make mine 2.2 meters just to keep from banging my head.)

 

[GypsyComet]

The Far Trader gives me 10 staterooms in something like 70ish dtons - hard to calculate that one - and a generous 88 dTon cargo deck for my 61 dTons of cargo. Gazelle offers 47 dTons for 8 staterooms. The artist is clearly drawing to fill the space and make the deck plan look good without considering the actual mechanics of the design system.

Some of us have been nitpicking for a very long time, and have switched to damage control as a way of life instead.

Both the standard A and A2 are much too large. Only the TNE and MGT versions of the Marava A2 are even close to correct, as far as official publication goes. The best solution for the CT Marava is to do what Seeker did: call it a 400 ton ship. It's a Type R variant, not a Type A2.

The only Type A that GDW published is actually pretty close to the right size. It just looks nothing like what we now call the Beowulf. Take a second look at the map in Snapshot...

The best CT-era Type A is FASA's Alexandria, created by Rob Caswell before he went on to become one of DGP's regular artists. Close behind it is the Judges Guild version from Starships & Spacecraft. The same product also has a different take on the arrowhead Type S, in case you just can't stand the GDW version any more.

Before anyone else brings it up, NO, the Serpent Class by Paranoia Press is not 100 tons. Nor is it possessed of a circular cross-section if you take the deckplans as gospel. Still sexy, but not truth in advertising.

 

[Carlobrand]

Some of us have been nitpicking for a very long time, and have switched to damage control as a way of life instead. ...

Yeah, at my age the old habits are hard to break. It's as addictive as tobacco. My boy's following in my footsteps - he's working on a Team Fortress critique to put on Youtube.

 

[GypsyComet]

My boy's following in my footsteps - he's working on a Team Fortress critique to put on Youtube.

Video games are a bit like sausage and laws; the more you know about the process, the less appealing the final results are.

 

[aramis]

@Carlo:
From page 2 of sup 7

Artist's conceptions of the scout/courier (page 91, the express boat (page 12). the express boat tender (page 17). and the subsidized merchant (page 20) are by William H. Keith, Jr.
The original design of the system defense boat and the artist's conception of it on page 37 is by Bob Liebman.
The original design of the close escort is by Frank Chadwick. A substantially
different version of the close escort originally appeared in the Journal of the
Travellers' Aid Society, Issue No. 4. Artist's conception of the close escort by
Richard Hentz.​

I asked Bill many years ago via PM - he provided chris his drawings. Including plans. Chris may have been merely the draftsman, not the architect, of the plans.

Some of us have been nitpicking for a very long time, and have switched to damage control as a way of life instead.

Both the standard A and A2 are much too large. Only the TNE and MGT versions of the Marava A2 are even close to correct, as far as official publication goes. The best solution for the CT Marava is to do what Seeker did: call it a 400 ton ship. It's a Type R variant, not a Type A2.

The only Type A that GDW published is actually pretty close to the right size. It just looks nothing like what we now call the Beowulf. Take a second look at the map in Snapshot...

Many of the errors are probably due to assumptions on the draftsman's part about what the designers had done, probably by hand on graph paper.

The marava works out to about 340 tons at 2m decks. It's about 480 tons at 3m decks. If, however, it's 1m x 1m x 3m rather than 1.5m x3m grids, it's about 210 tons.
Draftsman error

The Gazelle is 384 squares on plan. It's gig is another 34.5 grids of plan, plus wings. It works at 4m floor-to-floor and 1.5m grid.

The X-boat as drawn is a 6m radius hemisphere (452.4m^3) on a 6m radius x 18m cone (678.6m^3), with the last 1.5m removed (-0.4m^3).
1130m^2. This gives dimensions of 23.5m long, and 12m diameter. A 1.5m difference from the text on the plan. It can be fixed by making it 13m x 24m (1349 m^3)... The rest of the plan is well within "Close Enough" - the drive bay drawn is about 175m^3; that's 13. Td of a 15Td drive using 13.5kl=1Td. Noting that the components for it are 20Td bridge, 1Td computer, 8Td SR, 40Td fuel, 15Td JDrive... and 6 Td "other" - the fuel shown ((12*18 cone)-(8*12 cone)) is about 421m^3 or about 31.5 tons... but if we use (13x18.5 cone)-(8x12 cone)=818.5-201.1=617.4kl=45.7 small Td or 44.1 large Td...

The Type R is about 210 6m tall squares drawn, plus 60x 4.5m tall squares drawn (the engine areas), plus about 210 3m tall squares. that's 720 total single-height squares... plus the wing volume for fuel. That's pretty close to the 800 squares for a 400 Td ship. The plan's good.

As drawn, the Xboat Tender is 6.5m radius curves on the ends... but is only 12m thick. So area 332.23m^2. 42.14m long overall... Buggered from the get go! I can in fact, with sketchup, fit 4 of the as-drawn 12x22.5m XBoats into a box of 8283m^3 (roughly 29.8x11.8x23.6) - rounding that up to 30x12x24, that's 617 large td, or 640 small Td. (They're all at funky angles, and there's a lot of wasted space.... I think I'll draw an XBT that actually works as my next deckplan project.


Given that most of them appear to be off by simple draftsman misreads... I prefer to figure out how to work the plans as is.

For the A2 - it's 1m grids, 3m ceilings.
For the R - use as is.
For the S & Seeker: 2m decks 1.5m grids
Gazelle - use as is, but with the 2m of missing height in fuel tanks not shown.
XBoat - assume draftsman error.
XBT - it's buggered.

 

[Timerover51]

Just was looking something up in the JTAS number 2, and renewed acquaintance with the deck plan for the Serpent-class Scout Ship. That is a nice design too that could use a bit of tweaking.

 

[Carlobrand]

... I asked Bill many years ago via PM - he provided chris his drawings. Including plans. Chris may have been merely the draftsman, not the architect, of the plans. ...

Well, Chris got the official credit, but that happens sometimes.

...Many of the errors are probably due to assumptions on the draftsman's part about what the designers had done, probably by hand on graph paper. ...

Meh. We're making assumptions about the assumptions made by the designers 30 years ago.

...The marava works out to about 340 tons at 2m decks. It's about 480 tons at 3m decks. If, however, it's 1m x 1m x 3m rather than 1.5m x3m grids, it's about 210 tons.
Draftsman error ...

Maybe. Maybe not. Temporal telepresence is a tricky art. Means the stated dimensions are wrong, but they were wrong to begin with. (Well, they're right if you count the tailfin that the entry fails to mention but that shows up elsewhere.) However, that's a very clever adjustment. Brings the cargo bay under specs, but we still need to slash drive space, so we can give some of that to the cargo bay by just moving one wall. Cargo bay's currently 176 squares, plus 32 in those locks. Under your 1 meter plan that's a wee bit over 46 dTons, we need 14 and a bit, 33 blocks on that plan, which neatly takes the rear cargo bay wall back 3 squares. Engine room on the plan with the scoops has a whopping 266 squares - which is why I see more than simple draftsman error: even with the 1 meter bit there shouldn't be more than 112-113. Take those 33 blocks out for the cargo bay, take the bottom-most row of squares off ('cause the ship's still a bit too big even at 1 meter and we need to reduce drive space anyway), put the remaining extra drive space as fuel space, definitely workable. Rooms are a bit cramped, but it's still more comfortable than a Pullman.

Note that it only works with the further adjustments, but they aren't dramatic changes.

...The Gazelle is 384 squares on plan. It's gig is another 34.5 grids of plan, plus wings. It works at 4m floor-to-floor and 1.5m grid. ...

You're saying it's only showing 2/3 of the space that it should. Okay, there's 81 dTons of fuel inboard and only a tiny bit showing on the plan, so adding height to put some above and below is pretty straighforward. Book says it's 8.5 meters high, so they were thinking pretty much what you're thinking. We're still looking at 47 dTons serving 8 staterooms unless we want to assume the height is wrong and call them 2-meter decks like the scout. (2.2 meters; I'm not getting grief from OSHA just to save the design. ) Also looking at 103 dTons of engine space serving 91 dtons of engine, but I guess we could call that 2.7 meter decks. With fuel space above and below, it wouldn't be apparent from outside if the engine room and living decks are different heights. But, dagnabit, we should not need to be doing so much scribbling in the margins just to save a deckplan.

...The Type R is about 210 6m tall squares drawn, plus 60x 4.5m tall squares drawn (the engine areas), plus about 210 3m tall squares. that's 720 total single-height squares... plus the wing volume for fuel. That's pretty close to the 800 squares for a 400 Td ship. The plan's good. ...

Absolutely - except for the 64 dTons of passenger space for 13 staterooms, and there's those curvy hull walls, so it's not as much as that. It hits close enough that most gripes amount to quibbling. Even the engine room space is pretty close to the mark. I'd accept this one with only slight muttering. Arguably the best design in the book.

...Given that most of them appear to be off by simple draftsman misreads... I prefer to figure out how to work the plans as is.
...

You are quite generous to the designers, and you have clearly put a lot of thought into salvaging these designs. Me, not so generous: for them I have the words of Mr. Hollywood (see Two Stupid Dogs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hspNaoxzNbs). I may borrow some of your ideas because they're clever patches, but my opinion of the designs hasn't changed.

 

[Carlobrand]

The meeting opened with the firm's architect presenting the plans for the new Scout/Courier. The Scout Service's Director of Procurement frowned as he looked at the graphic on the wall displaying the proposed deck plans. The firm's manager noted his look and grew concerned; the Director didn't like something. The manager's best architect had developed those plans, and he couldn't see a problem with them. Still, something was wrong and, if they didn't make it right, they could lose the bid. Observing carefully, he let his architect continue the presentation.

"We've had good success in applying local technology to meet the desired specifications while holding costs down," the architect stated. "With this design, we've achieved a cost savings of ..."

The Director interrupted suddenly. "Not enough living space," he said. Put in more living space, and room for equipment."

The architect, surprised, paused briefly before recovering. "Sir," he said, "I'm sorry, but there's no room for additional living space. Not under these specifications."

"Sure there is," said the Director. "Lower the ceiling to 2 meters."

"What?" the architect replied, then remembered himself and his audience. "Sir, regulations require at least 2.5 meters of ceiling height, and we'll need additional space for wiring, gravitics, air ducts and other equipment."

"Screw the regulations," the Director said. "This isn't some luxury liner. It's an Imperial scout. My boys can handle it. Look, I'm here because your owner's an old friend of mine and you folk have a reputation for thinking outside of the box."

"But ... we ...," the architect started, but he could not think of a reply that wouldn't further antagonize his audience.

"Look," said the Director, "I shouldn't have to tell you people how to do your jobs. Grav plating is only about 3 centimeters thick, and compensators are about the same. And you can run the ducts and conduits along the edges of the ceiling. Nobody ever sticks their heads there. We can't have wasted space above people's heads when we need every spare liter of space for equipment."

The architect opened his mouth to speak, trying to think of a reply but finding none. His manager interrupted; it was clear where things were going.

"I apologize on behalf of my staff, Director. We were under the impression that we were operating within the three-meter standard guideline. You are right of course: we can seek a waiver of those requirements to serve Imperial needs. These are some very good ideas. We can incorporate the changes you suggested and present them for your consideration by - are you available Friday?"

"Yes," the Director responded. "Friday sounds good."

"Excellent," the manager said, giving his architect a hard look. "Friday it is, then. Now, it's almost lunch time. Director, do you have plans, or can we discuss your ideas further over lunch at the Maisson. The firm will pay, of course."

Borrowing mercilessly from MegaTraveller to expand on the 2 meter deck idea. The various support equipment in MegaTraveller comes to a bit under 8% of the volume of the ship. Gravs and inertial compensators take up 1% each - about 6 cm total between-deck space in a given hall or room for the more typical 3 meter deck-to-deck height. Not entirely clear whether compensators should be in the floor or should be shared out to bulkheads as well, to provide transverse compensation. Depends on how they're supposed to work. Putting some in bulkheads further reduces the height of the between-deck space. Figure 3-4 cm between-deck space serving a 2-meter volume.

The various other equipment takes up another 18 centimeters in a 3 meter deck, and no doubt there's a bit of wasteage. Assuming a 1.5 meter wide 2-ish meter tall corridor, that equipment cm can be run through the ceiling corners: water piping, conduit, air ducts and so forth would occupy an area approximately 30 cm down and 30 cm out from the ceiling-wall edges on either side, leaving the center of the corridor free. There would of course be the disadvantage of needing to duck down to move through doorways and hatches, but headway at those points would be at about 5' 7" in the American, low enough to be easily noticeable while not a tremendous inconvenience to stoop under.

Not something I'd want to see on a passenger ship, but doable for a military/paramilitary vessel.

 

[Hyphen]

XBT - it's buggered.

That's an official naval architect term, BTW,

Is the DGP version of the XBT (from the first adventure) as bad?

I know someone did a 3D version only to find out that you could only hold 2 xboats at a time. then someone else did a 3D sketch and shoe-horned the canonical 4 xboats in. And I can't remember how many fitted into magmagmag's jaw-droppingly beautiful version...

 

[aramis]

That's an official naval architect term, BTW,

Is the DGP version of the XBT (from the first adventure) as bad?

I know someone did a 3D version only to find out that you could only hold 2 xboats at a time. then someone else did a 3D sketch and shoe-horned the canonical 4 xboats in. And I can't remember how many fitted into magmagmag's jaw-droppingly beautiful version...

The bay as drawn can, just barely, hold 4. As drawn, the ship's about 2000Td...

 

[Frankymole]

Note the two collumns: one is using the canonical 14 cubic meter dton; the other is the 13.5 cubic meter described in the section on deckplans.
The drive extensions look to be 2 extra tons, and the turret extension about 1/2 ton. It's undersized, but not quite as bad as Carlo seems to think. And it is proportional.

Was it Megatraveller that said a +/- 20% of overall displacement was acceptable accuracy for a deckplan?

 

[aramis]

Was it Megatraveller that said a +/- 20% of overall displacement was acceptable accuracy for a deckplan?

CT, actually.
TTB, 67:

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.​