Originally posted by TheDS:
err, no they don't. Grav plates are to keep things from floating, Compensators are to keep them from jerking around under acceleration, and CG is just to negate the gravitational effects of the local massive body. The ship still has mass, else it wouldn't need thrusters. That mass needs to be somewhat evenly distributed.
I agree, but I think the only problem occurs when you carry NO cargo at all ... and that is a bad idea for Cr reasons. Otherwise cargo can be placed close to the centerline is there is lots, or out near the edge if there is just a little.
Originally posted by TheDS:
As to the design of the ship, I have a couple suggestions. First, it is commonly accepted to have 2 people to a stateroom. This will save you about 7 staterooms, which can be used for either passengers (who expect to have a whole stateroom to themselves) or as more cargo.
But for a frontier speculative trader you don't want people going stir crazy, especially your crew.
Originally posted by TheDS:
Next, you should consider to arrange the staterooms so that they are a bit more accessible. When not used to ferry paying passengers, they may be needed to hold incidental cargoes. For this reason, it is a good idea to make them as rectangular as possible, to allow them to be loaded with containers should the need arise. You cannot have too much cargo space.
That could work, IF you were willing to have staterooms with nice BIG doorways - or assumed you could find lots of small containers of cargo. But in that case using 90% of the rooms is just as good as using 100%, and where will you carry all the blankets to stop the containers scratching the walls?
Originally posted by TheDS:
Thirdly, your cargo space is only 20% of your hull! While I haven't done the calculations, I highly suspect that this ship is going to break the bank of anyone who owns it... you will probably have to charge a lot and do unusual things. For instance, carrying some important people across the sector. The speed of this ship makes it a bargain when comparing the time it would take most other ships trying to do the same thing, but I can't help but wonder if some one is rich enough to afford to pay you to do the transport, are they rich enough to afford to buy their own small ship?
It needs to make 6.48kCr/ton per jump assuming 4 High passengers per jump and two J-3 jumps per month. That is without applying any sort of multiplier to passage costs per parsec - which IMTU happens (but even then it is still over 6kCr/ton). Remember, this is a
speculative trader and intended to not so much make a profit on each jump, but rather find/make new trade opportunities for future exploitation by more economical ships. That's also why it will rarely, if ever, carry passengers - more usually it is carrying senior traders/negotiators/product researchers. After all, why have a Lab on a pure trader?
Originally posted by TheDS:
Fourthly, you need a side view of the ship, to give people an idea what they're looking at. You will also find, when you do, that you have room to put in some more fuel tankage, which should handily make up for the fuel tankage you feel you are missing.
Agreed, although there is very little missing. I have a 1cm squared sketch on the back of a receipt here, not sure it's worth scanning ...
Originally posted by TheDS:
And finally, you need e-low berths for ALL expected passengers. That's 18 rounded up to 20 (under current design), not 16, or 21 rounded up to 24 for my suggestion of moving crew around. (Of course, when there are no passengers aboard, crew can spread out if they like.) But the point is, if the situation is dire enough that you have to use low berths, you probably wouldn't want to launch that life boat. (Additionally, you should be sure there is enough lifeboat capacity for 20-24 people.)
Well the lifeboat was my fault, they didn't fit the deckplans, so I designed it for 14 ... it could easily have enough, and I will consider changing it. The on-board low berths are more intended to be if the ship needed to put everyone into stasis - in that case you might have lost some crew already, or not be carrying full passengers, or have draw lots to wait outside for help. But then there are also the ones on the life-boat, so ... maybe there are too many?
Originally posted by TheDS:
Let me also say that your drawing and design philosophy are pretty interesting.
Thanks, I think ...
![Big grin :D :D](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)