Starship Deckplan Guide

[Fritz_Brown]

Dan, I just found a "problem" with your design standards. How in the world do you manage to use only 1/4 of the total engineering tonnage to provide access space around your drives/pps and making your access space 1.5m? I have been having real trouble drawing out a deckplan that uses only 1m without exceeding my engineering tonnage by about 1/2.

So, I ran some numbers and got about 82m^2 for a 35dTon engine (that's 1/2 the volume). For a rectangle, you near double the area required. Even for a circle (most efficient) you go over 1/4 of the area just for the access.

I am trying to place 65dT of drives/pps in a 2-deck-high space, and can't get it less than about 80dT. Aaaargghhhh!

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Dan, I just found a "problem" with your design standards. How in the world do you manage to use only 1/4 of the total engineering tonnage to provide access space around your drives/pps and making your access space 1.5m? I have been having real trouble drawing out a deckplan that uses only 1m without exceeding my engineering tonnage by about 1/2.

So, I ran some numbers and got about 82m^2 for a 35dTon engine (that's 1/2 the volume). For a rectangle, you near double the area required. Even for a circle (most efficient) you go over 1/4 of the area just for the access.

I am trying to place 65dT of drives/pps in a 2-deck-high space, and can't get it less than about 80dT. Aaaargghhhh!

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Dan, I just found a "problem" with your design standards. How in the world do you manage to use only 1/4 of the total engineering tonnage to provide access space around your drives/pps and making your access space 1.5m? I have been having real trouble drawing out a deckplan that uses only 1m without exceeding my engineering tonnage by about 1/2.

So, I ran some numbers and got about 82m^2 for a 35dTon engine (that's 1/2 the volume). For a rectangle, you near double the area required. Even for a circle (most efficient) you go over 1/4 of the area just for the access.

I am trying to place 65dT of drives/pps in a 2-deck-high space, and can't get it less than about 80dT. Aaaargghhhh!

Ah, I think I see the problem, and it's in my writeup. Thanks for spotting another clarification for that eventual update. I don't put 1.5m around the entire drive piece. I figure half the perimeter is enough and shoot for that. That's how it should read, but doesn't.

The other half of the perimeter is given over to external faces, fuel faces or inaccessible faces. And don't forget to ignore that bit about the access space "may not overlap" since I ignore it all the time

That might help you out of your jam, I hope

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Dan, I just found a "problem" with your design standards. How in the world do you manage to use only 1/4 of the total engineering tonnage to provide access space around your drives/pps and making your access space 1.5m? I have been having real trouble drawing out a deckplan that uses only 1m without exceeding my engineering tonnage by about 1/2.

So, I ran some numbers and got about 82m^2 for a 35dTon engine (that's 1/2 the volume). For a rectangle, you near double the area required. Even for a circle (most efficient) you go over 1/4 of the area just for the access.

I am trying to place 65dT of drives/pps in a 2-deck-high space, and can't get it less than about 80dT. Aaaargghhhh!

Ah, I think I see the problem, and it's in my writeup. Thanks for spotting another clarification for that eventual update. I don't put 1.5m around the entire drive piece. I figure half the perimeter is enough and shoot for that. That's how it should read, but doesn't.

The other half of the perimeter is given over to external faces, fuel faces or inaccessible faces. And don't forget to ignore that bit about the access space "may not overlap" since I ignore it all the time

That might help you out of your jam, I hope

 

[Fritz_Brown]

OK, glad to be of help. I think my real problem is that I am trying to fit a 35dT jump drive into one side of a symmetrical area, with 19dT worth of PP on the other. I just can't make it symmetrical, and I just can't make it fit neatly. I have the M-drive halves up against the hull (so they can stick out a bit and glow blue, of course), but want to be able to access most sides of the PP and J-drive.

Doesn't help any that this is a passenger ship, so the crew/engineering/bridge areas have to be secured from the nice parts of the ship.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

OK, glad to be of help. I think my real problem is that I am trying to fit a 35dT jump drive into one side of a symmetrical area, with 19dT worth of PP on the other. I just can't make it symmetrical, and I just can't make it fit neatly. I have the M-drive halves up against the hull (so they can stick out a bit and glow blue, of course), but want to be able to access most sides of the PP and J-drive.

Doesn't help any that this is a passenger ship, so the crew/engineering/bridge areas have to be secured from the nice parts of the ship.

 

[Ran Targas]

Originally posted by far-trader:
And don't forget to ignore that bit about the access space "may not overlap" since I ignore it all the time

Yeah, that one is a little unreasonable, even for the OSHA nazis.

I use accessability as one of those ship personality traits. Scouts and most military ships have good access to their major engineering components and most sub systems. Freighters and other utilitarian civilian designs have a little less; while yachts and sporty models have very little (as most maintenance is expected to be done by pro's, not the crew).

 

[Ran Targas]

Originally posted by far-trader:
And don't forget to ignore that bit about the access space "may not overlap" since I ignore it all the time

Yeah, that one is a little unreasonable, even for the OSHA nazis.

I use accessability as one of those ship personality traits. Scouts and most military ships have good access to their major engineering components and most sub systems. Freighters and other utilitarian civilian designs have a little less; while yachts and sporty models have very little (as most maintenance is expected to be done by pro's, not the crew).

 

[fredofmars]

Fritz, do you require drives to be a monolithic piece, or are you willing to break them up into smaller pieces to fit your proposed deckplan? In some of my deckplans, the drives are monolithic, and in some they are distributed (sometimes even to different parts of the ship).

 

[fredofmars]

Fritz, do you require drives to be a monolithic piece, or are you willing to break them up into smaller pieces to fit your proposed deckplan? In some of my deckplans, the drives are monolithic, and in some they are distributed (sometimes even to different parts of the ship).

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I'm kinda of the mind, that jump drives and powerplants should be fairly monolithic, while manuever drives can be broken up, as long as they are symmetric and adjacent to exterior hull.

(I can't see stacking J-drives, based on the only possible ways they can work in canon. So, they would need to be one piece - mostly. I could see splitting up the powerplant, but only if it is specifically designed that way - so much power for this drive, so much for weapons and bridge, etc.)

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I'm kinda of the mind, that jump drives and powerplants should be fairly monolithic, while manuever drives can be broken up, as long as they are symmetric and adjacent to exterior hull.

(I can't see stacking J-drives, based on the only possible ways they can work in canon. So, they would need to be one piece - mostly. I could see splitting up the powerplant, but only if it is specifically designed that way - so much power for this drive, so much for weapons and bridge, etc.)

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Here's what the upper deck engineering section looks like:

PP on the viewer's left, J-drive on the right, M-drive on each side. This is just the upper half of everything (2-deck-high engineering space). Standard 1.5m squares.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Here's what the upper deck engineering section looks like:

PP on the viewer's left, J-drive on the right, M-drive on each side. This is just the upper half of everything (2-deck-high engineering space). Standard 1.5m squares.

 

[fredofmars]

That engineering area doesn't look bad at all! It is asymmetric, but that gives it an interesting look to me.

 

[fredofmars]

That engineering area doesn't look bad at all! It is asymmetric, but that gives it an interesting look to me.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Well, it evidently needs to be more assymetric, as I'm over alloted space, and the J-drive is really cramped. I'm still working it.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Well, it evidently needs to be more assymetric, as I'm over alloted space, and the J-drive is really cramped. I'm still working it.

 

[far-trader]

Kind of a good news - bad news - good news post

Good news is I had some time to goof off so I doodled with your problem a bit.

Bad news is I couldn’t make it easily work per the guidelines, I’m sure it’s doable, but you’d lose your nice asymmetrical look and it would be tight.

Good news is it did easily adapt to a second guideline I was playing with a year or two back. I started thinking that if the “Drives Section” is really a separate section from the “Main Section” then it should be the full volume without the 25% common spread elsewhere. I did a ship or two that way to see if it would work and it worked ok. More room in the Drives section wasn’t the problem, making the rest of the ship work with the reduced common space was. I think I ended up stealing from Bridge tonnage for some access but I don’t recall.

So here’s the way I threw it together with the “Drives Section” idea. Total of the drives is 65tons. You split it over 4 decks with half the Maneuver on each side and Powerplant on the Portside, Jump Drive on the Starboard.

So Portside is 19tons + 5.5tons = 24.5tons = 24.5 squares per deck. I think it comes close.

And Starboard is 35tons +5.5tons = 40.5tons = 40.5 squares per deck. Close again I think.

I had to change the drive sizes a little to make them the right size by my eye/count, and I played with the layout of them some, but I tried to keep them close to your version. I stayed within the lines as much as possible but also had to change the fuel spaces a bit and move the floor hatches inboard 1 square. The bit of drives extending into the fuel spaces are the fuel pickups. I wasn’t sure what the red-striped item or shaded area were but there’s room to fit them in on the starboard side. And I changed the access to the Drives Section(s). That airlock being right there just begs to be used as a security and safety control point, so I eliminated the two entries and went through the airlock. I also added an a workstation for an Engineer and readout displays on the Jump Drive and Powerplant. But that’s just how I might do it…

 

[far-trader]

Kind of a good news - bad news - good news post

Good news is I had some time to goof off so I doodled with your problem a bit.

Bad news is I couldn’t make it easily work per the guidelines, I’m sure it’s doable, but you’d lose your nice asymmetrical look and it would be tight.

Good news is it did easily adapt to a second guideline I was playing with a year or two back. I started thinking that if the “Drives Section” is really a separate section from the “Main Section” then it should be the full volume without the 25% common spread elsewhere. I did a ship or two that way to see if it would work and it worked ok. More room in the Drives section wasn’t the problem, making the rest of the ship work with the reduced common space was. I think I ended up stealing from Bridge tonnage for some access but I don’t recall.

So here’s the way I threw it together with the “Drives Section” idea. Total of the drives is 65tons. You split it over 4 decks with half the Maneuver on each side and Powerplant on the Portside, Jump Drive on the Starboard.

So Portside is 19tons + 5.5tons = 24.5tons = 24.5 squares per deck. I think it comes close.

And Starboard is 35tons +5.5tons = 40.5tons = 40.5 squares per deck. Close again I think.

I had to change the drive sizes a little to make them the right size by my eye/count, and I played with the layout of them some, but I tried to keep them close to your version. I stayed within the lines as much as possible but also had to change the fuel spaces a bit and move the floor hatches inboard 1 square. The bit of drives extending into the fuel spaces are the fuel pickups. I wasn’t sure what the red-striped item or shaded area were but there’s room to fit them in on the starboard side. And I changed the access to the Drives Section(s). That airlock being right there just begs to be used as a security and safety control point, so I eliminated the two entries and went through the airlock. I also added an a workstation for an Engineer and readout displays on the Jump Drive and Powerplant. But that’s just how I might do it…