Starship design Question: 43678-8b

[mike wightman]

Hunter, can we have an official answer to this question please.

Can we halve the bridge requirements for standard T20 ship designs and then spend the "free space" on anything or are there somethings that can't go into this space?
If it is a rules varient:
a)why isn't it clearly labeled as a rules varient like all the other varient starship rules;
b)what if it isn't a varient rule at all but a standard rule that allows you to place the "new" components, such as sickbays and autodocs etc., in the standard design ships without breaking them?

Thanks.

Mike

 

[Drakon]

I plead ignorance and senility as far as forward watchstanding, especially with MCC. And after the Walker incident, the radio room became off limits, so I am not sure how they ran their section either.

Back aft, each watchstation during combat and drills got a phone talker. Except for manuvering which only got one for all of the watchstanders in the tiny space. During drills, the Eng was usually standing right over (on) the RO's shoulders. I can say that sonar was packed. Those guys must have practiced in phone boothes.

I never made chief either. They wanted to send me to Idaho as payment for 5 1/2 years at sea. I declined the offer. (Besides, wanted to watch my kids grow)

I am not real sure how you could reduce these numbers for a Traveller ship. Commercial ships you would see a reduction as no need for all the weapons types. But basic ship operation would still need a few more hands than I think is generally accounted for in Traveller. Automation can only get you so far, and in fact, can get you in trouble.

Part of watchstanding is taking logs. Looking at dials and guages and recording their readings. Before the Ohios came out, their contractor designed an automatic log system, and the Navy turned it down. They wanted watchstanders walking around the boat, looking at stuff. In the process of just scribbling readings, they might notice water levels in the bilge coming up, missing equipment, something not stowed away properly. So they kept the old fashion system.

 

[snrdg082102]

Evening Drakon,

Yep, we sonarmen practiced working in telephone booths. STS1(SS) T.M. Rux, of course my initials made several people think I was a Torpedoman. During battle stations the phone talker was one of the warm bodies not doing anything. Automation is great when it works, but when it fails some warm body is going to have to do the job by hand anyway.

Originally posted by Drakon:
I plead ignorance and senility as far as forward watchstanding, especially with MCC. And after the Walker incident, the radio room became off limits, so I am not sure how they ran their section either.

Back aft, each watchstation during combat and drills got a phone talker. Except for manuvering which only got one for all of the watchstanders in the tiny space. During drills, the Eng was usually standing right over (on) the RO's shoulders. I can say that sonar was packed. Those guys must have practiced in phone boothes.

I never made chief either. They wanted to send me to Idaho as payment for 5 1/2 years at sea. I declined the offer. (Besides, wanted to watch my kids grow)

I am not real sure how you could reduce these numbers for a Traveller ship. Commercial ships you would see a reduction as no need for all the weapons types. But basic ship operation would still need a few more hands than I think is generally accounted for in Traveller. Automation can only get you so far, and in fact, can get you in trouble.

Part of watchstanding is taking logs. Looking at dials and guages and recording their readings. Before the Ohios came out, their contractor designed an automatic log system, and the Navy turned it down. They wanted watchstanders walking around the boat, looking at stuff. In the process of just scribbling readings, they might notice water levels in the bilge coming up, missing equipment, something not stowed away properly. So they kept the old fashion system.

 

[GypsyComet]

Halving the size of the *required* allocation would be a variant, as would using the other half of the standard allocation requirement for components not on the list on page 262.

Components that are all about the running of the ship, which includes health and maintenance, seem to be the common factor in that list, while "things that are neat/make us money" are NOT on the list. I might stretch the definiton to include an autodoc, or a cold berth or two, but these would not be *paying* cold berths, but rather the doctor/sickbay replacements ("Smitty's dying of the creeping crud and we can't get to a doc fast enough. AutoFreeze him.")

As I read it, you could not cut into the 20% (20 ton minimum) to provide paying services. If you want to allow your players to do so, penalize them for the inadvisable shortcut. If you want to do so for your game as a genral rule, go for it, but please identify any such varianted design if you post them somewhere public.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by GypsyComet:
Halving the size of the *required* allocation would be a variant, as would using the other half of the standard allocation requirement for components not on the list on page 262.

As I read it, you could not cut into the 20% (20 ton minimum) to provide paying services. If you want to allow your players to do so, penalize them for the inadvisable shortcut. If you want to do so for your game as a genral rule, go for it, but please identify any such varianted design if you post them somewhere public.

And therein lies the rub . T20 ship design is not High Guard, there are some important differences in the core rules (bridges for small craft, EP requirements for jump drive and maneuver drive, different power plant sizes), and then there are clearly identified rules variants (half jump fuel, bay weapons in sub-1kt ships).

The use of half your bridge to install components that are not in High Guard allows you to include such systems without breaking old designs, provided you pay the extra cost (have a look at all of the extras you could fit into a High Guard 1 design without paying for ).

And I still want to know what entry 2 should be

If it is a varient rule it should say so, otherwise confusion reigns IMHO

 

[GypsyComet]

The 20% "Bridge" rule has *always* been fuzzy, because it has always included things that were not on the purchase list, like airlocks, sensors, and life support.

In ship-building versions that detail those items specifically, like MT and TNE, the 20% rule is *absent*, and is replaced by control panels or workstations to define the size of the "place you steer from" with certainty.

T20 has it both ways to some extent. You must allocate 20% of the ship's volume to "things that make it a ship". NOT a "warship" or a "cargo ship" or a "passenger ship". Those are for the other 80%. You can also exceed the 20% freely, but undercutting it WILL get you back, eventually. Preferably in play.

 

[snrdg082102]

Hello Sigg Oddra, GypsyComet, guests, and the usual members,

I have mentioned, once or twice, that Hunter has stressed in, at least two, past posts that the T20 Small Craft, Spacecraft, and Starship Design Sequence (SSSDS or S^3DS) is primarily based after CT LBB Book 5: High Guard (HG). This is evident in the bridge tonnage requirements of of 2%/20 (HG p. 27) tons and 20%/4 (HG p. 34) tons. T20 does not however, give a vague description of what equipment is on the bridge. Because of this detail, among others, T20's S^3DS, as Sigg Oddra mentioned, is not HG. However, as GypsyComet mentioned, T20's design sequence also has barrowed a little of the detail for designing a bridge from MT, TNE, T4, and GT. With the above information here is my revised understanding of what the T20 Bridge Design Rule means:

A vessel designated as a spacecraft or Starship must allocat 2% or a minimum of 20 tons to a component identified as "bridge." 10 tons must be allocated to sub-systemss for command and control. The command and control sub-systems include the Captain's chair, helm, navigation, communications, and sensor stations. The remaining 10 tons can be used for other non-command and control systems. These systems include an airlock, storage lockers, one or more freshers, an auxiliary control panel, and other similar components. To me an auxiliary control panel would be like Mr. Scott's station on the Enterprise's bridge, which duplicates many of the functions that are actually controlled by Main Engineering.

A vessel designated as a small craft must allocat 20% or a minimum of 4 tons to a component identified as "bridge." From THB p. 275 "The bridge installed on the (small)craft automatically includes space and accomodations for 2 crew members in the form of 2 small craft couches." The table on THB p. 278 lists that a small craft couch displaces .5 tons. Two couches means that a minimum of 1 dton of a small craft bridge is dedicated to "command and control."

For deckplan purposes the allocated bridge displacement tonnage is one piece located in a single area. The components used for the bidge must be placed within the allocated space on the deck plan.

Drat, another piece of errata has been found. On p. 258 the two examples, one for a 100-ton the other for an 1,100-ton, ship's bridge are incorrect when matched with the Manufacterd Hulls Table Bridge column. This has probably been fixed, but I'll post this on the errata board just in case.

Tom Rux

 

[MR TEK]

Funny, I read just the opposite. Sorry to be joining late.

to me the 10 tons, or 1/2 of the total bridge space must be classical control spaces. Main bridge must be 10 tons min, but beyond that, one-half of 20% must be a dedicated control space of some sort. the section on bridges specifically says, larger ships "in all most all cases have correspondingly larger command and control bridges, if not secondary bridges installed."

I am taking this to mean I can creatre multiple bridges, in distictly seperate locations, ( a bridge that is a part of one contiguious space would be difficult to find a way to call part of it a secondary bridge.)

Then what is left can be allocated to the other items on the list, and passways to get around in.

Can somebody post enough of the disscussion of creating bridge stations without breaking the licence.

I am looking at defining bridge spaces by the stations required, and then calculating displacement from that.

I also need a working definition for ships stores. I saw the cost upthread, but hw much space do they take?

Since crew mess, and galley space is assumed in the passageway space for cabins, I am thinking that laundry, galley, food stores, air handling etc, will all take that space.

I am working up a design sread sheet, and companion p/l (pofet/loss) sheet, to look at large scale luxury liners. I should probably do bulk cargo and millitary supply ships at the same time.

I am figuring all of these in the 50-60,000 ton range.

Mr tek

 

[MR TEK]

Adding to the disscussion of bridges, if I recall, Carriers, and piossably battleships have a port bridge. Only have basic monitoring stations to keep a port log, and monitor ships rediness to depart.

There are also flag bridges, or fleet bridges. The commador or admeral commanding the fleet is not part of the chain of command on the ship he is operating on, and needs tactical desplays that take into account all elements of the battle, not just the one ship.

CinC has overall command of the weapons, and manouvering orders are sent to the conning bridge.

(If i recall, the captain is overall responsable for the ship, but the conning officer is leagally responsable that the ship does collide with another vessel, or create a hazzard.)

If there are fighters, (I would suspect battle riders even more so,) there would be a flight control center that controls launching, recovery, diirecting engage, and dis-engagement vectors, operational status and all the other details of flight ops.

I also expect there would be a quartermaster deck on military ships, and a full cargo bridge on cargo and supply ships. Cargo must be loaded and stowed safly, properly tracked, for destination, and to keep lots together, and power containers must be contanty monitored to assure equipment is functioning and power is applied. during load and unload, the quartermaster or cargo master would have full operational and command authority over the entire ship.

Transports, and ships with troops are going to need a CinC for troop ops, and onboard security.

Finally, StarShips would have a need for a jump bridge. Enginerring repeaters, to monitor the drive, power plant and jump bubble status. Logs have to be kept, and maintenance, crew ops, cargo monitoring, paassengers and security need to be maintaied, but there is no need for live weapons, manouver, comms, or sensors. You only need a junior crew to monitor and log, so why not power down the main bridge and do maintenance, or save power, and wear?

Crew not needed during jump can do cleaning, maintenance, drills, just like navies from the day the first caravel sailed out of view of it's port.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Mr. Tek,

Jump Bridge. I like that.

However, the Bridge allocation for starships in Traveller encompasses all the functions mentioned (at least, it does on larger vessels).

I'd say you can divide up the tonnage pretty freely into whatever reasonable compartments you have the volume for (in small ships, that's not much). But without a new and separate dTon allocation, same as the first, one bridge hit takes out all compartments, no matter how widely separated.

 

[RainOfSteel]

As for the strange and oddly worded rules section on page 262:

To start, I very much dislike the phrases: "a minimum of 10 tons," and both parts of: "in almost all cases a correspondingly larger".

Translated, I take these rules to mean that 50% of any bridge's volume must be plotted on a deckplan as the actual bridge compartment. The other 50% of the bridge's volume may be "spent" on the listed components.


I really, really, dislike including component items 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. How is this handled on a spreadsheet? Do we have each of these components have two line items? One for being included from the volume of the bridge's allocation, and one for being allocated out of the ship's general volume pool?]

Wow, this is pretty much free extra space in most designs for these component types.

Plotting the second half of the volume as extra bridge compartments is a waste, as it gains nothing but added color (and extra blown spaces if a bridge hit occurs).

Considering the nature of what is being mentioned, I can't see why the Computer, Sensors, Avionics, and Comms volume can't also be included in the "second half" of a bridge's volume.

This is a great boon to smaller vessels!

 

[MR TEK]

It could be argued both ways as far as bridge hits.

The whole point of an aux bridge or emergency bridge would be that if the primary were destroied, the other one would still fuction. You can have back-up comps, and back-up drives, a back-up bridge might not keep a ship in the combat, but it would sure as hell give you a chance to salvage the ship in time to save crew and equipment, and maybe even escape if you still have drives.

As to color, you could just power down systems not in use, but the bridge crew would probably fuction better with only the control systems needed. Less clutter, and less to look through in an emergency.

You would presumably man most bridges with compleatly differnt crews.

Conn bridge and CinC for example would be manned simultainiously. Jump bridge would be Junior crew, cargo bridge would be cargo chief and his command staff, ect.

In port bridge would be real basic crew, even trainiees, with the captain able to meet with outsiders there.

(See C J Chriye. {sp?} the Chaniur series or any others in that universe. Main bridge is inaccessable when rotation is off in port.)

Just my thoughts, but it makes sense to me.

I am certain that when I toured the lexington, it had an in port bridge, just above the gang plank, where the dock was visable through the port holes.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

The spread sheet I am workinhg on allows for constructing a list of the various bridge types with several predefined and slots to define one or two more. Then each predefined type has staions, and tonnage and cost already calculated. on the main form are blanks to choose which ones are present. Enough blanks to chose 5 differnt ones.
Picking each type fills up the data for cost and tonnage.

Since I have already figured command crew positions, it is dirt simple to add offices as well.

Mr tek

 

[MrMorden]

I have never liked the bridge requirements in Traveller, and I've been playing since 1980.

It seems to go against what you are trying to design in many cases. If I'm making a minimalist design, say a courier like an X-Boat, why does it need 10T of bridge space? There's only one crewmember; he could run the thing from one workstation, or even from his stateroom, for frack's sake.

Why does a Type T Scout/Courier need 10T of bridge? A small cockpit with a couple of acceleration couches and consoles should do it.

As long as the design is coherent, with the properly allocated computer, avionics, freshers, staterooms, blah blah, why should it matter? As long as the technical needs of the design are met, why does the layout have to conform to some particular aesthetic?

Sorry, rant over....this one just...bugs me.