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Starship Interiors

Your Starship Interiors Are Inspired By ...?


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... it got me to thinking about how restricted Traveller floorplan design is - largely because of all the minor systems, accessways and bits and pieces like landing gears that aren't accounted for in the design tonnage. I'm considering in future ignoring tonnage. As long as all the listed features are present and no more, then it makes no difference to the game really.

I agree.

Remember the "+/- 10 percent" from the 'official' deckplan advice. Most people focus on the "+10%" aspect of the plans, but you can also reduce every listed tonnage item by 10% and gain 10% of the entire ship to use for all the unlisted items. That's 20 tons of designer defined 'stuff' on a Free Trader - by the rules!
 
I agree.

Remember the "+/- 10 percent" from the 'official' deckplan advice. Most people focus on the "+10%" aspect of the plans, but you can also reduce every listed tonnage item by 10% and gain 10% of the entire ship to use for all the unlisted items. That's 20 tons of designer defined 'stuff' on a Free Trader - by the rules!

Well, not exactly :)

With the usual prefaces and caveats that official material never (or perhaps rarely) followed it's own rules and it's all imagination anyway...

Some of the specifics:

Book 2 "...assume only a portion of stateroom tonnage must be allocated in staterooms; the remainder should be used for common areas and other accommodations for the crew."

This is to cover all those things not specifically mentioned but critical to living in space. Like the oft asked "Where's the laundry?" Or the kitchen or whatever. Stuff like a sickbay, armory, and such fits here. Depending on ship size and function.

Book 2 "...a leeway of plus or minus 10% or 20% should be allowed." for deckplans. This isn't "extra" stuff, just the layout of the stuff designed. You don't get plus or minus 10% to 20% of the designed performance of the drives for example, just slop room around and between equipment for access.

Supplement 7 changed and detailed this a little, but unfortunately it's not reflected well in the included deckplans.

Supp 7 "Allowances of approximately 10% (plus or minus) were made in most areas to allow for proper access and representation of specific items within the ship."

Supp 7 "In addition, a limited volume of passages has been added... Passages and access ways which have no other use may be safely added to a ship without affecting its volume or displacement... should amount to no more than an additional 10% of the total ship volume."

So what they did was break up the plus 20% (who imagines using minus despite it being there ;)) into plus 10% for all areas/features (so 10% of the jump drive volume for extra room around it, etc) and plus 10% of the total ship volume for simple corridors (so you can get from one part of the ship to another unimpeded).

Personally I think its sloppy but I wouldn't frown on any deckplans built with those guidelines :) (which unfortunately leaves me frowning at most official deckplans)
 
...it got me to thinking about how restricted Traveller floorplan design is - largely because of all the minor systems, accessways and bits and pieces like landing gears that aren't accounted for in the design tonnage. I'm considering in future ignoring tonnage. As long as all the listed features are present and no more, then it makes no difference to the game really.

This sounds good to me, as in it fits my long held belief that the whole "volume" bit was a mistake, or worse. I've long held suspicions that Traveller ship design is in fact Mass not Volume. Or at least that it should be.

So a Stateroom is not 4dtons but 4mtons. If we take it as 4mtons we can make it almost any volume we want, as long as what fills the volume isn't more than 4mtons. And that includes the life support, kitchen, etc. etc. Suddenly "Staterooms" and all associated with them can be quite spacious and open.

Same thing for the heavy items but the other way around. That 10mtons of jump drive might occupy a very small volume being that its incredibly dense, but there's ample empty volume around it for access and such, even a big area with a sturdy table set aside for maintenance.

Think of the freedom this would have (still could) allow in deckplan and graphic representation of ships. Heck it would even "rescue" all the badly screwed up volume based canon deckplans.

So go for if Crow :D I can't wait!
 
One the starships I am continuously impressed by is the SW Rebel Blockade Runner; the utilitarian exterior looks nothing like anything before it but seems to follow along the same design philosophy as found in 2001. As for the interior, the smooth walls of the common areas contrasting sharply with the access ways and engineering crawl spaces really impacted my imagination.

I'm partial to the idea that each of the major races, and even some minor ones, have a design convention that they traditionally follow. This affects not only the exterior of starships but also the interiors. These conventions are more likely to be carried through on military designs than civilian vessels where an individual architect's whims are more likely to make it to paper.

The Vilani prefer the smooth corridors, paneling over bulkheads and conduits. Controls are routed to central control panels for easy, centralized access. Passageways wind their way through the ship much like on the Tantive IV. Bridges are brightly lit and surrounded by touch screens and large displays, mounted on smooth contoured desks (like ST:TNG).

The Solomani are more utilitarian; away from habitation spaces, conduits are exposed for easy access and control panels are localized to the equipment they control. Passageways are straight with knee-level blue lighting. Bridges are a dark forest of toggle switches, keyboards, and small screen digital readouts (like the Nostromo or Leonov from 2010).

Aslan ships have a decidedly female touch with warm colors, smooth contours, and very intuitive controls; who says the females don't really run the place? I think they've carefully crafted an aesthetic that pleases them by convincing the males that it's macho to be artistic (think of Samurai flower arranging, calligraphy, or poetry). Corridors are curved and clean with yellow lighting from recesses in the overhead. Aslan bridges are also full of curved surfaces and round screens surrounded by push buttons designed for clawed fingers.

Vargr ships are very Klingon-esque with smokey, red lit interiors where even the structure of the vessel is exposed. Vargr ship controls are very decentralized; they rely almost entirely on direct equipment interfaces and analog systems (very Soviet like); but this gives Vargr equipment very high reliability as there are not a lot of bells and whistles.

I haven't decided about Zhodani ships yet; I'm thinking extremely clean designs where displays and controls are all psionically linked, almost bare walls and a desk, could be appropriate. IMTU, the Zhodani are even more stagnant a society than the Vilani as independent thought has almost been eliminated in favor of the stark party line enforced by the Tavrchedl'. It's that or chrome to match their red-eyed warbots ;).
 
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Heh! Well, don't hold your breath. I talk a good Deckplan, I never actually do any :D

Crow

Hah! I've not forgotten the most excellent deckplans you have done :) If you don't do another one you've done enough, but I'll still keep hoping (and holding my breath ;) )...
 
This sounds good to me, as in it fits my long held belief that the whole "volume" bit was a mistake, or worse. I've long held suspicions that Traveller ship design is in fact Mass not Volume. Or at least that it should be.
This would depend on the specific physics behind the drives, wouldn't it? Does the drive move a specific mass or a specific volumn through the jumpspace? I have always thought it was the volumn that was important. With contragrav technology, mass would be somewhat irrelevant.

The technology used in the design that will determine its size, shape and mass. If you are using reaction drive systems, like chemical retro rockets, then mass is important. If using some form of contragrav, or even warp drive, it is the volumn that becomes important. In aircraft, mass is weight, and the wings are trying to lift that mass against gravity. So the heavier the aircraft, the larger (and more massive) the wings have to be. In space, gravity is not an issue, however inertia is.

As for the "hotel" areas, the living spaces, bridge, and stuff like that, it does not matter how much the walls weigh, or how heavy the bed is, the size of people determine how large this stuff is. So obviously human ships would have larger interiors than say Droyne ships, yet smaller than Hivers, or Aslans.
 
I guess what I'm saying is that, mass or volume, I'd like to ignore the physical size of elements on the ship. You can probably build something like the Firefly, Normandy or Falcon in the rules (I'm not even convinced you can do that precisely) but then you can't translate those tonnages into a deckplan that looks like the ship on screen. I've seen Falcon builds and they're usually 200 dTons. The actual Falcon itself is closer to about 65 dTons.

I often think that all you really need deckplans for is boarding actions. As long as it's stats are legal as per the rules (for travel and space combat) then then it doesn't really matter if the deckplans are accurate as they have no bearing on the rules.

I think quantity is more important than size or volume. If a ship has four staterooms then the plan should have four staterooms. It doesn't really matter, though if those staterooms are cupboards with foldout beds or large, luxurious cabins.

This doesn't mean you can be stupid. I think you need to use common sense and I think the volume rules are there as a guideline to prevent munchkinism or people who are either nieve or simply don't have any common sense. For example, a 100dTon ship is unlikely to have a dining hall and four luxurious apartments. It's going to be a small, working ship and even if it's a yacht, space will still be confined.

It's not specifically staterooms that I'm thinking of, though really. I've always felt that powerplants and drives in Traveller were massively undersized. Equally, fuel takes up far too much deckplan space. It's just huge areas of a ship that the players have nothing to do with. What's the point?

True, the same can be said of Engines and to some degree the powerplant but I often think honking great engines look really good on a ship's silhouette but Traveller's pocket-sized engines won't allow that. It's frustrating from a design perspective for no good reason.

Then there's all the extra fluffy stuff that you can't squeeze in, no matter how many tons you manage to shave off the Staterooms and Bridge.

A really good example of what I'm talking about is the Type-H Hunter from White Dwarf. It contains an observation area on the top deck (taken from the Making of ALIEN Book) and an Air/Raft bay that looks like a proper, spacious hanger with a turntable!! This was all done for Classic Traveller, a ruleset I know wouldn't allow such luxuries on it's deckplans. Essentially the Hunter is broke-tastic but it's also one of the coolest sets of plans I've ever seen for Traveller.

I'm not suggesting ignoring the deckplan volume rules completely. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be gained from making a set of Deckplans work within the rules but it's also nice to design a ship that looks really cool. This is why I've started thinking I'll be slightly more creative with my deckplans.

Crow
 
Equally, fuel takes up far too much deckplan space. It's just huge areas of a ship that the players have nothing to do with. What's the point?

Why do planes have great big wings sticking out the sides? That's just the way they work, but there's nothing stopping you changing it IYTU.
 
I often think that all you really need deckplans for is boarding actions. As long as it's stats are legal as per the rules (for travel and space combat) then then it doesn't really matter if the deckplans are accurate as they have no bearing on the rules.
From a technical side, you are right. Personally, the deckplans help me visualize the ships, make them more 'real' to me. And having attempted to make a few of my own, (even before I knew Traveller existed) it is an interesting challenge.
I think quantity is more important than size or volume. If a ship has four staterooms then the plan should have four staterooms. It doesn't really matter, though if those staterooms are cupboards with foldout beds or large, luxurious cabins.
Again, you have a point. For me personally, it can break the suspension of disbelief if you say, have four luxury apartments inside a 100 ton hull
It's not specifically staterooms that I'm thinking of, though really. I've always felt that powerplants and drives in Traveller were massively undersized. Equally, fuel takes up far too much deckplan space. It's just huge areas of a ship that the players have nothing to do with. What's the point?
Compare the desiel engines on a supertanker with the size of the entire ship. I disagree here on engine size, smaller is not too much of a stretch.

I think in game terms, there is a reason for the particular "fuel efficiency" of Traverller Starships.

Marc wanted travel to be FTL, but kind of slow. This prevents news from spreading too fast throughout the empire, and thereby keeps cultures from homogenizing too quickly. It forces players to refuel at almost every start they come across. This isolates to some extent one star system from another, at least in time, gives players a means of escape or staying one step ahead of the law, (or bad guys even)

It also prevents fleets from, say jumping from the Imperail Core smack dab in the middle of Solamini space and kicking butt. (Or vise versa) Forces would have to be collected, mobilized, rendevous and travel the long route through the various jump points. This creates choke points that can be exploited by either defenders or attackers as well as possibilities for surprise attackes to be discovered.
True, the same can be said of Engines and to some degree the powerplant but I often think honking great engines look really good on a ship's silhouette but Traveller's pocket-sized engines won't allow that. It's frustrating from a design perspective for no good reason.
It is frustrating from an aesthetic perspective. The fuel tankage is what I find frustrating in my attempts at design.
Then there's all the extra fluffy stuff that you can't squeeze in, no matter how many tons you manage to shave off the Staterooms and Bridge.

A really good example of what I'm talking about is the Type-H Hunter from White Dwarf. It contains an observation area on the top deck (taken from the Making of ALIEN Book) and an Air/Raft bay that looks like a proper, spacious hanger with a turntable!! This was all done for Classic Traveller, a ruleset I know wouldn't allow such luxuries on it's deckplans. Essentially the Hunter is broke-tastic but it's also one of the coolest sets of plans I've ever seen for Traveller.
Why can't you put those fluffy pieces in? Just because the books says your hanger bays are so large, is there any rule that says you can't make them bigger if you want? Granted the extra space has to come somewhere, but still, I always assumed those were more minimum specs than anything else.

Fuel takes up so much space, and one "cannot steal" that space for something else, like larger hangers. Engines have to be so big, and that is another minimum that can't be violated. Really cargo is the only "stealable" space you can have to convert to something else. Stateroom are determined more by human size than anything else.
I'm not suggesting ignoring the deckplan volume rules completely. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be gained from making a set of Deckplans work within the rules but it's also nice to design a ship that looks really cool. This is why I've started thinking I'll be slightly more creative with my deckplans.

Crow
I think we see things differently. The ship construction rules, I see as a game in itself. The challenge is to come up with something that does not violate the rules, and yet provides something resembling a comfortable enviroment for the players. Also before you get to the deckplans, you need to figure out the specifications for the ship, how large a target it is, what are its offensive, defensive and commercial or mission specific capabilities, which then can be used in game, what are its logisitic limitations and such. A lot of those factors are determined by volumn. The range of a ship is determined by its fuel consumption and how much it carries. Space that is used for food storage can't be used for computers and sensor arrays, and yet food storage is a key logisitic limitation for the ship. Who cares if you have enough fuel to your next port, if you all starve to death before you get there.
 
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Why do planes have great big wings sticking out the sides? That's just the way they work, but there's nothing stopping you changing it IYTU.
Aerodynamics is a bitch. But you don't have to change universes. If you want smaller wings, just use worlds with higher atmospheric pressures than Earth's. Want bigger wings, less air. :)
 
I put in other, as I think that it definitely depends on the culture, TL and wealth of the people/government/owner. But to some extent, the Firefly environment is probably closest as that universe has different (and appropriate) looks based on where the world is on the same scales.
 
For me personally, it can break the suspension of disbelief if you say, have four luxury apartments inside a 100 ton hull Compare the desiel engines on a supertanker with the size of the entire ship. I disagree here on engine size, smaller is not too much of a stretch.

With regards to the luxury apartments, I agree entirely and I made that point myself in my previous post in pretty much those same words. With regards to engine size, again, you make a good point. I suppose what I'm saying is that I'd like to make them bigger should I choose to for purely aesthetic reasons. I should clarify, I suppose that I'm not in any way trying to suggest that Traveller is broken. On the contrary, I always use Classic Traveller to design ships, I've yet to see a better system - it's just that I wonder if we stick to the volumetric rules a little too ridgidly for no real reason.

The fuel tankage is what I find frustrating in my attempts at design. Why can't you put those fluffy pieces in? Just because the books says your hanger bays are so large, is there any rule that says you can't make them bigger if you want? Granted the extra space has to come somewhere, but still, I always assumed those were more minimum specs than anything else.

Ah, yes there is a rule that says they have to be that big. It's the 1dTon = 13.5 (or 14) cubic metres rule and this is the whole point of what I'm suggesting. As you say, Why can't I just put those fluffy bits in? That's what I'm asking. You see, if you do, people start shouting, "BROKEN!" and "BURN THE HERETIC!" - Well, okay they don't but there are people out there who consider it extremely important that the squares on a deckplan add up exactly and if they don't then those deckplans are unuseable. What I'm asking is, does it really matter that much? Can't I be more creative with my volumes? Does it matter if you have a deckplan that isn't exactly accurate? Of course, there is the +/- 20% rule but I'm saying why even worry about that? As you mentioned, as long as your plans aren't so ludicrous as to pass beyond credibility, then so what?

...Really cargo is the only "stealable" space you can have to convert to something else.

Not really, if the stats say 20 dTons Cargo then you can't really use that fro anything else same as Drives and Fuel. To my mind, and in my experience the only areas you can steal from are Staterooms and the Bridge. As you say, as long as the stateroom is of a minimum size to accomodate an occupant, anything else is spare for life support, corridors and recc areas.

The ship construction rules, I see as a game in itself. The challenge is to come up with something that does not violate the rules, and yet provides something resembling a comfortable enviroment for the players. Also before you get to the deckplans, you need to figure out the specifications for the ship, how large a target it is, what are its offensive, defensive and commercial or mission specific capabilities, which then can be used in game, what are its logisitic limitations and such. A lot of those factors are determined by volumn. The range of a ship is determined by its fuel consumption and how much it carries. Space that is used for food storage can't be used for computers and sensor arrays, and yet food storage is a key logisitic limitation for the ship. Who cares if you have enough fuel to your next port, if you all starve to death before you get there.

Agreed, but this is all relative to ship stats, not the deckplans and I'm not suggesting any of the ship construction rules are changed regarding a ship's stats. I'm just saying, does it really matter if the deckplans aren't dead-on accurate or a little creative, aesthetically - within reason?

Crow
 
Why not sketch out the plans roughly first, then design the ship to fit it?

I do this on some ship designs.

Several years back, I got on to the got to fit in the hull shipdeck designs.
Was trying to tackly exactly how do you stand in a module (from the Module Cutter).

After about 50 drawings/sketches and lots of math work, I got several designs that I was very happy with because they worked both for realism and by CT/HG ship design rules.

In my nonTraveller SciFi game, I just built ships(drawings) that we like for deckplans. Then determined what tech it took to make them. Of course the players were a lot more interested in play in that one than mechanics.

Dave Chase
 
^ I agree. Although I live to scratch out interesting shapes on graph paper and count squares, I'm not sure how much my players appreciate my efforts. And trying to shoe-horn in fuel and drive tonnage while making the remaining space accessable for cargo or people occupies more of my time than it should, particularly when there are more important details to the game.

But from a completely "enjoying a game system" standpoint, LBB2 and HG were the best game books I've ever bought! If you consider this solo-gaming, then I spend more hours playing CT than anything except working and sleeping.
 
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I've yet to see a better system - it's just that I wonder if we stick to the volumetric rules a little too ridgidly for no real reason.
For game purposes, more enclosed space means more capabilities, more equipment and such. From an aestitic perspective, I don't it matters. Smaller ships are generally more manuverable, but limited capabilites and resources, less fire power.

Or to put it another way, as long as you don't increase the capabilities of the ship, draw your deck plans however you like.
Ah, yes there is a rule that says they have to be that big. It's the 1dTon = 13.5 (or 14) cubic metres rule and this is the whole point of what I'm suggesting. As you say, Why can't I just put those fluffy bits in? That's what I'm asking. You see, if you do, people start shouting, "BROKEN!" and "BURN THE HERETIC!" - Well, okay they don't but there are people out there who consider it extremely important that the squares on a deckplan add up exactly and if they don't then those deckplans are unuseable. What I'm asking is, does it really matter that much? Can't I be more creative with my volumes? Does it matter if you have a deckplan that isn't exactly accurate? Of course, there is the +/- 20% rule but I'm saying why even worry about that? As you mentioned, as long as your plans aren't so ludicrous as to pass beyond credibility, then so what?
Can't really aregue there. But like I tried to poiint out before, for some folks, that is part of the game, coming up with a workable deckplan, staying within those restrictions. They take pride in "play the game" and can feel not playing by the rules is kind of cheating.

But they also forget that the first rule is that the DM is always right. The books are more, to quote Captain Barbados, "more guidelines than rules."
Not really, if the stats say 20 dTons Cargo then you can't really use that fro anything else same as Drives and Fuel. To my mind, and in my experience the only areas you can steal from are Staterooms and the Bridge. As you say, as long as the stateroom is of a minimum size to accomodate an occupant, anything else is spare for life support, corridors and recc areas.
Yes, you are correct, and that is allowed in the rules. I am thinking in more terms of design. When I try to design a ship, cargo ends up being the last thing I assign, and it is usually just the bits I have left over.
Agreed, but this is all relative to ship stats, not the deckplans and I'm not suggesting any of the ship construction rules are changed regarding a ship's stats. I'm just saying, does it really matter if the deckplans aren't dead-on accurate or a little creative, aesthetically - within reason?

Crow
To me, personally no, not at all. Stay reasonable, make it as cool as you like. You might want to note that the design is non-canon, but as long as it is cool, keep it.
 
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