Voting for the T20 'Starship' Design Contest

[atpollard]

I checked out the official polls, but I can only poll 10 items and we have 12 designs. Life being what it is, we will improvise, adapt and overcome all adversity.

Here are the Rules of the Contest:


Here are links to all of the entries:

ONE: Expediency class 100ton Type FY Luxury Racing Yacht

TWO: Anodyne class Orbital Rescue Boat

THREE: Stone Pony Class Surface-to-Orbit Shuttle

FOUR: SPA Harbor Tug **Designer's Choice

FIVE: SPA Revenue Cutter and Short Range Interceptor

SIX: Mobile Shipyard

SEVEN: Robot Freighter

EIGHT: Gas Giant Fuel Processing Platform

NINE: Viirdana class 100ton Type LB Lab Boat **Designer's Choice

TEN: Sheepdog Class Mine Escort **Designer's Choice

ELEVEN: COACC Micro Battle Rider

TWELVE: Bethune class 100ton Type XS Aid Station


[EDIT: Change of plans - just post your vote (UNDER THIS POST) and any comment you would like to make - 'best overall' or 'most practical' or 'most likely to be used' or even just 'wish I'd thought of that'. Anyone who cares, can count up the votes themselves. ]


[Note to DESIGNERS: I linked to your original posts so you can change/correct anything you want or need to - like if somebody finds that I made a math error.]

 

[far-trader]

It was not easy judging, there's much to like about all of them.

If I let prejudice sway me it would have been easy (I win! lol).

If bribes had been offered... :smirk:

But I think I managed to suppress my id to fairness and no credits were received, so...

My public vote* for best of show is...

veltyen's Sheepish entry. It was all around great, and I've got a soft spot for exploding space mines :devil:

My public vote for runner up is...

...too close to call. Make it a three way tie between (in no particular order):

spinward scout's Anodyne rescue boat

atpollard's whole catalog (mostly - top picks being entries 3, 4, and 5)

far-trader's Viirdana lab boat

* apparently there's a Designer's Choice Awards Banquet later for the entrants

P.S. Thanks for putting the contest up atpollard, much fun was had

 

[Spinward Scout]

Yeah, this was a lot of fun. I didn't have time to design much, but I had a great time reading them.

far-trader never told me what he'd give me as a bribe, tho...

 

[Spinward Scout]

I'm kidding folks...

 

[atpollard]

Yeah, this was a lot of fun. I didn't have time to design much, but I had a great time reading them.
far-trader never told me what he'd give me as a bribe, tho...

I'm kidding folks...

So you DIDN'T have "a great time reading them",
but far-trader DID tell you "what he'd give me as a bribe"? :rofl:

 

[atpollard]

My Vote

Just some thoughts on each ship – frankly, I liked them all.

ONE: Expediency class 100ton Type FY Luxury Racing Yacht
The AI Autopilot is my favorite feature from any of the designs – so perfectly T20.


TWO: Anodyne class Orbital Rescue Boat
This ship reminds me of a cross between a Red Cross Emergency response vehicle and a M.A.S.H. unit. I could see this ship landing at a disaster site and instantly becoming an overwhelmed ER– All of the beds full of wounded and dying people. Outside the ship, the medic is franticly triaging the new arrivals – minor wounds, wait over there; this one is critical, take him straight in. Inside the Doctor is struggling to save as many as he can – three more minutes and this one can go to the autodoc; that one is too serious, put him in the low berth, that makes four, quickly freeze them; this one died on the table, clear the autodoc for another. Where the hell is that transport, these berths are almost all full? This one can go outside – find someplace for him to rest and send in the next patient.


THREE: Stone Pony Class Surface-to-Orbit Shuttle
Since this is one of mine, I can focus on it’s flaws and leave it to others to decide what they like about it. I was never completely satisfied with how the ‘Module’ fits into the Modular Cutter. External grapples might make sense, but the 50 ton cutter doesn’t include any and the rules made them pretty large (9 tons for a 30 ton module on a 50 ton craft). I eventually waved my hands and said “However they did it, that’s how I do it too.” The external grapples still sound like a cool design, but the tonnage is too large (In My Opinion). It’s an area that could use a good House Rule.


FOUR: SPA Harbor Tug
I was on a starport theme and turned to the US Coast Guard for some inspiration. That’s where I stumbled across the Small Harbor Tug and its ice breaking in the winter and Buoy repair in the summer mission. I tried to think of a space equivalent and that led to the SPA Harbor Tug. It turned out to be the most multi-mission of my design entries.


FIVE: SPA Revenue Cutter and Short Range Interceptor
Inspiration for this design again belongs to the US Coast Guard – or more specifically, the original Revenue Cutters of the 19 th century designed to chase down smugglers. After several slow and unstreamlined designs, I wanted to try one that would be a small fast warship (like the modern Coast Guard Cutters).


SIX: Mobile Shipyard
The Revenue Cutter created an immediate problem - How do you maintain a TL 15 ship (needed to be an effective military craft) on a TL 10 world (where it is needed)? Since this problem seemed common along many of the Mains (where low TL PP make commercial ships uneconomical and high TL PP make commercial ships unserviceable), I set out to build a ship around the Engineering Shop and it’s 20 man crew. Unfortunately, 20 staterooms would not fit in a 100 ton ship, so compromises were made. Overall, I was happy with the results.


SEVEN: Robot Freighter
This idea was a shameless rip-off of (oops, I mean was heavily inspired by) Ships ONE (the self-piloted Yacht) and THREE (the cargo shuttle). I envisioned it as a train of Cutter Modules being ‘pushed’ by a ‘NASA satellite’ with one of those radar dishes sticking way out on one side to try to see past the cargo modules. It has the same ‘how does a Cutter hold onto it’s Module’ problem as ship THREE, and I was a little curious if Piracy would become a problem.


EIGHT: Gas Giant Fuel Processing Platform
A natural partner for the Robot Freighter seemed to be an off-shore oil drilling platform on a Gas Giant. The trick was to fit it into 100 tons (I cheated a little with the 30 ton hoses – sold separately). For anyone interested, I actually sized the hose based on the flow needed to keep up with the fuel processing plant, and then divided the volume of a 30 ton cutter module by the cross section of the hose to find the length of the 30 ton hose. The flexibility was just a hand wave, but that shouldn’t be too hard for people who typically make hulls out of partially collapsed matter.


NINE: Viirdana class 100ton Type LB Lab Boat
This is my personal favorite, because with a little tweaking I could see it as an adventurer ship. The ‘official’ Lab Ship is just too darn big – where do scientists get military levels of funding to maintain those financial black holes. This is a ship for a small team sent to deal with a real problem by finding a solution. IMTU I would bump it to TL 13 and shoehorn in a Jump Drive. This ship makes me wonder about the possibility of other 100 ton ship’s for adventurers not based around the Merchant class.


TEN: Sheepdog Class Mine Escort
My first thought when I read the description of this ship was “OK”. A ‘sheepdog’ herding 10 ‘sheep’ would be a fair military threat – light on maneuver but heavy on missile launchers.
It wasn’t until about the third time reading it that I realized “WOW”. Even if the ‘Sheepdog’ only serviced 1 ‘sheep’ per day, each ‘sheepdog’ COULD TEND OVER 200 ‘sheep’. That’s 200 triple turrets or the missile volley of a 20,000 ton warship in less than 2000 tons of ship served by a crew of three. If the crew can service three ‘sheep’ a day, then you can triple that firepower. Ten ‘Sheepdogs’ and 6000 ‘sheep’ able to throw volleys of 18,000 missiles at a time requiring only 61,000 tons of ‘ships’ and a crew of 30 represents an obstacle that I would probably choose to sail around, too.
Well done. You might want to add a little to the descriptive text to establish how many ‘sheep’ a ‘sheepdog’ can control and make clear how powerful this is as a defensive force.


ELEVEN: COACC Micro Battle Rider
I wanted to create a 100 Ton ‘aircraft carrier’, but had too little time left to work out the details. My fallback position was a squad of five 20 ton ships with four as mini-warships and the fifth as a jump tender, but I couldn’t fit the Jump Drive and support in a 20 ton hull. I eventually recycled the 10 ton SRI from design FIVE, and created a 30 ton jump tender. It still required a lot of creative interpretation of the rules.


TWELVE: Bethune class 100ton Type XS Aid Station
I found the design philosophy differences between this ship and design TWO fascinating. Where design two rushes the treatment facility to the scene of the disaster, this design rushes the patients to the clinic. I like the idea of using the ‘ambulances’ to extent the coverage range. I could see this ship functioning more like a super walk-in clinic than a mobile ER. The TL 6 world has a class C starport and cities on four continents. So the SPA sends an Aid Station to cover the starport (providing ‘real’ TL 14 medical coverage to spacers and SPA personnel) while the ambulances function like helicopters do today – rushing critical patients from the local hospitals to the Aid Station half way around the world in minutes.
I could also imagine an Aid Station as the ‘local’ doctor in a belter community. The ambulances are always on alert for an emergency, but most of the calls are to shuttle kids with colds or broken arms to the Aid Station for treatment without shutting down the family claim to transport them.


Narrowing my choice down to one, I vote for number NINE (Viirdana class 100ton Type LB Lab Boat) as the ‘most inspirational’ design – with a jump drive, it is what the official ‘Lab Ship’ should have been.

 

[Spinward Scout]

So you DIDN'T have "a great time reading them",
but far-trader DID tell you "what he'd give me as a bribe"? :rofl:

Nah - just joking as to there being bribery involved. Is there? :devil: I did have a great time reading them.

TWO: Anodyne class Orbital Rescue Boat
This ship reminds me of a cross between a Red Cross Emergency response vehicle and a M.A.S.H. unit.

Funny you should say that. My first idea for the type of the ship was Mobile Aerospace Surgical Hospital instead of the Orbital Rescue Boat, but I decided against it. I'm thinking about working up 4 different designs for this and tying them to a Medical Tender with a Jump Drive - like the Battle Rider/Tender idea. The General Purpose version which I posted, a fully AutoDoc version, an Emergency Low Berth transport with no medical at all, and a surgical theatre version (much like the M*A*S*H operating room).

Just wondering, are we as designers voting now?

 

[far-trader]

...Just wondering, are we as designers voting now?

Check your PMs for a note from atpollard on the Designer's Choice Award voting (separate from the Popular Vote here open to all, including designers).

Not that voting means much (to me at least ). The feedback is what I look for.

That said though, there hasn't been much despite a lot of views. Come on people, if you read it say something Praise it, pan it (though constructive critique is better) or even just say hi. I really liked atpollard's full review. Good stuff there.

 

[veltyen]

Funny you should say that. My first idea for the type of the ship was Mobile Aerospace Surgical Hospital instead of the Orbital Rescue Boat, but I decided against it. I'm thinking about working up 4 different designs for this and tying them to a Medical Tender with a Jump Drive - like the Battle Rider/Tender idea. The General Purpose version which I posted, a fully AutoDoc version, an Emergency Low Berth transport with no medical at all, and a surgical theatre version (much like the M*A*S*H operating room)

One of my (admittedly extremely slow) design projects is replicating the current Australian navy in T20. Australian navy partly from jingoism, but also partly because there is a manageable number of types of ships.

One of these is the Canberra with the requirement of a fully equipped hospital. Admittedly at 30,000 dTon this is a little easier to fit on board.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Ok, I'm going to toss my vote out then. I'm going with veltyen's Sheepdog. That's some serious firepower there.

Everyone had excellent designs, tho!

 

[veltyen]

TEN: Sheepdog Class Mine Escort
My first thought when I read the description of this ship was “OK”. A ‘sheepdog’ herding 10 ‘sheep’ would be a fair military threat – light on maneuver but heavy on missile launchers.
It wasn’t until about the third time reading it that I realized “WOW”. Even if the ‘Sheepdog’ only serviced 1 ‘sheep’ per day, each ‘sheepdog’ COULD TEND OVER 200 ‘sheep’. That’s 200 triple turrets or the missile volley of a 20,000 ton warship in less than 2000 tons of ship served by a crew of three. If the crew can service three ‘sheep’ a day, then you can triple that firepower. Ten ‘Sheepdogs’ and 6000 ‘sheep’ able to throw volleys of 18,000 missiles at a time requiring only 61,000 tons of ‘ships’ and a crew of 30 represents an obstacle that I would probably choose to sail around, too.
Well done. You might want to add a little to the descriptive text to establish how many ‘sheep’ a ‘sheepdog’ can control and make clear how powerful this is as a defensive force.

How many they mines a single mine-tender can control is too dependent on the TU they are situated in, one of the reasons that I didn't make that call. IMTU they'd be in flocks of 36, split into 3 fire teams - a full array of ten to get to USP6, and a couple of spares for each group. That allows the 3 crew on the tender to designate for a team each, maximising the advantage of the massively superior sensors on the tender.

You may have also missed how tough the mines are. With AR16 the mines cannot destroy themselves except on a critical, USP6 missiles can only get through AR10 without a crit. Even a nuclear spread (11d6) bounces off AR16, with the potential for a single point of radiation damage from the (6d12) secondary effects. You need meson or fusion weaponry (or Spinals!) to reliably clear the minefield - which means you can have less to seal off an area such as a gas giant or other remote location. Conversely jump capable vessels are unlikely to have such a ridiculous amount of armour - and thus can fall prey to the return fire.

Anyway on to the analysis:

Most likely to use as a PC ship:
far-traders Luxury yacht and Itty Bitty Lab ship are a close tie. Depends on whether any of the PC's are wealthy nobles, or well funded academics.

Most likely to use as NPC ships:
Most of them. Some fit into concepts that I hadn't thought off, such as the SPA tug (atpollard) - and some of the takes on rescue/medical I also quite liked.

Original ideas that I might snaffle for use:
The Mobile shipyard - the concept of having the armour of a 600 dTon ship in geodesic take down panels to create temporary build space I felt was quite original and well reasoned.

Overall:

Hard choice to make. I have certain prejudices against leading edge tech (TL15 always feels like a cop-out, too easier to cram in everything you want. ) due to MTU issues which tends to run slightly behind leading edge.

I think in the end it is the SPA Harbour tug. Utilitarian, rugged, multi-purpose and well thought out.

 

[atpollard]

You may have also missed how tough the mines are.

Actually, no I caught that first time. My initial reaction was "oops, a typo. Armor is higher than TL." but then I remembered that the mines were buffered planetoids. I was not completely familiar with the details of the T20 starship combat system, but I had a feeling that they were a lot tougher than the ships they would be fighting.

At 1G, an attacker could risk running a gauntlet and just take the fire and zoom past.

 

[atpollard]

Designer's Choice

Sorry it took me a while to get to it. The voting was very close with most of the ships being selected by at least one of the four designers and no single overwhelming favorite. Each of the winners were chosen by two or three designers. Here are the results of the Designer's Choice award:

FOUR: SPA Harbor Tug **Designer's Choice

NINE: Viirdana class 100ton Type LB Lab Boat **Designer's Choice

TEN: Sheepdog Class Mine Escort **Designer's Choice

 

[Ranana_occutt]

Voting for the T20 Starship Design Contest

Now I can take that plane ride to England and have peace of mind. Who cares if I dive 30,000 thousand feet to a watery grave? Im in the EPILOGUE.

 

[Gray Lensman]

I give my vote to the Stone Pony.
I have always had a soft spot for 30 ton
modules and ways to use them