No, that is not correct. (please reread B5 p 35 "Passengers" and "Staterooms".) Life support is explicitly included with the couch volume and the bridge (B5 p. 34), but not only is life support not mentioned with staterooms, passengers are required to have a couch and life support provided separately even if they have a stateroom. Ergo, small craft stateroom does not include life support. That much is explicit.
Agreed. So we can ignore it or find a spot for it, but the small craft stateroom example works against you.
Except by LBB2'81 as already quoted the bridge includes equipment for "operation" not mere "control"
Now there your rhetoric is slipping into sophistry. Of course the bridge doesn't include any other named system such as the power plant. The purpose of the broad language in the bridge definition is that it is a catchall for everything else a ship needs so a user doesn't have to engineer all of those niggling details. You actually acknowledge that the bridge is not merely "control" strictly construed in your prior posts. I quote:
So we agree there is more to the bridge volume than strict "control", but your limiting it to C3I and not the other operating equipment is unfounded.
Well, my intuition is to agree, but lets acknowledge that is a very big exception.
I agree.
Let's say we build a 199t ship and have one stateroom. Does that mean there is no life support/grav plates/acceleration compensation anywhere else in the ship? No corridors, no crew spaces, no accessways.
It makes a lot more sense for the basic life support etc for a ship to be included in the 'bridge' with the additional load taken by staterooms. The bare minimum for up to 20t is 4t, rising to a bare minimum of 20 tons for up to 1000t of ship, after which 2% becomes the overhead for controls, avionics, comms, sensors, basic hull life support and gravitics, airlocks, accessways, and of course the ship's locker
WY-0202201-000000-00000-0 MCr 24,8 75 Dton
bearing Crew=1
batteries TL=12
Cargo=50 Fuel=1,5 EP=1,5 Agility=2
Single Occupancy 50,3 24,8
USP # Dton Cost
Hull, Streamlined Custom 0 75
Configuration Cone 2 8,3
Manoeuvre D 2 1 3,8 2,6
Power Plant 2 1 4,5 13,5
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-0, 4 weeks 1,5
Bridge 1 15 0,4
Computer m/0 0 1
Couch
Cargo 50,3
Nominal Cost MCr 24,75 Sum: 50,3 24,8
Class Cost MCr 5,20 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 19,80WY-0202201-000000-00000-0 MCr 21,5 60 Dton
bearing Crew=1
batteries TL=12
Cargo=50 Fuel=1,2 EP=1,2 Agility=2
Single Occupancy 50,7 21,5
USP # Dton Cost
Hull, Streamlined Custom 0 60
Configuration Cone 2 6,6
Manoeuvre D 2 1 3 2,1
Power Plant 2 1 3,6 10,8
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-0, 4 weeks 1,2
Bridge
Computer m/1 0 1 1 2
Couch 1 0,5 0,0
Cargo 50,7
Nominal Cost MCr 21,53 Sum: 50,7 21,5
Class Cost MCr 4,52 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 17,22MT-47212R1-000000-00000-0 MCr 217 481 Dton
bearing Crew=5
batteries TL=12
Cargo=200 Fuel=105,8 EP=9,62 Agility=1
Single Occupancy 200,3 216,7
USP # Dton Cost
Hull, Unstreamlined Custom 4 481
Configuration Dispersed 7 24,1
Jump Drive 2 1 14,4 57,7
Manoeuvre D 1 1 9,6 14,4
Power Plant 2 1 28,9 86,6
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-2, 4 weeks 2 105,8
Purifier 1 6 0,0
Bridge 1 20 2,4
Computer m/1bis R 1 1 4
Staterooms 5 20 2,5
Cargo 200,3
Shuttle 75 Dton 1 75 25,0
Nominal Cost MCr 216,67 Sum: 200,3 216,7
Class Cost MCr 40,29 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 178,29MT-47212R1-000000-00000-0 MCr 205 459 Dton
bearing Crew=5
batteries TL=12
Cargo=200 Fuel=100,9 EP=9,18 Agility=1
Single Occupancy 200,5 204,9
USP # Dton Cost
Hull, Unstreamlined Custom 4 459
Configuration Dispersed 7 23,0
Jump Drive 2 1 13,8 55,1
Manoeuvre D 1 1 9,2 13,8
Power Plant 2 1 27,5 82,6
Fuel, #J, #weeks J-2, 4 weeks 2 101,0
Purifier 1 6 0,0
Bridge 1 20 2,3
Computer m/1bis R 1 1 4
Staterooms 5 20 2,5
Cargo 200,5
Shuttle 60 Dton 1 60 21,6
Nominal Cost MCr 204,87 Sum: 200,5 204,9
Class Cost MCr 38,51 Valid ≥0 ≥0
Ship Cost MCr 168,19If we care at all about capability or economy we are desperate to minimise non-payload tonnage.
OK, I guess you can read it like that; I never have. I assume the passengers only need one type of accommodation, either couches or staterooms.
Small craft are built under LBB5.
I assume that both LBB2 and LBB5 is basically correct at the same time.
Yes, I believe that is the core of the contention.
Agreed, CT is not even remotely that detailed.
Yes. Staterooms allow for greater than 24 hours of normal operations (>12 hr combat) by giving the passenger a place to sleep. That is there sole purpose.
No. The small craft bridge description explicitly includes life support.
I think you are getting confused, and this getting off track. The bridge definition you are referring to and I was pointing out changed in B2'81 was the ship bridge definition. The small craft definition is different and appears on B5 p34 and does not have "control" language at all.
No more than you are. Do you say some include C3I but some only have controls? Of course not. These documents are written by gamers not lawyers. We both are assuming that B2 and B5 refer to same stuff, and we look to all sources to figure out what it is. We both "assume that both LBB2 and LBB5 is basically correct at the same time."
Up thread I did explicitly include fuel/water/sewage pumps as part of bridge. Fuel pump could be part of the drives though instead. Perhaps landing gear as some posters suggest, I'm just not sure that isn't included in the hull or particularly material. They should also should scale directly with volume, not be fixed. Also back to the Mike-inspired small craft exercise, small craft will have landing regardless of adding a bridge. I walked through my bridge component ideas and rationales in my 2nd post in this thread. It's based on filling the ship operating components that are materially different than small craft. Just a thought experiment/ brainstorming exercise.
You could rule that, but I'd say all bets are off if we push our design that far from its intended use case in the rules. Traveller is clearly human-centric.
Are you able time quantify that at all? From rules or real world examples? And recall it is volume not surface area that we have to fill up. I just don't know, but we did broadcast TV from the moon in the 60s and the entire vessel was less than 0.5 dt.
Would they? As soon as you add 1 person, you need a bunch of systems to keep them alive. It's not obvious that the volume required scales linearly with people other than water and CO2 removal, and that may not be a large of volume depending on how fast the far future reclamation cycle is. Most everything else scales more with volume and operations than headcount. I interpret the rules as saying, there is a lot of overhead required to set up for your first person, and it's not until the ship gets very large that you need to grow these systems at all.
I agreed with that sentiment at the get go, but life support is not akin to the revised description of staterooms - corridors, portals, galleys, recreation - its operating equipment not human space.
I would certainly disagree. The difference between hours of life support (couches) and weeks of life support (staterooms) is the difference between a bit of bottled water and air and a head, and full water and air recycling with full galleys and bathrooms, it's not just a bed...
Yes, the bridge contains two couches consequently short term life support for two people.
Not confused, just a bit too concise apparently.
OK, robots and automated ships are not defined, certainly not in LBB2 or LBB5.
It's a basic principle:
That was done with tiny transmitters and huge, very sensitive receivers back on earth. Spacecraft communicating with each other don't have that luxury. They have to transmit more power to be heard by the smaller-than-several-radio-telescope-sized sensors on the other ship. Communicators only need squared more power to increase range (only 102=100 timed more power to increase range 10 times), so it's not even nearly as bad as active sensors.
As ship sizes, and hence crew sizes, grow the need for inter-crew communication and control will grow exponentially. In effect one engineer will just work, but 100 engineers will mostly send each other paperwork to avoid doing the same work over and over, and to make sure all work gets done.
The volumes processed are vastly different and requires vastly different scale of machinery. The only reason for volume to dominate would be that the ship leaks like a sieve, which I certainly hope they don't by default.
OK, we disagree, and will continue to disagree, so let's just agree to disagree?
I was making the comparison for the size of workstations, for those rules that specify workstations. Even doubling that space for access would still be much smaller. 2 dT is as large as the non-master bedrooms in my house. And, by the way, the B2 is about the same space per crewman as I describe and doesn't have a bed to take a nap the way other bombers and cargo planes do (or can be made do). They've run 33 hour missions in B2s.
But still no locker in RAW. It says that what you put in the locker is optional, but doesn't say the locker is in bridge tonnage. And no airlock. And no computer (specifically separate for CT). For the RAW lawyers out there. Even with all that thrown in, the CT minimum 20 dT is too large. The later version 10 dT minimum is probably still too large.
M brother served on a boomer, the Alexander Hamilton (built around 1961). It would be approximately 500 dT and had a crew of 112 (give or take). What kind of wimpy life support tech does Traveller have?
I spec'ed out LS that is independent of staterooms so that you could fill your hold with people. But you have to have the LS equip to handle the numbers. Remember though that on a nuke you don't recycle air or water...Yeah, I read that up thread, but it's not quite what I have been writing about. The Beltstrike rules are about life support supplies and consumables, and what I am contemplating is the volume of life support equipment and if it should be part of the bridge tonnage. So if Beltsrtrike tells us the volume taken up by "food, air and water... C02 absorbers, and so on" we still need to consider the equipment to go with those supplies: ventilation fans/valves/shafts, clean and reclamation water tanks, with plumbing and pumps; vacuum pumps. And then you need monitoring equipment and controls for each system.
Funny thing, I use my house to visualize these volumes too. The walk-in closet in my master is almost exactly 1 dt. You certainly could fit 4 people working on a bench in that space, so I'm not going to argue about cockpit sizes. But I think we are imagining different use cases. I picture a room where the ship is operated and serves as the CIC, and the crew are in it for weeks at a time, yet need to routinely access other parts of the vessel as well (because Traveller crews are so small.) Perhaps the bridge volume should also include that "sea cabin" for the captain and/or bunk for crew naps.
Right, but RAW don't say what tonnage the locker comes from. Personally I am waivering on the lockers. My first reaction was not including them either (see my first post in this thread) but other posters' comments and the Mike-inspired-thought experiment has me reconsidering: the ships locker (and EVA locker to my mind) is something that every ship has but a small craft 4 dt bridge doesn't. Ergo, it could be bridge tonnage.
Why not? The rules don't say that, its critical operating equipment, and the bridge tonnage includes all the operating equipment the ship needs. It works for me.
So you and I have different purposes in posting. Of course you can rag on the rules. Lots of posters at CoTI (and elsewhere) do that. I choose to live with rules as much as possible and craft a plausible story around them. But of course I have plenty of my own house rules. After all, as a departed friend used to say, "it has to make sense."
