Spaceship Size...

[Kraven Kor]

OK I'm starting to make ships en masse for my campaign.

I'm having trouble deciding on scale.

For instance, the ship I intend the players to use, I want to be a little bit bigger than say Serenity or the Millenium Falcon. But, not so big that it requires an extensive crew.

I want it to be big enough to dock a single fighter craft in, big enough to haul a fair amount of goods. Big enough to house the 5 players, a 9-man Marine Squad (with Space Armor and Gear), and a handful of NPC crewman.

I went with size 15 -- 64 Meters by 32 Meters (512" Area), 3.3 kton. That sound right? I figure size 8 for a small space fighter, so 25" taken up there. Figure 3" per person, 10" for captain's quarters, so 70" crew quarters. 15" bridge, 100" cargo bay. 175" of 512" taken, figure that leaves more than enough space for engines and the other "filler."

Or is that "too big?" Can someone give me some realistic size comparisons, I don't have books handy.

[megaplayboy]

I don't know that there's a "too big" category for these things:)

It sounds like you couldn't make it too much smaller without straining credibility a bit.

[Kraven Kor]

No, there is "too big." Vehicle size 100, for instance, shows as:

Length: 10,822,639,409.68"
Width: 5,411,319,704.84"
Area: 58,564,761,895,989,570,000"

I'm going to toss around some Big Frakin' Ships, but nothing like that. Even size 50 is too big, that is 200km long. I'm thinking all but my biggest space stations will only measure in tens of kilometers, and biggest ships being a few kilometers long.

So, I'm thinking that Size 35 will be the "campaign limit" -- 6502 Meters long, 2351 Meters Wide.

- Again, though, I don't have books handy and could really use some real life / pop-fiction comparisons. How big is a Star Destroyer? How big is Serenity? How big is the Space Shuttle or, better yet, an Aircraft Carrier?

[megaplayboy]

One of my pet peeves about HD is that the base and vehicle sizes are kept in hexes, even at a point where hex sizes are unwieldy and hard to read.

the biggest real world vehicles are about 400m long or so--supertanker ships.

In fiction, the super star destroyer was about 19km long, and The Eclipse from the novels was supposed to be twice as long.

But your size limit sounds just fine.:)

[austenandrews]

"Too big" is very milieu-specific. A size that's huge and slow in Star Wars might be nimble in B5 or Andromeda. The Nostromo's refinery in Alien was almost a mile long, but was serviced by a minimal crew.

It really depends on how much cargo you want to carry. What you've described is not very big in terms of bulk cargo (like a small warehouse) but if you're dealing more with quality than quantity of goods, it ought to be sufficient.

[austenandrews]

- Again, though, I don't have books handy and could really use some real life / pop-fiction comparisons. How big is a Star Destroyer? How big is Serenity? How big is the Space Shuttle or, better yet, an Aircraft Carrier?
It's all here. (http://www.merzo.net/)

[BlackSword]

Here is a 747 Freighter:

Basic Dimensions
Wing Span 211 ft 5 in (64.4 m)
Overall Length 231 ft 10 in (70.6 m)
Tail Height 63 ft 8 in (19.4 m)
Interior Cabin Width 20 ft (6.1 m)

The internal volume is enough to hold 32 LD-1 containers.

And the exterior view.

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/747family/pf/pf_exterior.html

Similar views are available for the external view of most fighter craft, which would tell you how large a hanger you need to store that craft.

Info on the shuttle.

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/hsfe_shuttle/facts.html

Typically I draw out the vehicle first and then determine the size. For a non-military ship (ie no bunk rooms) I give most crew a 3"x3" room with a 1.5"x3" Jack and Jill bathroom between the rooms. Also need a generic room for relaxing, a mess room, and depending on time in space a place to exercise. Pick out a ratio of size of ship to engines to determine how much of the ship is required for fuel/propulsion.

[LoresLost]

While Looking at aircraft is interesting for a 'realistic' space ship, I would say look at actual cargo ships.

A Handymax bulk carrier is about 180m long, 32m wide and 16m hight (middrift (11m draft)) (info found at http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~mbbinp/Facilities/TDShips.html)
add 30m, 10m, 10m superstructure and you have the size for a 'realistic' freigher. (total area of 190m x 32m approx.) average crew of 10 - 15.

You could go Star Trek and have large fully automated bulk carriers, but where is the fun in that....

[Kraven Kor]

Huge help! Thanks!

[BlackSword]

While Looking at aircraft is interesting for a 'realistic' space ship, I would say look at actual cargo ships.

I use it as a size comparison. But then I also work across the street from an airport and no where near a major port. :) I threw out what I knew, the information on cargo ships is handy.

[Kraven Kor]

OK, according to this (http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/fa18/fa18cd3v.htm) the F/A-18 Hornet is 17.1m long, 12.3m wide. Or, about "Size 9" (8" x 4", 32" Area) which is a good size for a small fighter craft.

I'm going to bump the player's ship to 18; 64" x 32" (2048" Area.) 128 Meters long. Roughly the size of a Klingon Bird of Prey, or about twice as large as the Space Shuttle.

[Outsider]

That is the thing to remember about the HERO vehicle sizes... they measure deck space, and dont really define how tall a 'deck' is.

An old submarine might have ceilings 6 and a fraction feet from the floors (1 hex decks) such that those moving about its decks tend to have to be aware of their lack of headspace much of the time. Star Trek & Star Wars ships, on the other hand, seem to have a bit more space. 8-9 foot ceilings (1.5 hexes per deck

Which would make that Handymax Bulk Carrier about size 22, despite being only 90 hexes long...

[Kraven Kor]

I'm going with pretty Vorkosigan-esque ships. They will be cramped, living spaces minimal. Space will always be at a premium.

6~8 foot ceilings, with lots of stuff accessible only via crawlspaces.

Now, I was going to assume that about 60% of the ship's "hexes" were to be filled with engines, reactor, etc. So, with size 18, 2048 hexes, 418.4 or so "usable" Hexes. At least 32" for the fighter (figure an even 50 for the "fighter bay"), 100" cargo hold, 70" for crew quarters, and the rest divided up between Mess, Showers/Restrooms, Exercise Room, Bridge, Tactical, Engine Room, etc.

Are you saying each vehicle should be bought only with the "usable" hexes? In other words, my first guess at size 15 would be better?

Or should I buy up the size to reflect the actual size of the ship?

[shadowcat1313]

some spaceships from fiction have actual dimensions given, and you can figure size in hexes by volume

the old Galactica came out at size 27 by this system

[Outsider]

You should buy based on the actual size, not just the crew accessible space. I think HERO tells you to assume ~50% of the space is inaccessible/machinery.

[LoresLost]

I use it as a size comparison. But then I also work across the street from an airport and no where near a major port. I threw out what I knew, the information on cargo ships is handy.

Just trying to be informative(EDIT: and helpful). Here is a ship wathcher site from England http://www.solentwaters.co.uk/ Has general port and ship information.

Also a quick note Handymax is size / insurance class for a small bulk carring ship . This is different from a cargo container ship which can fit 2000+ 20ft x 8ft x 8ft containers (or approx 6m x 2.5m x 2.5m) (Edited Math error)
EDIT:
For a quick size comparisen <sp> a PanaMax size container ship (Name for being the max size for going through the Panama Canal) is 294.1m long 32.2m wide and and a draft of 12m and carries approx 4000 20ftx8ftx8ft containers (Stacked 34 x 12 x 10 containers or 680 ft x 96 ft x 80 ft which is approx 208m x 30m x 26m or 162240 cubic meters (Trivia Question: Can anyone give me the Traveller ton displacement of that?) of Cargo space.

[shadowcat1313]

I worked out a size chart based on volume in Displacement tons for Traveller Hero, theres no reason it cant be used for anything else


A Traveller displacement ton is 14 cubic meters in volume and roughly 2 hero hexes, so if you have traveller deck plans you can just multiply the traveller squares by 2 and go from there. Traveller and Space Opera have always gone with decks 2.5 meters in height. Battletech seems to use decks that are a lot taller.

so for example we will borrow a Dropship from Battletech, the Leopard just because the tech readout gives the dimensions right in the book

You have a:
length of 65.5 Meters
Width of 51.6 Meters
Height of 22.4 meters

for a total volume of 75707.52 cubic meters
dividing this by 14 gives you a displacement tonnage of 5407.68

now I use the following chart to determine the hull size:
Traveller/Hero Starship Hull Chart:


Hull Size:[DT] Size: STR: Body: DCV: NOTES:
1 5 35 15 -3
2 7 45 17 -4
3 8 50 18 -5
5 9 55 19 -6
10 10 60 20 -6
15 11 65 21 -7
20 12 70 22 -8
50 14 80 24 -9
100 15 85 25 -10
200 17 95 27 -11
400 18 100 28 -12
600 19 105 29 -12
800 20 110 30 -13
1,200 21 115 31 -14
2,000 22 120 32 -14
3,000 23 125 33 -14
5,000 24 130 34 -16
8,000 25 135 35 -16
10,000 25 135 35 -16
20,000 27 145 37 -18
30,000 28 150 38 -18
50,000 29 155 39 -19
60,000 29 155 39 -19
75,000 30 160 40 -20
100,000 30 160 40 -20
200,000 32 170 42 -20
300,000 33 175 ` 43 -21
500,000 34 180 44 -22
1,000,000 35 185 45 -22

its not perfect, but it works for my purposes:

and gives the Leopard a size rating of 22
which seems really big, but then again I figure the tall decks are due to having to move tall battlemechs around

I have another table cobbled from Fire Fusion and Steel first edition which would allow extrapolating a ships rough tonnage based just on length, and the ships hull type.


these figures arent near perfect, and not being all that great at math, I'm sure theres an error or two somewhere in here, do let me know if somebody finds one

[shadowcat1313]

one useful oddball bit of trivia, the interior of a 40 foot semi trailer measures 168 cubic meters, or 12 displacement tons of space

I found this while working a loading dock and one of the trailers had this measurement on the wall in a corner

[bigdamnhero]

As it happens, I went through Jane's sometime back comparing sizes of modern warships. Amazingly, I even found my notes! Note that most of these ships tend to be among the largest ships of their class, so "typical" sizes may be 10%-50% smaller.

Nimitz-class CVN Aircraft Carrier (USA)
Displacement: 100,000 tons
Length: 335m
Width: 76m
Height: 12m
Volume: 301,488 cubic meters
Crew: 3000 (not including air wing)

Iowa-class Battleship (USA - WWII era)
Displacement: 57,540 tons
Length: 266m
Width: 32m
Height: 11m
Volume: 98,287 cubic meters
Crew: 2500 (crews are generally much smaller on modern boats thanks to more automation)

Typhoon-class SSBN Ballistic Missile Sub (Russia)
Displacement: 33,800 tons
Length: 172m
Width: 23m
Height: 11m
Volume: 44,084 cubic meters
Crew: 160

Wasp-class amphibious assault ship (USA)
Displacement: 40,530 tons
Length: 257m
Width: 43m
Height: 8m
Volume: 87,894 cubic meters
Crew: 1146

Kirov-class Battlecruiser (Russia)
Displacement: 26,000 tons
Length: 251m
Width: 29m
Height: 10m
Volume: 73,740 cubic meters
Crew: 710

Ticonderoga-class Aegis Missile Defense Cruiser (USA)
Displacement: 9,466 tons
Length: 173m
Width: 17m
Height: 10m
Volume: 27,992 cubic meters
Crew: 387

Seawolf-class SSN Attack Sub (USA)
Displacement: 9,300 tons
Length: 108m
Width: 12m
Height: 11m
Volume: 13,687 cubic meters
Crew: 134

Spruance-class DD Destroyer (USA)
Displacement: 9,250 tons
Length: 172m
Width: 17m
Height: 9m
Volume: 25,218 cubic meters
Crew: 330

...and on the other end of things:

NR-1 Research Submarine (USA)
Displacement: 372 tons
Length: 42m
Width: 4m
Height: 5m
Volume: 687 cubic meters
Crew: 12

Island-class USCG patrol boat (USA)
Displacement: 163 tons
Length: 34m
Width: 6m
Height: 2m
Volume: 472 cubic meters
Crew: 17

[Edit: I'm using straight LxWxH for volume here. Unless we're talking about Borg Cubes, actual volume will be somewhat less than that. But it's close enough for my purposes.]

[Zeropoint]

Those figures don't look right to me. The figure of 12m for the height of a Nimitz-class carrier works out to about 39.4 feet, which is way too small. Deck spacing, as I recall it, is about eight feet (headroom is a lot less, thanks to pipes and ducts), which would mean only five decks!

That figure is about spot-on for the draft of a Nimitz-class carrier, though. Is it possible that you, or your source, has confused height and draft?

I'm having a little trouble finding information on keel-to-flight-deck height. I'll let you know if I find it.

[Kraven Kor]

Holy Forum Necromancy, Batman!

Guess it isn't a big deal - had collected those links for easy reference :D

[Zeropoint]

Oh, wow. I saw this thread near the top of the list and didn't look at the dates at all! I assumed it was recent!