Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

[Al_Beddow]

I'm trying to draw up some basic floor plans for various starships from TE and the Spacers Toolkit.

 

One problem I'm having is figuring out how much space/volume things like bridges, fuel, sheild generators, engines, etc. take up.

 

I've searched through Star Hero, TE, the Toolkit and haven't found anything. This is kind of important because the players in my TE game want to run a merc/merchant/smuggling campaign and so I need some idea of how the ship is laid out.

 

Thanks

[Talon]

There basically isn't any info on this in official products (I recall a couple vague guidelines in different areas). You're pretty much on your own for deciding what makes sense for your campaign.

[Sociotard]

Star Hero is just too broad for this kind of thing. It was meant for general scifi, and space-allotment is too genre-specific.

 

For example, almost all the volume and mass of the space shuttle is (at takeoff) taken by fuel and engines. The Enterprise? more like an eighth.

 

You're on the right track though. I remember my old starwars campaign. One of our great frustrations was having the cash to buy the spiffy new Ion Cannon, but that meant sacrificing cargo room, and the Gnolaum Olea just wouldn't be profitable without cargo room

 

I'd be interested in seeing what rules of thumb other gamers use.

[Starwolf]

According to TUV pg 8, assume that height = width. Then apply the formula of height x width x length = volume. This gives a rough approximate total volume. How much space each system uses, such as bridge, crew quarters, engine room, and cargo, is up to the GM and is totally your call.

 

I hope this helps.....

[McCoy]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

Originally posted by Al_Beddow

I'm trying to draw up some basic floor plans for various starships from TE and the Spacers Toolkit.

 

One problem I'm having is figuring out how much space/volume things like bridges, fuel, sheild generators, engines, etc. take up.

 

I've searched through Star Hero, TE, the Toolkit and haven't found anything. This is kind of important because the players in my TE game want to run a merc/merchant/smuggling campaign and so I need some idea of how the ship is laid out.

 

Thanks

For the Bridge I personally would figure how many work stations are there, then allow 1 hex for each station. Allow an extra 10-20% for people to come and go without bumping into those on duty. Remember the stairs/turbolift/whatever, and put a head accessable from the bridge so those on a 15 minute break don't have to wait for a freaking elevator to take a leak.

 

Other equiptment? Adapt a guideline from Escape From Stronghold (2nd edition? 1981). In that, special cells were constructed and the equiptment that gave the cells their powers took up room based on the real cost.

Real Pts Spent: Hexes Filled

10: 0

20: 1

30: 2

40: 4

50: 6

60: 9

70: 12

80: 16

90: 20

100: 25

 

Personally, I would base it on Active points rather than Real points, and feel free to adjust the numbers (rule of thumb, the higher the tech level, the smaller the machines). Gives you a place to start.

[shadowcat1313]

I was rummaging through the old playtest draft from the Red October site, which went into the kind of detail your looking for

[shadowcat1313]

I worked up a hull size table based on displacement tons/hexes.

would reposting it help?

its also on the starhero fandom site

[Aroooo]

Re: Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

Originally posted by McCoy

For the Bridge I personally would figure how many work stations are there, then allow 1 hex for each station. Allow an extra 10-20% for people to come and go without bumping into those on duty. Remember the stairs/turbolift/whatever, and put a head accessable from the bridge so those on a 15 minute break don't have to wait for a freaking elevator to take a leak.

 

Other equiptment? Adapt a guideline from Escape From Stronghold (2nd edition? 1981). In that, special cells were constructed and the equiptment that gave the cells their powers took up room based on the real cost.

Real Pts Spent: Hexes Filled

10: 0

20: 1

30: 2

40: 4

50: 6

60: 9

70: 12

80: 16

90: 20

100: 25

 

Personally, I would base it on Active points rather than Real points, and feel free to adjust the numbers (rule of thumb, the higher the tech level, the smaller the machines). Gives you a place to start.

 

Don't forget to take tech levels into account. Aside from the fact that some things will require a minimum amount of space (a toaster has to be at least as big as a slice of bread) a higher tech level toaster will be smaller than a lower tech toaster.

 

Aroooo

[Talon]

It's definitely a complex issue, and one that would take a decent amount of text to cover thoroughly. On one hand, I can see why they didn't address it in Terran Empire -- in many games it's just a background thing, it's not like this is SFB where starship construction is in the forefront. On the other hand, it is something that a lot of players like to do or think about, and some attention to the issue would have been nice.

[shadowcat1313]

Traveller, GURPS Traveller and GURPS Space, along with Space Opera have gone into lots of detail on the subject, so

taking a page from one of those systems might be a good start

 

how much interest is there in putting together a more detailed set of modules etc? extrapolating should be easy enough, and I have a stack of reference stuff here thats quite extensive.

 

for example, a standard passenger stateroom, which provides sleeping arrangements for 2, a fresher, and other amenities

takes up 4 displacement tons. this figure is pretty much standard in Traveller, GURPS, and Space Opera actually

 

GURPS has a bunkroom module that can in a pinch support up to 16, that also takes up 4 displacement tons, but is more for troop transport than anything else.

[McCoy]

So what's a displacement ton in cubic meters? Or hexes?

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

a Displacement ton is 13.5 cubic meters

so heres my chart that I use, its not perfect

 

Traveller/Hero Starship Hull Chart:

 

 

Hull Size:[DT] Size: STR: Body: DCV: =

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

[Starwolf]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

Thanks for the chart, only one question for those of us that are mathematically challenged if a displacment ton is 13.5 cubic meters how many hexes is that?

[Al_Beddow]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

For the Bridge I personally would figure how many work stations are there, then allow 1 hex for each station.

...

Gives you a place to start.

 

Thanks... thats a great idea.

 

I appreciate everyone's input on this. Lots of good ideas here.

 

I remember all the neat stuff in GURPS: Space and Traveller. I figured SH was too broad to cover it. I saw in TE how for the drive it's volume went down 1d6% for every 10 years since it was introduced etc. and thought there might be more about other systems that I just didn't see.

 

Anyone willing to either post or e-mail me info, their home rules, etc. please feel free to do so. I welcome all help.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

1 displacement ton= 2 hexes

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

I went sifting through the old Star Hero playtest draft thats still on the Red October site, heres what the ideas at that time were

 

 

CREW AND PASSENGERS

Mass and space are required for all passengers and crew. The

numbers below take into account people, accommodations, facili-

ties, and space.

Seating Space for short flights:

Crew (Includes controls and Acceleration couches): .5 Ton ea, 1

CuHex per 6 People

Passengers (Seated): .25 Ton, 1 CuHex per 9 people

Living Quarters for long flights:

Crew (Includes controls and Acceleration couches): 1 Ton, 3 CuHex

Each

Passengers (Low Passage): .5 Ton, 1 CuHex each

Passengers (Medium Passage): 1 Ton, 2 CuHex each

Passengers (First Class): 2 Ton, 4 CuHex each

Passengers (Luxury): 3 Ton, 10 CuHex each

 

whats interesting is the paragraph below it

REQUIRED CREW

again this was the unused playtest draft for 2nd edition, but there was the intent to reference there, and it gives us a starting point for doing volume configurations.

I know its not Hero canon for the usual reasons etc... but it does give us something to work from... and some ideas of where to borrow from

 

a note to Ben and Steve etc... if there are any issues with borrowing from this old playtest draft for ideas etc... please tell me before I cause problems

I know its 3rd or 4th edition material, but there are some great ideas that can help with the disscussion underway

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

oh great, I tried to post the paragraph exactly from the text and it apparently stripped the html that was part of the paragraph

 

which said REQUIRED CREW

and in brackets below, crib from gurps space

[Old Man]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

Previous Hero System products (I think Cyber Hero) defined objects as having a particular size depending on their AP. So something that did 2d6K, 30 active points, would have a standard size around that of a rifle, doubling in size for every 10 AP or so, so a 4d6K plasma cannon's 'natural' size would be about 8 meters long. Then you could buy +1/4 "half size" advantages to reduce the size. Of course pretty soon the advantage cost cancels out the advantage, so there would be an effective minimum size for anything.

 

This... really didn't work for human-sized stuff, but for starship components it might work better. You will still probably have to define different size baselines for weapons, movement powers, defenses, etc.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

depends on the system your converting from etc...

 

for instance, a standard traveller beam laser takes up 1 displacement ton of space or 2 SH Hexes, if you do a straight conversion

BUT... the way it comes out in SH, its considerably bigger, I worked it out as 270 Active Points, which is going to be 9 hexes in size if I am reading your post correctly, so to get it back down to the 1 hex size your going to need to buy 4 levels of size reduction... or am I completely out in left field on this one?

 

to use another example, this one taken from the GURPS Traveller Starships book... which is a great source for ideas etc...

 

a basic starship bridge which has 5 crewstations and takes 5 DT/10 Hexes

a DT being roughly 13.5 or 14 Cubic Meters depending on which version you use, but I call it 2 just to keep things neat

[Aroooo]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

BUT... the way it comes out in SH' date=' its considerably bigger, I worked it out as 270 Active Points, which is going to be 9 hexes in size if I am reading your post correctly, so to get it back down to the 1 hex size your going to need to buy 4 levels of size reduction... or am I completely out in left field on this one?t[/quote']

 

Here's the real question: How much of that laser is outside the ship, where size does not matter (for deck plans anyhow:)). For the Traveller deck plans, I remember the 1 hex (1 disp. ton) requirement as the crew station. They never really mapped turret/bay space.

 

Its all objective/subjective. As much as I too would like something more concrete, I don't think there's ever going to be an accurate way of doing it.

 

Aroooo

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

you can fit 3 single space weapons in a turret, thats an unmanned turret

with a remote gunnery station, and that assumes the entire turret is outside the ship, with an extra ton for the gunnery station inside the ship itself

 

one gunnery station can technically controll a battery of up to 10 turrets

assuming all of the same type.

 

mixed turrets are an option on small vessels[under 1,000 DT]

otherwise all 3 weapons in a turret must be of the same type

 

there are also 1 and 2 space turrets available

all still require the gunnery station per battery

 

there are 5 space turrets also, but those are only for small particle accelerators

 

some heavy lasers and early graser weapons are fitted as single mounts in a 3 space turret

 

also there are some light gatling PD Laser mounts that can fitted 4 to a standard 3 space turret, but those arent traveller canon

[Al_Beddow]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

Man I really love this.. .So many good ideas and such.

 

GURPS:Traveller has been mentioned. I did enjoy the "G:Space" and G:T method for creating a starship (at least as to how much can fit into a specific displacement hull, etc.) Of course, HERO is a truly universal system where you can build everything for a setting without having the end result be "standardized" to one setting. This allows say a "hyberdrive" in "Al's no-name scifi game" to be very diff in size and space from a Terran Empire Hyberdrive.

 

Since I am running a TE campaign, I would like to maybe work with some folks on some guidelines for "how much system X takes up", the way the one system is in the TE setting book (I think it's for drives).

 

Anyone interested in this idea?

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

count me in on this project, it just might be a week or so before I can devote much time to it, I am working on a project for QLI Interactive dealing with Traveller D20.

[Aroooo]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

I'll help where/when I can. It would make a great addition to the starherofandom site too.

 

Aroooo

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Starship design - How much space does THAT take up?

 

now we just have to figure out where to start, since the question has come out on control stations/bridges etc... how about we start there