Starship Design

[Super Squirrel]

I don't have the Ultimate Vehicle and while it would be nice to have it, I don't really need it. I do, however, need some help with building a starship.

 

The type of ship, per Star Hero is a Small Exploration Starship. The ship is equipped with a minor weapon system, a cold fusion engine, a complex sensor system, a hyperspace drive, and a small medical facility. There are 4 confirmed crew members with the possibility of a fifth. I would also like to have enough room to accompany up to 10 people on the ship.

 

The players are also interested in doing some minor trading while they are on their exploration mission. I think this is very reasonable.

 

I was going to use the Star Hero merchant ship as an example, but it doesn't tell either the crew compliment or the cargo space in the ship. So that leaves me with the two questions I need to get addressed here:

 

First, what size should this ship be on the vehicle chart?

 

Second, how many hexes of space should be available in the cargo holds?

[Trebuchet]

Re: Starship Design

 

I don't have the Ultimate Vehicle and while it would be nice to have it, I don't really need it. I do, however, need some help with building a starship.

 

The type of ship, per Star Hero is a Small Exploration Starship. The ship is equipped with a minor weapon system, a cold fusion engine, a complex sensor system, a hyperspace drive, and a small medical facility. There are 4 confirmed crew members with the possibility of a fifth. I would also like to have enough room to accompany up to 10 people on the ship.

 

The players are also interested in doing some minor trading while they are on their exploration mission. I think this is very reasonable.

 

I was going to use the Star Hero merchant ship as an example, but it doesn't tell either the crew compliment or the cargo space in the ship. So that leaves me with the two questions I need to get addressed here:

 

First, what size should this ship be on the vehicle chart?

 

Second, how many hexes of space should be available in the cargo holds?

I recently designed a small starship for a complement of 10. It was a size 11, so I think you could make do with a size 12 or 13 ship. Almost the entire lower deck is cargo space. My ship is probably not quite large enough for your purposes, but it might give you some ideas or you might use a few less people.

 

I'd make about one third to one half of the ship cargo space, but that's just my own preference.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Starship Design

 

How did you make the graphic for the ship?

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Starship Design

 

Also, you list your ship as 24.4m x 12.4m x 6.4m in size. For Size 11, Lengths is 12.4m and width is 6.4m. How are you getting those dimensions?

[Trebuchet]

Re: Starship Design

 

Also' date=' you list your ship as 24.4m x 12.4m x 6.4m in size. For Size 11, Lengths is 12.4m and width is 6.4m. How are you getting those dimensions?[/quote']Size 11 is 12.7" long and 6.35" wide per Hero Designer. That's 25.4 meters long by 12.7 meters wide, or 80.65 square inches. If you calculate the area of "square inches" in an oval of that size you end up with the combined areas of the upper and lower decks being almost exactly 80 square inches. I don't have my notes available, but an area calculating website did the calculations for me since I'm functionally innumerate. That's how I came up with the interior volume of 907 m² as well.

 

I drew the ovals for the hull with Paint Shop Pro 7 and did most of the interior work with MS Paint pixel by pixel.

[MitchellS]

Re: Starship Design

 

My Class 6-A frigate is size 12 with 3 levels each 8" x 5". Of course this is a fighting ship but the third level can easily be used for cargo while the 1st and 2nd are for equipment and personnel. A large cargo plane is only size 10 after all.

[MitchellS]

Re: Starship Design

 

Size 11 is 12.7" long and 6.35" wide per Hero Designer. That's 25.4 meters long by 12.7 meters wide, or 80.65 square inches. If you calculate the area of "square inches" in an oval of that size you end up with the combined areas of the upper and lower decks being almost exactly 80 square inches. I don't have my notes available, but an area calculating website did the calculations for me since I'm functionally innumerate. That's how I came up with the interior volume of 907 m² as well.

 

I drew the ovals for the hull with Paint Shop Pro 7 and did most of the interior work with MS Paint pixel by pixel.

The confusion is from meters and inches. Size 11 is 25 meters by 13 meters. He's looking at 12.5 and 6.4 and thinking it's meters but it's inches.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Starship Design

 

The confusion is from meters and inches. Size 11 is 25 meters by 13 meters. He's looking at 12.5 and 6.4 and thinking it's meters but it's inches.

Actually no. I keep forgetting that 1" = 2m. Well, that explains it though.

[Christougher]

Re: Starship Design

 

Heh, I was gonna start a thread like this myself...

 

Confusion about dimensions aside, seeing Trebuchet's ship (cool) raises one nitpick / question about size and space. Specifically, the outer hull is paper-thin. Superhero level materials aside, how does / should outside dimensions translate to the inner dimensions? When you get up to the 200 AP size starships, is that size for a single deck, meaning I need to divide it up for multiple decks? If not, how many decks are free? Is there a guide to crew numbers per size class? What about AP-to-hexsize ratio for weapons / equipment? Santa wasn't nice enough to give me TUV or Star Hero, so if the answers are in there I'll have to find a copy.

 

I'm planning a Master of Orion game, limiting 'size' by AP total, but that makes handling miniaturization a bit tricky; it should be an advantage to take less space, but that means fewer devices, not more. And following strict advantage / limitations, an immobile, OCV 0 keel mount costs fewer AP than a 360 degree point defense turret.

[MitchellS]

Re: Starship Design

 

Heh, I was gonna start a thread like this myself...

 

Confusion about dimensions aside, seeing Trebuchet's ship (cool) raises one nitpick / question about size and space. Specifically, the outer hull is paper-thin. Superhero level materials aside, how does / should outside dimensions translate to the inner dimensions? When you get up to the 200 AP size starships, is that size for a single deck, meaning I need to divide it up for multiple decks? If not, how many decks are free? Is there a guide to crew numbers per size class? What about AP-to-hexsize ratio for weapons / equipment? Santa wasn't nice enough to give me TUV or Star Hero, so if the answers are in there I'll have to find a copy.

 

I'm planning a Master of Orion game, limiting 'size' by AP total, but that makes handling miniaturization a bit tricky; it should be an advantage to take less space, but that means fewer devices, not more. And following strict advantage / limitations, an immobile, OCV 0 keel mount costs fewer AP than a 360 degree point defense turret.

The basic rule form 5Er is that interior size is half of the total size of the ship. So about 50% of the ship goes toward engines, weapons, walls, and other equipment.

[Curufea]

Re: Starship Design

 

It depends on your genre of Star Hero too-

Is there lots of space debris that is likely to damage ships?

Do they have field techology that can compensate for thin hulls?

How much realism is there in your setting?

Do all ships use known travel areas that are clear of debris?

Do they use drives that have no velocity?

[Aroooo]

Re: Starship Design

 

The Icarus I designed for B5 might do you well too. Just convert the lab deck to cargo. You'd have to add in your hyperdrive of choice though, since it does not have one. (Stick it in the aft of the cargo/lab deck.)

 

As for deck plans, don't get too fixated on the dimensions/area/volume/mass. SIZE is one of the weak points of the Hero system. Not bad for buildings, but breaks down pretty quickly when dealing with vehicles. For simplicity, I use (generally) a 'deck heigh' of 2 inches. That times listed length and width give rough volume. Then divide by number of decks you want.

 

Aroooo

[JohnTaber]

Re: Starship Design

 

Hi Heroites: Sorry to interrupt this fine discussion but I thought I would mention that I worked on a Star Hero Starship vehicle export template for HD2 that you folks may want to check out. Go to the File Download page on my site (the URL is below my name) to get the file.

 

Carry on!

[AlHazred]

Re: Starship Design

 

I get a message that "the compressed (zipped) file is invalid or corrupt."

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Starship Design

 

Actually, spreading into the details of the ship, things get a bit more complicated.

 

Here is, roughly, how I have broken up the ship. I made it two "decks" tall.

 

Deck 1: Rear has the conventional drives and hyperspace drive.

Deck 1: Middle has cargo space.

Deck 1: Front has life support systems and the cold fusion reactor.

Deck 2: Rear has sensor/medical/communication labs and equipment.

Deck 2: Middle has crew quarters.

Deck 3: Front has Bridge.

 

Weapon systems are accessed in "wings" by climing through small crawl spaces. They must be manned to be used. The crawl space access is in the middle of Deck 1.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Starship Design

 

Heh, I was gonna start a thread like this myself...

 

Confusion about dimensions aside, seeing Trebuchet's ship (cool) raises one nitpick / question about size and space. Specifically, the outer hull is paper-thin. Superhero level materials aside, how does / should outside dimensions translate to the inner dimensions? When you get up to the 200 AP size starships, is that size for a single deck, meaning I need to divide it up for multiple decks? If not, how many decks are free? Is there a guide to crew numbers per size class? What about AP-to-hexsize ratio for weapons / equipment? Santa wasn't nice enough to give me TUV or Star Hero, so if the answers are in there I'll have to find a copy.

Actually, as it says in the writeup, the hull of my fictional ship is 20 cm thick, or nearly 8 inches. That's considerably thicker than the hull on modern warships and even deep sea submersibles even were I not using a rubber science hull material. My starship also includes Armor and a fairly substantial Force Field. And of course my ship is deliberately not intended as a warship but as a light research vehicle. It's not even lightly armed.

 

I'm not trying to sound defensive about my ship here (my starship was designed for a Silver Age superhero mileau and is not necessarily realistic enough for a Star Hero game); I'm just pointing out that in real life the hull of a starship does not necessarily need to be thick unless it's a warship. Depending on the tech level, armor can be a quarter of the ship's total mass (Honor Harrington) or a small fraction (Star Trek).

 

Chris, you're quite welcome to borrow my TUV. Just remind me and I'll give it to Jeff.

[Christougher]

Re: Starship Design

 

The basic rule form 5Er is that interior size is half of the total size of the ship. So about 50% of the ship goes toward engines' date=' weapons, walls, and other equipment.[/quote']

 

Yeah, but I kinda wanna play around with that some - have the option for overgrown engines at the expense of weapons, etcetera. Thanks go out to you, Aroooo (did I get the right number of o's?) and everyone else.

[Christougher]

Re: Starship Design

 

Actually, as it says in the writeup, the hull of my fictional ship is 20 cm thick, or nearly 8 inches. That's considerably thicker than the hull on modern warships and even deep sea submersibles even were I not using a rubber science hull material. My starship also includes Armor and a fairly substantial Force Field. And of course my ship is deliberately not intended as a warship but as a light research vehicle. It's not even lightly armed.

 

I'm not trying to sound defensive about my ship here (my starship was designed for a Silver Age superhero mileau and is not necessarily realistic enough for a Star Hero game); I'm just pointing out that in real life the hull of a starship does not necessarily need to be thick unless it's a warship. Depending on the tech level, armor can be a quarter of the ship's total mass (Honor Harrington) or a small fraction (Star Trek).

 

Chris, you're quite welcome to borrow my TUV. Just remind me and I'll give it to Jeff.

 

As a MoO game, yeah, they're all pretty much warships, even the unarmed ones. As for hull widths, I didn't know they were that thin... Preconceived notions and all. No need to feel defensive, not trying to be offensive.

 

Very generous of you to offer the book, I'll have to take advantage of it at some point. Speaking of seeing Jeff, what's the latest word on the Le Magister game?

[Trebuchet]

Re: Starship Design

 

As a MoO game, yeah, they're all pretty much warships, even the unarmed ones. As for hull widths, I didn't know they were that thin... Preconceived notions and all. No need to feel defensive, not trying to be offensive.

 

Very generous of you to offer the book, I'll have to take advantage of it at some point. Speaking of seeing Jeff, what's the latest word on the Le Magister game?

Although my players don't know it yet since they have a "commercial" scientific version of the ship, military versions of this basic hull design are often used by the shipbuilder's race for system defense, scouts, military couriers, special operations, and VIP transport. Thus with just a bit of minor modification my ship could easily be converted into a small system defense ship or scout:

 

1) Add extra armor over the main hull

 

2) Remove the front ramp and install a large spinal-mount weapon such as a graser, 100-cm laser array, or mass accelerator. A heavier fusion reactor or capacitors could be installed in the aft storage compartment for additional power for the weapon.

 

3) Add exterior "wings" for additional sensors and missile racks. (Even with this drive type, wings will work as long as they are latice-like in construction or made of substances which won't distort the antigravity drive field.)

 

4) Optionally replace the topside hatch with a small dorsal turret.

 

5) Additional electronic warfare equipment could be installed in the lab if desired for a scout or spec ops ship.

 

 

 

As to the Le Magister adventure, Loren has been too busy to finish his intended rebuild of Le Magister, and so to be honest I have little optimism we'll get to it before the spring, if at all.