Alien Wars spaceship construction

[Captain Obvious]

I've been playing around with the ships in Alien Wars trying to deduce some sort of constants that can be expanded into a more general ship construction system (I'm really only worrying about volume now...price isn't an issue for primarily military vehicles). I think I've worked up some values for the Sting fighter that I like, and am now working on the Antarctic class light cruiser.

 

My current problem is that all of the larger ship writeups reference escape pods, which as far as I can tell are detailed in Terran Empire (which I don't have). Would anyone be so kind as to shoot me details on the size of the standard escape pod, so I can make some progress?

 

If I ever make any real progress on this, I'll post it here.

[Jhaierr]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

The Escape Pod listed in Terran Empire has a Size of 3, giving it a 1x2 hex size, or 2m x 4m (8 square meters). I hope that helps! Let me know if you need any more information.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

we worked out the size= displacement issue for Traveller Hero, its in the book, if your doing deck plans, 2 hero hexes=1 displacement ton

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

for example, a 100 displacement ton hull comes out at size 15

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

we worked out the size= displacement issue for Traveller Hero' date=' its in the book, if your doing deck plans, 2 hero hexes=1 displacement ton[/quote']

 

Thanks. Deck plans might be something I work out later, but for now, I'm just going for an abstract make-it-all-fit-in-the-space-available construction scheme, but this is the obvious next step, and it'll be helpful to know.

 

Now, I've got to figure out how big the hyperdrives are going to be. I figure I'll make the lasers about the same size as modern ship's guns doing the same dice of damage, and the turrets about the same size as the ones those guns go in. I just gotta get all the right books in the same place and make time to do it...which I thought I'd have this week. I'm taking the week off, but I've gotten calls from work every single day so far, and even spent most of Monday running around doing work stuff.

[Sepia]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

...which I thought I'd have this week. I'm taking the week off' date=' but I've gotten calls from work every single day so far, and even spent most of Monday running around doing work stuff. [/quote']

 

Ah, to be on vacation...last time I took vacation I was called into the office as well, but I made them pay me regular time for the day instead of vacation time. Good luck with your week off and hope to see more on your ship construction.

 

Sepia

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

for example' date=' a 100 displacement ton hull comes out at size 15[/quote']

 

I'm confused now. (Nothing new there....)

 

A 100 d-ton hull should be around 1350 to 1400 cubic meters, but my Hero Designer software puts SIZE 15 at around 65,000 cubic meters. Did you do something different in Traveller Hero?

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

heres what we used for various tonnages in TH:

 

800 DT= 20

60,000= 29

400= 16

200=15

100=14

600=17

500,000=34

 

ok, so I was half awake when I made that initial post

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

one set of notes I had on DT/Size conversions

 

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

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

Does Terran Empire have the stats for various kinds of starship lasers? Alien Wars has Mark I starship lasers on several ships, and Mark IVs on the Liberty-class. Are Mark II and III detailed anywhere?

 

I probably ought to get Terran Empire...

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

lasers and plasma weapons both, and a couple of other weapons... if you want the tech stuff... your going to want Spacers Tool Kit instead or also.

 

I am not a big fan of the ships in Spacers Tool Kit, a lot of useful designs... but not enough detail on the designs themselves, the weapons designs are pretty straightforward.. but no real variety

some ships use particle beam weapons instead of lasers, but they are just lasers with a different name.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

Actually, I do have Spacer's Toolkit (but not Terran Empire...go figure). It doesn't have Mark II or III lasers in it anywhere either. It's got up to Mark XX (or maybe a little higher) but there were other gaps in the series besides the II-III skip. I was wondering if maybe I shouldn't stat some up.

 

Either way, I'll probably assign them a volume for now and worry about their game stats later. Just for completeness' sake.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

Heh heh...well, the Centauri-class battleship is significantly bigger than the Antarctic-class. I thought I had everything all figured out...what I have now scales well from the Sting fighter to the Antarctic-class, although life on the Antarctic-class is very spartan. But I'm nowhere near filling up the Centauri-class. I'm going to have to work out some new formulas for scaling propulsion systems and stuff, I guess.

 

Here are the formulas I'm using right now:

 

Chemical rockets - (Max Flight (in hexes) x SPD x Size^3)/5000 cubic meters

Fuel - (Max Flight (in hexes) x SPD x Size^3 x hours of fuel)/150,000 cubic meters

Class Beta Hyperdrive - Size x 100

 

Maintenance access to each of these systems takes up more space, and this works out well for the fighter and the Antarctic, but once you move up to that Size 20 battleship, it's not that significant. Does anyone have any suggestions? Because unless I alter these formulas in a way that doesn't change the smaller ships much, I'm going to have to put a couple of football fields in the battleship to take up room.

[Escafarc]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

Larger ships would have redundant systems so you could include them in the volume each system takes up by increasing it.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

one suggestion... see if you can obtain or borrow a copy of Fire, Fusion, And Steel... the first edition for Traveller the New Era. it has a lot of useful stuff in it on vehicle and starship design, and it doesnt just work for traveller, DTRPG has it iirc

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

yes, get the TNE edition, DTRPG does have it

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

the first table in Fire, Fusion, and Steel might prove the most useful for this discussion

 

heres an example of it:

DT:

100

 

Volume:

1400

 

Length:

14

Length is modified by the hull configuration

lets call this a streamlined needle hull which using the table following it, gives it a *3 length multiplier

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

one suggestion... see if you can obtain or borrow a copy of Fire' date=' Fusion, And Steel... the first edition for Traveller the New Era. it has a lot of useful stuff in it on vehicle and starship design, and it doesnt just work for traveller, DTRPG has it iirc[/quote']

 

I think I'll do that, simply because I've always heard good things about FF&S. I don't know if it'll work for this though...GURPS Vehicles actually worked out pretty close to my eyeballing/guesswork on the Sting, but in order to make the Antarctic accelerate as fast as it's supposed to (assuming GURPS Tech Level 10...seems to be about the right level for Alien Wars), the engines would need to be bigger than the entire ship's supposed size, and that's not even accounting for the fuel for them... And that's assuming fusion engines instead of chemical engines, because the chem engines stop progressing after TL 8 or so.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

my reasoning behind this was, if you know the Displacement tonnage and hull configuration, you can then extrapolate the length... and then use the size table in Hero based on length as an option

DTRPG has it for 10.00 in PDF, good luck finding it in hard copy sadly, and the T4 version of FF&S isnt worth lining a bird cage with. T4 had some decent writing, but no real playtesting and very little proofreading...

I helped playtest Imperial Squadrons and Pocket Empires actually, and all our work on playtesting was completely ignored

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

100 ton base hull with a length of 14 meters comes out as a size 9 hull, volume is low at 1,024m3, after you change the length to 42m, it comes out as a size 13 hull, with 16,384m3. this is using rough figures for a Type S Scout Courier

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

FF&S is mine. Now cruel fate mocks me, as it's time to leave for this 5K Run/Walk my wife signed us up for...

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

if theres anything else I can help with on this project, let me know, I have a pretty good library of stuff on RPG spacecraft design here. Including a mostly complete set of Traveller and a complete set of Space Opera, and a bunch of GURPS Traveller

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

check around on the web, there used to be a couple of Excel Spreadsheets to aid with FF&S design in general, if you cant find them, I can go digging in my archives for them, they were unofficial of course

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

I am off to work at this point, and working 12 hours, so I wont be on til late tonight, there are some websites out there with FF&S ship designs.. there all traveller designs, but might be good for idea mining etc

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Alien Wars spaceship construction

 

100 ton base hull with a length of 14 meters comes out as a size 9 hull' date=' volume is low at 1,024m3, after you change the length to 42m, it comes out as a size 13 hull, with 16,384m3. this is using rough figures for a Type S Scout Courier[/quote']

 

Nothing good will come of this, but here it is anyway: (FWIW, I've used the original FF&S extensively.)

 

The hull length modifier doesn't change the hull's volume. It's just a guideline for design factors dependent on the ship's length, like spinal mounts (if the ship has one) and making floor plans. But a 100 dTon hull, whether it's a sphere or a needle, still has a volume of 1400 cubic meters.

 

But if you multiply its length times three, then go to the Hero vehicle table and pick a SIZE based on its new length, you're effectively multiplying all of its dimensions by three and picking a volume at least 10 times too large. (It would be 27 times to large, but the Hero vehicle table has an inherent "length factor" in FF&S terms, due to the fact that it doesn't assume spherical hulls.) The result: a 16384 / 1400 cubic meters = 11.7 times larger than the "canon" scout courier.

 

Length =/= Volume.

 

There aren't any rules for different hull configurations in the Hero system vehicle rules, so doing this conversion in FF&S doesn't translate to Hero. The most accurate way to do this would be converting to Hero in terms of the ship's volume, multiply the Hero length by 0.8 (rounded) to get a spherical hull length, then applying the FF&S hull length configuration to get the final length.

 

Now I'll stop ranting like an old-school Traveller purist.