Airlocks/ship's lockers & corridors/passageways in deckp

[BP]

I’m with you on this post – about the issues, not necessarily the proposed solutions.

Finally, a leeway of plus or minus 10% to 20% should be allowed. If the final deck plans come within 20% of the tonnage specifications, then they should be considered acceptable.

.. a planetoid must allow 20% waste space (tonnage) for structural integrity..

Personally I aim for 3~5% – after (and during) the deckplans, adjust the cost and tonnage. This means that the deckplans and specs become a dynamic thing as many items are specified by % of tonnage.
--> Of course, I’m anal. And a diehard for my ‘version’ of reality.

One of my own personal tricks is to use the ‘headroom’ – 3 meters is a tall ceiling… have only visited subs (WWII era/70’s) and don’t recall any 9’ ceilings in most areas - but lots of things to bang into!
In other words, I design off the 2 square ~= 1 dton, but calculate off the 14 cubic meters ~= 1 ton. I do not apply this to cargo space however.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonnage - looks like the OTU isn’t the only reality with these problems! <not that I ever trust wikipedia – article might have been written by a Traveller diehard!>

Thanks for the topic and don't stop posting on it. FYI proposing 'standards' typically results in flack and negative feedback - just stating the problem and your solution is better for getting good input and kudos. (Not that I’m telling you what to do )


P.S. Regards the case of the 90ton cutter – the airlock could be a sealable door and pumping with a collapsible docking tube – therefore ‘integral’ to hull.

 

[GypsyComet]

FYI proposing 'standards' typically results in flack and negative feedback - just stating the problem and your solution is better for getting good input and kudos. (Not that I’m telling you what to do )

Because expecting a small body of technical standards across thousands of years, three serial empires with significant interregnum periods, multiple alien races (some of whom pride themselves on having no such standards or who will accept no external standards, not to mention coming in a variety of sizes), and several hundred shipyards seperated by months of communications time, the needs of their (often eccentric)customers, and other local factors, is ludicrous.

Standardize for yourself. Make that standardization YOUR bit of TU. Imposing it on others is not ever going to be received well, but if you state what *you* do, others who like it might emulate it.

Example: A series of ships I've done are all stated to come from the same Admiralty contract, and have a number of things in common, including one or more 20 dton capacity external grapples on every ship, in addition to the needs of their assigned subcraft, so that courier Gigs always have a place to park when visiting a ship. This 2 dton feature is, in the context of a 2000 dton ship, pretty trivial, but it provides color.

 

[simonh]

I've looked at a large number of the published Traveller deckplans over the years and have found that staterooms rarely account for the dtons used by the passageways.

Most of the designs I've seen for Traveller over the years allocate from 4 to 6 squares to the staterooms themselves, leaving 2 to 4 squares free for coridoors and the like.

Please provide the page number or numbers in either the Core Rulebook or High Guard that states implicitly that hull size is only in 100-dton increments. I've read through the rules and seem to have missed that information.

There are several places in the design sequences that sepcify what size hulls you can use, in each place the only options given are in 100 dTon increments or increments that are divisible evenly by 100 dTons (I think the TMB says something like 'select a hull size from the table' and the table only has specific hull sizes on it). They don't say explicitly you can't have say a 255 dTon hull, they just don't ever give you the option to choose one. Also if you were to use a hull that isn't on the charts the drives required for it would be undefined, because it's doesn't say anywhere whether you should use the drive sizes for the next highest, or next lowest, or nearest sized hull on the lookup tables. Sorry, no books to hand to check page numbers.


Simon Hibbs

 

[AndrewW]

One of my own personal tricks is to use the ‘headroom’ – 3 meters is a tall ceiling… have only visited subs (WWII era/70’s) and don’t recall any 9’ ceilings in most areas - but lots of things to bang into!
In other words, I design off the 2 square ~= 1 dton, but calculate off the 14 cubic meters ~= 1 ton. I do not apply this to cargo space however.

It's not all headroom though. Still have flooring and likely piping/electrical and the like running through the space as well.

 

[BP]

True - but consider 3 meters ~ 9.84 feet and normal ceiling is ~8 ft so leaving some (10 inches) for hull/floor/ceiling and utilities and dropping down to 2.7 meters you save 10% - or put another way = 40 more squares in a 200 ton ship!

Besides 1 metric ton of liquid H2 is about 14.3 cubic meters or ~10% more than the 3x3x1.5 double square. My squares stay 1.5 m per side, but my dtons is calculated rather than square counted.

Hey - I'm close to the 20% leeway (though I leave my cargo at 3 meter depths).

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello simonh,

Thank you for the reply to my request for a page number detailing that MgT hulls can only be in increments of 100-dtons in the core rulebook. I've done some review and found this text under the Drive Costs table on HgT page 107 states

any tonnage which exceeds a listed level should be read at the next higher level.

My interpretation is that there can be hull tonnages between the standard ones listed and that they require drives listed for the next higher dtons.

At some point I'm going to have to unpack the deckplans I've got and recheck the stateroom + passageway sharing since my recall is different. I've taken a quick look at the Serpent Class Scout Ship from the Besf of the JTAS Volume 1 and I'm not sure which recall of stateroom + passageway dtons is correct.

Again thanks for the reply.

I've looked at a large number of the published Traveller deckplans over the years and have found that staterooms rarely account for the dtons used by the passageways.

Most of the designs I've seen for Traveller over the years allocate from 4 to 6 squares to the staterooms themselves, leaving 2 to 4 squares free for coridoors and the like.

Please provide the page number or numbers in either the Core Rulebook or High Guard that states implicitly that hull size is only in 100-dton increments. I've read through the rules and seem to have missed that information.

There are several places in the design sequences that sepcify what size hulls you can use, in each place the only options given are in 100 dTon increments or increments that are divisible evenly by 100 dTons (I think the TMB says something like 'select a hull size from the table' and the table only has specific hull sizes on it). They don't say explicitly you can't have say a 255 dTon hull, they just don't ever give you the option to choose one. Also if you were to use a hull that isn't on the charts the drives required for it would be undefined, because it's doesn't say anywhere whether you should use the drive sizes for the next highest, or next lowest, or nearest sized hull on the lookup tables. Sorry, no books to hand to check page numbers.


Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

Hello simonh,

Thank you for the reply to my request for a page number detailing that MgT hulls can only be in increments of 100-dtons in the core rulebook. I've done some review and found this text under the Drive Costs table on HgT page 107 states

any tonnage which exceeds a listed level should be read at the next higher level.

Ah... In the capital ships design sequence? They have much broader hull size categories in that part of the design sequence. Interesting, thanks.

Simon

 

[AndrewW]

Hello simonh,

Thank you for the reply to my request for a page number detailing that MgT hulls can only be in increments of 100-dtons in the core rulebook. I've done some review and found this text under the Drive Costs table on HgT page 107 states

any tonnage which exceeds a listed level should be read at the next higher level.

Ah... In the capital ships design sequence? They have much broader hull size categories in that part of the design sequence. Interesting, thanks.

Simon

Nope, that's from the Traveller Core Rulebook.

 

[phild]

Building on this, has anyone created a Ship Mass/Drive formula or table, to replace the Displacement/Drive table? Personally I'd love that little bit of extra realism!

 

[Infojunky]

Building on this, has anyone created a Ship Mass/Drive formula or table, to replace the Displacement/Drive table? Personally I'd love that little bit of extra realism!

The standard drive generally produce 200 tons of effect per letter code.

 

[simonh]

Building on this, has anyone created a Ship Mass/Drive formula or table, to replace the Displacement/Drive table? Personally I'd love that little bit of extra realism!

The capital ship design sequence in HG defines drives by percentage of hull size, but for smaller ships you get better bang/buck from the tables.

Simon Hibbs

 

[GypsyComet]

Building on this, has anyone created a Ship Mass/Drive formula or table, to replace the Displacement/Drive table? Personally I'd love that little bit of extra realism!

The capital ship design sequence in HG defines drives by percentage of hull size, but for smaller ships you get better bang/buck from the tables.

Simon Hibbs

That was true of CT. It isn't true of MGT, at least for volume. Maneuver and Jump drives in the basic MGT table attain the "capital ship" percentages seen in MGT High Guard right at 2000 tons, but lose scale efficiency as the hull gets smaller and gradually take a higher and higher percentage of the hull volume. The one exception is the 1G drive, which takes about the same percentage of the ship's volume regardless.

As for the original question, you would need to determine masses for all components that we currently have only volumes for, then rate Maneuver and possibly Jump drives in mass capacities. Its doable, and has been done before (TNE and GT had mass-rated M-Drives, and MT and T4 also include mass data), but it isn't necessarily a "little bit" of extra realism.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello simonh,

Oops, and thank you AndrewW for catching the missing "Core Rulebook". I swear that the web gremlins are out to get me.;-)

Hello simonh,

Thank you for the reply to my request for a page number detailing that MgT hulls can only be in increments of 100-dtons in the core rulebook. I've done some review and found this text under the Drive Costs table on HgT page 107 states

any tonnage which exceeds a listed level should be read at the next higher level.

Ah... In the capital ships design sequence? They have much broader hull size categories in that part of the design sequence. Interesting, thanks.

Simon

 

[snrdg121408]

Howdy GypsyComet,

I recall that someone, about 10 years ago, posted something like this I think over on the CT: Starships board. I also seem to recall that one of Christopher Thrash's articles covered a similar topic. I'm not sure if it was on the GURPS JTAS board, Traveller Downport, or maybe Freelance Traveller. If I stumble across the link I'll post it here.

Building on this, has anyone created a Ship Mass/Drive formula or table, to replace the Displacement/Drive table? Personally I'd love that little bit of extra realism!

The capital ship design sequence in HG defines drives by percentage of hull size, but for smaller ships you get better bang/buck from the tables.

Simon Hibbs

That was true of CT. It isn't true of MGT, at least for volume. Maneuver and Jump drives in the basic MGT table attain the "capital ship" percentages seen in MGT High Guard right at 2000 tons, but lose scale efficiency as the hull gets smaller and gradually take a higher and higher percentage of the hull volume. The one exception is the 1G drive, which takes about the same percentage of the ship's volume regardless.

As for the original question, you would need to determine masses for all components that we currently have only volumes for, then rate Maneuver and possibly Jump drives in mass capacities. Its doable, and has been done before (TNE and GT had mass-rated M-Drives, and MT and T4 also include mass data), but it isn't necessarily a "little bit" of extra realism.

 

[Zowy]

I have a TL 12 Jump-3 Scout/Courier IMTU. It has a 130 dTON hull and class B drives. Jump fuel use is 13 dTons per parsec.

It is not as common as the TL 11 Jump-2 Scout/Courier, as drive cost is higher. It's main use, is to link up important worlds to the X-Boat network. Without the need to deploy X-Boat tenders in more than 8 or so systems per sub-sector.

 

[BP]

Always thought their should be at least 2 standard X-Boat designs to acommodate areas of longer jump requirements. Kinda like a USPS mail carrier's vehicle versus a USPS delivery truck (though for range rather than cargo)

 

[GypsyComet]

Howdy GypsyComet,

I recall that someone, about 10 years ago, posted something like this I think over on the CT: Starships board. I also seem to recall that one of Christopher Thrash's articles covered a similar topic. I'm not sure if it was on the GURPS JTAS board, Traveller Downport, or maybe Freelance Traveller. If I stumble across the link I'll post it here.

My point is that going mass-based for drives leads down a slippery slope. If you are driven to go that route, you will be rewriting the game extensively before too long. It stops being a hobby at that point. The Traveller community is littered with people who use the lens of reality too often and lose their way.

 

[BP]

Mass based vs. displacement might be appropriate to a video game - but probably not as enjoyable for a tabletop RPG.

Ship drive based on mass would mean a lot of data for calculating mass even to do a table lookup, plus if the goal was to be more 'realistic', then a lot of calculating based on cargo, remaining fuel, gravity ... and of course one can pick different materials to substantially change mass...

So making it workable for 'realism' would mean substantially limiting materials and designs. As an alternate system, ok, but hinders compatibility with published material (also ok if that is not an issue for you).

 

[phild]

Would it be that difficult to create a rough n ready system though?

Hull weighs X per Tonne displacement
Occupied space weighs extra Y per Tonne displacement
Empty space weighs nothing extra
Fuel weighs 1 per Tonne displacement

Wouldnt make much difference to most ships, but would give larger freighters some options around dumping cargo and/or jump fuel in order to speed away from attackers

 

[snrdg121408]

Evening GypsyComet,

Sorry for the long delay in getting back to the forums. I've been working on the deck plans for a Mongoose Traveller Core Rulebook and mgT HG ship.

I'm still looking for the articles and thier links but so far no luck. AS I mentioned I think the articles nay have done something similar to the original question about mass versus volume. I'm perfectly happy with volume . Of course as this topic noted I do have some small volume accounting issues with the design sequences :lol: .

As always thank you for the reply.

My point is that going mass-based for drives leads down a slippery slope. If you are driven to go that route, you will be rewriting the game extensively before too long. It stops being a hobby at that point. The Traveller community is littered with people who use the lens of reality too often and lose their way.