Designing Deckplans

[mancerbear]

Hi All,

I'll admit, I'm a noobie when it comes to drawing Deckplans, and I'll be doing them old school with pen and paper. Having admitted this, I'm now going to say that I have no idea of where to start. I know that the squares on a map equate to 1.5m X 1.5m X ? Meters, but how many dtons does one grid square take up please?

I'd also be open to any other assistance that may be out there.

Thanks in advance.

 

[madmike]

One displacement tonne (dT) is two deck grid squares 2 x (1.5m x 1.5m) horizontally AND vertically.

The overall deck height of a ship being three metres.

The AutoCAD image below I did a while back should help you.

To answer your question exactly one plan grid square therefore displaces half a tonne.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

The usable deck height out of a single deck is only 2.5 meters; the extra half-meter is saved for cabling, conduits, vents, and so on. Personally, I like to think that between two decks the half-meters combine into a single “Jeffries Tube” about 0.75 meters high; only just high enough to crawl through and work in.

You can use a program like SketchUp to give you a 3D estimate of the physical shape of your ship, and that should give you some idea of how much room there is for full height decks, and where you should hide the shape of the hull with fuel and funny-shaped equipment.

 

[madmike]

The deck to overhead height has no bearing on how a displacement tonne is calculated.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

No, no it doesn’t, but understanding how the third dimension plays out in deck plans is important to making the shape of a ship fit the deck plan, and vice-versa.

It also has considerable bearing on whether this or that part of the volume will have the requisite connections to the systems of the ship, and whether there will be the required access to maintain and repair equipment.

 

[madmike]

Mancerbear.

My advice as a very experienced ship and deck plan designer is to just have a go, have fun and enjoy the process.

Concentrate on ensuring the plans work within the designed tonnage of the ship give or take 10% and follows the tonnage requirements for components such as staterooms, bridge or a drive. Enjoy your project.

A deck plan is a representative layout of the ship design presented and the diagram I posted earlier will help you visualise how tonnage works vertically and horizontally.

What ship are you intending to create deck plans of?

 

[mancerbear]

Mancerbear.

What ship are you intending to create deck plans of?

My first ship will be the type CF Fast Courier from Golden Age Starships 1. It has plans in it, but they aren't the best in my eye, and a little off kilter, so want to give them a go. Eventually would like to commission one of the 3D artists on here to build her up for me.

 

[madmike]

Mancerbear.

What ship are you intending to create deck plans of?

My first ship will be the type CF Fast Courier from Golden Age Starships 1. It has plans in it, but they aren't the best in my eye, and a little off kilter, so want to give them a go. Eventually would like to commission one of the 3D artists on here to build her up for me.

Excellent

Sounds a great project.

Feel free to contact me if you need some deck plan layout assistance or have questions.

 

[mancerbear]

Thanks Mike

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I know that the squares on a map equate to 1.5m X 1.5m X ? Meters, but how many dtons does one grid square take up please?

In 2D, one square takes up 1/2 of a dTon. In 3D, one cube takes up 1/4 of a dTon. There are some videos on YouTube about it.

 

[Condottiere]

Using standard measurements simplifies design, though if you know the thickness of the hull and basic floor with and without artificial gravity and inertial compensaors, you have more leeway.

 

[nats]

As long as you make your plans twice the number of squares as the tonnage of the ship you will be fine - so a 100 ton Scout ship will have 200 squares. But note that fuel also requires tonnage and fuel may be in areas less that 3m high like wings so an aerodynamic ship with wings etc may be quite a bit larger in plan that a 100 ton 3m high box. The trick is to use two or three accommodation floors in the centre of the ship where it will be thickest and then fuel etc in areas near the edge which might be only 1-2m thick.

Once you start using Sketchup, ArchiCAD or 3dsmax to design your ships in 3d you will realise how boxy most old ship designs where they haven't taken into account the narrowing hulls at the edges to create lift and make the ship look 'sleek'. But the best designs allow a certain 'artistic license' - for example the designs in the old Traders and Gunboats book were some of the best I have seen in terms of character and creativity but if done properly in 3d they probably wouldnt look much like the images that portray them. Good designers and artists dont worry too much about that tough - unless you are designing something for real life like I do in which case its got to work properly!

 

[mancerbear]

If everything goes to plan today, I'll pick some graph paper and give it a go tonight after work and gym. Thanks for all your input everyone

 

[mancerbear]

I will admit my maths is weak.

Having said that, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out how many dt a sphere of 10 squares diameter (5 squares radius) would be, please (15 meters diameter or 7.5 meter radius)?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Punch some values into this http://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/geometry-solids/sphere.php

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Having said that, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out how many dt a sphere of 10 squares diameter (5 squares radius) would be, please (15 meters diameter or 7.5 meter radius)?

V = π * r^3 * 4 / 3

V ≈ 3,14 * 7,5^3 * 4 / 3 ≈ 1767,14 m3 ≈ 126,2 dT


The other way around becomes:

r = ( V / π * 3 / 4 )^(1/3)
or
r = ( dT * 14 / π * 3 / 4 )^(1/3)

So a 200 dT ship:

r ≈ ( 200 * 14 / 3,14 * 3 / 4 ) ^ ( 0,333 ) ≈ 668,45 ^ 0,333 ≈ 8,75 m


Don't worry to much about the squares, they are for convenience, not to absolutely rule your design.

 

[mancerbear]

All I managed tonight was a few rough calculations. Still, it's a start

 

[MongooseMatt]

Just to chip in here, the new High Guard will include a step-by-step guide to creating deck plans!

 

[mancerbear]

Just to chip in here, the new High Guard will include a step-by-step guide to creating deck plans!

Thanks for that Matt I was going to get the new High Guard regardless, but this nee info is fantastic. Thanks

 

[middenface]

One thing I do is draw the shape of each deck 'roughly' or at least how many decks I think I need..
You can do this by doodling the ship image and getting a rough idea of the height.

With each deck workout the area - then if the total area matches the tonnage then Bob's your uncle.
Though I tend to allow for the hull shape - I keep that in mind with each deck. Like I have said your building a deck for a game and not the actual vessel building blueprints.
If you can do that great, not sure I could or would want to... that way lies madness and unusuable plans. But yes keep in mind the ship shape and the fact you can have high decks for the cargo bay for example.

If you can use sketchup up, you can save yourself work.
The free version is fine.

Two things I use - Excel sheet or Pen and Paper and Sketchup
Design the ship in Excel add two extra columns or one if your Excel fu is good and with one column. 1st extra column is x2 the tonnage and the next is x2.25 the column next to it. (this is the area > see below) (or type '=(CELL*2)*2.25'
For example a 200 ship is 400 squares and an area (in square metres) of 900

1. Draw Guides matching the grids of squared paper. I do it at 1.5m size. Draw a guide and copy+Move 1.5m then type x50 - it will repeat 50 times (or whatever you do)
Do this for the x and y axes or red and green is how I think it.
2. Select all these guides (Ctrl>A), group and then 'Lock'. Very important you do that. You can get the group and lock options by right clicking the selection. Remember this you will use that a lot..
3. This is optional - add a layer and work on that.
4. Ok, draw the ship decks.. Now you could scan and import the ship image and work from that. Even do it with a side and top image as reference.
Now if you had already built the ship in SU - you could even work from that... (Or even build and slice the ship into layers>decks...)
5. With one of the deck right click it and select (right click) the shape/deck you created (not the lines) and select 'Entity Info'
This will give you the area in square meters (see above) so NO NEED TO KEEP COUNTING FIDDLY SQUARES!
6. Scaling and added bits to fit the correct area size for ship you can do easy.
7. I tend to track each deack size in excel - then you can work out the area over each deck.
8. My own safe rule is to be correct within or over about 10% of the actual Tonnage.
9. If you are really good build the actual ship from the skethup flat deck images - and that is usually what I do - so my models general fits the actual plans or close enough.
10. You can transfer what you have one to paper from there.. or print it out.