Excel Ship Designer v2025.05.03d

[Arkathan]

Follow up here, the official designs often use Cabin Space instead of Staterooms for crew spaces. So why doesn't cabin space count towards crew? The rules in High Guard only explicitly exclude Acceleration seats and benches and low berths. Cabin Space, unlike acceleration seats and benches, includes a life support cost and while the description says 'usually' only used for short trips but doesn't exclude long term use as it's explicitly mentioned it's for use in longer interplanetary distances.

Cabin space counts for crew on small ships over short hauls. Cabin space does not provide extended life support. Life support is paid for via staterooms. You can use cabin space to accommodate crew, BUT if they are stuck in a detached module in space, and someone doesn't come along to refresh the canned air, the crew will die.
Been a while, let me check on that and come back to it.

 

[mavikfelna]

This is what I get trying to do it.
And @Geir, I agree, the rules say it needs a bridge, but and official design disagrees with that and I'm trying to reconcile it.

 

[Terry Mixon]

"All ships must have a bridge that contains basic controls, communications equipment, avionics, scanners, detectors, sensors and other equipment for proper operation of the ship." HG'22 p. 19.

So still need to account for all the basic controls, pilot or not. But you could argue (though the rules don't support this) that a cockpit at 1.5 tons would cover all non-crewed ship sizes - with bigger sensors being another cost altogether. So small bridge on ships larger than 50 dtons - with a penalty, all of which gives you an 'advantage' for having a crew. Traveller is about people, after all. Though you could play a robot.

Those rules were pre Robot Handbook, so hopefully will change in the next update. If one can have fully autonamous vehicles, then one can have fully autonomous spacecraft. The requirement for human control spaces smells more like a regulation than a requirement after Robots.

In the meantime, robots are people, too!

 

[mavikfelna]

Cabin space counts for crew on small ships over short hauls. Cabin space does not provide extended life support. Life support is paid for via staterooms. You can use cabin space to accommodate crew, BUT if they are stuck in a detached module in space, and someone doesn't come along to refresh the canned air, the crew will die.
Been a while, let me check on that and come back to it.

In High Guard, Cabin Space does have a Life Support cost listed so it should be handled the same as Stateroom Life Support.

 

[mavikfelna]

Cabin space counts for crew on small ships over short hauls. Cabin space does not provide extended life support. Life support is paid for via staterooms. You can use cabin space to accommodate crew, BUT if they are stuck in a detached module in space, and someone doesn't come along to refresh the canned air, the crew will die.
Been a while, let me check on that and come back to it.

Now if they would just work out how it actually affects morale we could probably figure how long you could actually use it. Like, do you suffer fatigue per week or month or what?

 

[Terry Mixon]

This is what I get trying to do it.
And @Geir, I agree, the rules say it needs a bridge, but and official design disagrees with that and I'm trying to reconcile it.

This kind of thing and the existing pod cruisers (currently listed for sale as part of the Charted Space Universe, so a valid design) make designing ships with only the rules as written challenging sometimes. My opinion is that if a published ship in the line violates the build rules, that aspect is now open for use.

 

[Arkathan]

Putting in a robot brain still requires a cockpit or bridge to not throw an error. And it's still throwing up a cost of 200KCr for the cockpit that was removed.

You need virtual crew before the Drone Ship option becomes active

 

[Arkathan]

Now if they would just work out how it actually affects morale we could probably figure how long you could actually use it. Like, do you suffer fatigue per week or month or what?

That should be doable late summer or fall.

 

[Terry Mixon]

That should be doable late summer or fall.

Probably by November.

 

[mavikfelna]

You need virtual crew before the Drone Ship option becomes active

Thank you! Just found it

 

[Arkathan]

In High Guard, Cabin Space does have a Life Support cost listed so it should be handled the same as Stateroom Life Support.

The sheet is handling it correctly, as of 2025.05.01a

 

[Arkathan]

Probably by November.

<<< Hopelessly optimistic... or impatient.

 

[Terry Mixon]

<<< Hopelessly optimistic... or impatient.

The latter.

 

[mavikfelna]

Pods currently do that, use the discounts of modules, and don't require a new spreadsheet.
Pods also don't complain about power plants, like modules do. Another case of authors making illegal designs.

Ok, I'm working on my first pod design and the first thing that jumps out is it's not costed as a module, it's paying full ship cost for hull and allowing full hull options. It's also charging for full power of the hull, which modules don't do now. It doesn't allow any control space besides no bridge and computers are fully greyed out. It's asking for at least basic sensors but other than the red box it's not throwing an error on the page but is showing it on the summary.

 

[mavikfelna]

Ok, I'm working on my first pod design and the first thing that jumps out is it's not costed as a module, it's paying full ship cost for hull and allowing full hull options. It's also charging for full power of the hull, which modules don't do now. It doesn't allow any control space besides no bridge and computers are fully greyed out. It's asking for at least basic sensors but other than the red box it's not throwing an error on the page but is showing it on the summary.

Changing it to a module the powerplant throws an error but the hull costs and what not are correct.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Ok, I'm working on my first pod design and the first thing that jumps out is it's not costed as a module, it's paying full ship cost for hull and allowing full hull options. It's also charging for full power of the hull, which modules don't do now. It doesn't allow any control space besides no bridge and computers are fully greyed out. It's asking for at least basic sensors but other than the red box it's not throwing an error on the page but is showing it on the summary.

A pod is fully exposed to space, so it should be paying full cost and need full hull power. It should allow for control spaces as published examples have small bridges and specialist control centers. I'd imagine they could have standard bridges as well. They have restrictions on what they can control in the book, but they do have them. Several examples have a computer, so those should be allowed as well. One has an advanced sensor suite, so they have those, too. In all, the only thing that do not have are maneuver drives and jump drives.

The published pods.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The last pod.

 

[Arkathan]

Ok, I'm working on my first pod design and the first thing that jumps out is it's not costed as a module, it's paying full ship cost for hull and allowing full hull options. It's also charging for full power of the hull, which modules don't do now. It doesn't allow any control space besides no bridge and computers are fully greyed out. It's asking for at least basic sensors but other than the red box it's not throwing an error on the page but is showing it on the summary.

Didn't realize I'd done it... probably in response to the illegal designs, but there is a checkbox on the Computer tab that allows computers for modules.
Pods cannot have bridges, but you can give it an aux con and then convert it into a Specialist Command Center.
Edit: The aux con can be a standard bridge.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Didn't realize I'd done it... probably in response to the illegal designs, but there is a checkbox on the Computer tab that allows computers for modules.
Pods cannot have bridges, but you can give it an aux con and then convert it into a Specialist Command Center.
Edit: The aux con can be a standard bridge.

Pods can and do have bridges. Check the published examples above. Pods can have everything but drives, it seems.

Now I see your edit, so I think my comment might not be needed, but I'll make it anyway.

 

[mavikfelna]

Didn't realize I'd done it... probably in response to the illegal designs, but there is a checkbox on the Computer tab that allows computers for modules.
Pods cannot have bridges, but you can give it an aux con and then convert it into a Specialist Command Center.
Edit: The aux con can be a standard bridge.

Since there are official module designs that have power plants, see Cold Passenger module in the Small Craft Catalogue fo my immediate concern, can we at least get a toggle on that page like on the computer page? That, along with this new knowledge about the computer page, solves most of my current problems with module redesigns of the official stuff.
Thank you for all the support and interaction. I appreciate you taking the time to address my many questions.