High Guard Stateroom Proposal

[ottarrus]

So, one of my biggest complaints about High Guard is the use of 'barrack' accommodation spaces for ship's troops.
To be clear, the definition of 'ship's troops' are those Army Protected Forces or Marines assigned to a Naval vessel as part of the ship's complement. They act as guards, masters-at-arms, raiding troops, and so forth. These are NOT carried or transported troops [that is to say troops transported to their deployment zone and dropped off]. You might see photos of WWII soldiers being shipped to the UK stacked 6 high in a converted cargo space aboard a freighter. Those troops are CARGO... they are only aboard from one port to the next.
Ship's Troops require just as much personal space, hygiene facilities, training space, and maintenance space as spacehands do. They require MORE space if they're equipped with battle dress and/or vehicles, especially if you account for the percentage of cargo space reserved for spare parts etc.
Furthermore, troops require a gym and firing range simulator if they're gonna stay sharp during those long cruiser deployments. Troops can and do make up part of the maintenance section of a watch bill, but unlike spacehands they have significant 'skills ashore' that require refresher training.
And just a 'barracks block' doesn't even begin to cover these needs.
I'm still mulling over tonnage and space requirements for a lot of this stuff, but I do have a solution for the sleeping quarters. I call it a 'berthing space /stateroom'. It's the same six-square space but is now occupied by 4 enlisted men. Under this scheme, Lower enlisted would be housed in a 'berthing space', with lower NCOs berthed separately from the lower enlisted. Senior NCO's and junior officers get the standard two-per shared stateroom. Senior officers [CO, XO, Troop Commander] get the luxury of a cabin to themselves and additional office space. Flag officers, nobles, and other fifth wheels get luxury staterooms so they can get lost in them and stay out of an honest spacehand's way while he's tryin' to work.

 

[Condottiere]

Stack them high, like cordwood.

You could also have hotbunking, with three shifts.

Fuel/cargo containers would open up more space.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Briefing Rooms, Armouries, and Training Facilities are available as optional extras.


The simple solution is CT: Everyone needs a "stateroom" (=4 or 2 Dt) and you draw the deck plans with all the features you want within that limitation, and of course the Captain gets a bigger cabin.

 

[ottarrus]

Stack them high, like cordwood.

You could also have hotbunking, with three shifts.

Fuel/cargo containers would open up more space.

The whole point in all this is that the entire ship's company is good condition with decent morale and training when it comes time to fight. Yeah, you can hotbunk the crew, but by the end of the deployment they're more tired, more cranky, and the ship is poorer condition.
AKA: VERY low Crew Quality numbers.

Where do I get all this? I live on Puget Sound in WA, and this is a region with a lot of retired USN types. Like Groton CN and King's Bay GA, the fleet here has a lot of submariners stationed and retired here. Some few of them are my friends. What they tell me is this:
- Ballistic Missile subs obviously have more room in them than attack subs;
- Most, but not all, of the time SSBN bubbleheads have their own rack, whereas SSN crewwies are designed so that the crew has to hotbunk or use 'extra compartment berthing' [which means there are sheet aluminum racks that are stacked in the torpedo room for those crewmembers who want to try and sleep while someone is turning wrenches above their head;
- Because of these two factors, SSBNs typically have happier crews with very little gundecked maintenance and less discipline problems [although it should be stated that the Sub Force has MUCH fewer problems with discipline than either Aviation or the surface navy].
- Lastly I think the only real-world experience that directly equates to service in an interstellar navy with gravitic technology is probably submarines.

 

[Condottiere]

Which is why I mentioned fuel/cargo containers, if psychological fatigue is due to the crowded nature of the sleeping facilities.

Assuming Imperium Navy standard cruiser, that's upto forty percent of hull volume that's opened up, until the next refuelling.

 

[Arkathan]

Your argument has little to do with the bunk situation and more to do with a small ship design in which crew berthing was an inconvenient afterthought. I was on a CVN. Bunks were three high, with narrow access corridors between them. had to go upstairs to use the bathroom. With enough common areas space, small bunk size and shared accommodations are offset. As Another Dilbert said, Training Rooms are an option and Armories are basically required for ship's troops/marines. Amenities and additional common area space go a long way towards improving moral. Submarines (especially attack subs) simply do not have enough room in them to let everyone have their own bunks, much less room to unwind in.
Honestly, way too many "marine training sessions" imagined in the days of CT would look something like Disney's Black Hole, the marines line up in vacc suits with laser weapons in an open cargo bay and shoot at jettisoned trash... or a disco ball drone if you have the money.

 

[Condottiere]

Each slave quarters block consumes 0.5 tons and costs Cr25000. In addition, life support costs Cr250 per slave per month

 

[Seffix]

I know squid about the physical and mental regimen of contemporary submarine crewe, but I am fairly certain submarines are not generally designed to transport boarding parties (i.e. Marines), so the crew probably has different fitness needs.

That said, I like Another Dilbert's simple solution, with increased or reduced tonnage per person adjusting crew fitness modifiers.

 

[phavoc]

This is one of those issues where players tend to min/max their designs and don't think about operations as much as one needs to do in reality. Depending on the era, ship accommodations for crew and passengers have been quite terrible, to not so bad. Where you fall in the military system (i.e. rank) and how much money you have makes for better quarters and more room aboard a ship. So if you are too low ranked or too poor, you get what you get. Now, that does mean this has real-world translations - surly crew who live in poor conditions cannot be counted on to be a crack crew (they tend to be the opposite actually).

Reality across the centuries has given us a lot of potential examples of what things COULD BE. In general though, there has been a tendency to be as accommodating as possible to crew and passengers and making their onboard cabins reasonably comfortable and the ship having creature comforts to keep the crew happy and in both good spirits and good condition.

Best advice is for people to design the ships as they think they should be. A military ship that has to transport troops for weeks or months (and people today really have no idea what it means to take months to get somewhere via travel because we, as humanity don't do it anymore - with the exception of refugees perhaps). Official designs are unlikely to fall within this category, and you will be using your own designs for your own campaigns. It would be nice to see some like that (and share what you feel is a better representation)

 

[Condottiere]

It's likely circumstantial.

Commercially, I'd squeeze in as many passengers as want to take passage on my boat.

Militarily, the Terran Express, in case you need to expedite reinforcements and/or resupply outposts.

 

[fvcoulter]

It's likely circumstantial.

Commercially, I'd squeeze in as many passengers as want to take passage on my boat.

Militarily, the Terran Express, in case you need to expedite reinforcements and/or resupply outposts.

Let's see what the market charges. We've only got one ocean liner left, the Queen Mary 2. Everything else is a cruise ship. But let's look at a typical trans-Atlantic cruise from New York City to Southampton from June 15 to June 23, 2024. (The prices are per person.)

Available staterooms:

Britannia Inside	$ 1,219	160 ft sq	$ 7.62 per sq ft
Britannia Oceanview	$ 1,729	200 ft sq	$ 8.65 per sq ft
Britannia Balcony	$ 1,889	270 ft sq (plus 80 ft sq balcony)	$ 7.00 per sq ft
Britannia Club Balcony	$ 3,259	250 ft sq (plus 80 ft sq balcony)	$13.04 per sq ft
Princess Grill Suites	$ 5,169	290 ft sq (plus 100 ft sq balcony)	$ 17.82 per sq ft
Queens Grill Suites	$ 6,349	390 ft sq (plus 125 ft sq balcony)	$ 16.28 per sq ft

Just looking at these revenues, there's definitely good reason to provide luxury staterooms on your ship, assuming that people will pay for them. Additionally, since you're not sticking more people into the luxury stateroom, you actually have less life support for the same space.

On a military vessel, you want to cram in the infantry into as small a space as possible. I wouldn't expect them to have 160 sq ft for two soldiers. And if you look at submarines, the bunks are often set up as hot bunks, which means you've got three people sharing a bunk. One gets to sleep during shift one, one during shift two, and one during shift three.

Another datapoint are yachts, like the ones on Below Deck. The paying passengers get nice, luxurious staterooms while the crew get bunk beds and just enough room to change their clothes. You could also go on YouTube and find videos of crew members on cruise ships. Unlike the military, the people who work on cruise ships can leave at any time, and yet they don't. They've got a job, and they're willing to have a crappy stateroom.