Key Deck Plan Design Considerations

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

The grids for all decks on the same page should be aligned to exactly one, single, perpendicular square grid. When you upload the deck plan page image to Roll20 and try to align grids to the Mongoose Traveller 1.x deck plans, it works for one deck, but none of the others! This is unusable; players shouldn't have to chop up your documents in a graphics editor just to use the map! Scale is not an issue so long as resolution isn't.

Also, all deck plans should include maps for navigating around the hull on EVA. This is great for fending off boarding actions, repairing damage while fending off creatures or dodging space rocks, and other awesomeness.

Where's the damn Life Support System? Where's the thingie on the map to be smashed, bashed, exploded, or sabotaged? And where are the rules for fixing it when those mercs who boarded your ship took it out?

A more controversial thought: Turrets should no longer be manned; they should be remote-fired from some sort of gunnery cabin.

A tile set to work with "dungeon designer" type tools and tile graphics editors would be great.

 

[MongooseMatt]

A tile set to work with "dungeon designer" type tools and tile graphics editors would be great.

This is being looked at. May take a while (post Core Book release), but it is in the works

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

When and where can we download the tile set to make Deck Plans with?

 

[Condottiere]

After three millenia, ergonomics should have been figured out.

 

[phavoc]

Where's the damn Life Support System? Where's the thingie on the map to be smashed, bashed, exploded, or sabotaged? And where are the rules for fixing it when those mercs who boarded your ship took it out?

I believe the ruling was that life support machinery was distributed on a per-cabin basis, so there is no central life support location to blow up.

A more controversial thought: Turrets should no longer be manned; they should be remote-fired from some sort of gunnery cabin.

Most designs/illustrations I've seen have the on-mount weapons station being manned below the turret in the hull, not in the actual turret itself. Think of it like the standard 5" guns on USN ships - they have auto-loaders below decks, but there is also space for manual loading operations if you wanted to do it, as well as maintaining the gun. I'm not entirely sure what abilities they have for on-mount firing of it as well, but you get the idea.

 

[DickNervous]

Where's the damn Life Support System? Where's the thingie on the map to be smashed, bashed, exploded, or sabotaged? And where are the rules for fixing it when those mercs who boarded your ship took it out?

I believe the ruling was that life support machinery was distributed on a per-cabin basis, so there is no central life support location to blow up.

This is correct. Life support functions are included in the tonnage for the "rooms" of the ship. So the air scrubbers, water purifiers, heaters, etc. are all built in to the walls/floors/ceilings of each room.

To me this makes a lot of sense since I envision that ships that follow the "standard" deck plans are put together from pre-fab modules that just attach to the structure and connect together.

A more controversial thought: Turrets should no longer be manned; they should be remote-fired from some sort of gunnery cabin.

Most designs/illustrations I've seen have the on-mount weapons station being manned below the turret in the hull, not in the actual turret itself. Think of it like the standard 5" guns on USN ships - they have auto-loaders below decks, but there is also space for manual loading operations if you wanted to do it, as well as maintaining the gun. I'm not entirely sure what abilities they have for on-mount firing of it as well, but you get the idea.

Gunnery stations are completely optional and can be anywhere in the ship since weapons can be controlled by the computer via the Fire Control software. I generally place a gunnery station in the bridge on smaller ships, or have one (or more) dedicated small rooms for gunners somewhere in the ship. Of course anything that requires ammo would need to have additional space for the ammo and a way for full access from inside the ship in the event of a malfunction of the auto-loader or something like that. Where there are gunnery stations at the turrets I kind of imagine it like the ones from the Millennium Falcon that Luke and Han sit in, which could be used in smaller/older designs that don't include a computer big enough to run Fire Control.

 

[phavoc]

This is correct. Life support functions are included in the tonnage for the "rooms" of the ship. So the air scrubbers, water purifiers, heaters, etc. are all built in to the walls/floors/ceilings of each room.

To me this makes a lot of sense since I envision that ships that follow the "standard" deck plans are put together from pre-fab modules that just attach to the structure and connect together.

On the surface it seems like the right way to go. Except it doesn't follow good engineering principles. By that I mean when you centralize the support systems you gain efficiencies that you lose by spreading out. This is a maxim that has been proven for thousands of years for many types of devices and processes. A centralized life support plant means servicing only a single set of equipment (a secondary, or even tertiary if you need backups and potentially you may take one plant off-line for extended periods, or to accommodate battle damage).

By spreading out the life support requirements across 100 cabins instead of say 2 or three locations, you now have to replace the same filters/consumables/whatever 100 times instead of three. Your cost per replacement item may also increase, depending on the scale of the costs and whether or not the components can be sourced cheaper.

And you ARE replacing something every month to justify those life support costs (which I still find rather excessive), so this train of logic fits the cost model of constant replacement of some components. However since engineering labor costs are part of the game or the model, you just wave your hand and viola! Problem solved.

Gunnery stations are completely optional and can be anywhere in the ship since weapons can be controlled by the computer via the Fire Control software. I generally place a gunnery station in the bridge on smaller ships, or have one (or more) dedicated small rooms for gunners somewhere in the ship. Of course anything that requires ammo would need to have additional space for the ammo and a way for full access from inside the ship in the event of a malfunction of the auto-loader or something like that. Where there are gunnery stations at the turrets I kind of imagine it like the ones from the Millennium Falcon that Luke and Han sit in, which could be used in smaller/older designs that don't include a computer big enough to run Fire Control.

True, but most illustrations and articles I have read over the years have the gunner at a weapons station on, at, or near their weapons mount. But there should be centralized fire control for targetting. Having an on-mount gunner allows for a hit on your central fire control compartment, so individual guns would target and fire at their own targets of opportunity. Not as efficient as centralized fire, but at least you are able to do this. For the other model you weapons would be useless, and gunners NOT at their fire station may find themselves cut off electronically. Even with the most up to date fire control system having the gunner on/at the weapons station provides a ship more flexibility if it's expecting to take combat damage.

 

[Condottiere]

Depending on the tonnage, for each major section of the ship, you could have one life support generator.

 

[phavoc]

Depending on the tonnage, for each major section of the ship, you could have one life support generator.

Yes, especially for distributed ships (or ships with detachable sections, then each section would need it's own life support).

In general the rules haven't, up to this point, allowed for the installation of redundant power systems. Warships of a certain size should be utilizing multiple power plants that provide a larger percentage of power to the ship. So, for example, a cruiser might mount two separate power plants located in different sections, each one capable of say 70% of the overall full power requirements of the ship. That way if you lost one plant completely you'd still have the ability to fight with your vessel, albeit at a lesser effectiveness. Larger ships might have 3 power plants where each one provided 50% of the overall required power, thus giving that ship the ability to lose one entire power plant without being affected in its war fighting capacity.

It's not something you'd see in every ship, and it certainly has its associated costs.

 

[Infojunky]

When and where can we download the tile set to make Deck Plans with?

Well that depends.... What are you using?

The is a set in the Campaign Cartographer add-on Cosmographer...

If you ask around on the Yahoo Deckplans Group or Citizens of the Imperium Board I sure several other options will be suggested.

I just switched to using Inkscape, thus am in the middle of building my symbols key.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

I was responding to Matthew in particular, with regards to an official Mongoose tile set for editing maps with.

If there are third-party tile sets available, please post links rather than just talk about them.

Personally, I’ve been using Tiled (http://www.mapeditor.org/), which admittedly is more often used for retro video-game stuff, but that makes it useful for Roll20, where you care more about how it looks on a screen.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

No modern warship puts gunners near their turrets. It’s a completely unnecessary waste of a well-trained gunner in the event that the ship’s weapons are targeted directly. Frankly, it’s a sign of a non-space-faring society, aside from the pathologically traditional (perhaps Aslan), to put them there. As such, only the most absolutely cheap-ass gun turret installations are going to be implemented that way in the future; instead, they’ll all be fired remotely, for the price of a smart phone and wiring. Non-trivial reloading and maintenance access are important, but there’s no point taking the space to put an operating seat there; that seat should be put somewhere safer.

There is no factual evidence in support of a decentralized Life-Support System, neither on Earth, under the Sea, or in Space. While it’s not impossible, there’s absolutely no point in disabling gameplay options for both GMs and players for the sake of hypothetical malarkey. Additionally, what high-passage traveller wants to let the damn plumber into their cabin just to fix their Life Support? They should do that remotely!

 

[Infojunky]

I was responding to Matthew in particular, with regards to an official Mongoose tile set for editing maps with.

Is cool, I just took it in the traditional deckplans question sorta way.

If there are third-party tile sets available, please post links rather than just talk about them.

Check.

Personally, I’ve been using Tiled (http://www.mapeditor.org/), which admittedly is more often used for retro video-game stuff, but that makes it useful for Roll20, where you care more about how it looks on a screen.

Cool will look at it.

 

[Meeko100]

If a fourth of the tonnage of a stateroom is dedicated to life support (reasonable for something keeping you alive), I just checked my PDF of my 1e core, and that is already taken from the floorspace of staterooms (at least for the type-a, only 3 dtons shown on the map) its just not allocated anywhere else in the plans.

 

[phavoc]

If a fourth of the tonnage of a stateroom is dedicated to life support (reasonable for something keeping you alive), I just checked my PDF of my 1e core, and that is already taken from the floorspace of staterooms (at least for the type-a, only 3 dtons shown on the map) its just not allocated anywhere else in the plans.

The additional space is usually allocated to corridors, common areas and such. If you look on your designs nowhere does it say ""XX" tons allocated to corridors. It's always been relatively fuzzy, which is ok since it's definitely not an exact science.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

But none of that helps with the players and/or GM have something to smash and/or defend, or vice-versa.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

If there are third-party tile sets available, please post links rather than just talk about them.

Check.

Check? Check after you supply links, maybe...

 

[Infojunky]

If there are third-party tile sets available, please post links rather than just talk about them.

Check.

Check? Check after you supply links, maybe...

Assuming the wrong sorta check.....

 

[Meeko100]

Right, forgot about common areas and the like. Hmm.

What about the bridge? Isn't that taking up 10/20/whatever dtons of space for the control of the ship?

10 dtons on a free trader is a large area for maybe 3 or 4 pepole (pilot, copilot, sensors/comms, gunnery if assuming RC turrets) to sit and work on operating the ship in times of emergency (gunnery isn't going to always be needed there, nor is the copilot) Mostly it'd just be pilot and maybe comms. So, assuming 3-4 work terminals, it could be that a lot of the bridge's tonnage is for the the centralized systems.

I am rather sure the ships aren't drawn like that now, but if you really wanted a dedicated life-support thing, it could come from the bridge.

Or, say there's the life-support controls in the bridge, and should they get destroyed and start sending haywire electrical signals to the life-support systems distributed around the ship they basically stop functioning. Go to bridge, apply dakka/computer skills to life-support control terminal, go about business.

 

[phavoc]

Right, forgot about common areas and the like. Hmm.

What about the bridge? Isn't that taking up 10/20/whatever dtons of space for the control of the ship?

10 dtons on a free trader is a large area for maybe 3 or 4 pepole (pilot, copilot, sensors/comms, gunnery if assuming RC turrets) to sit and work on operating the ship in times of emergency (gunnery isn't going to always be needed there, nor is the copilot) Mostly it'd just be pilot and maybe comms. So, assuming 3-4 work terminals, it could be that a lot of the bridge's tonnage is for the the centralized systems.

I am rather sure the ships aren't drawn like that now, but if you really wanted a dedicated life-support thing, it could come from the bridge.

Or, say there's the life-support controls in the bridge, and should they get destroyed and start sending haywire electrical signals to the life-support systems distributed around the ship they basically stop functioning. Go to bridge, apply dakka/computer skills to life-support control terminal, go about business.

Conceptually almost none of the tonnages set aside for a compartment are reflected 1 for 1 on deckplans. The 'bridge' includes the control stations, but also there's sensors, avionics and other things that need to be stuck somewhere. Even things like fuel bunkerage isn't 1 for 1 because you can theoretically store it anywhere you can cram a tank, so between decks, in between control surfaces, etc. All is fair game.

The basic rule of thumb since day one has to be within 20% of your stated displacement when it comes to drawing your deckplans. It's much easier to deal with if you don't try to get every last portion listed, as that tends to drive people crazy (not to mention you are drawing in 2D when the object in question is really 3D).