Lab Ship

[phavoc]

I finally put pen to paper (or more accurately ideas to keyboard) and designed the lab ship for my Zombies in Space adventure. Here's the high-level ship specs. It's not everything that's onboard, but it's enough I think.

If anyone is interested I can send you the spreadsheet with the details.

Keith Stone Lab Ship (“It’s Real Smooth”)

Specifications:
TL-14, MCr 3337.5
Displacement – 7000 tons (dispersed)
Engineering – Jump 2, 2G
Fuel – 1400Dtons Jump, 739Dtons PP (16 weeks ops), 370Dtons small craft.
Computer – Model 4 * 2 (Ship), Model 8 * 2 (Research)
Hangars – 400 ton hangar, 100 ton Secondary hangar, 180 tons Cutter module storage, 4 20 ton launch bays for launches
Cargo – 350 tons in cargo bays
Labs – 2 400 ton ring labs (fore and aft), 4 50 ton labs amidships
Quarters – 172 Staterooms
Weapons – 20 hard points
8 x 3 Sandcasters
8 x 3 beam lasers
4 x 1 particle beams
800 sandcaster barrels
Miscellaneous Systems
Advanced Sensors
Galley
Crew Mess
Officer Mess
Food storage
Crew rec room
Officer rec room
Gym
Medical Bay
Ships Theatre
Armory
Brig
Data Vault
Engineering Workshop
Mechanical Workshop
Ships Stores
Repair Drones
External docking clamps

Small Craft
Shuttle x 1
Modular Cutter x 3
20 Launch x 4
Maintenance Pod x 2
Cutter Modules
Cargo x 3
Refueling x 3
Passenger x 3

Crew
Science – 89
Medical – 12
Flight – 33
Gunnery – 12
Ships Support – 28
Command – 20
Engineering – 13
Security – 14

Description – The Keith Stone is owned by Telman Pharmaceuticals, a ‘boutique’ drug company located in the Spinward Marches. Their primary focus is high-end anagathics and as such they are extremely security conscious. As a result they have commissioned the Keith Stone as a mobile laboratory to minimize rivals and other industrial spies being able to obtain access to their product line. The company owner, Amanda Telman, is known for being a ruthless business person, and its rumored that Telman Pharmaceuticals is more than willing to bend a few rules (i.e. laws) in pursuit of profits. Their anagathics are highly desired among the rich and nobility and they command a high price.

The Keith Stone typically cruises in the outer orbit of a system, sending in its smaller craft when necessary, and rarely stays in one system more than a month at a time to minimize the possibility of rivals discovering her. This means the crew spends months onboard with no shore leave. Because of this (and because they like to keep the scientists happy and pampered) the ship carries a wide range of crew entertainment, and is generous with cabin space.

 

[Nuclear Fridge Magnet]

Two ring labs... I immediately thought of the ship from the movie Red Planet.

 

[locarno24]

4 particle cannon mounts? How...scientific...

I like. The idea of a capital-class lab ship is interesting to say the least.

 

[simonh]

So you see, Mr Bond, my advanced laboratory base ship is also a fully operational battle station. Bwa ha ha ha ha!

Simon Hibbs

 

[phavoc]

Lol. Just watch out for the man with the metal mouth. He's really quite nice Mr. Bond.

Actually the reason I armed the ship like that was so that it could take care of itself since it tends to stay away from ports and major inhabited areas. The large number of sand casters gives it a strong defense against lasers, the lasers serve as off/def weapons, and the particle beams are to ensure that anyone who does come after it better be pretty well armed.

Yeah, the lab rings auto-rotate, allowing for the cut-off of AG if you wanted in a section for performing microgravity or otherwise experiments. Been thinking about how I would draw deckplans for that, since the 'floor' would be on the outer hull portion, which complicates the lift process. Or I may just wave my hand and not deal with it. Applying a little handwavium can fix anything!

When I started designing it I realized that the rules are, umm, quite sparse when it comes to designing civilian ships. I think that I need to go look at my GURPS Starships and see what other systems I could add.

I used the bridge size from the core rulebook and did not use the standard capital ship bridge rule because I thought it was excessive for a civilian ship. Now that I've designed my first 'capital' class civvy ship, I'm definitely seeing a flaw in the design process. I think civilian ships should have much more basic systems (i.e. smaller and cheaper) than a military one.

 

[simonh]

Yeah, the lab rings auto-rotate, allowing for the cut-off of AG if you wanted in a section for performing microgravity or otherwise experiments. Been thinking about how I would draw deckplans for that, since the 'floor' would be on the outer hull portion, which complicates the lift process. Or I may just wave my hand and not deal with it. Applying a little handwavium can fix anything!

I assumed you made the lab rings 400 tons because that's the size of the Lab Ship in the core rules, so you can largely re-use those deck plans.

Simon Hibbs

 

[rust]

The problem I see with your design is that no sane system defense or
starport authority official would accept it as a civilian vehicle, which would
seriously reduce its ability to operate in any foreign regulated space. In
short, the chance that my setting's planetary authorities would allow such
a ship to enter their space for a "scientific mission" is zero, while the chan-
ce that local SDBs would attack the ship if it would arrive unannounced
is at least 50 %.

 

[simonh]

The problem I see with your design is that no sane system defense or
starport authority official would accept it as a civilian vehicle.

So you'd need to get it registered as paramilitary. There must be options to do that, given the number of armed mercenary vessels running around in the OTU.

Alternatively, arrange for a friendly Imperial planetary government to register your vessel as 'military reserve', under tailored callup regulations that effectively mean it can never be legaly called up for active duty. I'm sure the fact that your corporation opened up several reseach and manufacturing facilities on their world, creating thousands of jobs and kickstarting the local economy had nothing to do with the sudden advantageous changes in their relevent laws!

Simon Hibbs

 

[phavoc]

Yeah, the lab rings auto-rotate, allowing for the cut-off of AG if you wanted in a section for performing microgravity or otherwise experiments. Been thinking about how I would draw deckplans for that, since the 'floor' would be on the outer hull portion, which complicates the lift process. Or I may just wave my hand and not deal with it. Applying a little handwavium can fix anything!

I assumed you made the lab rings 400 tons because that's the size of the Lab Ship in the core rules, so you can largely re-use those deck plans.

Simon Hibbs

Yeah, I figured it was a good place to start. And basically that's what I'll be doing, though they'll be slightly modified.

 

[phavoc]

The problem I see with your design is that no sane system defense or
starport authority official would accept it as a civilian vehicle.

So you'd need to get it registered as paramilitary. There must be options to do that, given the number of armed mercenary vessels running around in the OTU.

Alternatively, arrange for a friendly Imperial planetary government to register your vessel as 'military reserve', under tailored callup regulations that effectively mean it can never be legaly called up for active duty. I'm sure the fact that your corporation opened up several reseach and manufacturing facilities on their world, creating thousands of jobs and kickstarting the local economy had nothing to do with the sudden advantageous changes in their relevent laws!

Simon Hibbs

In some ways, its a very under-gunned ship - a little less than 1/3rd of the potential armaments are installed (20 out of 70 possible hardpoints). But the rationale for that is that its a very tempting target... Anagathics are outrageously expensive. The ship would have the necessary paperwork to carry such armaments, but aside from the 4 particle beam turrets, the other weapons are also defensive in nature. I didn't install missiles because they are only offensive weapons and cannot be used to protect the ship. The idea being that the ship would appear to be too hard for the odd pirate to attack while its out stooging around in a start system. Also, because they tend to stay away (though not far) from the more inhabited/built-up systems, there is a higher risk of potential confilct.

I had thought of doing this on a orbiting station instead of a ship, but for the adventure the characters need to be isolated from help.

 

[locarno24]

The problem I see with your design is that no sane system defense or starport authority official would accept it as a civilian vehicle, which would seriously reduce its ability to operate in any foreign regulated space.

The starport officials ain't being asked - it's not coming in to dock. As far as the system defence fleet goes; if Telman is an anagathics megacorp, Johnny Backwater-Fleet can generally go whistle with his protests - and knows it....

Besides which, whilst it is armed, as noted, it's not armed that heavily. PAW turrets fall under "registered military/security contractor territory", so a couple of (non-barbette calibre) mounts aren't out of place on a highly secure research facility.

 

[rust]

... so a couple of (non-barbette calibre) mounts aren't out of place on a highly secure research facility.

I do not know the habits of the place where you live, but armed research
facilities do not exist where I live ... :lol:

 

[locarno24]

I do not know the habits of the place where you live, but armed research facilities do not exist where I live...

Even today, it's not uncommon for an especially sensitive corporate facility to have armed security. Especially if it's in an area which isn't, um, shall we say, politically stable? I know of at least one with an HMG in the gatehouse.

 

[rust]

Even today, it's not uncommon for an especially sensitive corporate facility to have armed security. Especially if it's in an area which isn't, um, shall we say, politically stable? I know of at least one with an HMG in the gatehouse.

True, but I think we can agree that artillery weapons would at least be
extremely unusual.

 

[phavoc]

Even today, it's not uncommon for an especially sensitive corporate facility to have armed security. Especially if it's in an area which isn't, um, shall we say, politically stable? I know of at least one with an HMG in the gatehouse.

True, but I think we can agree that artillery weapons would at least be
extremely unusual.

That's quite true... But I think the Traveller universe, or at least portions of it, are more akin to the early 1800s, with armed pirate ships (unlike gunmen in motorboats like today).

(shrug) But it fits with the genre and tech. It's not overgunned, but it's also not a pushover. Merchantships today should have a few pintle mounts for 7.62 gatlings off the bridge to get rid of pesky pirates in my opinion. Why gatlings? Cause you just have to walk the tracers over the target. They are pretty easy to shoot, and 7.62 is of no use against a warship... but death on the high seas for a rowboat.

Course, not like we'll do anything intelligent like that in the near future I don't think.

 

[simonh]

Course, not like we'll do anything intelligent like that in the near future I don't think.

Hundreds of gattling guns in private hands at every port in the world. What could possibly go wrong?

Simon Hibbs

 

[rust]

Hundreds of gattling guns in private hands at every port in the world. What could possibly go wrong?

Our coast guard would certainly love it, the task to inspect a ship to see
whether it polluted the sea or uses illegal fishing equipment would beco-
me a lot more interesting with some gatling guns pointed at the coast
guard craft.

 

[phavoc]

Course, not like we'll do anything intelligent like that in the near future I don't think.

Hundreds of gattling guns in private hands at every port in the world. What could possibly go wrong?

Simon Hibbs

Of course they'd all be fitted with breathalyzers... to prevent unintended celebrations.

But if you think about it, armed merchantmen with cannons back in the day were not looked at askance. Nor where the muskets, pistols and such that merchantmen carried onboard. There is no logical reason today why you would not do that again. It's not like in some parts of the world every household doesn't have a AK-47 in the closet and they are used for celebrations, the odd-armed resistance movement, etc.

It's really a question of culture and views I think. If we trust a ship's crew with bringing the destructive equivalent of a small atom bomb (LNG carriers), or 100,000 ton bridge smashers (large container ship), then why wouldn't we trust them with a few rifles (or in this case a gatling gun)? The destructive power at their fingertips with their vehicles vastly outweighs any threat that a mere gun has. People focus too much on "OMG! He's got a GUN!"

And in the Traveller universe people run around with flying kinetic bombardment weapons... even an aircar dropping from low orbit onto a structure is a massive threat.

 

[rust]

If we trust a ship's crew with bringing the destructive equivalent of a small atom bomb (LNG carriers), or 100,000 ton bridge smashers (large container ship) ...

Frankly, we do not trust them, which is why there are mandatory sealane
controls and mandatory pilots wherever such ships could cause serious damage.

 

[simonh]

But if you think about it, armed merchantmen with cannons back in the day were not looked at askance. Nor where the muskets, pistols and such that merchantmen carried onboard. There is no logical reason today why you would not do that again.

Reasons like, for example, that except for in the most extraordinarily rare circumstances it's completely unecessery?

Simon Hibbs