MgT Airlocks CRB 2e p. 143 versus HG 2e p. 22

[snrdg121408]

Morning PDT,

I am fairly certain that I or someone else has asked about the different ship's airlock requirement between MgT CRB 2e and HG 2e, unfortunately my digging into the forum posts failed to find the thread. I'm offer my apologies for starting another thread in case one or more of them exists.

From CRB 2e p. 143

A ship has at least one airlock per 500 tons. The average airlock is large enough for three people in vacc suits to pass through. An airlock takes ten seconds to cycle.

From HG 2e p. 22

A ship may have one airlock for every 100 tons or part of. A standard airlock is capable of cycling two humans per minute between the ship’s interior and exterior, or vice versa.

Which is the correct airlock requirement?

If the HG 2e airlock requirement is the standard then a recommendation would be to change the one in CRB 2e to agree with HG 2e.

 

[AndrewW]

These don't conflict.

High Guard is referring to the you get one free airlock per 100 tons of ship. Additional airlocks beyond the free one may be purchase separately.

 

[phavoc]

These don't conflict.

High Guard is referring to the you get one free airlock per 100 tons of ship. Additional airlocks beyond the free one may be purchase separately.

Based on the text quotes I would say the CRB conflicts with HG. I am assuming this is an editing error, as the two separate rules clearly conflict with one another. At the most basic the size and cycle times are different. The number of airlocks per size is less defined, and don't actually conflict.

The only saving grace here is that HG is the ship design book, thus by default it would over-ride the CRB. If players only have the CRB then they would naturally use the rules in it. Otherwise, at least in my opinion, they should go by the book that that has the design rules - which should logically supersede the CRB.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello phovac,

Thank you for catching that I was referencing the bodies that fit into and the cycling time of an airlock do not appear to match.

Drat, you beat me to the clearing up what I failed to state in my original post while I was editing a reply.

These don't conflict.

High Guard is referring to the you get one free airlock per 100 tons of ship. Additional airlocks beyond the free one may be purchase separately.

Based on the text quotes I would say the CRB conflicts with HG. I am assuming this is an editing error, as the two separate rules clearly conflict with one another. At the most basic the size and cycle times are different. The number of airlocks per size is less defined, and don't actually conflict.

The only saving grace here is that HG is the ship design book, thus by default it would over-ride the CRB. If players only have the CRB then they would naturally use the rules in it. Otherwise, at least in my opinion, they should go by the book that that has the design rules - which should logically supersede the CRB.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm a little sceptical about volume related freebies.

 

[snrdg121408]

Afternoon PDT Condottiere,

I'm a little sceptical about volume related freebies.

I'm not skeptical about volume related freebie personnel airlocks, I'm not sure that a 5,000 d-ton hull is going to have 50 free personnel airlocks.

 

[Condottiere]

It would represent two percent of the volume, unaccounted for, and ten mega schmuckers.

Unless, what is really meant is that you still have have to account for the volume, but don't have to pay for the airlocks, which is a free MCI 0.2 per copy, for a default five million in construction costs, or four percent.

Or we grab a rock and for four hundred thousand creampies, we get a free two hundred kay credit airlock, which is fifty percent.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You can vary this by up to +/- 10% as spacecraft will differ in the amount of space consumed by corridors, lifts, computer systems, life support, machinery and other items not included in the overall design system.

HG, p82.

The design system is not that exact. Most people do not keep track of every m³ space in corridors and accessways either.

 

[phavoc]

Airlock cost/size can be important, though like most of the Traveller design system, it need not account for every cubic meter.

So, for example, if you were wanting to install a large enough airlock to fit a 3Dton container, you could take the basic sized airlock, roughly scale it up to the proper size, and you'd have your answer.

Using the example from HG, I would assume we are talking about a .5 DT (on a scaled deckplan) that can hold 2 individuals. Our 3 Dton airlock is approximately 6 times that size, and assuming a scaled cycle time, it would take roughly 6 min (though one could fairly cut that cycle time in half) to cycle that container through. And it would cost roughly 6 times the cost of an additional airlock.

Larger ships should have larger airlocks to accommodate more people/cargo - at least for the primary access points. And smaller airlocks are just fine for secondary or maintenance areas.

It's important to provide guidance if you are providing the design bible for people to make their own ships. Otherwise it would be pointless to have a book like High Guard when the idea would be to just make crap up and throw a price on it. Flexibility is good, but people are paying for, and expecting, a reasonable guide.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello AndrewW,

I have had another forum post go missing because another forum member had replied before I submitted my post. When this event happens the forum indicates a new post has been submitted asking if I want to post. This time I missed the notification and thinking my post was sent moved on to a different post.

Here is another go.

These don't conflict.

High Guard is referring to the you get one free airlock per 100 tons of ship. Additional airlocks beyond the free one may be purchase separately.

In short and as phavoc indicated in the post time stamped Thu Mar 16, 2017 8:41 pm there does appear to be a conflict between CRB and HG airlock requirements for the number personnel that fit into and the cycling time.

From CRB 2e p. 143

A ship has at least one airlock per 500 tons. The average airlock is large enough for three people in vacc suits to pass through. An airlock takes ten seconds to cycle.

From HG 2e p. 22

A ship may have one airlock for every 100 tons or part of. A standard airlock is capable of cycling two humans per minute between the ship’s interior and exterior, or vice versa.

The suggestion would be to have CRB 2e match HG 2e since it is the spacecraft design source book.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello phavoc,

Airlock cost/size can be important, though like most of the Traveller design system, it need not account for every cubic meter.

So, for example, if you were wanting to install a large enough airlock to fit a 3Dton container, you could take the basic sized airlock, roughly scale it up to the proper size, and you'd have your answer.

Using the example from HG, I would assume we are talking about a .5 DT (on a scaled deckplan) that can hold 2 individuals. Our 3 Dton airlock is approximately 6 times that size, and assuming a scaled cycle time, it would take roughly 6 min (though one could fairly cut that cycle time in half) to cycle that container through. And it would cost roughly 6 times the cost of an additional airlock.

Larger ships should have larger airlocks to accommodate more people/cargo - at least for the primary access points. And smaller airlocks are just fine for secondary or maintenance areas.

It's important to provide guidance if you are providing the design bible for people to make their own ships. Otherwise it would be pointless to have a book like High Guard when the idea would be to just make crap up and throw a price on it. Flexibility is good, but people are paying for, and expecting, a reasonable guide.

I agree with the process but I'm not sure about the numbers used considering the following:

In HG 2e p. 22 a standard airlock is large enough to fit two personnel in vacc suits and takes 1 minute to cycle for egress or ingress.

According to HG 2e p. 44 the minimum size of an airlock, the freebies or add-on ones, is 2 d-tons. Comparing this to several deck plans I've found that the identified airlocks appear to occupy 1 to approximately 1.5 d-tons. I'm guessing the missing 0.5 to 1 d-ton of airlock space has be allocated somewhere else in the same way stateroom spaces a used.

Thank you for the showing me a process for scaling airlocks.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I think it should be clear that Mongoose is not trying to give us hard rules for everything:

You bring up a good point - a lot of areas in the new High Guard (in fact all of them, from a certain point of view) are supposed to be soft. Making deck plans is a good example, where we introduced more fuzziness than before so referees and players could build the ships they wanted without having to worry about every little square.

In short, High Guard is a toolkit book and everything is designed to be bent as you see fit, to fit in with your own universe.

So, to answer your question, the absolute fuel requirements are up to you and what works for your universe. You can regard the guidelines as 'best practice' for ship builders, but a radical naval architect may have his own ideas, or those bean counters might have a serious impact on the design of a ship... The justification is up to you, but if you want to deviate in this fashion, you have our blessing!

http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?p=907155#p907155

 

[Condottiere]

There are three aspects to airlock size and cost.

1. The pumps that cycle the atmosphere would be dependent on on the volume of an airlock in terms of costs and size.

2. The embedded sensors keeping track on what's going on there, which could be simple, as indicating when in use, or have a full spectrum analysis of visitors.

3. The size and mechanism of the doors; if it's manually operated, it should cost less.

 

[phavoc]

I think it should be clear that Mongoose is not trying to give us hard rules for everything:

You bring up a good point - a lot of areas in the new High Guard (in fact all of them, from a certain point of view) are supposed to be soft. Making deck plans is a good example, where we introduced more fuzziness than before so referees and players could build the ships they wanted without having to worry about every little square.

In short, High Guard is a toolkit book and everything is designed to be bent as you see fit, to fit in with your own universe.

So, to answer your question, the absolute fuel requirements are up to you and what works for your universe. You can regard the guidelines as 'best practice' for ship builders, but a radical naval architect may have his own ideas, or those bean counters might have a serious impact on the design of a ship... The justification is up to you, but if you want to deviate in this fashion, you have our blessing!

http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?p=907155#p907155

There's a difference between leaving open rules and making conflicting statements. In this particular case you have two conflicting statements. Logically speaking, using language as our guideline, one is correct and one is incorrect. Or, to be more palatable, one is the original and the other one supersedes it. Your statement would be valid if they were presented as say optional rules. But they aren't. Editing and clarification issues are common in books. That's been around for quite some time. They just need to be fixed when discovered. Which is the joy that we call errata. And with the big push to PDF, it's very easy to clean up rules and get revised versions out to players.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Or the different statements are describing two different brands or models of airlocks. Why would LSP, General, GSbAG, and your local shipyard's airlocks be identical?

 

[Spartan159]

Office of Imperial Standards and Conventions, safety department. Universal Docking collars are nice but maybe not everyone has one. Just my Cr0.2

 

[Condottiere]

You want standards, since you want any spaceship to be able to dock with any other.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Only the mating mechanism needs to be standardised, not the internal size or cycle time.

 

[Condottiere]

I don't doubt you can customize them, but they're probably anthropocentric.

I'd add a cat door.

 

[phavoc]

Or the different statements are describing two different brands or models of airlocks. Why would LSP, General, GSbAG, and your local shipyard's airlocks be identical?

One of the basic Imperial tenets is standardization. And having the ability of oNE airlock being able to form a seal with another without a universal connection.

Of course the ideal falls apart when you consider an airlock on a scout vs. An airlock on a 10k dton liner. At least main locks. They are wholly different for functional reasons.