Review of all craft deckplans in Beta

phavoc

Emperor Mongoose
EDIT - I've cut and pasted these comments on existing threads, or started new ones, so to keep better track of things.

General
(1) Ships with multiple decks should definitely have a side view available to people. As well as at least one external view. Art generates interest which sells books (or pdf’s).
(2) For the small craft, airlocks and bridges are different sizes, with no apparent reasoning for that. Also the airlocks are sometimes on the left, sometimes on the right. The Imperium is really, really, really big on standardization. Having airlocks for most small craft always on the same side (or on both sides) means small craft can dock using equipment that covers a wide range of craft.
(3) On designs where turrets are listed, some show “double turret”, or “triple turret” when it should read hardpoint. Players may opt for customized designs or change out turrets. Hardpoints simply denote that a weapon MAY be placed there.
(4) Some plans have avionics marked, some have computer, some have sensors. Shouldn’t they all be lumped under the same umbrella of avionics?
(5) Some designs seem to have an over-abundance of free-standing freshers. Military designers aren’t worried about potty parity. Since each 2-man cabin has a fresher, the number of free-standing ones should be reduced to common areas only.
(6) There appears to be at least two different artists drawing deckplans, as you can tell the difference between the details on some of the drawings. Illustrations like deckplans need to be universal in their appearance (at least drawing wise).
(7) Corridor width, usually one or two squares, should make sense for the size of the vessel, the number of people expected to traverse it on occasions, and it's intended purpose. Main passageways leading from airlocks probably should be two wide. Secondary passages you don't need to hump gear or cargo down could be one wide, especially if they are access corridors to say a turret or other compartment little used. Civilian ships should definitely have wider passageways, military ships can get away with tighter things, but they should keep in mind the idea of the purpose of the passage.
(8) Airlocks should be sized for their purpose. Smaller ships might have a single square, larger ones should have bigger ones (and some wider rather than just deep). There doesn't seem to be a logical pattern for airlocks throughout the designs.

Free / Far Trader
(1) The common area is flipped between the Free and Far Trader for no apparent reason. Adding more fuel to the cargo hold makes more sense than changing the upper deck between models.
(2) The Far Trader has an enclosed corridor in the cargo hold area that the Free Trader does not. It is too small to serve as a cargo storage area. What is it’s purpose?
(3) The stand-alone fresher on the upper deck is located opposite from the common area. Design wise it should be closer to the area where the majority of usage will occur.
(4) Access to the upper deck is via a hatch (assuming a ladder as well) that goes into the cargo bay. This means there is no way to get to the upper deck if the cargo hold is evacuated. And on the Free Trader model the hatch is on the floor in the common area. There should be a lift from the lower deck to the upper deck. Passengers aren’t likely to be climbing up and down ladders like a crewmember.
(5) I see no turret emplacements or access to pre-installed hardpoints anywhere.
(6) The nose part of the trader seems too elongated, if you compare to older versions and the illustrations. It should be wider and shorter.

Lab Ship
(1) On the docking appendage the lift section has an airlock at the end of it, but it’s listed as a lift.
(2) Is the space on the docking appendage meant to be exposed to space, with only the lift tube pressurized? The illustration shows crossbeams that make it possibly appear that way, but it isn’t clear.
(3) Quadrant 1 laboratories have the entire section as a single one. And the main passageway through the entire area winds its way through every workspace. Scientists would become quite annoyed with people walking in their experimentation zones, not to mention if there was a leak of a substance it would get into the entire compartment. Labs COULD be handling dangerous chemicals, animals, energy, etc, and should be self-contained in the event of an emergency. The single corridor on the outside of the ring should continue through this zone as well. Also quadrant 1 has additional space in it that is not replicated elsewhere. Is this intentional? Since the idea of the ring is to rotate having one section that is larger and more massive than another can cause instability if they are not using internal grav plating.
(4) There is an airlock placed right next to the bridge. From a security standpoint that is not good. The command and control sections should be furthest away from external access points.
(5) It would be easier to read the deckplans if they were laid horizontal instead of vertical. This would also allow two sections and a drive pod to be displayed so a player or ref would only need to pay attention to the connections on the ends. It also makes it easier to print and use the deckplan to draw upon when playing since there are fewer sections to worry about connecting together.
(6) What is the small craft that is listed on the illustration? It’s supposed to be a 40ton pinnace, which is illustrated later. This craft appears to be in the 20 ton range.

Launch
(1) One side of the entire bay is a cargo door. That’s larger than any other small craft. It would make more sense to put in a much smaller cargo access point since the launch is designed for small cargo’s only. The ability to transport a 3Dton container should be more than sufficient for this ship. If you re-do the cargo door you could easily put three 3Dton containers internally and still be able to get around them to the engineering section, and the door would only need to be two squares wide.

Mercenary Cruiser
(1) The deck numbering is from the bottom up, a reversal from previous designs. This is confusing, as normally decks are numbered from “top” to “bottom”.
(2) A side view, showing the deck stacking, would be very useful. Also each page should have the same breakdown showing what the numbered items and compartments mean for faster reference.
(3) The maneuver drive is now moved to the bottom of the sphere, with the landing legs no longer having the drive units.
(4) At least one of the access points that provide movement between decks should be re-done as a lift. Also, there is no access point for cutter crew to board the ships while they are docked on any deck. Used to be on the bridge deck.
(5) Deck 10 - The space on the upper side of the owners suite is blank. What is supposed to go there?
(6) Deck 9 – Sickbay is located here, but there is no lift access for casualties on stretchers to get here. The old design had sickbay next to the air/raft docking bay. There is no air/raft docking here.
(7) Deck 8 – Space is at a premium on ships. Why would the captain need both his office and his cabin right off the bridge? His cabin should be wherever ‘officer country’ is.
(8) Deck 7 – In the Galley area there appears to be a double-airlock at the bottom-most lift access point.
(9) Deck 6 – The common area is too big and open. Space ships are all about compartmentalization due to the dangers of vacuum. And there is another common area on Deck 4. There shouldn’t be two zones for recreation of those sizes. There are also two ‘dead’ blocks on the illustration in the middle corridor. What purpose do they serve? The air/raft docking area is too small to hold a 4dton craft. The ‘entry’ area seems to be a huge waste of space.
(10) Deck 5 – The external access point from Deck 6 would be better suited on the cargo deck to facilitate moving cargo and things like ammunition.
(11) Deck 4 – No comments
(12) Deck 3 – No comments
(13) Deck 2 – Are those lower deck access points (4) next to the port and starboard cutter wells?
(14) Deck 1 – No comments

Modular Cutter
(1) There is only a single pilot station shown on the drawing. The templates would be better served to have a universal one station/two station bridge, since small craft have the same control space requirements. The ones for the launch or whatever that craft is on the lab ship look far better.
(2) The module appears to be at least 38Dtons on the illustration.
(3) Since the cutter sometimes is module-less, it would make more sense to swap the position of the cargo and storage area to the forward section, allowing crew access to it while the module is not present.
(4) I do like that example modules are illustrated. More detailed art work would be very nice here, since the cutter swaps in various modules.

Patrol Corvette
(1) The placement of the forward turrets doesn’t seem right. The way they are jutting out into the main corridor seems forced. The neck itself also seems too narrow, and the corridor is only a single square (1.5m) wide. Main corridors should be two squares wide, or at least they are in other ships.
(2) The upper cargo hold seems pretty big for a patrol corvette. And the docking space for the launch doesn’t make sense because the launch can’t get in there sideways.
(3) The G-Carrier docking zone on the lower deck seems overly large, unless that was by design to allow for access. If the G-Carrier is out or the door opened you cannot move between upper and lower decks because there is no direct corridor (access is through the G-Carrier space. There are two hatches (one goes into the cargo area, again, inaccessible if open to space) and there is another directly into the engineering section (engineering should have it’s own secure access point).

Pinnace
(1) There is a single bridge station, when there should be two.
(2) The deckplan has too much tonnage allocated to it.

Safari ship
(1) The specifications on the Safar ship seem to have changed. Now there are 11 cabins, when previously there were 8.
(2) The decks aren’t labeled as upper and lower (not a big issue). If there are landing legs they aren’t showing up in the design. The air/raft has replaced the ATV, so is the air/raft leaving from an upper entry point or a lower one?
(3) The old safari ship had a double sandcaster turret, but no space set aside for a magazine. Ships that fire ammunition-based weapons need to have a storage area immediately next to them to store ammunition.

Scout Courier
(1) Interested to see the stats for this. The inclusion of the workshop is new. The loss of the common area for crew to relax and socialize doesn’t bode well for crew relaxation on long missions.
(2) The air/raft bay seems too inset into the hull, unless it is supposed to enter/exit through the top portion of the compartment.
(3) The original scout/courier was not as long, but wider at the rear. The silhouette of the ship has changed over time. There also used to be both an upper and lower area at the rear of the wedge (not in the last MGT version however).

Seeker Mining
(1) It appears that there are cargo bay access points to the port and starboard of the cargo hold, but they open up into blackened portions, as if they are going nowhere.
(2) There is another one of those corridors that appear to go nowhere in the cargo hold.

Ships Boat
(1) Not sure what those half-triangles are meant to be. A 2Dton wide ship should be able to accommodate seating 2 + 1, with a walkway in between.
(2) Again we see the differences in artist work for the deckplan itself.

Shuttle
(1) Why is there an airlock that opens directly onto the bridge compartment? There seems no reason for that to exist.
(2) The engines for the shuttle should be embedded in the winglets, giving a user the entire width of the shuttle compartment to load cargo from the rear. This is how it’s been in previous deckplan layouts.
(3) I like the fact that there are cargo bay doors in the front (both sides) and the rear. It lends a usefulness to the design.

Slow Boat
(1) There is no need for two airlocks on a ship this small.

Slow Pinnace
(1) Only one bridge station is present, there should be two.

Subsidized Liner
(1) Cargo space is a wee bit off (nearly 300 tons on the deckplan. Also cargo would most likely have separate holds, or at least not be one GIANT space. Might be easier to have port and starboard holds with direct access (the plan only calls for 64tons of cargo, roughly 10% of the total tonnage).
(2) The layout of the rooms leaves a lot to be desired. The common area and galley in the forward section have no walls to split the areas up for the two different uses. Cramming spa/steam rooms in the forward section seems like they were just being shoved in there.
(3) There is no differentiation between crew section and passenger section.
(4) The bridge is on the main passenger deck. It should be removed to a different area (there are four to choose from)
(5) There are four decks, but not labeled sequentially, just what their primary purpose is.
(6) A lift! Finally…
(7) The deckplan has the (I assume) low berths listed as #9, Office. Low berths should be set away from the paying passengers, since the two are very different paying classes of passengers.
(8) No hardpoint access is listed anywhere.

Subsidized Merchant
(1) There are now 19 stateroom present, when the design (originally) calls for only 13
(2) No hardpoint access is listed.

Yacht
(1) Okay, seriously.. one common compartment to rule them all? It’s H-U-G-E!!!
(2) The overall deckplan make no logical sense, it seems like stuff was just thrown and/or crammed in there. This one needs to be tossed and redone.
 
You missed on the Sub. Liner that the cargo door of the launch cannot be accessed while docked, so the launch cannot unload cargo unless it either fits through the personnel lock, or is vacuum rated.
 
Lol. It's entirely possible I missed even more.. I sat done and worked through them all from start to finish. My eyeballs were kinda bleeding by the end, and I just got so frustrated with the Yacht design I just threw in the towel and thought it needed to be totally redone. This problem could be fixed my making the docking portion a form-fitting sleeve like you see in other plans or illustrations.

One thing that is making it hard to do the review is there are no stats to go against it. So the Fat Trader with 19 rooms on board... is that the new normal? It's not the old version, and unless they've made wholesale changes to engineering and fuel consumption, the design is just plain wrong.
 
phavoc said:
One thing that is making it hard to do the review is there are no stats to go against it. So the Fat Trader with 19 rooms on board... is that the new normal? It's not the old version, and unless they've made wholesale changes to engineering and fuel consumption, the design is just plain wrong.

Yes, some things have changed. This might be fine.
 
phavoc said:
One thing that is making it hard to do the review is there are no stats to go against it. So the Fat Trader with 19 rooms on board... is that the new normal? It's not the old version, and unless they've made wholesale changes to engineering and fuel consumption, the design is just plain wrong.

There have been wholesale changes to drive & fuel load sizes.

PP Fuel rates have changed (10% of PP per year )
Drive sizes are slightly smaller.
The extra tonnage has been utilized for more passengers.

The pattern is not dissimilar to one in print in CT, save that this one has more staterooms. The one in CT Sup7 is crew fore, passengers amid, and engineering after on the upper deck. The One in CT TTA is crew on the portside hall, passengers on the starboard hall.
 
AKAramis said:
phavoc said:
One thing that is making it hard to do the review is there are no stats to go against it. So the Fat Trader with 19 rooms on board... is that the new normal? It's not the old version, and unless they've made wholesale changes to engineering and fuel consumption, the design is just plain wrong.

There have been wholesale changes to drive & fuel load sizes.

PP Fuel rates have changed (10% of PP per year )
Drive sizes are slightly smaller.
The extra tonnage has been utilized for more passengers.

The pattern is not dissimilar to one in print in CT, save that this one has more staterooms. The one in CT Sup7 is crew fore, passengers amid, and engineering after on the upper deck. The One in CT TTA is crew on the portside hall, passengers on the starboard hall.

Question then, if Power Plant fuel is per YEAR which I like, why do all the ship s say two weeks ?

Also the Liner shows 129 Dtons cargo and has lost 6 cabins and four low berths for some reason, it's a LINER not a cargo hauler, it should have more passengers if it has the space :?
 
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.
 
Tenacious-Techhunter said:
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.

That's interesting. I've never used the Roll20 website, but since more players are moving towards that sort of thing (remote group gaming) it would make sense.

Tenacious-Techhunter said:
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.

I've never seen something like that before. Since most Traveller ships only have one or two airlocks it's pretty straightforward where you are starting from (cargo bay doors would work as well) and then which direction you are heading. There's never really been any sort of detailing on what's on the hull, how you fix it, etc. It's always been relatively ambiguous.

Tenacious-Techhunter said:
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?

The only major internal sub-systems that get detailed out location wise are ships sensors, engineering (occasionally a power plant or maneuver drive will be separate from the jump drive), and computers. Life support hasn't been detailed like that. It just....is. The magic of distributed systems in the 52nd Century!

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

Turrets themselves aren't usually manned. There is a gunner station located below/next to the turret. This allows for localized control if necessary, and if the turret is using missiles or sand, the gunner can reload it (just don't go down that path... don't do eeet!).

Tenacious-Techhunter said:
A tile set to work with "dungeon designer" type tools and tile graphics editors would be great.

Yeah, good luck on that one. I'd recommend something like Campaign Cartographer with the Cosmographer add-in for this. There could be something in the works from the software publisher they are working with, but it would be a first.
 
Condottiere said:
Scifi tropes demand that turrets are manned, or manable.

Not always. Star Trek as an example. Battlestar Galactica as well, the battlestars had missiles and laser turrets controlled from the bridge.
 
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phavoc said:
Tenacious-Techhunter said:
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.

I've never seen something like that before. Since most Traveller ships only have one or two airlocks it's pretty straightforward where you are starting from (cargo bay doors would work as well) and then which direction you are heading. There's never really been any sort of detailing on what's on the hull, how you fix it, etc. It's always been relatively ambiguous.

Yes, but that's pretty stupid, considering there's a whole other half of the ship players could be exploring. Where and how parts are mounted to the ship, where the hand and footholds are, and parts of the ship you can hide behind and fire upon boarders from are all things you really aught to have a proper map for.

phavoc said:
Tenacious-Techhunter said:
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?

The only major internal sub-systems that get detailed out location wise are ships sensors, engineering (occasionally a power plant or maneuver drive will be separate from the jump drive), and computers. Life support hasn't been detailed like that. It just....is. The magic of distributed systems in the 52nd Century!

Yes, but that's nonsense, for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it needlessly takes out a seriously important ship's system for friends and foes to interact with. If it's not there to fight over, how can players and NPCs fight over it? Why sabotage potentially interesting gameplay by leaving it out? Secondly, it's just plain unrealistic for it to be, as you say, a "magic distributed system". Any plausible life support system is going to have the air be centrally processed, if only so that the ship's engineer doesn't have to go around the entire ship just to replace all the consumables.

Tenacious-Techhunter said:
A tile set to work with "dungeon designer" type tools and tile graphics editors would be great.

Yeah, good luck on that one. I'd recommend something like Campaign Cartographer with the Cosmographer add-in for this. There could be something in the works from the software publisher they are working with, but it would be a first.[/quote]

I'm currently using Tiled, but one of its quirks is that it doesn't work very well with unfinished tile sets. Having a properly finished one that makes plans look authentic would be nice.
 
Condottiere said:
Scifi tropes demand that turrets are manned, or manable.
You would be hard-pressed to find examples of modern warships that require their gunner to be in the turret they're manning. Additionally, why needlessly expose a valuable crewmember to blowthrough? It's bad ship design, pure and simple.
 
Tenacious-Techhunter said:
Condottiere said:
Scifi tropes demand that turrets are manned, or manable.
You would be hard-pressed to find examples of modern warships that require their gunner to be in the turret they're manning. Additionally, why needlessly expose a valuable crewmember to blowthrough? It's bad ship design, pure and simple.

Some modern sci-fi fiction still has weapons crews stationed at their mount, just not in the actual weapon mount like say a WW2 era turret.

Of course, one problem with this is the game mechanics posit a manned turret/weapons station as well. Missile launchers and sandcasters have to be reloaded manually (just look at the reload times - certainly not automated).

And there's the idea that having localized crew can be there to fix something if it breaks down during a battle, or take local control if centralized fire control goes down. Even in an era of remote controlled weaponry manual capabilities exist for a reason. So crews could still take casualties on weapon mount hits.
 
Condottiere said:
Scifi tropes demand that turrets are manned, or manable.

Do they?

In that they aren't in a lot of recent visual SF.

That and you Cite Star Wars, which is a type of SF that is more akin to Flash Gordon.
 
It's for the characters to have something to do, than just sit around their desks in the bridge, like they're sitting around the table, while the Dungeon Master describes the action.
 
Captain Jonah said:
AKAramis said:
phavoc said:
One thing that is making it hard to do the review is there are no stats to go against it. So the Fat Trader with 19 rooms on board... is that the new normal? It's not the old version, and unless they've made wholesale changes to engineering and fuel consumption, the design is just plain wrong.

There have been wholesale changes to drive & fuel load sizes.

PP Fuel rates have changed (10% of PP per year )
Drive sizes are slightly smaller.
The extra tonnage has been utilized for more passengers.

The pattern is not dissimilar to one in print in CT, save that this one has more staterooms. The one in CT Sup7 is crew fore, passengers amid, and engineering after on the upper deck. The One in CT TTA is crew on the portside hall, passengers on the starboard hall.

Question then, if Power Plant fuel is per YEAR which I like, why do all the ship s say two weeks ?

Also the Liner shows 129 Dtons cargo and has lost 6 cabins and four low berths for some reason, it's a LINER not a cargo hauler, it should have more passengers if it has the space :?
Because, IIRC, Mathhew intends for two weeks of fusion fuel to be included in the drive itself.
 
AKAramis said:
Because, IIRC, Mathhew intends for two weeks of fusion fuel to be included in the drive itself.

That kind of information needs to be included in the CRB. It's kinda important.

And hopefully the new fuel calculation numbers agree with the new drive numbers, too. Meaning that the two weeks of fuel doesn't magically fit inside the displacement set aside for the drive itself.

That would be... annoying.
 
Why not just design the ships like modern warships, with Fire Control Centers? I nice area made up of all those 1Dton Fire Control areas but put together into one space and you have a bunch of Fire Control stations lined up, one for each turret.

Regarding BSG, we never saw the actual weapon stations. The TARGETING was from the bridge, but that was more from a tactical sense, not the individual aiming of each weapon.

I would suspect that most Traveller ships operate the same. Sure, traders etc. probably have the fire control station near the turret, but I would suspect that dedicated warships, including SDBs have a Fire Control room. If allowed, they may even have their own Fire Control Computer running the best Fire Control software they can to get the most bonuses.

You could also have a Damage Control Station, where those Repair Drones and the Repair software are run on a separate computer. That keeps your main computer open for programs needed by the bridge.
 
Rikki Tikki Traveller, I'm in total agreement with you on this. I sailed with the RCN as part of different AirDet's for 12 years and that is exactly how they do it. The main gun is never manned and the loading is 100% auto. The only time anyone ever went into the turret or down into the spaces below the gun were to carry out maintenance or repairs and to reload the depleted stock of ammo. Just like the CWIS too, unmanned and only looked at to reload or carry out maintenance and repairs.

The command and control center was deep in the ship and that is where all firing decisions took place. I used to go down there to watch the gunner track and fire the main gun all done on a monitor which gave visual from cameras as well as radar. The ship to air and ship to ship missiles were controlled from here too.
 
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