Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Accommodations and Excursion Bays

G. Vehicular excursion bays can support and maintain a shipping tonnage of vehicles up to their Support rating and accommodate a vehicle up to its Access rating in shipping tons.

H. Volume tonne per shipping tonne stated.

I. A vehicular excursion bay can of course deploy personnel through its airlock but is not optimised to maintain their equipment.

J. Add that workshop.

K. You could assume that unless the vehicles are gravitated, there's likely a descending ramp.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: The ORIGINAL Millennium Falcon brought to Life

The Millennium Falcon is a ship with an unparalleld iconic status. But it originally looked completely different. In this video, I explore Colin Cantwell's original concept model for the Millennium Falcon, and I bring it to life with new visuals and fan lore!

1. Plagiarism.

2. Recycling.

3. Corellian design philosophy.

4. Commonality.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Accommodations and Excursion Bays

L. Additional vehicles can be stowed in cargo space set up as garages, accessing the ship through the excursion bay.

M. Or, you can just drive them off the cargo hatch.

N. This seems just a rather specialized version, which as the name suggests, rather practical for expeditions.

O. There seem to be three distinct types of vehicular excursion bays.

P. Minimal, large, and multiple access.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: The Best Ships for Traveling Merchants | Star Wars List

In this video, we take a look at the best ships for traveling merchants in Star Wars. Use this as inspiration for your next Star Wars TTRPG campaign, or just enjoy as a thought exercise about the lives of Star Wars civilians!

3D model credits:
U-55 Orbital Loadlifter from Star Wars Battlefront 2
G9 Rigger from Star Wars Galaxies
Wayfarer by kubli for Star Wars Empire at War
C-ROC Gozanti by Warb_Null for Empire at War
Darius G from Star Wars Outlaws
All prepared for use in Blender and animated by me.

1. Space/bus.

2. Taco/truck.

3. I'm not sure I'd let customers onboard.

4. Also, seems unworkable if you're docked at a starport.

5. Weird hull likely categorized as dispersed structure.

6. For a mall business plan, you could rent out lots.

7. Or, attach pods.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Accommodations and Excursion Bays

L. Typically used for security rather than hostile environments, the bay can deliver four standard ground cars at the same time, and house them
in a workshop/garage.

M. Allows a motorcade to deploy simultaneously, reducing the chance of an isolated vehicle being compromised.

N. Multiple access is an interesting concept for a full hangar.

O. If you have consecutive launches, you have to stop accelerating for the amount of time it takes for that number of spacecraft to clear.

P. Multiple concurrent launches from the same hangar, reduces that period to how long it would take a single spacecraft to clear.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Accommodations and Excursion Bays

Q. Multiple access vehicular excursion bay has access of twelve, and support of twelve.

R. It takes up twenty eight tonnes and costs twenty one megastarbux.

S. So, it can deploy four three tonne ground cars simultaneously.

T. I don't know if you can mix and match this, allowing differing sizes of vehicles to exit at the same time.

U. Or, if storage restricts the size to access.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Accommodations and Excursion Bays

V. In theory, you could have multiple bays to achieve simultaneous launches, or deployments.

W. The reason you might not want bifurcate them, is that whole could be greater than the parts.

X. The larger the hangar, the larger the spacecraft that can be stored there.

Y. The bigger the spacecraft, the bigger the hangar doors it needs, in theory.

Z. That would be the equivalent to access.

 

[J. L. Brown]

So mostly this thread seems like a place for Condottiere to brainstorm and do stream-of-consciousness thoughts on ships -- is there an index or summary for folks who want to contribute, but don't want to wade through 263 pages?

 

[Condottiere]

Have you tried Search?

 

[J. L. Brown]

Have you tried Search?

No, I'm not going to try to guess what sort of content is buried in the previous 263 pages & hope that I phrase it right so that it shows up; it would probably be quicker to just read the whole thread. I was hoping that anything which stuck out as particularly worthwhile or interesting in the minds of folks who had participated in the discussion might be summarized (or even linked!) in the first few posts... but no such luck so far. So my question about a summary or index somewhere less obvious.

There may be some really great insights in all these posts, but slogging through all of them for treasure that *might* be buried amongst them is a bit daunting.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacecraft: Accommodations and Excursion Bays

1. In theory, you could use docking spaces as garages and access, with a central full hangar for maintenance.

2. At ten percent, a docking space would likely be optimized for a specific tonnage and hull configuration.

3. Going by Mercenary Cruiser, you could switch around modules in ten turns.

4. Two spare cutter modules can be carried in addition to those installed on the cutters, providing greater versatility in missions, although changing modules requires a delicate dance of launch, release, recovery and transfer of modules that can take up to an hour.

5. Full hangar should simplify that.

6. The largest space stations are capable of receiving ships within internal bays.

7. This provides ships with protection and makes repairs and the transfer of goods and passengers much easier.

8. This kind of docking facility consumes three tons for every ton of the largest ship it is capable of handling or the total tonnage of ships it can handle at any one time (so, a 6,000-ton docking facility can hold ships totalling up to 2,000 tons).

9. Implies that sacrificing an additional hundred percent more volume should make repairs and transfers faster.

 

[Condottiere]

No, I'm not going to try to guess what sort of content is buried in the previous 263 pages & hope that I phrase it right so that it shows up; it would probably be quicker to just read the whole thread. I was hoping that anything which stuck out as particularly worthwhile or interesting in the minds of folks who had participated in the discussion might be summarized (or even linked!) in the first few posts... but no such luck so far. So my question about a summary or index somewhere less obvious.

There may be some really great insights in all these posts, but slogging through all of them for treasure that *might* be buried amongst them is a bit daunting.

You also have to take in account evolution, of both the prevailing rule set and the author's viewpoint, as well as intent.

One example might be cheapest possible starship.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible Starship

1. Speaking of which.

2. Based on the default Free Trader, quarter mortgage is a tad below thirteen megastarbux, which can be rounded up.

3. If you think about it, you could trade that in for another spacecraft, as long as it's role is in commercial transportation.

4. Jump drive costs fifteen megastarbux.

5. That's a quarter of your cost right there.

6. Civilian grade sensors costs three megastarbux.

7. That, you could always install later on, in a minor refit.

8. The jump drive would be a major refit, and would be a fifty percent premium.

9. Though, at that point, you could decide on one with a greater range, or get a budget variant.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible Starship

A. Find a system with considerable intra system commerce.

B. Build up experience, contacts, and a nest egg.

C. This can be leveraged once you upgrade to a starship.

D. At a minimum, you have a good grip on how local commerce works.

E. You might also pick up parts, and or a cheap starship, in the meantime.

F. Which means, you select a large enough spacecraft, that can be converted to a starship, when you muster out.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible Starship

G. If you think about it, the cheapest starship is the Scout Ship.

H. Since player characters get it for free.

I. However, not ideal for commerce or passenger service.

J. But, it has the same jump drive as a Free Trader.

K. Which gives a performance of two hundred parsec tonnes.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible Starship

L. Pretty sure that the Scouts would like their vessel back, in the same condition they loaned it out.

M. That would mean no alterations, beyond cosmetic ones.

N. You have a jump drive with a performance of two hundred parsec tonnes.

O. You could superglue a hundred tonne container to the Scout Ship.

P. And you more or less have the same range and capacity as a Free Trader.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible Starship

Q. The other option being docking clamps.

R. Adding those alters the hull of the Scout Ship.

S. However, you could have them built in to the hundred tonne container.

T. That way, you could attach it to any hundred tonne starship, or one with sufficient spare parsec tonnes.

U. So your actual cost is the construction of the hundred tonne container.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible Starship

V. This is where all those ship shares earn their keep.

W. You'd need a lot of them to pay for any new starship.

X. However, the Scout Ship is free, and a hundred tonne container, furnished, should cost less than ten megastarbux.

Y. If you modularize it, you can easily switch out the furnishings, whether the emphasis is on cargo or passengers.

Z. Or, a more specialized functions, as a substitute for such vessels as the Laboratory Ship.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible Starship

1. You could have one hundred tonne container, or break it up into two to four twenty five to fifty tonne containers.

2. You could install on a thirty tonne cutter module a Type/One docking clamp, and attach three of those to the Scout Ship.

3. Well assume that naked cutter modules can withstand vacuum and jumpspace environments.

4. You could also have two fifty tonne cutters limpet themselves to the Scout Ship hull.

5. Optionally, have three twenty five tonne modules installed in a hundred tonne module.

6. That should allow enough flexibility in payload.

7. There does seem to be a loop hole in permitting each module to have it's own power plant.

8. You still have twenty five tonnes that could cover facilities and components required to make the hundred tonne container livable.

9. Or, just pay for the hull and power plant, and categorize it as an extended cargo hold.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible Starship

A. The Venture drive remains the cheapest possible (durable) jump drive.

B. It takes up the minimum ten tonne requirement, at nine megastarbux.

C. It's performance of one hundred twenty parsec tonnes.

D. That restricts it to monoparsec range.

E. And microjumps.

F. And therefore, remains technological level nine.