Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Starships: Accommodations and the Economics of Interstellar Travelling

A rule of thumb would be one attendant and one toilet per fifty passengers; however, since it's a hundred sixty eight hour tour, you probably need three shifts and three toilets, though the ratio is higher in premium.

That brings up the fact that even if you manage to design a cheap starliner, it's labour that will be the biggest cost component, since I'm not sure how you can negotiate a lower rate, and not worry that this will result in lacklustre service, negligence and poor maintenance.

The two thousand bux salary of the steward does provide us a basis for calculating the middle middle class income in the Imperium, which depending on calendar or lunar months, would be twenty four to twenty six kilobux per annum, as a typical flight attendant's salary is probably fifty thousand.

A double income two kids family probably wouldn't spend more than half a year's income on a once in a decade experience, so the target would be seven hundred fifty bux per berth.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacestations: Accommodations and Life on board an O'neill Cylinder

O'Neill Cylinders space stations are examples of large rotating habitats able to be constructed in space in which people and even a complex ecology might be transplanted. But what would it be like living in one and how would civilizations based inside them in the future tend to operate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYyg8JC-6ew


Tax shelter.

Or swampland.

Migratory nomads.

Jupiter Two.

Maybe Snowpiercer.

 

[Old School]

I rather doubt anyone in the Traveller universe willingly takes the low berth option, and parents would certainly be leery of it for their offspring.

As I see the Traveller universe, the risks of low berth are minimal. Otherwise tramp traders wouldn’t be equipped with 20 low Berths.

Assuming its a normal (8+) Medic check, this role should not be failed under normal circumstances for a passenger vessel. In any civilized society, it would likely be criminal for anyone other than a full Doctor (Combined +4 between skill and education) to take paying passengers out of low berth under normal circumstances. These doctors are more likely to be based at the starport than on ship, expect for large passenger or military vessels. Add in +2 for taking it slow, and +1 for TL12 or higher, and you have a minimum roll of 1. Even with a -1 for low END of the passenger, such as an overweight and out of shape tourist, this roll can’t be failed.

Only in emergency situations, or far from civilization, or with the very weak, is there a risk. Passenger ship operators would likely refuse passage to someone who was too weak to travel safely (-2 END modifier), and few tourists would travel in a TL11 ship to a backwater where they must rely on the the Ships steward with Medic 1 to revive them.

 

[Condottiere]

That would depend if a roll is mandatory, in which case snake eyes is always a problem.

This would be where a saving throw comes in.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: THE EXPANSE is the Most Scientifically Accurate TV Show

Right now, there’s only one great sci-fi show on television that’s more science than fiction, and I got on a dang spaceship just so I could tell you why, and why that’s so important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgvI6RbkMnQ

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Accommodations and the Economics of Interstellar Travelling

I just noticed that an administrator gets only paid one and a half kilobux, and a mechanic one kilobux.

That would make an administrator actually a clerical worker, probably an upper lower class wage slave, and a mechanic a middle lower class worker bee.

Of course, while living onboard ship, board and lodging should be inclusive in the wage packet.

Assuming the real life poverty line is below twelve kilobux per annum, starvation wages in Traveller might be five hundred bux per month, in an industrialized community.

 

[Old School]

That would depend if a roll is mandatory, in which case snake eyes is always a problem.

This would be where a saving throw comes in.

If Mongoose rules include automatic failure on a skill check with a natural 2, I haven’t seen it.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Adam Savage Examines the Props and Spacesuits of The Expanse!

Adam visits the props department of Syfy's The Expanse, where armorists and propmakers engineer the weapons, helmets, and the gear that give weight and story to the universe of the show. Prop master James Murray shows Adam some of the unique props his team has made, revealing aesthetic and functional details!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXwe51lkJ6M


Adam Savage Speaks to an Expanse Graphic Designer!

Viewers of The Expanse know well the Savage Industries storyline, introduced in season 3. While on set, Adam Savage talks with Kim Sison, first assistant graphic designer, who not only designed the show's iteration of his company's logo, but many of the signs, labels, patches and brands you see as well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kpj8mJGIls

Mission patches.

Intergalactic Waffles.


Adam Savage Talks Costumes on the Expanse Set!

The Expanse takes its characters outdoors in season 4. Adam Savage speaks to costume designer Joanne Hansen about the modifications she and her team made not only to accommodate story, but also the actual harsh conditions the actors faced while filming. Plus, a spotlight on Chrisjen Avasarala's AMAZING clothes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg-5_4ZOEcw


Adam Savage Meets the Expanse's Stunt Coordinator!

How do you make dangerous scenes safe, especially where zero gravity is involved? Adam Savage chats with stunt coordinator Matt Birman, who has worked on the Expanse since day one, about the challenges of balancing story, location, safety and expense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TkEPnim798

Zero gee sutra.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Accommodations and the Economics of Interstellar Travelling

Or accommodating the economics of interstellar travelling.

The nominal "average" value at Earth's surface, known as standard gravity is, by definition, 9.80665 m/s2. This quantity is denoted variously as gn, ge (though this sometimes means the normal equatorial value on Earth, 9.78033 m/s2), g0, gee, or simply g (which is also used for the variable local value).

The formula for escape velocity comprises of a constant, G, which we refer to as the universal gravitational constant. The value of it is = 6.673 × 10-11 N . m2 / kg2. The unit for escape velocity is meters per second (m/s).

Near the surface of the Earth (sea level), gravity decreases with height such that linear extrapolation would give zero gravity at a height of one half of the Earth's radius - (9.8 m. s−2 per 3,200 km.)

The escape velocity from Earth is about 11.186 km/s (6.951 mi/s; 40,270 km/h; 36,700 ft/s; 25,020 mph; 21,744 kn)[1] at the surface.

In 1856 Andrew Waugh announced Everest (then known as Peak XV) as 8,840 m (29,002 ft) high, after several years of calculations based on observations made by the Great Trigonometric Survey. The 8,848 m (29,029 ft) height given is officially recognised by Nepal and China.

Escape velocity depends on G not g, so increase or decrease in Earth's gravitational pull doesn't matter. Hence, a launch from Mt. Everest will need less that 11.2 km/s as its increasing the radius by roughly 8 km. Now given the huge mass of earth, the change is negligible.

Problem 2 – An Engineer proposes to launch a rocket from the top of Mt Everest (altitude 8.9 km) because its summit is farther from the center of Earth. Is this a good plan? Answer: V = 894/(6378+8.9)1/2 = 11.18 km/s. This does not change the required escape speed by very much considering the effort to build such a launch facility at this location.


And I'm told that Everest is about as high as a mountain can aspire too, at standard gravity, so it doesn't seem much point in going out of your way to build a spaceport there, in order to take advantage of any gravitational differences between sea level and nine thousand metres altitude.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Accommodations and the Economics of Interstellar Travelling

Or accommodating the economics of interstellar travelling.

From a rotating body[edit]
The escape velocity relative to the surface of a rotating body depends on direction in which the escaping body travels. For example, as the Earth's rotational velocity is 465 m/s at the equator, a rocket launched tangentially from the Earth's equator to the east requires an initial velocity of about 10.735 km/s relative to Earth to escape whereas a rocket launched tangentially from the Earth's equator to the west requires an initial velocity of about 11.665 km/s relative to Earth. The surface velocity decreases with the cosine of the geographic latitude, so space launch facilities are often located as close to the equator as feasible, e.g. the American Cape Canaveral (latitude 28°28' N) and the French Guiana Space Centre (latitude 5°14' N).

Practical considerations[edit]
In most situations it is impractical to achieve escape velocity almost instantly, because of the acceleration implied, and also because if there is an atmosphere, the hypersonic speeds involved (on Earth a speed of 11.2 km/s, or 40,320 km/h) would cause most objects to burn up due to aerodynamic heating or be torn apart by atmospheric drag. For an actual escape orbit, a spacecraft will accelerate steadily out of the atmosphere until it reaches the escape velocity appropriate for its altitude (which will be less than on the surface). In many cases, the spacecraft may be first placed in a parking orbit (e.g. a low Earth orbit at 160–2,000 km) and then accelerated to the escape velocity at that altitude, which will be slightly lower (about 11.0 km/s at a low Earth orbit of 200 km). The required additional change in speed, however, is far less because the spacecraft already has significant orbital velocity (in low Earth orbit speed is approximately 7.8 km/s, or 28,080 km/h).

10.735/9.78033 = 1.0976112257970845564515716749844

So basically, taking off from the Equator to the east requires about 1.1 gravities at default.

That would mean you could have a manoeuvre drive factor one, plus a rocket booster factor zero point one, and achieve orbit.

11.665/9.78033 = 1.1927000418186298417333566454302

Or a factor zero point two rocket booster, and take off anywhere in any direction.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Sci-Fi UI Episode 1: The Expanse

In this episode of Sci-Fi UI, we'll find out whether the computer interfaces in The Expanse can actually be built in the real world. In Sci-Fi UI, we deep-dive into the UI of tomorrow to see if we can learn anything about building better UI today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7WtNgesVbQ


The Expanse Costume Design: Part 1

While prepping for season 5 from their production wardrobe in Toronto, we explore the Expanse costume design with a complete walk through with series costume designer Joanne Hansen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWo3mDrEe3o


The Expanse Costume Design: Part 2

The Expanse Costume Design: In this 2nd video of a 3 part series, we interview Joanne Hansen, the costume designer of The Expanse series on Amazon Prime, from the production wardrobe department in Toronto, Canada.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s5TtooOXRc


I'm pretty sure that some hand gestures are universal and eternal.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Starships size comparison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Loc7qX7FI


STAR WARS Size Comparison

Comparison of many things from the Star Wars movies. Only movies from episode I to VIII, Rogue One and Solo. Obviously not everything appears, only the most representative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHo_J5FtJ58


Starships size comparison (Star Wars)

Not all the ships of Star Wars. Only the most important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnxd3t6iUiM


Starships Size Comparison (Battlestar Galactica)

Comparison of sizes of some ships of the series Battlestar Galactica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WBu2Esno2s


Spaceships in the Sky

So the ships of science fiction would look in heaven.
Madrid (Spain)

--Names of Starships--

1-Death Star 2 (Star Wars)
2-Viajero (Destiny)
3-District 9
4-Tet (Oblivion)
5-Independence Day Mothership
6-Mimbari (Babylon 5)
7-Unicron (Transformers)
8-Leviathan (Starcraft)
9-Destroyer (Star Wars)
10-Citadel (Mass Effect)
11-High Charity (Halo)
12-StarKiller
13-Halo
14-Space station (2001: A Space Odyssey)
15-Borg Cube (Star Trek)
16-Enterprise (Star Trek)
17-Elysium Station
18-Ark (Halo)
19-Avatar (Eve online)
20-Reaper (Mass Effect)
21-Axion (Wall-E)
22-Ra Pyramid (StarGate)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaJt1SDHPW4


Baby Yoda is missing.

Never heard of the battlestar Prometheus.

In theory, the Lucrehulk-class droid control ship/Core ship are arguably breakaway hulls.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Confederation Cutter Classes

Coming attractions:

Cold Cutter Class - Refrigerated cargo and passengers.

Cutlass Class - Medium fighter

Cal Cutter Class - with bomb bays; fighter bomber

Stone Cutter Class - constructed from available pkanetoids

Air Cutter Class - Streamlined

Cuttlefish Cutter Class - Pressurized hull

Char Cutter Class - Food truck

Crew Cutter Class - Automated

Buzz Cutter Class - Interceptor

Miss Cutter Class - stealthed

Pre Cutter Class - prototype

Clear Cutter Class - reconnaissance

Short Cutter Class - short haul

Cutback Cutter Class - low cost

Cutthroat Cutter Class - corsair

Cutpurse Cutter Class - blockade runner

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration : Star Wars Resistance season two

Inspiring might be an exaggeration.

There are probably any number of interrelated reasons that Disney cut the cord early on this series, and it shows in the more compressed story lines; to be fair, I suspect that by the end of the first season, the Mouse had a very good prognostication as to the direction of the franchise by first quarter twenty twenty, which probably included burying everything in the period just prior to the fall of the New Republic, for the next couple of decades.

The second season is an improvement of the first, with the slapstick antics of the protagonist kept to a minimum, and a glimpse of the possible character arcs and development that supporting characters might have had. The cameos could have been dispensed with, but that might just be my personal bias; probably needed Vader and Ahsoka, though I believe she's dead by now, however prepubescent Yoda should be available.

I'm not quite sure Disney knew what they wanted with this series, except as a tie in for younger viewers to the Sequels; Filoni probably was distracted by The Mandolarian, and may not have cared in any case.

You're not missing anything by not watching it.

Technically speaking, the spacecraft combat wasn't bad.

 

[locarno24]

There are probably any number of interrelated reasons that Disney cut the cord early on this series, and it shows in the more compressed story lines; to be fair, I suspect that by the end of the first season, the Mouse had a very good prognostication as to the direction of the franchise by first quarter twenty twenty, which probably included burying everything in the period just prior to the fall of the New Republic, for the next couple of decades.

It was intended to be as short as it was - compared to Rebels, etc - because the intent was to have it basically tie in with the 'end' of the saga and the hesitation to include anything 'after' that point.

It does feel wierdly compressed and stretched at different points - there are quite a few 'filler' episodes in season 2 - but overall I enjoyed it.
I agree the space combat is quite good - the fighter design is pretty good, with the T-70, TIE/ba and TIE/ad (the dive-bombers) recognisably faction-specific ships but looking different 'enough' to be interesting.

We don't really know where Ahsoka is. She'd be in her early 70s at the time of Rise of Skywalker, which is an eminantly achievable age, especially for a force-sensitive. I wouldn't have been too surprised to see her - for that matter I wondered if the Hutt we see in season two might have been an all-grown-up "Stinky" from the pilot episode of Clone Wars.

I didn't mind the cameos of Poe and Leia. My main 'like' for the series was showing the universe pre-Force Awakens; something the first film kind of failed to do, and helping to underline the cold war feel and the "Resistance=/=Republic because Leia's a social pariah" political setup which isn't really explained in the trilogy itself.

 

[Condottiere]

The Mouse tends towards three seasons, with few exceptions; sort of an early concept for having content. Don't know what the current policy is with Disney Plus and the existential wars against Netflix and whatever streaming services are and will be popping up.

Pretty sure that Star Trek Discovery was supposed to have at least five seasons, probably more, especially how much money and prestige was invested, to the point that money allocated for Picard was diverted to the second season after Netflix refused to write another black cheque.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: (Episode 111) Truth OR Myth? Romulan Starships- The D'deridex Class Warbird (UPDATED)

In today's episode of Truth OR Myth we're taking ANOTHER Look at The Romulan D'deridex Class Warbird... Hope you Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgT0o44HQo8

I always liked the design, though the configuration is too flimsy for Traveller.

Arguably, you could cheat with breakaways, thereby maintaining structural strength and armour without undue penalty.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: How A Secret Star Wars Show Was Cancelled After 7 Years

There is a very strange, cancelled Star Wars TV show that has recently made its way online known as Underworld. Star Wars Underworld was an attempt to accomplish what the Mandalorian is doing but in a different era. Lucas wanted to create something that was big, that filled in holes in the canon, and that featured characters from Vader, all the way to Han Solo. Star Wars Underworld had the budget and scope of the Mandalorian long before the television world was ready for it. This is a story that starts well before the Skywalker Trilogy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8ApVcguM4

Fifty completed scripts.


Star Wars Detours

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSVCemArNS8

What ifs.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Smaller (Ground Vehicle) Weapons

1. You need a firmpoint to attach these smaller weapons to, externally.

2. Each firmpoint can take upto four weapon systems with a maximum weight of a quarter of a tonne, each, or a single weapon system weighing upto one tonne.

3. Shipboard weapon systems are essentially more powerful that those designed for dirtside combat, so usually pointless to attempt this with anything larger than a tonne.

4. However, you could assume you could stuff anything five tonnes and below into a barbette, and we'll assume that upto five examples one tonne and below.

5. Next up would be default fifty, hundred and five hundred tonne bays, though again, it's probably hit diminishing returns.

6. These smaller weapon systems hardly draw any power at all, so it's ignored.

7. You can exchange one hardpoint for three firmpoints.

8. Any weapon system that's attached to a firmpoint, would have to abide by it's restrictions on power usage and range.

9. Barbettes consume two firmpoints; in theory, a thousand tonne warship could exchange ten hardpoints for thirty firmpoints, and have fifteen barbettes, not that I find this a worthwhile exercise.

10. Well, depending on how you interpret how barbettes actually function while firmpointed, you could take two hard points/six firmpoints/three barbettes and for fifteen tonnes, launch a salvo of fifteen missiles or six torpedoes.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Adam Savage Meets the Expanse's Key Stunt Rigger!

Filming a show that takes place in space is no easy feat. Adam Savage talks to key stunt rigger Steve "Shack" Shackleton about how he juggles costumes, sets and actors to create the illusion of zero gravity, then sees for himself what working with wires is like!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBtP35yIUQo


A perpetual cycling cable could be attached along one side of a corridor, that the crew could grab and be moved along during zero gee.