Ship's Troops and Berthing Spaces

[swordtart]

Another thing to bear in mind about surface ships is that a side benefit of extra space for flesh bags to wiffle about is to bring the overall density of the ship down enough for it to float. Cabin space is far lighter than the equivalent space of machinery and actual war gear.

Spaceships do not follow that rule and the less space crew can take up the better as the mass/volume equation is largely irrelevant, it is all about the volume (or in earlier versions of the rules the mass).

 

[MonsterX]

How often does brushing your teeth affect or not the adventure? On the other hand if you have to use fast drug debilitating side effects would and would likely be mentioned if they exist.

Slow drug mentions negative effects. Anti-rad drugs mentions side effects. So do Combat drugs. Medicinal drugs the same. Metabolic accelerator also. Notice a pattern? Drugs with side effects that would affect an adventure mention them even if they don't go into detail. Fast drug does not and can therefore be assumed not to have any that would affect the adventure.

I guess you have more faith than I do that the game designs will exhaustively list every possible game effect that something might have.

 

[Sigtrygg]

"Many of these items are subsumed in the costs and tonnages of 4 ton staterooms. In most cases, such areas are required only when drawing up deck plans."
4 tons is 8 squares

"Troop Barracks, including squad areas, training rooms, armories, brigs, ammunition magazines, vacc suit storage, capsule launch areas and briefing rooms"

Let us assume a platoon of 32 marines in 8 fire teams. One officer, one senior NCO, three NCOs, eight junior NCOs, nineteen troops.

The officer gets a 2t stateroom. The senior NCO and three NCOs share a 4 ton stateroom, the junior NCOs and nineteen troops get a one ton bunk area to themselves. Total 2+4+27 = 35 tons, 70 deckplan squares for staterooms and barracks.

However we should allocate 128 tons or 256 squares (if you wan to be really pedantic you do get an extra 5 squares to map thanks to the difference between a deckplan ton and a ship displacement ton). That gives us plenty of space to designate as squad areas, training rooms, armories, brigs, ammunition magazines, vacc suit storage, capsule launch areas and briefing rooms.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I guess you have more faith than I do that the game designs will exhaustively list every possible game effect that something might have.

Not every one but the ones that affect game play. If none are listed then none affect game play.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I think someone has pointed out in another thread. We should be considering submarines as the model for military space vessels

Submarines are very much more difficult and expensive to build than spacecraft; they all have 'Pressure Hull' -- and are sometimes built to resist up to sixty additional atmospheres of pressure. A ship which stays in space needs to resist zero external pressure; one that lands on Earth-like worlds has to resist a maximum of one (sometimes up to two) atmospheres of external pressure. Skimming fuel from the 'cloud tops' level of a Jupiter-like gas giant for fuel means enduring about one atmosphere of external pressure.

It is FAR easier (and cheaper) to build 14000 liters of 'spacecraft hull' than it is to build a similar volume of military submarine hull.

 

[swordtart]

Submarines are very much more difficult and expensive to build than spacecraft; they all have 'Pressure Hull' -- and are sometimes built to resist up to sixty additional atmospheres of pressure. A ship which stays in space needs to resist zero external pressure; one that lands on Earth-like worlds has to resist a maximum of one (sometimes up to two) atmospheres of external pressure. Skimming fuel from the 'cloud tops' level of a Jupiter-like gas giant for fuel means enduring about one atmosphere of external pressure.

It is FAR easier (and cheaper) to build 14000 liters of 'spacecraft hull' than it is to build a similar volume of military submarine hull.

I was referring to the accommodation aspect, submarines are generally not designed for flight either

The Companion is of the opinion that normal Traveller spacecraft can handle up to 10 atmospheres (100m water depth) without structural damage and as much as 30 atmospheres with increasing risk of cascade failure.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I was referring to the accommodation aspect, submarines are generally not designed for flight either

The Companion is of the opinion that normal Traveller spacecraft can handle up to 10 atmospheres (100m water depth) without structural damage and as much as 30 atmospheres with increasing risk of cascade failure.

Since building a starship is so much easier and less expensive, the same defense budget that produces extremely lean berthing space for submariners, results in much roomier facilities of all sorts (including berths for even Ordinary Spacehands).

The Companion, and indeed quite a lot of Mongoose 2e, contains opinions which are based purely on rule-of-cool and silliness. Use at your own risk.

 

[Condottiere]

It probably depends on what kind of usual practice is developed, as opposed to doctrinal standard operating procedure.

Theoretically, they used to drag galleys onshore every night, which, outside of the enslaved rowers, allowed the crew to stretch their legs on the beach.

In our case, you have a mandatory week in another dimension, and exit and enter it about a hundred diameters from the local starport.

That week is spent prepping the starship for it's next jump, and you hurry to dock at the destination's starport.

Everyone gets shore leave, or, at least, a turn at it.

Then, the cycle restarts.

So, the crew tolerates onboard conditions, but doesn't necessarily like them.

 

[swordtart]

Since building a starship is so much easier and less expensive, the same defense budget that produces extremely lean berthing space for submariners, results in much roomier facilities of all sorts (including berths for even Ordinary Spacehands).

Possibly but the overall volume of ship is not merely predicated on cost. Every extra DTon you add requires not only extra hull, but extra M-Drive, Powerplant and J-Drive. For any given size of vessel you have a trade between roomier accommodation and mission kit.

We are not making a procurement decision between a submarine and a space ship, we are making a procurement decision between a space ship and a more expensive spaceship with the exactly the same capabilities. I only cited a submarine as it has the same limitations on having a walk outside to relieve the claustrophobia.

If there were no credible limitation on size of vessel, all IN vessels would sensibly be in the Mega DTon range as all that extra hull translates to hull points if nothing else. Presuming they use 400 DTon cruisers for some reason. If you have 400 DTons it does not matter how much those DTONs are costing you. If you can fit a crew of 50 into 50 DTon vs 1-200 DTon then the advantage of cramming people in is obvious.

The Companion, and indeed quite a lot of Mongoose 2e, contains opinions which are based purely on rule-of-cool and silliness. Use at your own risk.

Ditto CT and every other version of Traveller. CT was light on rules. 4 Dton per stateroom was just a number. Later it was just decided to allow crew to double up. Later other types of accommodation were added. I doubt any of those decisions were based on the authors experience in setting procurement requirements for actual military equipment.

I am not saying you should use Barracks in your game.
I am not saying the IN in the chartered space setting uses Barracks on their ships (they never used to so there is no reason for them to start now).
I AM saying that 1DTon as the per capita size for barracks is entirely credible given that at least one real life military considers that an acceptable level of accommodation for serving personnel that are expected to spend weeks at a time entirely within the hull of an operational military vessel.

Facts not opinion.