Space Stations

R

rgrove0172

Mongoose
Influenced by popular science fiction its easy to imagine these huge orbiting cities where a traveler can visit restaurants, go to conferences, get a hotel room etc. However, looking at the limited information on spacestation in the 2300U it seems such a thing is beyond them. Even the biggest habitats wouldnt support that kind of vision.

Do you guys fudge in the way of huge orbital, spinning facilities to enable the "Airport in Orbit" type thing or do you stick with the cramped, purely functional, slightly more accomodating than the ISS version?
 
Even Orbital (2100, TL9) gives us O’Neill and Bernal structures, so I would go with some generosity there. IM2300U, Gateway is a very large and fantastic place, with a giant solar collector out at High Point.
 
rgrove0172 said:
Do you guys fudge in the way of huge orbital, spinning facilities to enable the "Airport in Orbit" type thing or do you stick with the cramped, purely functional, slightly more accomodating than the ISS version?
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Actually, both. Or at least it depends on the tech level of the orbited world. Higher TL space stations don't even spin IMTU; they use the same artificial gravity as spacecraft.
 
Orbital habitats are much like their ground counterparts, huge. Since most players aren't normally trying to extensively map either in detail, it becomes a matter of background description to flavor the scenes. Large space stations will have residental, business and administrative locations to set the stage but may also be inclined to have domes and windows allowing outside views to the stars or the world below and possibly the bustle of spaceport activity. Everything going on around the characters should accentuate where they are but not bog them down in minutia. 'Deck plans' for a space station should be not much different than a simple, very localized mapping of a street and/or building where the action will take place in a city.

Everything else is for the narrator's ego.
 
Oops , big goof on my part - Im running a 2300AD campaign.. not the classic Traveller setting. No arfiticial gravity, spin habitats only.
 
O'Neill-style habitats are part of the 2300AD setting. They are found throughout the core, at Neubayern, Kie-Yuma, Beta Canum, Hochbaden. The American FAR stations are habitat-sized stations, too.

The Bessieres system has several habitats, along with hundreds of factories and other smaller stations. There is habitat in the C1 system, an "offshore" tax shelter.

Typically these things are not "designed" with a generation system. They just "are", as part of the background scenery.
 
Colin said:
O'Neill-style habitats are part of the 2300AD setting. They are found throughout the core, at Neubayern, Kie-Yuma, Beta Canum, Hochbaden. The American FAR stations are habitat-sized stations, too.
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I think the O'Neil "Island Three" cylinders are too large for the 2300 setting owing to the construction time measured in centuries. Not enough time has transpired to finish building the first example. These models are 32 km long and over 8 km in diameter. The interior surface area is over 596,000 acres.

The smaller habitats (Bernal Sphere or Stanford Torus) seem like a better fit for the setting.
 
The FAR stations are Bernal spheres, while the C1 tax haven and Beta Canum habs are Stanford torus. The O'Neill-style habitats are only found in the Core, where they have the developed infrastructure, robotic resources, and sheer wealth to create the O'Neill cylinders. Most habitats are far smaller.
 
Colin said:
O'Neill-style habitats are part of the 2300AD setting. They are found throughout the core, at Neubayern, Kie-Yuma, Beta Canum, Hochbaden. The American FAR stations are habitat-sized stations, too.

The Bessieres system has several habitats, along with hundreds of factories and other smaller stations. There is habitat in the C1 system, an "offshore" tax shelter.

Typically these things are not "designed" with a generation system. They just "are", as part of the background scenery.
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Yes but they are no longer just background scenery the second a PC goes there. The GM has to describe the enviroment as the PC explores or conducts business and therefore it has to be fleshed out, as in any other environment encountered. Unless simply stating "you stay a couple days at one of the stations around Beta Canum while you discharge, then you leave." Personally I cant imagine tossing something like that out to my players, or being satisified with it myself.
 
That depends on who is the active part of the group. If the Ref is the Active ("Patron and Quest" mode), background items stay that way until you decide otherwise. If the players are active ("Sandbox" mode) then even a little reading on the O'Neills (or watching some of the original Gundam series, which uses them) should give you the context and descriptive power to handle them.
 
rgrove0172 said:
The GM has to describe the enviroment as the PC explores or conducts business and therefore it has to be fleshed out, as in any other environment encountered.
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This complaint can be made broadly across Traveller. How many far-future cities are described in detail? How many starports are described? For a s-f game that's been around for decades, the pickings are pretty slim. Colin's actually done us better than most in providing city and colony layouts.

I bought a set of Future Armada deckplans for the Argo III that work pretty well to describe most of 2300's spin environments. You can throw those down in a pinch.
 
Well, you can design a space station or habitat using the ship design system, but there is a great deal missing from the system that would have to be worked out.
Let's look at size. A small Bernal-sphere habitat might be 200 meters across, with a total of ten rings (5 each fore and aft of the sphere), a hangar module, power plant, and the central spine.

The sphere alone is 300,000 displacement tons. Each 100 meter diameter ring has a perimeter of approximately 650 meters (rounding up), and assuming a 5 x 10 meter cross section, each ring is 2200 tons. 5000 tons for the hangar bay, 10,000 tons for the power plant, radiators and life support equipment. So we're starting at 347,000 tons, and this is a small habitat.

When I say background, I do not mean "undetailed". I mean, just describe it, without designing it. Unless it somehow needs to be involved in a pitched battle, it doesn't need to be designed, per se. Some quick number like these will give you enough of a starting point that you can use to describe a place to your players. The orbital station at Beta Canum, for example, is a Stanford torus approximately 5 kilometers across. This gives the outer, bottom, level of the torus a circumference of 15.7 kilometers. Assume a circular cross-section of 100 meters, and this ring is a colossal 8.8 million displacement tons. (Give or take, I've forgotten my calculus). It is actually likely to have a larger cross section...
 
Ah, ok Colin, I see what you mean. Yes, even the stations that I have pretty fleshed out dont include an actual map, simply a list of businesses and accomodations, facilities for spacecraft etc.
 
You could use a map of an existing station from fiction, just change the names of the businesses.

For instance, check out the maps of Deep Space Nine and Earth Space Dock on the wiki page for Star Trek Online. Or, find maps of Babylon 5.
 
rgrove0172 said:
Sure but those stations include artificial gravity technology, they arent set up for spin so it doesnt work out.
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Babylon 5 does not use artificial gravity technology, it uses spin.

http://www.frostjedi.com/vex/html/babylon_5_station_map.htm
 
rgrove0172 said:
Sure but those stations include artificial gravity technology, they arent set up for spin so it doesnt work out.
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Really? You cannot alter them so the store locations have the floor going outwards and have the station spin? You don't have to use the station AS IS; use the floor plan as a basis and alter for taste or to fit whatever tech is available.

And if things don't exactly seem correct or line up properly, blame it on some artistic architect's vision. That can give what might be some mundane location a bit of flavor or character. 8)
 
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