Sturn's Deck Plans (previously named 'May I post a.....')

[far-trader]

It's not that the flying bricks can't hover or take off in atmosphere, the burning question quite literally is how hot do they get from the friction on all the sharp edges when entering an atmosphere.

MoTrav's answer isn't a bad way to go, and not having read it I can only speculate that it probably doesn't go quite far enough for realism but works for a game.

What I mean is the check should be for entering atmo only. Not flying (at slow speed) once in it (or for Vacuum worlds). But that check, should it fail, could well be catastrophic. At the very least a failure would be serious. Even success might incur damage.

Then once you're actually in the atmosphere if all you have is 1G of thrust and the planet is anything over 1G you are going to crash, hard. Even with 1G on a planet with 1G you're looking at a dicey situation. It would be best to have an extra thrust over the local gravity so you're not limited in where you come down.

But anyway like I said it's all speculation on my part and whatever works for your game is the way to go if you don't mind a bit of handwaving. Like all hulls have built in contra-grav lifters that offset 99.9% of the local gravity allowing whatever thruster you have to be used almost entirely for moving.

 

[AKAramis]

Actually, the first CT design I saw had twin extensions that were full height, and looked like oversized rips of the Millenium Falcon cockpit, rather than the "chairs" of designs being put forth.

 

[-Daniel-]

To be fair I also have not thought of the Far Trader as being so "blocky" as Stern's.

Here is a vision someone else made that is closer to how I imagine the Far Trader to be.

Daniel

 

[Sturn]

I think the "blockiness" of my external views come from my lack of skills as an artist (whcih I have never claimed to be - I'm not). The external views are just to show people where everything is, not to show a true rendering. In fact, I regard my Far Trader external views as almost comical, they should just be considered a schematic of sorts.

Since I'm using 1.5x1.5x3 meter squares to build my plans, that leads to them being very blocky. I'm using building "blocks" to make them. In fact, I don't see why my deck plans wouldn't fit into the better looking graphic above (especially the front portion). I just have no skills to make such a graphic. So, please consider my external views not a perfect rendering of what the craft looks like, but just for explaining where all the doors and such are. Deckplans are what I'm creating, if someone wants to make better looking graphics based on my plans please do! I would gladly host them on my website with my plans.

 

[-Daniel-]

Oh and to be clear Sturn, I LOVE your plans. I think you are doing a great job. You have added some fun features as well. I like the larger and smaller staterooms for example. Nice touch. More like a real passanger boat/train/plane. Larger space pays more etc.

Daniel

 

[Zowy]

I like your plans, they are not at all like the simple ones I do. It is nice to see someone go the extra step and think outside the box.

 

[rust]

Like all hulls have built in contra-grav lifters that offset 99.9% of the local gravity allowing whatever thruster you have to be used almost entirely for moving.

I have always handled it like that, I even thought it was "canon" ?

In my sketch of my setting's most famous starship it looks like a box with
slightly rounded edges, but I managed to convince the players that it
could fly perfectly well, thanks to contragrav and anti-particle screen, and
an excellent flight computer software ...

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Contra Grav solves a lot of problems that's for sure.

Does anyone else remember the comedy movies from the 70s about a small country in Europe?

The movie was "The Mouse that Roared" This tiny European country decides to invade the US to get restoration funds and accidently captures a guy who has built a doomsday bomb.

Second movie was "The Mouse on the Moon" and it was about this same scientist developing artificial gravity and taking a ship to the moon (beating the Russians and the US). They ate steak on their space ship while the US and Russians ate mashed rations...

Moving at 20 mph, a ship could reach orbit in just a couple of hours. Aerodynamics be damned when CG is around.

 

[Sturn]

I have plans to update the noses of my Far Trader external view that won't change the deck plan. It wll make the nose more sleek just by reducing some headroom on the top deck. I inadvertly left out armor and thus made my stateroom dtons slightly too large (but well within the 10% rule!), so this may actually get me even closer to the exact 200 dtons.

I will have it updated in the next couple days.

 

[FallingPhoenix]

Not according to the playtest document:

A standard-configuration ship can also enter a planet's atmosphere, but is reliant on its thrusters to keep it aloft at all times
and is extremely ungainly. Piloting checks are required for all movement, and suffer a -2DM.

I would be quite surprised if this would be different in the final version.

Prepare to be surprised. Here is the wording from the Traveller rulebook:

"A standard-hull ship may still enter atmosphere but is very ungainly...capable only of making a controlled glide to the surface. Getting it back into space requires an elaborate launch set-up and considerable expense."

 

[Sturn]

I would prefer the playtest version myself. As has been pointed out, a square block, with contra-grav, could reach orbit if it didn't travel at a high enough speed to cause problems. The same square block could land as long as it did so at a reasonable speed. Add to this advanced, future avionics, materials that can handle the extra heat and vibration, flight computers, should make anything flyable with contra-grav and a reasonable speed.

Only high speeds would be a problem in my unprofessional opinion (two years of engineering before I switched to criminal justice )

 

[rust]

Prepare to be surprised.

Well, I am quite surprised.

I am not an engineer, but to me this does not really make much sense. :?
Which means that I will have to make another house rule ...

 

[-Daniel-]

Prepare to be surprised.

Well, I am quite surprised.

I am not an engineer, but to me this does not really make much sense. :?
Which means that I will have to make another house rule ...

I love how some of us think. I know some folks who will really dislike a rule but live with it because "it is the rule". Then there are others who shrug and say "Which means that I will have to make another house rule ...".

That is just great in my mind how some folks just deal with what they want. Good Job Rust. :wink:

Daniel

 

[far-trader]

Here is the wording from the Traveller rulebook:

"A standard-hull ship may still enter atmosphere but is very ungainly...capable only of making a controlled glide to the surface. Getting it back into space requires an elaborate launch set-up and considerable expense."

Does it elaborate on the whys?

To me it implies that standard hulls have neither lifters or (maybe) even landing gear and that the only thrust is by the maneuver drives so you'd have to erect (or build) the ship in a tail sitter config to take off, and have more thrust than local gravity.

 

[rust]

Good Job Rust. :wink:

Thank you very much.

For me, the setting always comes first. It has to "look, feel and work" the
way the players and I like it. If this means to adapt the rules, so be it -
they are just a tool to make the setting playable.

"My setting, my rules." :wink:

 

[FallingPhoenix]

To me it implies that standard hulls have neither lifters or (maybe) even landing gear and that the only thrust is by the maneuver drives so you'd have to erect (or build) the ship in a tail sitter config to take off, and have more thrust than local gravity.

With thruster plates (think that's a CT term, but my coming point is the same whatever you call them. Maybe I should just use M-drive).

Take 2:

With a M-drive that doesn't use fuel and can give you constant 1G+ thrust (okay, exactly 1G might be a problem, but aside from that...), C-G or lifters don't seem at all necessary to get off the surface of a planet, and thus, need not be assumed.

Which also poses the interesting question of the existence of artificial gravity on the ships... It seems most likely that it's assumed to be there, but still...

FP, who thinks it might be quite interesting to not have C-G in the OT universe...

 

[Matrix Cypher]

Ok, since we are talking about pushing a volume out into space and we are not dealing with mass. I am going to assume that they ships are equipped with a contra gravity device (aka TNE) that cancels out 99.9% of the gravitation forces (or something close). So a 1g ship can take off from a planet. It kinda silly to get to hard science with such a simple system. To be a little closer to hard science you should be a little more detailed in a ships capabilities with mass and thrust, etc.

:?

 

[SSWarlock]

o be a little closer to hard science you should be a little more detailed in a ships capabilities with mass and thrust, etc.

Such details have been developed ad nauseum on the TML (Traveller Mailing List). Some of it useful but all of it much more detailed than MongTrav's core book and much more work. Having seen most of those details and grabbed/used quite a bit of it all, I have to admit Mongoose's publication has put the fun back into ship design for me.

With jump drive, "M-drive", artificial gravity, and space-based weaponry hitting targets at ranges of tens of thousands of miles, Traveller is a long way from hard science.

 

[-Daniel-]

.....Traveller is a long way from hard science.

But you have to admit, when seen next to many of the SciFi RPGs it is closer then most. 8)

Daniel