dmccoy1693 said:
that's how I generally prefer to think of freetraders. Similar in design to 40-70 ft yachts (modified to haul cargo).
Hi,
I had mostly been thinking of stuff like patrol boats, research ships and/or small freighters, but I also like your idea about ocean-going yachts. They would make a good source to use since there are so many yachting magazines and such with reasonable deck plans available.
On the topic of bridge layouts in general, here is an image I put together awhile ago for a discussion I was involved with on bridge size and lay-out for a different set of rules on another board. The reason I drew up this sketch was because some people were suggesting that a 20 dton bridge (as was included in many original Traveller designs) was way bigger than what might be needed on a small ship and that a small cockpit-like space might be more suitable for a spaceship. As such I wanted to try and put together something simple to compare the two ideas.
On the right is a cockpit like bridge I had originally included in a 300dton freighter I put together for the Intersteller War period of Traveller. Its about 3 dtons in size and I only made it that size because that was the space I had available, and on that ship I had placed a second control station/engine monitoring station in the engine room, as well.
The image on the left though is a generic 20dton space kind of layed out based on some stuff I had seen on ocean-going ships, as well as stuff maybe a little inspired from shows like Star Trek, etc. Its layed out with what could either be windows or a digital view screen forward and small stand alone consoles for the navigator and helmsman forward. The thrid seat could either be an engineer's or gunners station (and space is available for either a forth seat or a holographic display area, etc as well).
Along the two side walls are equipment racks etc for the communications, sensors, avionics and ship's diagnostics etc. These are sized to only be 1/2 a deck square wide so that each unit adds up to about 1 dton in size. Similarly there two other spaces at the aft end of the bridge (one of which is 1dton in size and the other about 0.7 dtons) Either of these two spaces at the aft end of the bridge could be used as an equipment locker, a deck head/fresher, a small galley, or whatever else you might think makes sense, on your ship.
In general I made the larger bridge more or less square instead of round (like on Star Trek) just because I thought it would be easier to integrate into a deck plan that way.
Anyway, just thought I post this here if anyone is interested.
Regards
PF
P.S. The seats on the small bridge are based on some seat drawings I had for ocean-going vessels, but the seats on the 20dton bridge were made a little wider to accommodate the ability to sit in them while wearing a VACC suit based on something I once saw in a book about the Space Shuttle.
) then I could see a bridge like this.
