Type M Deckplan

[Mithras]

I've just downloaded the excellent adventure, Spinward Fenderbender, and it includes Type M deckplans from Traders & Gunboats. Is it just me, or is this beast a dog? I'm working with the old Signal GK deckplans, and Loren's remakes he did a couple of years ago as a PDF. They're pretty decont plans that make alot of sense... The Mongoose deckplans are...horrible. Don't you think?

I've never liked the idea of lifepods anyway, but how are all those passengers supposed to ge into them via one small elevator and a single ladder in an emergency?

The crew rooms are mixed with the passengers ...

The passenger lounge looks far too small to keep all those people entertained.

The launch is slung sideways along the stern, like a bike on the back of a camper-van

The second deck is horrible asymmetrical, fuel on one side, cargo on the other.

The low berths are in two places, one of them a corridor.

Am I just being too picky? I do make my own deckplans sometimes, and I run constant imaginary 'walkthroughs' while I do it, and afterwards. Walking through the type M would give me shudders!

:0

 

[far-trader]

Lowest contract bidder version?

 

[Mithras]

A couply of quirky things are OK. Sometimes I hear a comment about a deckplan and think, well, yeah the real world can be like that sometimes. And crews/personnel have to come up with work-arounds, or get used to the quirk. It becomes a famous part of using that ship/plane/machine/equipment. But when there's so many big ones ... I don't like it.

So I've written Mongoose stats to go with the classic deckplan in Signal GK.

 

[Fovean]

Walking through the type M would give me shudders!
:0

Agreed!

Thanks for your kind word on ' Spinward Fenderbender' - I'm the author and it's always nice to hear a positive comment!

The adventure was written off the plans in MGT Traders & Gunboats, pg 80. I won't go into the gory details of how I had to shoehorn adventure events into the odd layout of the Type M... I thought I had chosen a good deckplan for the story idea but in hindsight it created a problem or two more than it solved.

Having said that, I love the ship. Loren Wiseman's excellent '600-ton Subsidized Liners' has great deckplans and better ideas on variants of the class.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=20298&it=1

Kudos to you for doing your own version. I hope the ideas in 'Fenderbender' help you grow your District 286! :wink:

 

[Captain Jonah]

No you are correct, it’s a dog. :lol:

As Far Trader says it was not only lowest bidder but to save even more money they put the trainee ship architect on the job in his first week as well. :roll:

The ever excellent Loren WIseman plans are good value (plus the money goes to a worthy cause) and well done or you can design your own. Try matching the mongoose picture with plans, you can end up with an interesting layout. Passengers in the saucer which is the upper deck with the ships boat docking under the flexible hanger you can just see the top of.
Main hull is some engineering, crew, fuel, low berths etc.
Twin lower hull, aft is rest of engineering. Forward is the main cargo. Side opening cargo doors. etc etc.

Or go for something entirely new and drop the star trek saucer completely :wink:

Even for those who do deck plans as coloured boxes with corridors and don’t mark down every chair and table it is doable and it’s much more satisfying to be running around the decks of your own ship hunting those damn Denebian voles that just escaped from the cargo crate or fighting off doggy raiders or just doing the simple little stuff like deciding who goes where to work out the ships security protocols.

 

[Mithras]

Steven, your adventure is great, the climax is very exciting, with some solid and very useful NPCs. I really enjoyed reading it, and its another good source I can use to build my District 268 campaign.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I would expect that there are dozens of "standard" layouts for the more common types of ships; even if only 1 is presented in the books.

There must be close to a hundred variations of the Type-A Free Trader out there. The design has been around the OTU for THOUSANDS of years after all.

I have always used the published layouts as one-of-many, or maybe even the-most-common, but by no means the only one out there.

Don't like the layout of the Type-M? make a new one; it is just a different shipyard's variation; perhaps even a selling point with their common-sense layout.

 

[Mithras]

I was thinking the same. The TYpe S plans really are a default, but probably customised by every shipyard across the Imperium that churns them out. Just as franchising turns out local versions of cars or other products adapted for the local market. You're Big Mac might not be exactly like my Big Mac.

Glisten's Type S has a different internal config from those produced at Lanth. All those differeing deckplans then make sense.

What is hard to track is the designations of these varients ... would be nice if we weren't just restricted to two letters.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I don't know about comparing Big Macs. But consider comparing Hamburgers with 0.25-0.33 lbs of beef (pre cooked weight).

You have LOTS of variations of those, even amongst the franchise standards. Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, Whopper, etc...

But same idea.

 

[phavoc]

Another way to look at it is compare it to airliners. The external features are pretty much the same for every aircraft - doors are all standardized, cockpit, engines, wings, etc.

But everything INSIDE the airframe may be different from airline to airline. Some are going to have larger 1st class cabins, more/less lavatories, kitchen areas, etc.

So I would think for 'standardized' designs you get the same generic frame, bridge & engineering layouts, and then everything else is up to the individual ship owner. Some are going to cut out cabins, or add, or merge, etc. Some may have over-sized hangar deck doors for the main cargo area, others may only have a single hatch.

Deck plans are great, but so long as you don't radically change things you are pretty free to move crap around to suit your own needs and still remain true to the ship specs.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

phavoc, that is a much better analogy than mine.

Modular sections of hull are more like meeting rooms at hotels, they can quickly (within a few hours at least) be reconfigured to a different layout, where the "standard layout" would take weeks to change around (at least equivalent to during Annual Maintenance).

 

[far-trader]

What is hard to track is the designations of these varients ... would be nice if we weren't just restricted to two letters.

That's what the class names are for. Eg:

Suleiman class Type S - Scout/Courier (the classic deckplans)

Serpent class Type S - Scout/Courier (the winged version with different layout)

etc. etc.

As to why more people don't do that when they make a different set of deckplans for the same "type" of ship, I dunno.

 

[rust]

Since my settings all use the optional hyperdrive instead of the standard
jump drive, I always have to customize the standard deck plans to deal
with the additional useful volume gained by deleting the jump fuel tanks.
In my experience almost every trade route with detailed planets offers
reasons to adapt a starship to the specific local circumstances, either be-
cause of the passengers and cargoes most common on that trade route
or because of the environments of the planets visited by the starship. In
the end the standard design of the starship class almost always is only
the second or third best option for the local circumstances, and even a
little redesign can make life a lot easier and sometimes even more profi-
table for the crew.

 

[Mithras]

OK, my obsession is almost over.... I need to go to bed now!

http://zozer.weebly.com/uploads/3/4/3/3/3433372/stellar-class-text.pdf

Take a look at the starlines' Stellar Class Brochure!