Real quick, can someone please tell me what the class-name is for the Federation Scout Frigate (FFS)?? Thanks!

Jeff, I would think that it should be intuitively obvious how to modify the base-class crew roster to a variant’s list. I see no need to create separate lists for each one.


Garth L. Getgen

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Friday, April 22, 2011 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Hermes?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, April 22, 2011 - 05:29 pm: Edit

Randy, no that's the DD-based SC. What I'm looking for has to be one of these, I beleive:

FFS SCOUTS: 391 (Sir Edmund) Hillery, 392 Tensing, 393 Stanley, 394 Livingston, 375 Sacagawea, 376 Zhenge He, 379 Frobisher, 380 Shackleton.


Garth L. Getgen

By Michael Bennett (Mike) on Saturday, April 23, 2011 - 04:20 pm: Edit

Not saying it would be so in this case, but isn't the first ship listed in a class usually the name given to the entire class?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, April 23, 2011 - 09:52 pm: Edit

Mike B, That's what I assumed when writing up the article, but I wanted verification.

SVC: As I don't know how much space you'll give me, I have two separate articles drafted up. I figure one is about two pages long, the other just one column (1/2 page). The roster itself should take two pages, but you may figure a way to get it on a single page. I'll send it to you (or does it go to Jean or SPP first??) by Tuesday or Wednesday.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 12:12 pm: Edit

Hey, Jeff, you wanted to do a crew list? Here, try this ship on for size:

http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/ISC_Hand_of_Justice.gif

{GRIN}


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 12:37 pm: Edit

Oh My word...

Garth, I'll have to get back to you on that... right after I finish the Kzinti Frigate crew roster.

Web Mom!

Just a suggestion, but if we are going to be doing more of these crew roster things, should it be in a separate folder in the Fiction topic?

Or do you just want it left mixed with the other fiction projects in the thread?

Or should the whole thing be moved the a GURPS RPG topic?

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 02:17 pm: Edit

Totally not scared of that ship...
It doesn't have enough energy to arm all its weapons, I reckon! Well, and still move speed 2.

'course, if it were at WS-III, then I might be scared.

A little.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - 09:13 am: Edit

Randy, I don't know. I never added it up before. Let's see ...

Power = 80 Warp + 12 Impulse + 8 APR = 100 point of power, plus 20 batteries.

Housekeeping = life support 1-1/2 + shields 1+3 + fire control 1 = 6.5 points of power

Phasers = 20 x Ph-1 + 10 x Ph-3 @ 1/2 = 25 points of power

PPDs = 4 @ 4+4 = 16 per turn
PL-S = 4 @ 2+2+4 = 8 per turn for two turns, then 16 on last
There's 24 / 32 points.

Total cost: 55.5 + 55.5 + 63.5, leaving the ship about to move 17 / 17 / 14 without tapping into batteries. It can even arm all PL-S and PPD with overloads and all Phasers all on the same turn for a total cost of: 95.5 ... so if it burns 1/2 point of battery, is can move Speed 2 that turn.

But it's the 14 PL-F @ 1+1+3 = 14+14+42 that does it in. Well, it can actually standard load all weapons including PL-Fs for total cost of 69.5 / 69.5 / 105.5 points. It can move speed 12 for two turns, then burn 18 batteries to move speed 5. What the heck ... it's not in any hurry.

I guess a hundred points of power does go by quickly, doesn't it?


Garth L. Getgen

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - 10:59 am: Edit

Yes sir, it does!

That ship would be fearsome at WS-III tho!

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 04:17 pm: Edit

So, someone asked about drafting crew lists for other ships. I ran some numbers to see how hard it would be. Starting with the FF / FFG, unless Steve changes it, we have 158 / 163 crew as the base line.

From FFG to FFB, we add 1xPhot and 1xPh-1, plus a C-Warp. I figure we need a minimum of +5 crew in Weapons and +3 in the Engine Room, for a total of +8. That brings us up to 171. The FFB has 18 crew-units, so we have nine bodies to play with to get to 180. Rounding allows us to add 5 to 12 more above the 8 accounted for.

From FFG to DW, it adds 1xPhot (+3 crew), 1xPh-1 (+2), 1xLab (+5), 1xShuttle (+2 pilots), 1xAWR (+1), and a C-Warp (+3) for a total of +16 crew. The DW has 20 crew units with two more BP (+10 crew). Starting with 163 and adding the required +26 crewmen, brings us to 189 crewmen. We need to invent eleven more (7 - 14) jobs.

From FFG to DD+, it adds 2xPhot and 3xPh-1, but gives back a Drone rack. Lets assume the DD uses older design of Photon tube that requires a four-man crew, and let’s add a second supervisor. We add ((2x4+2+1)+(3x2)-3) = +14 in weapons. The DD+ has a larger AuxCon (+4) and two more labs (+5 each), for another +14. We break even on the Warp (I gave the DD+ 6 tech for the C-Warp), but with four APR we’ll give it +2 techs there. That’s +30 crewmen for a total of 193. The DD+ has 20 crew units, so we need seven more (3 - 10) positions.

This plan blows up when we try to take the DD+ crew and enlarge it for the CL+, NCL, or CAr+. By my calculations, the extra SSD boxes mandate 41, 36, and 99 additional crewmen, respectively. But the crew sizes are 370, 360, and 430, leaving us with a gap of give or take a few 129, 124, and 131 crewmen without assigned duties. That’s a lot of people to dream up jobs for.


Garth L. Getgen

By Reid Hupach (Gwbison) on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 06:14 pm: Edit

doing Orion crews might be fun also since pirate crews would have some more interesting crew roles

By George Duffy (Sentinal) on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 06:45 pm: Edit

Garth,

Wouldn't the engines on the larger ships require more men to operate/shift/engine?

The same could be said about larger lab facilities needing more crew per box than what was accounted for in the smaller ship. multiplied by shifts could help account for some of the numbers.

Also there are positions on larger ships that require more crew of the same type because it is a larger ship.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 08:21 pm: Edit

Yes, I took that into account going from the DD+ to CL+ / NCL / CAr+. But what I did not factor in, what will use up most of the "spare" crewmen, is up until now I was working the crew seven days per week. On larger ships, I can put another shift in, working them a rotating schedule and thus give them time off.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 12:14 am: Edit

I wonder if Star Fleet (and other empires vessels) need more crew to keep operating as they get older?

The idea being it takes more man hours to keep the older designs operating with in specifications as some times happened with older power plants in the real world.

Say a comparison between the engineering crew of a Fed OCL verses that of a NCL in year 170+. Both ships have two 12 point warp engines, but the OCL being 100+ years in service (assuming the WCL/YCL hulls were upgraded to OCL status) by Year 170 some of the hulls would be antient and perhaps past their prime?

just asking.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 08:40 am: Edit

Well, yeah, sure ... older ships do need more TLC, but that doesn't mean Manpower and Assignments (M-&-A) or Bureau of Personnel (BuPers) or whatever they're called this year will increase the crew size. Rather, the ship would be taken out of service for one to six months and get depot-level maintenance if not a full upgrade before it degrades that far.

On the other hand, new designs will often have better automation and thus require fewer crewmen. Example: the FF/FFG Photon tube requires a three-man crew to arm the torpedo, but in my Police Cutter (and if I ever do a DD / oCL list), the tube is of an earlier, bigger/bulkier design that take four people to man it.

We can just as easily say the same thing for most any major system ... Warp Drive, for example. Also, there may be systems that become totally automated. I had some crewmen on the FF list that after discussioin with SVC were reassigned elsewhere, but on the (much older design) Police Cutter, my crew-list still shows the same systems have dedicated crewmen assigned.

No, I'm not saying which ones. I sent the final draft to SVC, so you all will just have to wait and see it in print, if SVC has room for it.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 03:04 pm: Edit

Garth,

very odd that you've stated that modern Photon Torpedo Launchers can get more efficient (ie use fewer people to operate) than Warp Drives do over a much longer period of time.

IIRC early warp drives fitted to the old sublight cruisers started about the mid year 60s IIRC, and were still in service after the end of the General war.

So you would argue that photon torpedos get improved over a period of 5 years (the period between the YIS date of the Fed POL year of 127) and the YIS date of the Fed Frigate (year 130-132?!? IIRC) While the Warp drives of the WCL (the first upgraded warp capable OCL variants) that were still the same engines (although modified and improved to generate more than 100% of the original power of the WCL class per engine) still require the smae number of personel to operate... and the same manning requirements of the later NCL class?

Seems odd that there would be no improvement over a 140+ period compared to the improved efficiency of the photon torpedos.

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 06:25 pm: Edit

IIRC warp drives last about 30 years and then get ripped out and completely replaced. There are no ships with 140 year old engines.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 06:49 pm: Edit

Jeff,

As always, SVC/SPP make the final determination, but in my mind there could be more than just technical reasons for why one ship might need two people on duty to monitor a system, and another needs three or just one. Sometimes it comes down to philosophy rather than engineering.

Let's look at the photon tube. Think of it like a modern tank, American M1A1 vs. Russian T72. The M1A1 has commander, gunner, loader, and driver. The Russian tank replaces the loader with an auto-loader system. Great. One less mouth to feed, one less wallet to fill. But also one less pair of hands to change a broken track.

Perhaps the older design tube on the POL requires a gunner to charge the torp, a fire control tech to aim it, and two other crew one to open/close the outer door and the plasma-feed valves and the other to set and insert the detonation fuse. Some smart young crewman asked "why can't one person do both these things" or "why can't we build a machine to insert the fuse". On the POL, it would have taken substantial modifications of the nose of the ship to re-route the plasma-feed lines. Sure, it could have been done, but why change a proven system -AND- give up a body in the process?

Sometimes, the extra guy is there as a safety factor. Take, for another example, old civil war cannons. They had one guy to ram the powder charge in and a different guy to clean the bore after each firing. I saw this on the History Channel, and the show's host asked why not have one guy do both, and the answer was so he doesn't pick up the wrong rammer and wet down the powder causing a mis-fire. Or worse yet, sometimes there are hot embers on the cleaning rammer ....

On the FF, they had a tight space to fit two photons in, so they went with the auto-loader option in the original design specifications. They gave up two bodies, but as they started with eight, that still left them six to do the odd-jobs that come up. And they gained one back by adding a supervisor to oversee both tubes.


As far as the Warp drive goes, many ships were already at minimum manning. The POL and FF, for example, have one person on duty for each drive. If one guy needs to step out for a minute, the other can watch both drives for a short time. The DD only has one Warp engine of course and therefore could have been manned by just one tech, but command felt, properly so, that there should be two people to watch a non-redundant system.

The old-CL may have had a deck layout in which the warp drive monitoring stations where separated and thus the R-Warp tech could not easily ask the L-Warp tech to take over for a moment, so it has two reactor techs per engine. The designers took this into account when designing the NCL. The CA has larger, more complex, Warp engines and so might have three techs to watch two engines.

Could one person monitor all the engines from a station on the bridge? Sure. Do you want to run a ship like that? No.

Manning decisions are dictated by both technology and policy. And as with most things in SFU, our Vulcan friend T'Lar helps out a lot.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 06:50 pm: Edit

Terry, I see where Jeff's coming from. He's not saying the engines are old ... he's saying the engine design is old.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 05:44 pm: Edit

Okay, I know there's a "right" topic for this, but I can't find it. At any rate, I have made a ton of progress in the Police Cutter deck plans. However, comma, I still have about sixteen tons of work to go on it. After about twenty different configurations, I finally have the bridge such that I like it, or at least don't hate it anymore.

Here's a sneak preview of where I'm at:

Decks 3, 4, and 5: http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_3-4-5.gif
As you can see, there's a lot of "white space" to fill in yet. But I have most of the living quarters (86 rooms), the bridge and forward phaser controls drafted in. This ship is 90 meters long by 24 meters wide (not counting warp engines).

Here's a close-up of the bridge: http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_bridge.gif
It's 9.0 x 5.75 meters. There's a couple chairs that might be taken out before I'm done with it.

Close-up of ship's nose: http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_Phasers.gif
Here you can see the forward docking port and the two Phaser control rooms, as well as the bottom half of the phaser emiters.

The living quarters: http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_3-4_aft.gif
http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_5_aft.gif

These are decks of crew quarters. The grey cross-hatch is the corridor; the light-blue is the turbo-shaft. One of the staircases on Deck 3 is high-lighted in yellow.

The dark-red line running along the outside hull on Deck 4 is a warp-plasma feed line. It runs to a pair of power converters in the forward section, and then has lines running on Deck 5-Forward to feed the Photon tube.

I still need to figure out where I'm putting: officer's quarters, ward room, lab, sick bay, brig, etc, etc, etc, etc ....... Like I said, another sixteen tons to go.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 06:31 pm: Edit

Nice job Garth!

I have to admire your dedication and persistance!

Not criticizing, but to ask a question only:

Have you considered reserving the forward part of the secondary hull for cargo and Shuttle bays (and perhaps phaser control rooms for the phaser 3s of the "+" refit?

If you did that, it would save you (or someone) a HUGE amount of work trying to adapt to the other variants of the POL design.

A second consideration, if you concentrated the crew quarters in the rear of the secondary hull, you could co locate several systems into a relatively small area that would be identical in all the different POL variants.

Just say'in...

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 09:44 pm: Edit

Jeff, you didn't see decks 1/2 or 6/7 yet. Here's the side cut-awy view. This ship is the second one down.

http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL-sides.gif

You can see the shuttle bay and the cargo already take up the forward half of the upper / lowest decks.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, May 14, 2011 - 06:30 pm: Edit

Need an opinion. I made an opps, but I'm tempted to leave it.

In the first (too-small) version of the POL, I had the forward phasers part way between the 3rd and 4th decks.

http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_old_front_cut-away.gif

But when I enlarged the ship, I moved the phasers so that the emitters were entirely on the 3rd deck.

http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_new_front_cut-away.gif

But when it came time to put the control rooms in, I left them on the 4th deck.

http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_Phasers.gif

Now, here's the problem. The red circles are the phasers, but they shouldn't be on this deck. Do I re-do this whole section? I'm not that far into it, so it wouldn't be all that much work. I'd have to move the capacitors, but the control room will fit nicely directly under the emitters.

Or do I leave it and just say that's the motor for rotating the emitters? I could replace the red circles with something that looks like a motor.

Opinions, anyone??


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, May 14, 2011 - 06:43 pm: Edit

Okay, here's what I'm talking about:

http://members.cox.net/garth.getgen/POL_Phasers_new.gif

Do you like the left side better, or the right side??


Garth L. Getgen