Yeah, I was just asking myself last night how a 6m x 4m x 3m Admin shuttle lands inside a 40 metre dia' by 3 metres cylinder.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 09:18 pm: Edit

Simple -- those are the "before" dimensions.

Unless there are things like single- and double-weight skids, I think we better stick with one set of dimensions. We can just say that there is a lot of wasted space in some of them.

Also, there is tac intel to consider. I can just imagine a pirate captain asking his EWO how thick is the skid on his target ...

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 10:38 pm: Edit

The design of the LASH SKID will the deck parallel to the Freighter Pod decks could be a problem. If the HTS is longer than 6 meters how does it turn around; seems like driving a car into an alley. The radial design Nick suggested sounds more efficient.

While cargo may be on pallets I would expect the pallets and the boxes would be in a shipping container. There are pallet-less material handling systems. A less-than total Load (LTL) containers would be factored into shipping rates. I can't see breaking open containers and sorting by hand what is delivered next. The cargo boss will have loaded the cargo based on delivery schedule (I am not suggesting any rules or modules on cargo handling). While the pods have cargo holds, in some fashion, I would think the cargo is packed in the hold like an old freighter; you would need a "stevedore" crew (per-container 60+ men per hold).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:15 pm: Edit

Shuttle Bays typically have little guidence tractors (these are not the tractors more powerful tractors that you use when there is a speed discrepancy between the ship and shuttle). There should be little trouble backing the HTS in as normal course.

The shuttle just flips over as the entry tractor pulls it in.

By Joseph R Carlson (Jrc) on Monday, June 20, 2005 - 11:59 pm: Edit

Loren,

I expected they might have "guidence tractors" tractors, however even at 6 meters side clearance will be tight. If a HTS is around twice the size of an Admin shuttle (3x3x6) it will be nearly 6 meters wide 18 long. If the LASH unit is radial and deck is against the bulkhead end of the pod, then the bay is 6 meters in heights. Just seems more efficient to me. My understanding and knowledge of the construction of the pod and Lash unit is admittedly limited, so I could be incorrect here.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 04:58 am: Edit

Alternately a 60s-Batmobile style turn table could be used in the shuttle bay to turn the shuttle around. With a 40 m diameter floor the room inside is not the problem, the problem is the MAX HEADROOM of the shuttlebay doors ( and indeed shuttlebay itself ).


.


HHHhhmmmmmmm...Two Kitch TV shows in one paragraph, I am doing well.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 10:30 am: Edit

How about a tunnel-type shuttle bay with a door at each end? The HTS can fly in one door, stop and transfer cargo, then leave out the other door without having to turn or rotate.

Considering the deck layout, I'd make the shuttle bay all of decks 2 and 3 on the skid -- that way, you could easily transfer cargo via the deck 3 passageway on the cargo pod. Deck 1 could be shuttlecraft fuel tankage or something similar that would fit into that odd-shaped space.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 10:51 am: Edit

The freighter deck plans already show the shuttle landing/loading areas being tunnels all the way through.

Remember that your cargo container fits on an HTS. Think in terms of the cargo boxes that airliners use for luggage.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 12:25 pm: Edit

I was speaking last about the HTS shuttlebay on a skid, but yeah.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 - 03:24 pm: Edit

The skid has passages through its middle areas (1 elevator, 1 corridor) where things on the freighter line up with things on the pod. This makes a shuttlebay pass through for the skid trickier. You would have to do it really off center.

By Jesse E Hamby (Edhamby) on Tuesday, August 16, 2005 - 12:06 pm: Edit

Nick Blank

With many Fed FFs being converted to FFB variants during the General War (CL31), it should be relatively easy to draw deck plans for the various converted and added systems.

Could be a page in a future Captains Log.

Just a thought.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - 11:38 am: Edit

Could be, could be...

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, February 08, 2006 - 01:25 pm: Edit

I just had an idea of how to handle larger ship deck plans and perhaps all future deck plans.

Instead of trying to print out entire decks that are playable with minis I suggest printing plans on 11 x 17 then also printing major rooms for use with minis. Players would then also get a 1/2 inch counter set to use as markers on the main small scale plans. Minis would be used in the individual rooms.

Lastly, a laminated graph page would be included with the set of plans. This could be used to draw out any room not provided in the major rooms pages.

Major rooms would always include the bridge, flag bridge or AUX CON, lab, engineering, shuttle bay and typical crew quarters.

As an advertizing freebe room blowups on PDF could be provided. They then could be printed out by players. A topic for requests for rooms could be established in the BBS and once a year SVC (or more likely Ken) would scan those rooms and put them to PDF.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Wednesday, February 08, 2006 - 08:29 pm: Edit

I like that idea Loren.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, February 08, 2006 - 08:38 pm: Edit

Loren, save for the last part (PDF files), those ideas have been suggested time and time again. The problem, as I recall, is that when SVC and Steve Jackson Games take a pulse of what gamers want, there always say they want full-scale playable deck plans. And yet when those are published, they don't sell very well. Go figure.


Garth L. Getgen

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Wednesday, February 08, 2006 - 10:01 pm: Edit

Garth, I know on both counts. I made most of these suggestions before but just put the whole thing together into something that could work, I think.

And since the system that was supposed to work didn't perhaps something else could. I suspect that the reason the other ships didn't sell a lot was because in order to be full size and playable they had to also be very small ships. Using the systems I suggest would allow for large ships; something I think would be even more attractive to players. Take the Fed frigate for instance. Done nicely enough you might have Trekkers buying them.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 11:44 am: Edit

Nothing new, Loren. I made an almost identical suggestion about five years ago.

As far as I know, there are no plans to do any more stand-alone deck plan products. Of course, if they add a boarding party rules expansion to FEDERATION COMMANDER, that may change instantly.

By Sean Bartholome (Kana) on Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 04:50 pm: Edit

Then we will have a new game called Federation Marine General...

By Gary Bear (Gunner) on Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 05:03 pm: Edit

And since it would be set in the SFU future, it would be the Module of a Modern Major General?

* Ba-Dum-Dum *

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 05:55 pm: Edit

Has there been any discussion of using SJGames' e23 site to distribute PDFs? It might help if users can have the entire deck plan on their computers at mini-compatible sizes and only print out the sections that they use. It would also eliminate the need to only provide small ships, as the limitations are those of file size, not paper.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 06:30 pm: Edit

Discussion, yes. Ended abruptly when SVC said he did not want to have official PDFs of any kind, anywhere, period.

I don't mean to be snarky, but do you have any idea how much time and effort goes into creating a set of deck plans for even a small ship? Which translates into money being paid the author, which ADB don't make back if they're turned into PDFs, as they would be copied and reposted around the world.

Another factor is that there are only two people who have ever made deckplans for ADB. This means deckplan sets are going to be few and far between.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 09, 2006 - 06:50 pm: Edit

And sadly they will remain few and far between until we figure out a way to make enough to pay the guys who do them. If somebody is interested in doing a set for free and having us give away the PDF, we'll chat.

Oh, by the way, if we did want to sell PDFs, why would we need to use e23 instead of doing it ourselves?

And Gary, i did not say "no PDFs" I said "no giving away what we have to pay to create". Not the same thing. We pass out PDFs of all kinds of things all the time. We just think that selling PDFs is a joke since they just get emailed to the customers 987 nearest and dearest friends.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 02:32 am: Edit

How much of the ship does one need? For most scenarios, the important points of reference are the beamin point, the compartment where something will happen, and whatever corridor lies between the two points. The rest of the deckplan gets skipped.

Partial deckplans might be marketable. If some future product was to be a starship operation guideline, that product might include sample layouts for critical compartments for all races. Thus a GM could figure out the approximate size for a bridge or sickbay or whatever else was needed for the specific ship in question and quickly slap together the places the PCs will venture in. Reserve the complete deckplans for the scenarios that resembles dungeoncrawl puzzleboxes.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, February 10, 2006 - 10:33 am: Edit

RIchard Wells, personally I don't think partial plans will do but partial playable one will. I think players really do want to see the over all layout of the ship. These can be printed on at small size if the playable areas are at miniature scale.

I feel bad that I never bought the G1 plans pack. For me having the overall layout was enough but I should liked to have supported the product (not that my one sale would have tipped the scales but...).

Another point about small ships. Those work well for going from adventure to adventure but they don't work as well for having an adventure ON. I think this may be a factor in sales as well.

I do wonder how many people already have the old Constitution deck plans and are actually now using them for PD role playing.

By Richard Wells (Rwwells) on Saturday, February 11, 2006 - 04:02 am: Edit

If I run a game, I do not wish to be constrained by what ships the publisher chose. (Considering my timeframe tends to be earlier than the deckplans produced so far leads me to pass on all of them.) I doubt a Falcon mauler will be available as a deckplan anytime soon; let alone the remaining 1000 or so ships available in SFB. Should my scenario involve a wrecked Falcon, I could stitch together a reasonable fascimile out of old-style Romulan bridge, shuttlebay, various corridors, etc., and lots and lots of old style battery rooms. The pace of the game session should keep any slipups on my part from being noticed.

Also, with a wide range of suggested design elements, new ships that makes sense for the current campaign can be kept reasonable. Keeping the Sllewviams light police ship in line with established elements enhances believabilty. I don't expect a publisher to provide me with relevant deckplans as rapidly as I generate one-off encounters with new spacefaring species but any help in preventing my ideas from disrupting player involvement is appreciated.