Another thing to consider is slight variations within a class. I doubt that a DD built at Mars in Y140 will be exactly the same one built at Altar in Y140, nor exactly the same as one built at Mars in Y165.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jack Andre Bohn (Jbohn) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 05:08 am: Edit

Tholian Deck Plans?

If you haven't done them yet, I'd like to offer an idea -- if you haven't had it yet yourselves.

I was pondering the Archeo-Cruiser, formed out of two PC hulls turned sideways, or the Archeo-Dreadnaught where two may be upside down. For the first time I wondered about the deck structure. Even the PC itself, with its three similar "fins" going off in three different directions is also enough to make one wonder if each doesn't have its own local "down" and the crew puts up with a little disorientation on the transition between two of them. Then the thought, which may be obvious to everyone here, struck me like a thunderbolt:

The up/down axis of the deck is parallel to the fore/aft axis of the ship.

Instead of standing and looking forward into the direction of motion, (or, on a Constitution-class bridge, looking 36 degrees to the right into the direction of motion,) Tholians stand and look up into the direction of motion. (Or look down into the direction of motion. Hmm... in that case the impulse engines would hang over the heads of the Engineering crew, no doubt terrifying new recruits, but the stern shuttle hatch would be in the ceiling rather than taking up valuable deck space.)

The ships can be stood on end and treated like a tower. A multi-hull ship can be connected any which-way with no concern about rearranging the deck structure inside.

Jack Bohn

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 10:02 am: Edit

Basic deck arrangement/turbolift system is already worked out, and not like a tower like you suggest. Difficult to explain without a picture, and I don't want to give it away yet, you will all have to wait for the book. It is very strange (as tholians are more alien than most SFU races), but it works really well, and still fits in with other SFU technology (it still makes use of individual decks and such). The design not only allows the PC or DD to function, but it allows the ships to link up into CA and DN designs. (Or bigger ships like the BB, but that ship wasn't possible.... Or was it?)

Also, the new mini uses a flat wing (usual for SFB art of the tholians) for the PC, and the wedge wing (as seen on the TV show) for the DD, and that difference is explained as well.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 11:05 am: Edit

The Tholian deck plans are coming along fantastic. These will no doubt be one of the gold stars of PDT.

You see them and go, "Oh, I see, OK." Then you'll wonder how it could have been done any other way.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 01:27 pm: Edit

Jack, I don't know what Nick's plans are (no pun intended), but another option would be that "down" for each of the fins goes to the center hub.

Or maybe Tholians, being arachnoids, don't care about "up" and "down" because they can climb the walls.


Garth L. Getgen

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 02:30 pm: Edit

Boy Garth, you've got some surprises coming.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 04:14 pm: Edit

Tholians aren't arachnoids, Garth. They don't walk much, either.

By Jack Andre Bohn (Jbohn) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 05:22 pm: Edit

Thanks, Nick. As long as it's strange and fantastic, I'll have no complaints. The straight and wedge wings sound interesting too. Of course, looking at the TV series, those ships look to be in the range of 20 meters long passing in front of an behind that Heavy Cruiser. Almost a fighter or PF. But one hesitates to mention time-travel in relation to the Tholian ships, because that raises the question of them crossing over to alternate universes and such.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 06:11 pm: Edit

Yeah, the TV version looked too small.

I am doing the PC/DD as between 80 and 90 meters long (forget the exact measurement), as that is how big the mini is compared to the other ships (roughly three fourths the length of the Fed CA saucer is in diameter, which is listed as 127 meters on the franz joseph plans).

That allows for the PC, CA and D class ships to have enough volume to mount the systems needed by the SSDs, space needed for crew (as they are still human sized), and so on.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 06:24 pm: Edit

Umm, the TV version must have been a POL then, eh?


Gary, shhh... just let things ride.

By Jack Andre Bohn (Jbohn) on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - 06:12 am: Edit

Yeah, I learned the PC was about 80-90 meters from a drawing of a variant towing a Federation cargo pod. When I was first introduced to the game, I wondered if the silicon-based Tholians were about the size of a pocket calculator. This was, of course, before I learned boarding party combat.

(The Federation cargo pod reminds me, under which topic should I ask a question about the size of the Hydran Ranger?)

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - 05:29 pm: Edit

Here's fine I guess. The Hydran ranger is long, but thin. Comparing the ranger mini to the Fed CA mini (going from memory here), it is longer than the fed cruiser, but probably (I'm guessing) only has 5 or 6 decks in height (accounting for the smaller size of hydrans, of course).

By Jack Andre Bohn (Jbohn) on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 06:08 am: Edit

"The Hydran ranger is long, but thin. Comparing the ranger mini to the Fed CA mini (going from memory here), it is longer than the fed cruiser,"


More than you may know, perhaps.

I've come to some strange conclusions, based on Module R3 (perhaps I should check for revisions, the 1992 publication) with the Hydran ships drawn to scale. R9.49 lets slip that the Mongol Medium Cruiser is about 15 meters longer than the Horseman War Cruiser. Well, the Mongol graphics measure 2 mm longer than the Horseman variants, making the illustrations 1/7500 scale. I make the Ranger to be some 500 meters; a 5 inch mini if to scale? I don't have the mini, but I photocopied the drawing of the Ranger (well, the Lord Bishop) three times larger to compare to my 1/2500 scale models. Much larger than the Enterprise, about the size of the Excelsior-class 1701-B. (Hey! How'd that get in here?!?)

Then I remembered that the Ranger is also the basis for the Caravan Tug with its "internal pallet." A 3 1/8 inch length of 5/8 inch dowel, my Fed cargo pod, fits well over the center hull of the Ranger. The Ranger is wider, but, as you say, it wil not be so tall.
"Perhaps," I told myself, "Hydrans do build this big, carrying fighters and all."

I used a compass and straight edge to construct a triple-size Knight plan, and printed out the Hunter to this scale from the paint guide file. The Knight is about as wide at its widest as the DD saucer and is a bit longer than the DD. This is acceptable as its engines are in the hull, and possibly as large as the Hunter's wings; and it too carries fighters. The Hunter is about as long as the Fed FF, and seems to have more volume, its main body perhaps half the diameter of the FF saucer, taller, and a bit longer, but it has no fighters. Is there just somehow that Hydrans build more (wasted?) internal space into their ships?

Maybe I could acknowledge a 20-50% error and knock things down a bit.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 10:22 am: Edit

Measuring the minis, the Fed cruiser is 3 inches (tip of saucer to tip of warp engine), and the Ranger is , well, 3 inches (tip of nose to tip of warp engine). Yes, the minis are the same length.

But, the Fed has about 1/3 of its length as engines only (the livible section saucer+secondary hull is rather less then three inches), while the ranger is almost entirely hull, the engines only stick out the back a little bit.

The Ranger is about 3/16 inch thick at most places (the front end has a thicker section), the Fed saucer is 1/16 inch thick at the edge. The fed saucer (from the franz joseph plans, and most other sources) is 2 decks there at the edge, which would make the Ranger 6 decks tall. Although if you assumed shorted decks (for shorter Hydrans) you could maybe do 7 decks.

So the Fed cruiser has just over 20 decks, but many of them are smaller in square footage, while the Ranger has 6 or 7 decks, but all of a similar large size.

That is the size I would go with (same overall length as the Fed CA, and 6 or 7 decks thick for the main hull), but I haven't tried a Hydran ship yet. I have thought of doing the basic Hunter FF though...

If I were running into too much volume, I might try making the fighter/shuttle bays extensive (easy way to eat up extra space) since the Hydrans are fighter users and would have excellent facilities to support them. Also the Fed uses large engines as the engines themselves have fuel tanks built in, ships with small engines like the Hydrans need fuel tanks inside the main hull of the ship, so that can eat up any extra volume as well. And as you say, some ships have internal engines as well... Also, any extra odd spaces could be designated as cargo. Crew quarters could be spacious, and if each crew room is slightly bigger than necessary, the overall effect is to take up a lot of extra room as you may need a couple of hundred rooms, depending on the ship class and crew numbers.

Really, once you start filling in the details room by room, I am always surprised by how well it goes. I usually come out with very few problems, going from just the minis sizes and crew requirements/systems needed from the SSDs.

Sometimes the mini and SFB art don't match in every detail, in those cases I go with whichever makes the most sense, which version I prefer, or sometimes a mix of the two designs. Whatever results in a design that makes sense.

The easiest way to eat up extra volume on a Hydran ship I think will be the internal engines and fuel tanks, and spacious shuttle/fighter bays.

I had a similar problem when I did the Romulan Skyhawk. The removable module had its outline defined by some SFB pictures, and it really made a very large volume, bigger than needed for the systems that any given module contained. I solved it by making the shuttlebay huge, and adding a lot of cargo space to the module (most of the ships cargo space is in fact in the module (which in fact partly explains why the ship won't function without a module). This worked because the Basic Skyhawk's spare shuttles are 0, they are in fact in the bay (4 total shuttles) to begin with instead of in storage. The other modules move 2 of those shuttles to spare storage, and the extra bay space can be modified into a new room. Haveing large cargo areas also allows additional rooms to be setup as need by a given module.

I thought the Tholian PC would be too small to fit everything when I started it, but when I was nearly done I thought it had too much extra space. Then I remembered a few more necessary items, and it is working out quite well in fact.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 10:24 am: Edit

I would ignore the 15 meters equal to 2 mm scale you mention above, as the Ranger is simply not 500 meters long, at the mini scale, 3 inches for both the Fed cruiser and Ranger should only be 288 meters, 290 at most.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 10:29 am: Edit

One thing I have learned is that the computer art of ships in the SFB books is definetly not necessarily to the same scale, compare a FF to a DN sometime. Assuming any two items are the same scale can lead to problems.

You will have much better luck by measuring the mini and comparing it to a known item like the size of the Fed CA. Bases of course are not to the same scale as ships here either though.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 11:06 am: Edit

Art is resized to fit the visual appeal needed. It's a bad source of size information.

By Jack Andre Bohn (Jbohn) on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 06:17 am: Edit

Well, I hadn't done any real work based on my conjecture, not even quick-and-dirty model. Just occassionally pull out the photocopy and alternately convince myself to believe or not to belive the scale. You've convinced me that the deciding vote should go to the minis: Although 2 mm = 15 meters would make the Ranger (and the Paladin!) impressively large ships, they're still no Starbase, and no excuse for their minis to be out-of-scale to the rest of the line.

By Jack Andre Bohn (Jbohn) on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 09:02 am: Edit

I may have to try to do a Hydran DD. I have the idea that it and the Paladin use strange, flat, triangular warp engines -- something similar to what would fit in the "wing" nacelles of the Hunter. It would help to have something to point to and say, "And THIS is what it would look like."

If I were to try the smaller Hunter for practice, and if (BIG if) I were to finish before one was published, would it be presumptuous to send it to you to point out where I'm going wrong?

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 11:51 am: Edit

Jack, try to do it how?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 12:10 pm: Edit

I think what we need is someone with a lot of minis to sit down with a set of vernier calipers and and post the measurements. We need length/width/thickness of both the main hull and overall ship. The Fed CA main saucer is 127.1 meters wide, as is the DD/SC and Tug. The DN is 140 meters wide.

If we assume the minis are all on the same scale, we can use this to get a baseline size of the rest of the ships in the fleet. Allow for a +/- 10% adjustment to get the max/min size off that baseline. Some of the smaller (or larger) ships may be out of scale, so we'd have to wag it for them.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jack Andre Bohn (Jbohn) on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 06:08 pm: Edit

Something about that question makes me feel I'm about to say something terribly naive...

First step: buy the miniatures, the most detailed reference
Second: take the measurement off the miniatures and reconstruct the ship at a larger size.
I'd planned on using the 3-D graphics program POV-Ray. It's free and works quickly with objects made of simple shapes like cylinders, cones, spheres, and intersections of flat surfaces (less well with complicated curves like the Klingon D-hulls, or hard to define shapes like the "barrels" of the ships of the ISC gunline). With it I can also construct "slices" of the object to get the outline of the decks. Form the external features - the phasers, heavy weapons emplacements, sensors, shuttlebays, impulse engines, bridge if indicated - so they show on the deck views.

Third: take the deck outlines into a drawing program. Rough out the rooms required by the external features. Choose approximate locations for stuff from the SSDs; the requisite number of control spaces, labs, APRs, etc. Reserve space for things not explicitly called out on the SSD; the computer core(s), fuel tanks, sickbay, offices, berthing.

Fourth: a refinement on the third. Layout the rooms, make sure each has access to a corridor or turbolift, move things around to make them fit, repeat.

When happy with it: either sit back and bask in the happiness, or bite the bullet and ask if ADB is taking submissions. I imagine a go/no go decision could be made on JPEGs or such, but a true submission would have to be compatible with whatever publishing program they use. No false modesty, but that is not a worry at the moment.

So, school me. How much have I got wrong already?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 09:19 pm: Edit

FIrst, I think you are taking too many steps that you could just take the measurements from the mini and rough out the outlines on paper with notes on measurements. Then start the decks on the computer.

The work has to be done in a format that SVC can edit. In all cases of any submission to ADB your work can and will be edited. You won't lose any credit or have to share it but if you can't get by having your work edited then probably don't bother submitting.

The program that ADB uses is Freehand (v7 I think). Nick Blank uses a program that has a file format that Freehand can open. SVC wants to be able to edit the vectors and text and not files in a bitmap format.

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 10:06 pm: Edit

I've been surprised that ADB can't handle Auto-CAD. I started a B10 some years ago and would be motivated to flush out the decks if the could deal with it. Though I have been much more interested in re-doing the ship (both interior and exterior0 in 3DSMax (7.0)

PHD

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Sunday, March 26, 2006 - 12:12 am: Edit

I've got many works in progress. Too many? Nah... Hope to finish some of them someday.

Klingon F5 (mostly done, but I'm not happy with parts of it), Klingon B10 (well ok, only the external top and side views), Romulan Starhawk (done on paper, not entirely in computer yet), Romulan Snipe (a really sweet looking ship, I love it, although the Battlehawk is my favorite to fly in SFB), Romulan War Eagle, Romulan Sparrowhawk, Gorn Battlecruiser (got the shuttlebay complex designed), and a Commercial Platform (redrawing SVCs original design into the current software). Orion Light Raider (exterior done, and of course I of course drew the double raider since once you have the basic ship done the doubled version is just a copy/paste away). There's probably others I have forgotten about.

Things I have finished that aren't published, Fed Express (well, it has but I made some finishing touches since the Cap Log it was in, so that doesn't count), Small Freighter (just redrew SVCs original design in the current software to make it available again should he want it, but also modified it a bit to allow for skids/ducktails), and (been working on this lately) 99% finished Tholian PC and DD, and by inference the CA and Dreadnought (for Prime Directive Tholians), which has turned out really cool. I like this one.

Things I want to do but haven't looked at yet, Kzinti FF, Hydran FF. I'd like to do a NeoTholian (I already know exactly how I would lay it out). Have to do a Lyran at some point.