Archive through July 14, 2012
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Archive through July 14, 2012
Transporters cost more than showers.
Showers teach self-discipline and self-esteme.
Showers are therapeutic.
Think it was a Star Trek novel I had read so maybe not cannon, but it mentioned Kirk just coming out of a sonic shower. He was wondering to himself how long it had been since he had had a water shower. He knew sonic showers got you cleaner but liked water showers better.
And that's a sonic shower Ilia (the V'ger replacement) walks out of. It's in the script.
I could never figure out why Ilia was WET coming out of a sonic shower...
Sound travels better through water.
Faster, not better.
What constitutes "better"?
Exactly!
Oh SNAP!
So, I'm back into drafting the plans for the Federation Police Cutter. These are the new and improved plans for the enlarged ship based on the new mini from Mongoose. The previous plans were based on SVC's clip-art in Scenario Book #2, and while they were looking pretty good (to me, at least), they are now out of scale. Seeing as we spent so much time getting the mini to-scale, isn't it fitting that the deck plans match?
Up-topic, there was some discussion as to how big some items should be, such as ceiling height. Back a long long long time ago, when I started this project (originally for my own amusement), I made set some standards that I'm still following with these new plans.
Bear in mind that I'm using a CAD-type program (Floor Plan Plus v2), not an art drawing program. As such, if I want a wall to be 4" thick and another 6" thick, that's what I get. It doesn't do line-weights, however, so a line in one-pixel thick, period. But a wall is a wall set to a proper scale, something you can't easily do with line-weights.
The outside hull is 50cm (20") thick.
Deck plates and major bulkheads are 25cm (10") thick.
Most walls are 12.5cm ( 5") thick, and partitions (e.g., wall between bedroom and lav) are 6.25cm (2-1/2) thick.
My ceiling heights are 2.75m, or about 9-foot. In the first set of plans, back when the crew size was 60 (it's now 100), I was using 2.5m (8-foot). The added height also made the ship wider, and thus 8 meters longer, which gave me room for the increased crew size. I thought that the 9-foot ceilings were too high for a space-ship, but as SVC said, a good reason for them to be higher is because "while there may be regs for how tall is too tall to join the service, there's no regs saying how tall is too tall to be rescued or to be arrested." Being as this is a police boat, he had a valid point.
I know most deck plans use a 3m / 10-foot ceiling height, but most don't account for the thickness of the deck plates, like I have done. With the 25cm plate combined with the 2.75m ceiling, I get the same 3 meters per deck. And do you really need 10-foot ceilings when 9-foot will work just as well?
I don't know what the "standards" are, but for corridor width, I was using 1.25m (4'), and now with the extra room the larger ship gives me, I'm going with 1.5m (5') wide, which is more than enough for two-way traffic.
Likewise, I increased the turbo-lift car from 1.5m to 2.0m (6'6"). At 1.5m, I could fit 5 people inside with lots of room for "personal zone comfort", and 8-9 if personal space isn't an issue. By going up to 2.0m, I think it'll fit 12 people, 15 if they don't need to breath. If memory serves, Nick's FFG plans have a 3.0m turbo-lift, which in my view is flipping huge.
If anyone saw my old plans, you may remember the Main Bridge was oval. Well, I did that and went with a round one. Actually, I shamelessly copied the Bridge from Nick Blank's FFG plans. I'm still going with the idea that the Bridge is inside the main hull, not sitting on top like a beanie-hat. The dome on the mini is NOT the whole Bridge; it's just the top cover.
I have some thoughts on crew quarters, but let me save that for another post.
Garth L. Getgen
So, some thoughts on crew quarters ....
As to the size of the room, if I can fit the bed, nightstand, dresser, locker, chair, and maybe a small table/desk in it with space to walk around, it's the "right" size. I don't have a "set" size, but rather I put as many rooms in as will fit in the area I'm working with.
In general terms, however, I think we can define crew quarters by the level of quality and comfort each affords. I'm going by my experience in the USAF as well as going by deck plans I've seen before, but I'm sure someone can come up with a configuration not listed below.
State room: one bedroom, separate room for living/dining area (e.g., couch or a couple overstuffed chairs, "TV", small table and two chairs, etc.), private lavatory (throne/sink/shower).
Dual state room: two separate bedrooms and lavs, shared living room.
Double state room: two twin-beds in one room, separate living room and lav.
Quad state room: two bedrooms with two twin beds each, shared living room and lav.
Single Quarters: single room with bed, locker, dresser, chair, plus maybe desk/table and TV, all in same room, private lav.
Two-man Quarters: Like single, but with two twin-beds, etc, with private lav.
One-plus-one: two separate rooms per Single, but with shared lav between them.
Two-plus-two: Like one-plus-one, but with two twin-beds each room and one shared lav.
Dorm room: one- or two-man room, like single/two-man above, but no lav -- use common latrine down the hall shared by several rooms.
Barracks: Like dorm room, but with bunk-beds and lockers for four to ten crewmen; will probably have table and four chairs and maybe a couch and TV, but limited if any dresser space. Use common latrine.
Open-bay: Bunk-beds and lockers for eight to fifty crewmen, no tables/etc. (think Boot Camp) Use common dayroom / break room, which is a separate area with table and chairs and/or couch and TV. Use common latrine area, which may be shared with another open-bay, and will likely have gang showers rather than individual stalls (think High School gym locker room).
When I joined the USAF, we had open-bay, of course. For my first assignment, we had two-man dorm rooms, with common latrine (with gang showers). At my next assignment we had the same, but at least the gang showers had dividers to make separate stalls. Every time I went TDY for a school, we had two-man rooms with private lavs. In the late 1990's, the USAF standard went to the one-plus-one design. The last couple times I went TDY as a Master Sgt, I was treated to single state rooms. I should have made rank faster. ;-)
At any rate, when I started this project, my first thought was to use mostly open-bay or eight-man barracks with common latrines, but as the size of the ship grew, I found it was easier to use Single Quarters for most of the crew, albeit giving the officers larger rooms, with ten Two-man Quarters for the most junior-ranking enlisted. I also found it easier to draft Singles rather than One-plus-one rooms, because I could put the lav next to the outside hull, for example, if that's where it fit best without needing to make sure both rooms had access.
In hindsight, this makes sense. Because the Police Force is separate from Star Fleet, the crew does not get to transfer to bigger and better ships ... the Police are ALWAYS assigned to Cutters ... so they need a better quality of life. Also, given their Ops-Tempo, the crew needs good down-time. Trust me: there's nothing worse after a long, hard day than having to deal with a room-mate.
I thought about making a couple six-man barracks rooms for the Boarding Parties, but again this doesn't make sense. These aren't Marines, as they would be on a Star Fleet starship, but rather they are regular Police Force personnel who are rotated in and out of BP duty.
I haven't got too very far into drafting quearters for the new plans, but I think I'll give single state-rooms to the Captain and First Officer, and "maybe" to the Doctor and Chief Engineer. I might even go with dual state rooms for the rest of the officers and maybe even the Chiefs. Otherwise, I'm going to stay with single quarters for everyone else. I don't think I'll need them, but I could see having six or eight (no more than ten) two-man quarters or two-plus-two rooms for the most junior enlisted crewmen.
Garth L. Getgen
Quote:I thought about making a couple six-man barracks rooms for the Boarding Parties, but again this doesn't make sense. These aren't Marines, as they would be on a Star Fleet starship, but rather they are regular Police Force personnel who are rotated in and out of BP duty.
My understanding is that police BPs are specialists equivalent to SWAT teams/riot police. I don't think they'd live in barracks style accomodation either, but I think they have special training over and above what regular cops have.
Off hand I not sure that privacy non-structural walls need to be more than an 1" thick, that pretty much matches current mobile home designs. i.e. the wall between the head and the state room.
Garth, I like most of what you are doing. I think wall thickness is good. I'd point out that one of the design phylosophies behind the Trek cruiser was that there was no outside deck to go to so space inside was important to crew health. You have 9" or taller ceilings because the openness is required for the crew not feeling cramped after months in space. (Yes, modern day submarine crews are special. 
)
I'd guess that police tend to be at ports of call a little more often than Star Fleet ships, so the cutter doesn't have to be quite as roomy (although slightly better privicy in accomedations sounds right).
I got a little confused on your selection of quarters but I'd think that the general crew for a police cutter might enjoy the two separate bed spaces witha shared living room.
But also remember to include a few guest/dignitaries quarters and a few "extra crew" crew quarters (or some convertable space).
Oh, and a good sized brig.
Loren, of course it has a brig. As a matter of fact, yesterday I copy/paste that area from the old plans and tweaked it to fit. I had sixteen cells, but the extra room allowed me to make it twenty. Each cell is big enough for a bed and a toilet, but that's it. There's not even room to pace back and forth much. But remember that these are simply holding cells and NOT long-term jails. The Brig is one deck directly below the Gym, which allows easy access to escorting prisoners up for court-mandated exercise time.
Regarding quarters -- you're suggesting Dual Staterooms for the entire crew. That might not be doable; it probably is not doable. I might be able to go with one-plus-one rooms, but that's harder to work out.
I don't think I can afford space for more than one or two VIP rooms, but most of the rooms will be convertable with bunks-beds, etc, for extra crew above normal manifest.
ADM: If I switched to TurboCAD, I could probably do that. One of the limitations of this program is how small something can be. I had to set the max drawing area to the larger than normal, which kept me from doing tiny items. Where I just need somethng thin, such as the door to a toilet stall, I just use a line. Anything thicker, I use a wall.
Terry, not exactly. Per my conversation with SVC a while back, SWAT have that training and are thus akin to Marine Commando teams. By making regualar BP part of the crew, with proper training of course, it allows the Police to rotate crewmen more and prevent Ops-Tempo burn-out. But that's all for a different topic about the crew manifest, not so much for the deck plans. All I needed for this topic is to account for whether the BP should all bunk together or have separate rooms. I choose to go with the later option, and then figured out the reason behind it afterwards.
As always, everything I do is subject to change per SVC's whims.
Garth L. Getgen
I checked out several deck plans on the Cygnus-X1 site, and it looks like most of the old designs (particularly those from FASA) have two-meter wide corridors and three-meter diameter Turbo-lifts. I found one Klingon ship design that does have two-meter Turbo-lifts. Guess the Klingons are as claustrophobic as Humans.
I simply cannot afford the space to use those standards as the police boat is only 27.5 meters wide. I'd have to give up another two meters (center-line turbo-shaft and a corridor to either side costing five meters already) that can be better used for crew quarters or other rooms.
I spent about three hours working on the project today. There's something the looks a bit clunky in my previous attempted plans that I didn't want to repeat, but in trying to work around it, I made an ugly mess out of three decks. In the end, I ripped it all back out and went with the clunky thing. So, in the end I have something I could have drawn in fifteen minutes had I simply gone that route in the first place. {sigh} Nobody said drawing deck plans is easy.
Oh, speaking of the Cygun-X1 site, there's a ship over there that is just begging for someone to draft up deck plans for. Obviously, it's not an SFU design (nor do I expect it to ever be), but it's still pretty cool looking. Check out the USS RENNER "Escort Destroyer".
Garth L. Getgen
I've been thinking about turbolifts and how they are the freight elevators, too. Large objects (drones, spare shuttles) are stored near where they are used, and there should be cargo transporters near storage.
What is the biggest item that might be carried anywhere on the ship? Casualties? 2.5 m might be needed to hold a gurney.
(Plus add a check to put one transporter near Sickbay for injured landing/boarding parties.)
Don't need more than 2 meters for a gurney. I thought of that already, which is why I was willing to change from 1.5m to 2.0m Turbo-Lifts.
I have one Transporter on Deck 2-Aft and the other on Deck 3-Forward. Sickbay will be on Deck 3-Aft, so I have it well covered. Also on Deck 2-Aft is the Gym, which doubles as medical triage area for mass casualties (and also as a staging area for Boarding Party action, and also as a procressing area for prisoners before being taken to the brig, and also as sleeping area for refugees).
I have the Turbo-Lifts pretty well mapped out and have started laying out corridors, so to change from 2.0m to 2.5m or even "just to" 2.25m Turbo-Lifts now would require some MAJOR modifications to what I have drafted in already.
Garth L. Getgen
What size gurneys do Gorn, Kzinti, Brecons, or Slirdarians need?
Good point. However, comma, how often will a Federation Police Cutter need to service any of those beings? And doesn't the design of this ship pre-date Humans meeting any of those beings?
Garth L. Getgen
Brecons are Federation members. Two of the others are Allies, with regular merchant traffic that a POL would be rather likely to interact with regularly. For that matter you could trade when the Kzinti and the Klingons are friendly with the Federation. As to when built and designed; the first ship of a class can be very different from the last, especially for a ship class built over a long period of time, with many vessels, built in many locations.
There are probably men in the US Navy who are 6'6" or even taller. I doubt the Navy specs their ships to accommodate them. They expect the demographically small percentage to duck their heads.
When designing a vehicle, efficiency dictates that you design to the primary user group.
In the case of Federation ships, that would be roughly Earth-typical humanoids. Even during the General War era, designing larger (and therefore more expensive) vehicles on the off-chance a Kzinti might need to fit comfortably in a turbolift would be considered to be just wasting materials.
The minor point I am trying to make is that a SFU gurney may need to be a different size. there are several races outside human norms now, how many more might they find? Would they plan for this? Another oddball race is the Myninee, but they are small but wide for there size, does Fed equipment need to be grounded better due to the Fralie? etc.
Wil: I happen to be 6'4" tall AND a Navy veteran.
When I was in Boot Camp I was told very frankly that I would NEVER be selected for duty on a Submarine because I was too tall.
Once assigned to a DD I very quickly picked up the nickname "Sasquatch" considering my having to walk and stand bent over ALL the time.
Years later I went aboard a sub for a few days for cross-training and was VERY unhappy.
Speaking from first hand experience -- I totally disagree with you re 6'6" sailors being in the USN.
As for design specs, when I have gone to Origins in the past, I've driven 1200 miles because airline seats are fitted for 5'10" men which is the FAA rule.