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Jean
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By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - 10:42 pm: Edit

I requested this topic because I have re-engaged on the APT deck plans project, and I intend to post images as I go for feedback. At some point, I suspect SVC will ask me to stop doing so because it'll be getting closer to where he may decide it's worth publishing. Or at least, I hope that happens.

As some of you may know, I draw in a very old (c) 1995 program called Floor Plan Plus for Windows version 2.0 by IMSI (the makers of TurboCAD). I do have other CAD programs, but they either don't do what I want or have a too-steep of learning curve.

Additionally, I started working with a program called SketchUp Maker 2015. I tried it several years back, but gave up rather quickly because the instructional videos I was given assumed I was already well-verse in 3d-CAD. A few nights ago, I found a YouTube video that made it look some simple I just had to try it again.

So, as to the ship, I intend to draft plans for the standard APT and probably also the Armed Cutter. (At this point, I do not intend to do deck plans for the Early APT/Cutter or any other variation of the basic APT.) If you're not familiar with the ship's SSD, it's posted here:

http://www.starfleetgames.com/federation/Commanders%20Circle/documents/ship%20cards/General%20reorginzation/APT_SQ_LT.pdf

When I say "standard" APT, do remember that every empire had a ship, or rather several ships, that fit this description. Just within the Federation, there must have been a dozen or more companies that build APTs over the course of a hundred years. Ergo, someone else could very well also draft deck plans for the APT, and both theirs and mine would be equally correct. And they may feel free top post them here, too.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - 11:50 pm: Edit

Okay, I have a few images uploaded:

This was a project I started over seven years ago but quickly abandoned. The biggest problem was I realized early on the ship didn't have enough floor space for everything I wanted to put into it. I worked on the Police Cutter project instead.

http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/APT/APT__old.gif


I just started this project from scratch, albeit borrowing ideas from the long-abandoned project. I decided to make the ship three decks thick instead of only two, with the middle deck being double-height (EDIT: it's actually four decks in the forward section now). I have about three-four hours work into it at this point.

http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/APT/APT-plans_20-June-2015.gif


I mentioned that I am trying out SketchUp. Well, I installed the 2015 version just three days ago and this is what I have to show for it (not to mention I worked on a different project first):

http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/APT/APT_Top_24-June-2015.jpg
http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/APT/APT_Left_24-June-2015.jpg
http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/APT/APT_Front_24-June-2015.jpg
http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/APT/APT_RR-iso_24-June-2015.jpg
http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/APT/APT_LF-iso_24-June-2015.jpg

I do wish I knew more about how to do things with this program. It took me six or seven tries to do the phaser ball, and I have no idea how I did it. I spent over two hours on the sensor dish, even though that's something that really could have waited until I figure the program out.

Now, about the ship>> The body is 72 meters long, plus 12 more for the warp engines, by 48 meters wide (not counting the 75-cm belt). There are four decks, not counting the phaser "hat". Decks 1, 3, and 4 have 2.75 meter ceilings, but Deck 2, which is confined to the forward segment of the ship, has 2.50 meters ceilings. The cargo bay and engine rooms are double-height (5.50 meters) and take up the aft 3/4 of Deck Three. The hull and deck plates are all 25-cm thick. The main body is 12 meters thick, and from the bottom of the feet to the top of the phaser ball, the ship stand 16.250 meters tall.

The phaser "hat" is only 1.5 meters tall. I tried to make it a full-height deck, but it just looked dorky. Ergo, it is NOT the bridge. I intended for it to be the bridge, but it's not.

Deck 1 will be the bridge, captain's quarters, and common area for the crew. Deck 2 will be crew quarters, as will the forward part of deck 3. Deck 4 will house the five APR units and all the life support equipment (HVAC, bio-waste, water & air supply) and other such functions.

Please do let me know what you all think. Thanks!


Garth L. Getgen

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, June 25, 2015 - 12:20 am: Edit

Looks like a good start. I like the idea of a high deck cargo area, with crew decks tucked into out of the way inefficient space.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 01:35 am: Edit

Well, yes and no. It's not like a German U-boat where the crew racks were slung wherever they would fit, over the engine or under the torpedoes and what have you, but nor is it a luxury liner. It's a working cargo ship, so it has to run as efficiently as possible. This means making the crew comfortable within reasonable limits: real beds, no hot-bunks, a fair amount of living space, and real food as much as possible. I haven't decided yet whether the crew will have single-man rooms or two (or more) per room, but I'm pretty sure it'll have a common restroom / showers in a locker room configuration.

But it does beg to ask the question: what's the crew roster of a APT (or FT) look like?

I presume that since it's not a military vessel, there's no set Organization Chart and thus could be arranged just about any way you want.

I figure there were be three to five "officers": the Master (captain), First Mate, Chief Engineer, and perhaps one or two more though I'm at a loss for a duty title. There would be a "chief" or two, the Deck Boss. The rest of the crew would be simply hired hands, general sailors, albeit some selected for additional skills.

If the ship were run by the military (Star Fleet), it's probably have an O-3 LT in command, a couple of O-2 LT-jg and perhaps a couple of O-1 Ensigns; one Chief Petty Officer, two or three PO1, five to eight PO2, and the rest PO3 and E-3. Most of the crew would be Boatswain's Mates.

For medical, there would probably not be a doctor or even a nurse, just an EMT / corpsman or a medical-school dropout. And "medical" would not be his full-time job.


Garth L. Getgen

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 01:43 pm: Edit

Good question, while the crews for APTs are listed at 4 crew units (the FTs is 3) one of those are BPs, and the minimums are a single crew unit. I suspect that a significant number of civilian ones are undermanned.

Let's look at likely needed crew for civilian ones

Ship's Master, Helm/Navigation, Engineer/Mechanic, Load Master, Cook/Steward, EMT, if armed Gunner, and two or three people that do what they're told (shift cargo, hold the flash light for the mechanic, "security".). This gives us ~10 crew.

While some of the above could be combined/dropped, or additional helpers added, the above will likely work for most ships. Any loaders needed at their ports of call could be day laborers hired on site. Depending on local customs, they may even be required to be local.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 04:35 pm: Edit

Following ADM's theme, if the "normal" capacity of 4crew units on a APT equals say 40-44 actual bodies and 1 crew unit(10 crew/officers) is the minimal staffing level...

Well, simple math would imply that(44-10=34) thirty four passenger accommodations for passage to the next portof call.

If we are talking about a civilian APT that carries both cargo and civilians for profit, you might want to consider combining the "load master" position to that of "cheif steward" and toss in a cook, house keeper-laundry person, and four or five junior stewards to handle the passengers. That adds six or seven bodies to the crew roster and subtracts the same number(7) from the potential passenger capacity.

That means a crew of17-44=24 Passengers.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 05:31 pm: Edit

Do remember that "4 Crew Units" could be as few as 35 and as many as 44 people. One boarding party / deck crew could be three, four, five, six, or seven people.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 06:27 pm: Edit

Garth, if the officers/crew roster totals 17 bodies, then the variation between 35 to 44 could simply mean that not all the passengers that could be accomodated actually were on board at any given time / or event.

A civilian APT that carries both cargo and passengers will have a different breakeven point in its operating cost structure than some other type of civilian ships. Take a small freighter that has four times as many cargo boxes (25 verses 6), half the crew (2 crew units verses 4) and far less powerful engines than an APT.

I have to wonder if there are some variant APT types that have half the crew and half the hull boxes of a vanilla APT (and a minimal crew of just 10-14 officers and enlisted ) and 7 or 8 cargo boxes, and no room for paying passengers.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 06:33 pm: Edit

Well, I got a bit done, as much as real life keeps trying to pull me away from the computer.

http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/APT/APT-plans_26-June-2015.gif~original

On Deck Two, the "CARGO" is the high-bay. I should have marked it as such. There's a line on Deck Three showing where that starts. All decks now have a ceiling height of 2.50 meters (8' 2-1/2") except for the cargo high-bay which is 5.25 meters (17' 2-3/4").

I do fear that I may have gone from "not enough space" to "too much space". But there's still lots and lots of stuff I need to put on the ship, so perhaps this will be okay.

As always, feel free to comment. Constructive criticism is welcome.

One question: how much detail do you think I should put in? If you look at the plans Nick Blank did, he simply put labels in the rooms for what they are. When I did the Police Cutter plans, I put in every bed, chair, desk, and what-have-you. I mapped out one room to make sure I had enough room, and after that it was a simple copy-&-paste, albeit pasting about a hundred times over. Just as easy for me to do here. What do you all think??


Garth L. Getgen

By Mike Bennett (Mike) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 09:11 pm: Edit

IMO, since there would have to be a lot of variation from one APT to another, simply labeling the rooms might be enough detail.

Are you planning on this to be used for role playing? If so, perhaps more detail might be needed, but do role players really need to know exactly how far a bunk is from the desk or door?

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 09:35 pm: Edit

Garth,
Something else to consider, if you haven't already, is the ease (or lack thereof) of converting the APT to the AC. The cargo goes away for a couple of phasers, a couple of drones, and a couple of impulse engines. You might want to factor that in somehow in your original design.

Great work, BTW...always a fan of your deck plans!

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, June 26, 2015 - 09:52 pm: Edit

Mike: Yes, I presumed this would be used in RPG.


A bit off-topic, but I ran across and old directory on my computer and found one of the first things I ever drafted.

http://i1170.photobucket.com/albums/r528/Getgen/Space_Truck.gif~original


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, June 27, 2015 - 01:09 am: Edit

Randy, thanks. " and a couple of impulse engines " Great. I had it in my head that the CUT has two, not three, impulse, and I had planned on simply stacking them like bunk-beds. {sigh} Not sure how I'm going to handle it now. I'm open to ideas.


Garth L. Getgen

By Randy Blair (Randyblair) on Saturday, June 27, 2015 - 09:40 am: Edit

I think you are still on the right track, Garth, with the stacking idea.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Saturday, June 27, 2015 - 01:25 pm: Edit

I'd figure more like

Captain/ XO/ WatchStander =3
Helm & Nav for 3 shifts =3
Chief Eng + 3 watch standers =4
Someone would have nurse/ emt whatever as a secondary duty.
3 Stewards =3
Tractor & Transporter tech =1 or 2

So that is 15 already.

Lots of the "jobs" would be "in addition" stuff.

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Saturday, June 27, 2015 - 02:23 pm: Edit

Mike;
Keep in mind we are discussing civilian staffing. i.e. the Helm/Watch Stander will likely be the same guy. There could be stretches of open space where the guy on the bridge is the auto pilot and a proximity alarm, depending on where you are and how many warm bodies you can afford to have.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Saturday, June 27, 2015 - 02:55 pm: Edit

If you are going to have passengers on board, it might be wise to have some sort of security detail.

I would suggest increasing the number of stewards to 7, one of which is cheif steward, a second of that same 7 be the ships cook, and all seven considered to be the ships security detail of two boarding parties.

When grounded at a star port or docked in a base, the security detail to double as the anchor watch leaving the officers to deal with all other shore business.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, June 28, 2015 - 10:11 am: Edit

Mike,
Just looking at the APT ssd again got me wondering about the engineering staffing requirements.

The APT has three different power systems, impulse, anti-matter warp, and APR. The vanilla APT has a single impulse drive room, 6xwarp (divided into two separate necelles) and a combined 5 box APR room.

That totals(1+6+5=12) actual system boxes. I don't recall any discussion from the POL roster topic about how you arrived at the number of engineers required to operate it, but just looking at total numbers ofssd boxes, the pol had 10x warp, 2ximpulse(I think), and 1x APR. That totals (10+2+1=13).

might be worth checking the POL roster to see how many engineers were required on the theory that 12/13 ths as many might be required to operate an APT.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, June 28, 2015 - 02:37 pm: Edit

No, no, no. Jeff, you don't have one tech for each warp box on the SSD, but rather one (or two) for each nacelle. You also only one tech for a bank or impulse engines, so it's easy to presume you only need one for the bank of APRs, too. Given that the ship has only one IMP, there's no reason one tech can't monitor both the IMP and APR.

For that matter, one warp tech can monitor both engines. I have no problem with running the entire engine room with just two people as a matter of routine. But let's say they have a two-man rule, so if someone needs to step out of the engine room, they'd need to call someone in to cover for time. That's what we did at work when we had such a rule and had minimum manning. We'd try to have three people on-shift, even though there wasn't enough work to go around. If the schedule was tight due to leaves and whatnot, the people across the hall knew they were on tap to cover for potty breaks and give us time to nuke our food.

During combat, you'd probably want two techs for each nacelle, of course, and two for the IMP/APR. Ergo, you can get away with six reactor techs while at red alert. Likewise on the bridge, I could see a two-man rule as well. They might be allowed to go to a one-man two/three--hour watch if the ship is in a parking orbit. But they would never leave either the bridge nor engine room unattended except while docked / landed.

By the way, the POL list that's posted elsewhere on this board is somehow missing a warp tech. He was on my early draft but went AWOL when I fixed something else. {sigh}


Garth L. Getgen

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Sunday, June 28, 2015 - 03:06 pm: Edit

Also what the military considers minimum manning and what a civilian ship considers are drastically different.

Example.
Nesheo class oilers.
When Navy manned they had a complement of 324.
When Military Sealift Command manned they had 106 civilian mariners and 21 Navy personnel.

By Michael Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Sunday, June 28, 2015 - 04:38 pm: Edit

Well, I'd think that MILITARY rated engines would require more routine maintenance, TLC and monitoring.

And I would think there would be TWO people on the bridge. One to be in charge and one to just fly.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, June 28, 2015 - 06:53 pm: Edit

Garth,

I did not say you had to have one person per ssd box.

just tried to say that the APT Had 12/13ths of the same power/drive systems as a POL would require, and stated a suggestion that we look at the POL roster for comparable staffing.

It never entered my mind that star ships don't require any engineering staff at all.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, June 28, 2015 - 07:47 pm: Edit

Sorry, Jeff, I guess I misread what you wrote.

Mike, not sure it needs more or less TLC, but just for routine flight time you only need a couple sets of eyes / hands to make sure fuel-flow, temperature & pressure readings stay within range. When it come time to service it, who knows how many techs are required.

Ryan: valid point. The military to include Star Fleet tend to have specialists for every job, whereas the civilian world hires the Jack-of-all-trades kind of guy/gal. Star Fleet would probably assign two or three crew specifically for the phaser, and then try to find stuff for them to do when they're not having target practice. A civilian captain would ask new hires whether or not they've ever fired a ship's weapon.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, June 29, 2015 - 02:53 pm: Edit

Garth,

How many cabins can you fit into the forward section of the APT?

If you make the number at 12, a GURPS Prime Directive gaming group could just barely control and (within limits) fight the ship. (Assumes the group has a pilot, engineer, gunner, medic and commnications specialist with lots of secondary skills), and everyone gets his or her own cabin.

That would mean that to get to 44 bunks (the upper limit of 4crew units, there would have to be room for 4 bunks in most of the cabins, with the captain rooming solo And one cabin with 3 bunks.

Not sure how you will do it, but if you go with your original bunk room idea of xx number of crew plus common area bath room facilities, you can shift things around some.

I'm having trouble visualizing just how you plan to lay out the crew & officers quarters and still have some room to carry passengers on a civilian APT.