Another option is to borrow from the design of the Firefly. One whole side of the ship is just a big ramp. When you land, it flops down and gives you a giant ramp that's as wide as the cargo bay.

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Quote:

Well, how much space/ stuff is "one cargo space?"

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By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 08, 2015 - 10:04 am: Edit

As interesting as esoteric questions of values for cargo spaces are, we are not going to resolve them here.

Until the steves decide just what a cargo space is, we are forced to use "cargo space points" as a medium of exchange, along with a healthy "do your best" sentiment.

That said, I suggest that sheaps idea of having the APT land on its belly along with some variation of door/ramp opening on either side through some sort of airlock chambers is a viable option. The shuttle bay must have a separate access. An alternative would have the shuttle bay open through the belly of the APT. In that case, the shuttle would have to be launched prior to landing or be unaccessible so long as the APT is grounded.

The last option is one huge combination lift, belly ramp or cargo airlock that opens to the rear of the shipbetween the warp engine necelles an underneath the impulse engines.

Not sure if there is sufficient clearance to even allow for such a thing.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, July 08, 2015 - 12:07 pm: Edit

I based the design heavily on the Mongoose mini, and as such it looks to be not-easy to use the lower deck for anything cargo bay related. However, I'm still early in the design and could scrap it to do something different without feeling like I'm going backwards.

If I stay with this design, I have decided that the feet will retract into the body, which could allow the ship to "sit down" a bit. Still, the cargo bay will be ten feet up off the ground. Let me think about it more.

Thanks for the discussion, everyone. I has been helpful. Keep the comments coming.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 08, 2015 - 02:17 pm: Edit

Garth,

I hope this doesn't creat too many problems...but have you considered a rear entry hatch/ramp like a real world air force C-130?

If it telescopes from the 3rd deck about 2/3rds aft of the cargo deck under neath the engineering section, you can "ineffect" create a roll on roll off access to the shuttle bay. From the shuttlebay you could access the cargo hold.

The only problem remaining is iF you want the cargo master to have an office some where nearby.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 08, 2015 - 05:21 pm: Edit

I am sure there are several different internal arrangements for APTs.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, July 08, 2015 - 06:32 pm: Edit

SVC: In my first post, I said just that:

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Quote:

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.

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By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, July 09, 2015 - 12:45 pm: Edit

If we can continue the discussion in a different area, may I suggest going back to the cabins arrangements on the APT?

Looking at the exterior views, I notice that on the front bulkhead of the ship (the bow area) there is both a deflector dish, and port hole/windows with three close set windows on both sides of the dish on what appears to be deck #2, and two windows on either side for deck three, and the arrangements on the port and starboard sides with three groups of 2 windows over 3 groups of 3 windows.

Garth, I am not demanding changes, but just making an observation... if each "cabin" has a single window/porthole, that adds up to 40 separate cabins (not counting the cabins on deck one).

How you divvy up the allowed deck space is up to you, but just to throw out an idea or two for discussion.

What if, you arbitrarily designate deck one quarters officers country, (and set aside enough deck space for a small ward room/officers conference room), deck two crews quarters with 18 port holes / windows (6 on each side in three groups of two windows per side), 6 facing forward over the deflector dish deposed in two groups of three), and deck three with each side having 9 windows (in three groups of three) and forward two groups of two windows, totaling 22 windows.

We know that the vanilla APT crew units are 4, giving a range of 35 to 44 total.

One way to work this out would be to assume the deck three are passenger quarters with up to 22 SRO (single resident occupants) each with a porthole/window. rest room arrangements to be determined later. Separate dining room for passengers on deck three.

Next, deck two has 18 windows/ port holes. if each is also divided up as (SRO) that means the rated crew members total 18 bodies.

That means the officers and the captain are billeted on deck one.

Is this workable, or is there a better way to divvy the bodies up?

By A. David Merritt (Adm) on Thursday, July 09, 2015 - 01:09 pm: Edit

Meat pies?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, July 09, 2015 - 03:04 pm: Edit

You know what we really need around here?

Vegetarian Slirdarians!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 09, 2015 - 05:14 pm: Edit

The vegetarian bear-apes eat only bananaberries?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, July 09, 2015 - 07:41 pm: Edit

SVC:

Jean banned bananas from the slirdarian mess years ago, though I must admit not one of the Slirdarians has ever complained about the no banana policy.

There was an accident reported about five years ago when Slirdarian Corporal slipped on a banana peel left in the hall way, though a thorough investigation was conducted, no one was ever charged.

I can't say if they eat berries, it hasn't come up in conversation.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 09, 2015 - 10:37 pm: Edit

Not bananas. Not berries. Bananaberries.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, July 10, 2015 - 12:38 am: Edit

Jeff, I can always move the windows, and I suspect I shall be forced to do so. Relatively minor detail.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, July 10, 2015 - 09:14 am: Edit

Garth,
You could take it up with the steves, but I suspect that segregating passengers to a single deck that can be issolated by controlling access points would be a prudent precaution to take.

Especially if the passengers outnumber the crew.

If you did move the windows in such a way that the third deck level had three windows groups on each of the facings, (3*3)+(2*3)+(3*3)=24 windows on the third deck...would potentially mean upto 24 SRO cubicles and thus 24 passengers.

That could mean the crews quarters on the second deck (and occupying the same total square footage) as the third deck, would have (3*2)+(2*2)+(3*2)=16 windows. That would mean slightly larger quarters for the crew than what the passengers would have.

I don't know how the deck one space is layed out, but if there were 4 cabins on deck one... and you organized the cabins on decks 2 & 3 into suites, each with a small common area and a shared bath room you would end up with:

Deck one, 4 officers rooms, 1 bath room in each.
Deck two, 3 crew quarters (3*2)+(2*2)+(3*2)=3 suites of small two or three SRO's, each sharing a bath room and a tiny common area (basically a table & chair and room for a small chair or settee.
Deck three, 3 passenger suites of 3 SRO bunks each group of three sharing a common area and perhaps using common bath rooms.

Not ideal, but it might work.

More to the point, the same configuration could work for theCUT , make deck 3 crew and marine quarters, decks 2&1 officer and NCO quarters.

Kills two birds with a single a singledeck plan.

That means a total of 10 suite/state rooms/cabins instead of the 12 talked about earlier.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, July 13, 2015 - 08:21 pm: Edit

Grumble grumble grumble ... freaken' diagonal walls ... don't want to work the way I want them to ... know I know why the Borg built cubes!!!!


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, July 13, 2015 - 10:30 pm: Edit

Garth,

New thought for you to consider.

Movable partitions in each suite.

Assume that the suites can be reconfigured with semi-rigid wall segments so each group of two or three windows in a suite could be configured into one, two, three or four bunk state rooms.

If the room fixtures varied with how many passengers or crew members were to be assigned to a compartment during a specific voyage, at each port of call, the partitions could be moved as needed to reflect the berthing arrangement for each passenger or crew suite.

The only actual walls that need to actually show up on the deck plans would be the separations between the actual suites.

I suggested earlier that deck three use common rest rooms so the suites wouldnt need to have plumbing fixtures installed. Deck two would have a bathroom in each suite or shared between two suites.

The suite discriptions could specify if there are diagonal wall partitions, but you wouldnt need to place them on the deck plans.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, July 17, 2015 - 08:23 pm: Edit

There was an article published in the NAvy Times news paper(fall church, va) (and linked to on a couple of main stream media sites)that report that the Navy is now on a healthy eating regimen.

In short, fried foods are out and nutrious fare the order of the day. To that end, deep fryers are no longer used, meals will be baked, microwaved or heated using systems other than fried in oil.

In the case of APT type ships(as we have discussed) what arrangments are you planning? Will there be commercial ovens to bake bread? Deep fryers? Microwaves? Rice cookers?

Will you have one central kitchen and deliver carts of meals to the customer/passenger suites state rooms or cabins? One huge mess hall? Separate dining areas for the captain, officers, enlisted and passengers?

Will they be prepared from scratch? Or just delivering warmed MRE?

Given that normal crews number 35-44 and with commanders option points could number up to 84 bodies (just citing a number quoted earlier in this same topic), that gives a range of meals daily of (35*3=105) to (84*4)=336 of meals or prepared snacks to feed the complement of a single APT for a day. Depending on the length of time the ship spends on a voyage between bases, there could be a need for some healthy sized store rooms.

Just curious.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, July 18, 2015 - 12:01 am: Edit

As I did with the POL, all the appliances are done in "modern equivalents to avoid contaminating the timelines with future technology". For the galley, I used the gas-stove icon (on the POL, haven't got that far on the APT).

This allows the Game Master to give the crew whatever tech they want, be it cooking real food, heating food packets, processing "food from goo", or replicating food from pure energy. Same thing with the laundry; I used modern washers/dryers. but the GM could say they chemically break down the dirty clothes and replicate all-new from the resulting base material.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jack Bohn (Jackbohn) on Saturday, July 18, 2015 - 11:37 am: Edit

Heh. The spaceship in "Cowboy Bebop" showed a gas-stove used for cooking. Of course, anime often delights in incongruities, but I wondered at the time if, using "solar system"-level technology you wouldn't generate usable biogas from wastes you have to get rid of, anyway. (I think such a setup would require more than the, uh, "output" of the four people on the show, which might explain their plumbing problems.) The SFU's "just short of miracle"-level technology would probably allow for gas, charcoal, or mesquite cooking for those who don't believe the flavor can be added artificially, but I suspect most will be done on the basis of convenience, by microwave or infrared or the next thing.

Anyway, what I meant to write was that an aspect of the show was eliminating hardship for hardship's sake (seen better in contrast to the '60s military than today's) a Roddenberry quote: "why should man give up the joy of ham and eggs if ... technology ... would permit him to have it?" The dining on a civilian ship is probably not more sumptuous than on a fleet ship, with exceptions like luxury liners, where that would be the point; and probably not less, unless, again, you make it a point, like the crew of the Bebop wondering where their next meal is coming from.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, July 19, 2015 - 11:06 am: Edit

Jack raises a couple of issues that I don't think we have raised before... I know the game back ground assumes a large number of locations that may be regularly served by civilian star ships for cargo and passenger type commerce (captains log article on the federation express corp quoted 187,000 places on the federation list.)

If there are ships besides star liners carrying passengers, wouldn't food be a selling point?

Let us say "Garths cheapo APT passenger and cargo lines" offers a bed, three military surplus MREs a day and absolutely no frills for a market rate price.

On the other hand, the Hupachia lines offers five star resort sevice (staffed with Orion slave girls) going to the same destination with identical departure and arrival dates and times for the same priced ticket.

I am assuming that captain Reid "the merciless" Hupach keeps the prices down by buying the best quality products at local markets supporting poor farmers ranchers and dairy's, buying in bulk, and preparing all meals from scratch while captain Garth buys the MRE's at the army navy store. (hE must make a fortune on the savings!)

My point is, if all other factors are the same, some people will prefer to travel withHupach instead of the el cheapo competition.

By Stewart Frazier (Frazikar2) on Sunday, July 19, 2015 - 08:20 pm: Edit

Remember, you get what you pay for...

Garth's cheepo service is not going to charge the same as Hypach, Garth's should be lower for other reasons. Both may have similar overheads in terms of running the ship, but crew costs and consumables will make a difference...

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, July 20, 2015 - 12:19 am: Edit

Didn't draw anything all weekend. I need to go get a new mouse. The current one is about six or seven years old and the left-click wants to double-click everything.

Jeff: remember that the APT has (if memory serves) Aux-Warp Drive and thus is much faster than cargo-pod-hauling freighters, so your claim that the arrival times are the same is false.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, July 20, 2015 - 01:02 am: Edit

Garth, I mean't both lines used APT's.

Stewart, let the buyer beware! All we know about the federation passenger services is that there isn't just one mega huge conglomerate running things. The buyers of the tickets are responsible for finding out exactly what they are buying in the form of transportation, food accommodations and (ahem) "personnal services".

From a GURPs RPG pov, there should be lots of variation in how civilian ships operate. Look at the travel sections of any local newspaper... lots of people buy tickets and reserve rooms based on advertizing, and are disappointed when they actually arrive at their destinations to find things are not what they expected.

Sometimes, its a variation of bait and switch... sometimes its to find out that the facilities are old and very worn out from many prior passengers having used the same beds, casbins and accommodations.

May be the food preparation facilities havent been recently inspected... lots of rpg angles.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, July 30, 2015 - 08:32 pm: Edit

Hey, Garth!

How are ya doing!

Is there anything we interested bystanders can do to assist you in your noble quest?!?
Just ask'in!

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, July 30, 2015 - 10:37 pm: Edit

Sadly, I got very little done this week due to real-life issues (house stuff) and a bummed-up knee that complains if it's bent (as in normal sitting) for more than twenty minutes or so.


Garth L. Getgen