Still working on the modifications caused by adding the Cargo Lifts. I have all the decks done except for the Mess Hall on Deck Seven.

Everything in RED is locked in and can NOT be changed. The T-shaped turbolift corridor could be tweaked to having just the side or just the center door, but that would create alcoves. The room between the Cargo Lifts will probably become a storage closet for pots-&-pans. That means I need to completely change the scullery to be able to put a door there. The food pantries are forward (top of screen) of the kitchen / galley area, so it makes sense to keep the cooking area along that wall.


I ripped out some stuff that SVC commented on and replaced them with different things. I have one more item to work on. I have two pairs of 4.75 x 4.75 x 6.75 meter triangular rooms, nose and tail of the ship, that will become the Maneuvering Thruster systems. I just need to figure out how to draw them.

So, after the mess hall and thrusters are done, I can send new images to SVC for review. I do want to re-create / replace some of my custom icons before final print. For example, I put too much detail on the control stations, and that just becomes a ugly blob as the scale of the printout.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Wednesday, April 15, 2020 - 04:45 pm: Edit

Just finished the thrusters. Turns out, the forward compartments are bigger than the aft ones. I just put an extra pair of 2.0x0.5-meter tanks in the forward one to fill the space. The other option would have been to move a wall (and corridor) to make fore & aft the same size, which means I'd have to make changes to the Astrophysics Lab. Seemed like more work than it was worth.

I still need to rip out the mess hall and re-do it. Not looking forward to that. The only thing harder than the mess hall to Tetris together was the sick bay.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, April 19, 2020 - 07:04 pm: Edit

Okay, I have Deck 7 pretty well done. All in all, not a lot of changes, really. The dining area of the Mess Hall remains unchanged. Things were moved around a little in the galley / kitchen area. The biggest change was the scullery was split in two to allow access to the new pots-&-pans pantry.

I want to re-do some of the symbols/icons. I'm going to get rid of the grade-school-style (prison-style) food trays. I found they're too detailed and simply will not print well at a small scale. There are a few other symbols that also need changed for the same reason: computer terminals (especially the keyboard), work stations & helm control, and maybe the power modulators.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 01:00 am: Edit

I was looking at the hard-copy of the last changes and noticed a missing door. While I was in the master file to fix that, I made a bunch of other minor adjustments. As I said in a previous post, I stretched the aft hull to make room for a Cargo Lift. One of the latest adjustments was to stretch said cargo lift and the the hull itself by another 37.5-cm (about 14-3/4 inch).

Why?

Because my OCD just ... could ... NOT ... handle ... the idea that the ship was 110.625 meters long. My OCD wanted, no, DEMANDED, that the ship be exactly 111.000 meters long. Okay, so 111.5 meters when the Impulse engines "exhaust port" is counted in. My OCD can handle that okay.

That allowed me to "fix" a couple other issues the addition of the cargo lift created. Not that anyone else would ever notice, but for example my OCD didn't like that the door to the barracks (x2) was a different size than all other doors on the ship. It was either that, or the door would be off-center, which my OCD prevented from happening. Now that door is both centered and a standard size. My OCD is happy about that.

Oh, and I checked: drones will fit in the cargo lift if placed in at an angle. They did before this latest size change. I did consider stretching the ship and cargo lifts by another 0.5 or 1.0 meters to allow drones to go in straight for-aft. However, that made some other things just wonky, so I ditched that idea.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, October 06, 2020 - 03:03 pm: Edit

Here's a comparison between the 108-meter and 111-meter versions. At first, I simply stretched the hull. After staring at it for a while, the engines just didn't look right, so I played around with different nacelle lengths until I found one I liked. The overall length goes from 130 meters to now 140 meters. I'm still not 100% sure it's where I want it to be. It's close. I might trim it back by five meters. Maybe. {shrug}


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 01:10 pm: Edit

Someone told me I'm using the wrong word to describe the officers' quarters. I have them labeled as "State Room", but I was told that means a single room combining living space and the bedroom. Okay, then what would be the proper term for a two-room officer's quarters, with separate living space and bedroom plus a private lavatory??


Garth L. Getgen

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 02:49 pm: Edit

Suite.

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 02:51 pm: Edit

Or Air Force Senior NCO Quarters. LOL!

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 05:40 pm: Edit

I thought that is what they gave to Air Force Junior Enlisted?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 07:08 pm: Edit

Not when I lived in the barracks. Excuse me, the dormitory. Our First Sergeant said "barracks is a derogatory term". It was two men to a room and gang showers down the hall.

But, yes, just before I retired, I went TDY to several bases, and at each one billeting for Senior NCOs was two old-style dorm rooms converted into one big suite.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 07:33 pm: Edit

In my day it was 40 men in one big room with gang showers down the hallway.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 07:44 pm: Edit

Okay, so here are the different types of living quarters in the deck plans. (There are also two 8-man barracks not shown here.)

Officer's quarters are two-room suite with a private lavatory. The Captain's suite is the same size as the other officers' quarters save it has an adjoining office. The First Officer's suite is a mirror image to the Captain's. There are twelve officer suites plus the captain / first officer, which with typically 13 officers on the manifest leaves one spare suite.

Chief Petty Officers have a single room with a private lavatory. There are eight such rooms, and typically five (or six) CPO assigned. If there's more than 14 officers on the ship, the lowest Ensign will get a Chief's room.

There are 44 pairs (88 beds) of "one-plue-one" quarters for the enlisted crew: a single room with a shared lavatory between them. With a nominal crew complement of 100, minus officers and CPO, there should be about six empty beds.

Additionally, there are six "two-plus-two" quarters for Junior Enlisted that are similar except they are two beds per room with a shared lavatory between the rooms. I labeled these as "Excess Quarters" for lack of a better term, because there should normally be more beds than crew members. Ergo, these 2+2 rooms are typically configured for other purposes or used as storage. Ditto with the two 8-man barracks; those are near the gym, so perhaps they'd become weight lifting rooms.

~~~

The other thing I have to do is create new, simpler icons for the helm and other control stations. The current ones looks cool close up, but become hideous blobs when printed out at a scale that will fit a standard 8.5x11 publication. Ditto with small items like the computer terminal / keyboard and comm unit as seen on the captain's desk.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 09:12 pm: Edit

Just playing “devils advocate”...

I have to wonder about how the civilian members of the Federation Council/Senate committee’s would react to a Olivetti Roche “exposure” that the Police Cutter “fleet” wasted tax payers taxes by building the ships with “excess crew quarters”... one could almost envision the trivideo commentators gravely shaking their heads while solemnly condemning the wasteful practices.

Of course, I and you all know that’s hogwash, but never underestimate a hack politicians desire to score points at the expense of government employees.

I imagine that star fleet officers might have been caught by this particular political ploy early in the history of Federation Politics.

My suggestion is to follow the real World history of both the Royal Navy of the U.K. As well was that of the United States.

Both navies break down crew sizes into different categories:

Peace time crew requirements, war time, and special mission crew rosters.

Make the need to have crew capacity a cost effective solution instead of agreeing to a political scam.

The better comparison might be an Engineers point of view. Instead of designing 100+ different variants of the POL (each different crew size for the 100 different “missions” that a POL might have to respond to at any time,) the POL as currently built can tailor the crew assigned to any of the possible missions.

Just do not play the politicians game by the politicians rules.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 10:40 pm: Edit

Jeff, remember that with Commander's Option Points, the crew size can be built up to 195 total manning. I thought it was 150, but Petrick corrected me on that score. I did think about adding more bed space, but I figure that 10 spare beds in normal quarters plus 24 beds in the excess quarters plus 16 more in the barracks, for a total of 150 beds possible, is plenty. If there's a need for more than that, the 2+2 rooms get bunk beds and become 4+4 rooms, taking it up to 174 total beds. If you STILL need more, than you start putting bunk beds in the 1+1 rooms.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, October 12, 2020 - 10:51 pm: Edit

Okay, I just changed all the labels "State Room" to "Officer Suite", and changed the "Capt Suite" & "Exec Suite" to "Capt Cabin" & "Exec Cabin".


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - 02:14 pm: Edit

Garth, that is exactly where I was headed.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, December 05, 2020 - 01:10 pm: Edit

I haven't touched the project in a while. Work and real life keep getting in the way. I really need to re-create icons for control stations and computer terminals. The ones I have look great up-close, but turn into blobs when printed in small scale.

Another project I've been dabbling with is writing some fiction, although I haven't typed more than two lines in the past month for the same work/life reasons. It appears I have an inability to write a SHORT story, for it took my 50K words before I give the reader the first glimpse of the Hero Ship, which will be pulled from cold storage and rebuilt. It took me a while to figure out how to describe the police cutter. Here's an extract of the segment where they pick which of the three candidates to restore.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The police frigate Edmund Randolph arrived in the Iota Cervus system just as the morning watch took over shift. Captain Cho contacted Space Station Foxtrot-One to request permission before approaching Sonora, the second planet from the star, where Star Fleet's Logistics Reclamation and Regeneration Facility was located. Most people simply called it 'The Boneyard'. This was where starships go to die.

The Earth-sized planet Sonora orbited about six light-minutes from the star, right in the 'Goldilocks Zone'. It was a Class-L world with two small oceans covering less than a third of the surface. Most of the plant life was confined to small coastal regions. The rest of the planet was arid; Star Fleet used it for desert survival training. Sea level pressure in the thin atmosphere was equivalent to twelve hundred meters / four thousand feet elevation Earth Standard.

Sonora was an ideal location for long-term storage of retired spacecraft. Metallic hulls and hardware did not rust or corrode in the mild temperatures and low humidity, and the low ultraviolet radiation slowed degradation of plastics and acrylic components. The boneyard covered an area of over four hundred square kilometers. Thousands of retired shuttles, skiffs, and other small craft were arranged in blocks like a patchwork quilt. Another large swath was dedicated to obsolete military tanks and other heavy ground vehicles. Detached warp drive nacelles were laid out in rows according to size and type. Scores of freighters, independent trading vessels, and priority transports, all well past their useful lifespan, awaited their final fate. A dozen or more starship saucers and other hull segments were in various stages of dismantlement.

There were hundreds of retired starships in stabilized orbit above the planet, many dating back to the Earth-Romulan War, under the watchful eyes of the Space Station Foxtrot-One. Most of these would eventually be lowered to the planet's surface to be stripped of any useful parts. The left over hulk would then be broken down and recycled. Occasionally, a ship might be pulled out of retirement and returned to service, even if only in the Inactive Reserve Fleet held in mothball status in orbit over Mars. Some were sacrificed as targets for war games and weapons testing. A few lucky ones were saved to become museum pieces.

[....]

Lieutenant Commander Foxx requested, "Lieutenant at'Rohas, can you please display images of each of the ships in question?"

"Of course, sir," at'Rohas replied. "Computer, display photographic records of the police cutter Patrick McGeehan."

The ship appeared on the view screen. Its design was based loosely on the old Wellington-class destroyer, developed by the Terrain Space Defense Force, dating back to just after the Earth-Romulan War. In fact, some new police cutters were still being manufactured in the original Wellington slipway. Unlike most Star Fleet ships, the police cutter did not have a saucer design, or even the spherical design of the old Daedalus-class starships of the United Earth Space Probe Agency, but rather was overall cigar-shaped. At 111 meters long by 27.5 meters wide (not counting the warp engines), it was roughly the same size as the Constitution-class heavy cruiser's secondary hull.

The cutter's hull was divided into two dissimilar segments; the forward hull segment, four decks thick, was a long, flat plank with sharply beveled edges tapering to an angular spearhead point. The navigational sensor dome sat neatly on the top; the main bridge itself was embedded inside the hull and thus not exposed. Two phaser emitters were affixed to the slanting front plates (like a pair of eyeballs, some say), and the single photon torpedo launcher was slung under the chin. The main deflector disk was mounted to a sturdy pillar on the bottom of the hull.

The forward hull attached directly to the aft hull with only the slightest narrowing of a neckline. The after hull segment was a perfect cylinder, eight decks thickness in diameter, with a tail section akin to a flat-bottom ice cream cone. The shuttle hangar door was on the cylinder's front plate above the forward hull, an unusual feature carried over from the Wellington, and the main cargo bay hatch on likewise on the front face below the forward hull. A single phaser emitter was affixed to the bottom giving it a full 360-degree field of fire.

A pair of warp drive nacelles were attached to either side of the aft hull on short, straight pylons, giving the ship a very utilitarian feel. The warp engines were less than half the length of the Constitution's engines and produced only a third the energy, still plenty of power for the cutter's needs.

"That's a Masterson-class," Lieutenant Brenda Sinclair said incredulously. "This says it should be a Callahan-class," she held up her PADD. The Masterson-class was the original cutter design developed and deployed nearly thirty years prior. Some construction facilities hadn't been retooled and thus still produced them. The Callahan-class had been in service for only eight years, but many Masterson-class cutters had already been converted to the newer design.

"Yes, well, you see," Lieutenant at'Rohas explained, "it was scheduled for the upgrade, but your headquarters wanted it back in service, so the project was canceled. Apparently, the paperwork wasn't corrected."

"Okay, fine, but this makes no sense," Sinclair retorted. "She's here because of a problem with the warp drive, so why didn't they just send her back for the upgrade?" The white-haired Star Fleet engineer could only shrug. "You know what, never mind." She rubbed her temples. "My head's going to explode if I keep thinking about it. The mission statement calls for a Callahan, so we can cross this one off the list."

"But the Masterson and Callahan are functionally identical, aren't they?" at'Rohas asked.

"More or less," Lieutenant Commander Foxx answered. "In combat, yes, they have essentially the same capabilities. However, the Masterson's top speed at high-warp is limited and its deuterium fuel tanks are smaller, so the Callahan is better suited for long-range patrols. What else do you have?"

Lieutenant at'Rohas called up the image for the James Everette. The most obvious difference between it and the previous ship was the sweptback design of the warp pylons, with the nacelles pushed back to extend well past the tail cone, giving this ship a graceful appearance befitting its speed and agility. The Callahan-class cutter just looked like it was going Warp Nine while floating in orbit. There were other subtle differences, of course, but both ships shared the same weapons suite and other capabilities.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple people have read my writing, and one guy (who knows nothing of SFB) suggested I scrap this and use a small saucer design instead. I may yet do so, but for now I'm leaving it as-is.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, June 19, 2021 - 02:11 pm: Edit

I spent most of yesterday afternoon making a bunch of minor 'fixes' to the deck plans. I did something that cost me a couple wasted hours. I thought I'd try to increase the ceiling height in the Plus-Refit drone rack section by a half-meter. Doing so makes the segment two-meters wider, which gave me all sorts of room to work with. After I had it mostly done, I sat back and stared at it for a while ... and then reverted back to the original. It just didn't look right.

I still need to edit the Helm and other control stations, to get rid of tiny details that turn into blobs when printed out at a small scale. Right now, this is what they look like. I'm not using the middle (squared-off) one because I wanted to avoid being "too close" to the TV show version. I'm probably going to keep the outline shape and just clean up the details. I need to keep the same basic footprint, or the new icons may not fit where the current ones are. Opinions??

The other thing I'd like to re-do is the Gymnasium with its sports-ball court. I made it look like a basketball court, but at 15.00 x 7.50 meters (49'2" x 24'7") and a 4.00 meter (13'1") ceiling height, it's too small for basketball. Also, there's not much room for running out-of-bounds before you smash into a wall.

Anybody know of any team sports that would fit into the available space?? Note that the background text says the gym's floor can be programmed to change the lines to fit the sport being played.

The other option would be to create new icons for weight-lifting & workout equipment (treadmill, cross-fit, bike, stair master, etc). I do NOT want to fill the entire gym up with such equipment as the gym has many other uses (BP gearing up, medical triage, refugee housing, etc).


Garth L. Getgen

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Saturday, June 19, 2021 - 03:34 pm: Edit

Garth If you made the ball court a half court basketball court. I.e. one basket. Then it would work real well. In a lot of the smaller ships I work on in the yard. I have seen one basket ball hoop. So they would be playing a half court game.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, June 19, 2021 - 04:31 pm: Edit

Thanks, Gregory, but I believe the 13-foot ceiling precludes modern basketball. Besides, a half-court configuration would screw up my left-right symmetrical design. I looked up Handball, but the court is 20 x 40 meters. I only have 7.5 x 15 meters to work with. :-(

Of course, it doesn't have to be a 21st century sport, or even one originating on Earth.....


Garth L. Getgen

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Sunday, June 20, 2021 - 10:41 am: Edit

Well you could set it up like a hand to hand training space. with matts and the like..

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, June 20, 2021 - 12:37 pm: Edit

Not a bad idea, Gregory, but I'm not sure how well that would translate on the final product. I did change the court markings to make it look less like basketball.

I really need to do something with the helm / control stations. I've been putting it off because I'm just not visualizing in my head of what they should look like.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, June 20, 2021 - 01:47 pm: Edit

Revised gym court markings. And I must note that it's just long enough for a fencing piste (strip), which is 14 meters long per Olympic regulations. You can fit three, maybe four, fencing piste in that area.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, June 21, 2021 - 02:50 pm: Edit

I redid the Helm on the Main Bridge. Old version is on the left, new one on the right. I fully expect that one to fail the small-scale print test, so I made another one removing much of the details. If that one also fails, I have a third version removing all the panels, leaving the outline.

Now I need to create new icons for the smaller control stations with the same 'look & feel' to the design.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, June 22, 2021 - 12:15 pm: Edit

I just finished redrafting the Aux Con. Here are the changes, old on left & new on right.

My original idea, going back to Version One of this project, was that the control stations are movable (with a bit of effort) and can be configured (with a hard-drive swap) to preform any function. For that reason, I did not want fixed / built-in control stations in Aux Con / Emergency Bridge .... but once I got playing around with this, I must admit I like how it turned out.

Here's the latest (final??) version of the Main Bridge. Stupid Feds with their round bridge design; that makes it near impossible to put control panels in front of the duty stations. I am sorely tempted to rip it all out (save for the center platform) and make the Bridge a square.


Garth L. Getgen