Thanks, Jeff.

I don't know ... perhaps, given their mission statement, they need as much redundancy and alternate processes as possible.

Minor typo above: it's not eight pairs of spiral staircases, it's eight stairwells in four pairs. The reason they're in pairs is because there is a center horizontal turbolift corridor on several decks blocking foot travel from left to right sides of the ship.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, July 21, 2025 - 09:25 am: Edit

Small ship.

Not a lot of options, once it has been decided to include a turbolift system.

It appears to be an acceptable adaptation, if not Ideal.

Perhaps the next generation Federation Cutter design can offer an improvement, but off hand, I have no idea how that could be accomplished.

We have talked about the Federation FFG being a possible alternative, but again, it is another small ship, the main advantage being a saucer design as opposed to a rather longer, narrower one of comparable volume.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Monday, July 21, 2025 - 12:42 pm: Edit

I made a /newurl{https://i.imgur.com/qMvKi7K.gif,saucer SSD} with all the same boxes from the POL / POL+, including same firing arcs. I suppose, in theory, a miniature and/or deck plans could be made for such a critter.

RE: Turbolifts -- very early on in the project, I asked SVC if I could do without, and he said he wanted them in due mainly for Module M rules.

I would have been happy to just use vertical-only elevators. Of course, thanks to Jeff W. and SPP, it does now have Cargo Lifts from Deck Eight up to Deck One.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, July 22, 2025 - 08:21 am: Edit

I still have the occasional nightmare of having to move drone reloads from low storage up to the shuttle bay for use in a scatter pack. Using stairs with a landing halfway up each deck level… reminds me of my college days helping friends move couches, refrigerators and larger sized bed box springs.

The worst one was an apartment stairwell far too small for the queen sized bed box spring.

We finally had to take the windows out of the frames and lift it up to the second floor thru the open window.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, July 22, 2025 - 05:26 pm: Edit

Jeff, they would have fit perfectly fine in the Turbolift. I hate to admit it, but adding the extra length allowed me to fix a (very minor) issue with mismatched room sizes, plus gave the crew eight storage rooms for personal property.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, July 22, 2025 - 06:27 pm: Edit

Garth, you might consider writing an article to submit detailing the experience you gained in doing the deck plans.

Might not add anything to the canon or history, but might encourage other people to try doing deck plans.

Just a thought.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, July 22, 2025 - 08:59 pm: Edit

Jeff,

Already done.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 23, 2025 - 06:32 am: Edit

I should have known!

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, November 13, 2025 - 05:56 pm: Edit

I had a LOT of free time on my hands for the past six weeks (Thank you, Congress), so I was looking my deck plans over. I crunched some numbers and figured the spiral staircases I had were going to be a lot steeper than I originally figured. Almost a 2:1 rise over run. I played around with it and think I have something that works better:

Old on left vs New on right. Arrow points UP.

And it fits the same footprint, but should be a 1:1 rise/run now.


Garth L. Getgen

By Shawn Hantke (Shantke) on Thursday, November 13, 2025 - 06:37 pm: Edit

Nice. Did you see my post about the free deck plan book. Maybe you can't use it, but it might give you some ideas.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, November 13, 2025 - 07:26 pm: Edit

Garth, looks good.

Silly question…

Is there any provision for isolating port side from starboard side in the event of hull breach?

If yes, Then it supports the case for maintaining port side verses starboard side damage control lockers.

If the answer is ‘No.” then maintaining two separate(but equal?) lockers is both repetitive and duplicative…

I realize you are working towards a symmetrical deck plan…and intellectually, I have no objection.

The cost accountant part of my brain is screaming about potential inefficiency and wasted capacity.

Lot of factors, is the amount of materials and items being stored in the lockers necessary to support the whole ship, or, could just one locker be enough?

Your call, I doubt anyone would ever question whatever you decide… but two identical lockers in a location that a hull breach would isolate them both until or unless crewmen in spaces suits arrived. (And no airlock means neither space can be accessed until air pressure is restored, and the equipment and tools needed to complete that task are in the two damage control lockers…)

One the whole, I just have to compliment you, nice job!

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Thursday, November 13, 2025 - 08:32 pm: Edit

I am hope that the stairs can be pulled out are folded somehow. That would facilitate cargo movement. The Navy ships I work on can remove the stairs/ladders. For that purpose.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, November 13, 2025 - 08:54 pm: Edit

On those ships with an armored deck, not only can the starirs be removed, but if memory serves, there is a humongous heavy armored hatch that can be lowered over the opening and secured (water /fire/ air tight)

On a space ship, one would assume a hatch or panel can close the opening in event of a hull breach/depressurization of a section.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, November 13, 2025 - 11:17 pm: Edit

Shawn, yes I did. It's what inspired me to take a look at my deck plans. Thank you.

Jeff, the center-line Turbolift tends to cut the ship in half port/starboard, so it would be easy to seal them off. There are two Damage Control Lockers because (1) to preserve the ship's symmetrical layout, (2) for redundancy, (3) so there is access to one from either side of the ship due to the center-line Turbolist, and (4) because this ship SSD shows it has a DamCon Rating of 2.

Gregory, there are dedicated Cargo Lifts in the aft hull to move items from the shuttle bay (Deck 1) to the cargo hold (Deck 8). But, yeah, sure, I suppose the stairs could open up somehow. In anything, I want to be able to seal them off to contain a hull breach to a single deck.

By the way, the circles in the Turbolift cars is to represent the space of five people. More than five can fit, but it gets a little cozy. I was able to 11 person icons (yes, I made icons for people) inside a lift, but it looked like a clown car.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, November 20, 2025 - 02:22 pm: Edit

I decided to make some serious edits to Deck 6 - Forward. This isn't locked in yet, but I think it's close to what I want. Left side is new version / right side is old. (I redacted the center compartments. The red walls are just a reminder to myself to shift them slightly.)

For "reasons", this deck is a little thicker than the others, so there was a step-down to the lower level. While putting in the new stairs, I got thinking about this plan and decided to move the step-down up to just before the Photon room. This allowed me to widen the outboard rooms from 3.125m to 3.500m.

I decided to remove the water treatment system (how was I supposed to run the plumbing??), which opened a 6.5 x 3.5 meter room. I made that the lateral sensors. If I get rid of the flat-panel sensors, this will become the control systems for the Secondary Sensors (measuring hull pressure and temperature, radiation levels, ambient light, and other environmental conditions). The triangle room where the pump was became a little bigger but not big enough for much of anything more than a table and two chairs. After trying a bunch of other stuff, I put said table & chairs in it, so it's now a private meeting room for supervisors to discuss performance with subordinates.

Raising the deck plate will leave a 50-cm bilge deck. I won't draft it out but will make a note in the background text that this will have tanks and pumps to shift heavy liquids (mercury??) for the ship's weight & balance.

Okay, so tell me if I could have done something different / better.


Garth L. Getgen

By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Friday, November 21, 2025 - 12:43 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Raising the deck plate will leave a 50-cm bilge deck. I won't draft it out but will make a note in the background text that this will have tanks and pumps to shift heavy liquids (mercury??) for the ship's weight & balance.

---

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, November 21, 2025 - 01:30 am: Edit

Robert,

I'm open to suggestions, but I don't know what else to put in a half-meter space. However, instead of liquid mercury, a better idea would be a pair of ten metric ton blocks of tungsten or iridium on rails to move for/aft as needed.

My wife asked about gravity field generators, but those are assumed to be built into the deck plates, like of like in-floor heating coils.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Friday, November 21, 2025 - 06:33 am: Edit

Could you use the space for main-trunk lines for various "utilities" (power, water, HVAC, fuel, etc)?

By Robert Russell Lender (Rusman) on Friday, November 21, 2025 - 10:17 am: Edit

To me, water storage seems most logical.
It's something lacking on some blueprints I've seen but present in many, including our very own SFU D7 deck plans.
And frankly I think more ships should have this type of storage.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Friday, November 21, 2025 - 04:20 pm: Edit

I have plenty of air and water tanks.

Yes, HVAC ducts can and will run there to the V/S (vertical shafts) next to the forward stairs.


Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Saturday, November 22, 2025 - 05:35 pm: Edit

With the help of Co-pilot AI, I crunched the numbers. Total water storage is ~375,000 liters / just shy of 100,000 US gallons. That's good for 125-150 days normal 100-man crew use with no recycling (and of course, the ship has bio-waste processing / water recycling systems), which can be extended to a year-plus with rationing.

For emergency air supply (breathable air, not the 70's soft rock group from Australia), there are tanks totaling about 375 cubic meters of storage. At 200:1 compression, that's 75,000 m^3 of air. By today's standards, 300:1 is the typical max, but I can see a 400:1 for the futuristic time frame, for 150,000 m^3 of air.

Now I need to calculate the total volume of the ship.....


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, November 22, 2025 - 06:04 pm: Edit

Breathable air is nice, but you'll probably use air scrubbers and something that breaks down CO2 into O2. You might want to store a thousand pounds of some chemical that when you open the can it reacts and gives you more hours of breathable oxygen, for last-ditch combat emergencies. Also good for rescue missions. You come upon a crippled freighter and beam over some of the oxygen-chemical stuff to keep the dead life support system functional for a few hours. Don't forget food in fresh, canned, vacpacked and powerbar formats.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, November 22, 2025 - 06:05 pm: Edit

When you're done, Garth, I am ready to publish this and give you an author's royalty.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, November 23, 2025 - 01:42 pm: Edit

Steve, Thank you. I think/hope I'm almost done. I will then need to figure out the technical problems on my end to get the images out of the VMware virtual computer and into a format you can publish.


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, November 23, 2025 - 03:24 pm: Edit

Jpg or pdf would work.