By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Thursday, May 09, 2002 - 04:52 pm:

DARN... i really screwed up I'm really calculated the cargo at one ssd=300 gurps spaces (double that of what
i've been talking about)


well... SVC.... what do you think.

that would turn the large freighers cargo space from 7,500,000 cft to 1,250,000 cft


btw the article in CL23 on freighters have the small cargo pods at 40m diameter by 200m long (31 cargo
boxes) that make it about 400 GURPS spaces per box (yikes).

.... now im confused.


And i have to redo the free trader.... DARN

By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Thursday, May 09, 2002 - 05:20 pm: Edit

SVC: here is something you could clear up.

the standard cargo module (31 cargo spaces) mentioned in CL23 is 40m diameter by 200 m long. (((20^2)*3.14)*200=) 251,000 cubic meters or 13,500 gurps spaces. Thats about 435 GURPS spaces per cargo box on an SSD.

if we start adjusting things this is what a large freigher will look like:

435 spaces per cargo box = large freighter cargo hold (10 million cf)
300 spaces per cargo box = large freighter cargo hold (7.5 million cf)
200 spaces per cargo box = large freighter cargo hold (5 million cf)
150 spaces per cargo box = large freighter cargo hold (3.75 million cf)
50 spaces per cargo box = large freigher cargo hold (1.25 million cf)

My origional larger freigher designs are at 300 spaces per cargo box. Nicks designs are at 50 spaces per cargo box, and your frieghers in article 23 are at 435 cargo boxes (this seems really to high).

what should we do. It will really change some of the stats of the ships (mainly how many hits the ship can take)

My opinion 150 or 200 but then they don't match the deck plans well (but who's counting?)

By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Thursday, May 09, 2002 - 05:23 pm: Edit

this last method... is that cargo boxes on SSD don't really mean an excact space. This would allow us to vary the size of the ships. I would at least suggest to pick the min max size of the cargo hold per SSD cargo box

maybe from 100 gurps spaces to about 300 gurps spaces.

By Nick Blank (Nickb) on Thursday, May 09, 2002 - 05:46 pm: Edit

I would note that my "50 spaces" per box is based on the SFB rule, and that one standard drone is one space. I have no idea how this compares to a GURPS "space", I don't know how big that is supposed to be.

And the standard cargo pod 40 meters diameter by 200 meters long (large and small freighters) has 25 cargo boxes. I don't know where you are getting the number 31 from.

Perhaps this should be moved to the GURPS section somewhere, this really is no longer the right place to continue...

Nick

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 10, 2002 - 10:55 am: Edit

Is a pod 40m or 30m in diameter? I think it's 40m, but I don't remember and don't have my trek manual with me.

But Nick's baseline of 40x200=25 seems about right.

So that would mean 250000 cubic meters (including interior partitions and HVAC) = 25 boxes.

By Aaron Hendricks (Aar0n) on Friday, May 10, 2002 - 12:45 pm: Edit

250,000 cubic meters is about 13,000 gurps spaces (one space equals 500 cubic feet or 18.5 cubic meters).


divide your 13,000 gurps spaces by 25 cargo boxes, you get 520 gurps spaces per cargo box.


this is 10 times the size of the deck plans on the free trader. Now I suggest that we have the cargo boxes become a flexible number. So I made the the free trader at 150 gurps spaces per cargo box (3 times the space shown on the deck plans). And the Large Freighter 300 gurps spaces per cargo box (1.7 times smaller than the stuff you mentioned in CL23)

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, May 10, 2002 - 01:46 pm: Edit

I can dig flexibility. Ships travel at the speed of plot and have sufficient cargo capacity for all of the required plot devices.

By Nick Blank (Nickb) on Friday, May 10, 2002 - 01:51 pm: Edit

Just ignore what I posted here a sec ago...

By Nick Blank (Nickb) on Friday, May 10, 2002 - 02:02 pm: Edit

You could always define a new "bulk" cargo box for SFB. Then the standard cargo pods (used in freighters) should be defined as having "bulk cargo boxes" that have a lot more SFB cargo spaces in them, similar to how most cargo has 50 spaces but Orions have only 25. The bulk cargo pods could have a lot more spaces per box. They are destroyed easier due to the non-combat nature of the pod, built cheaply, etc...

If you're feeling revisionist towards SFB that is.

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Friday, May 10, 2002 - 07:24 pm: Edit

What is the standard "ground scale" for GURPS plans (i.e. 1 in. = 1 m, etc.)?

..and at that scale what kind of deck plans can you realistically do?

I would think that many ships are just too big to be commercially viable to print. I'm not saying that it can't be done, just that there might be issues involved.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Friday, May 10, 2002 - 10:16 pm: Edit

Our standard is "whatever fits on a page".

In MPA, we'll be able to go as big as 11x17 inches, as we plan to put the deckplans on the center pages of the product. As the product will be stapled (not perfect bound) you can just undo the staples, pull out the deckplans, and bend the staples back.

We are doing the deckplans in a CAD program called SmartDraw; it's not really a CAD program, but the way we're using it ... anyhow, scaling the drawings is not a big problem.

By Robert Herneson (Herneson) on Saturday, May 11, 2002 - 12:13 am: Edit

Are there plans to do the 30mm scale large sheets? Sooner than later I hope.
I'm talking about ones similar to the Traveller deck plans that SJG has done.

I enjoy the smaller 11x17 pages but they are of limited us if I want to put out large areas of figs.

Robert

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, May 11, 2002 - 10:35 am: Edit

I would assume that we'd have the same type of sheets that traveler has, at least at some point.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, May 11, 2002 - 11:17 am: Edit

We mostly use 8.5x11 or 11x17 inch paper for most of our products. Larger sheets like C or D size (17x34, etc) haven't been used much because we haven't had a need. I think the last time was when we did the deckplans for the Small Freighter back in 95, which was published in PA#1.

In any event, the Traveler things I've seen in the past were 15mm or 25mm scale, not 30.

I'm sure we can find a printer that can handle the bigger sheets, but I think we'll probably reserve those big sheets for standalone products like a deckplan set for a Fed CA or something similar.

In any event, no decision yet.

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Saturday, May 11, 2002 - 04:45 pm: Edit

OK, so what I'm hearing from this conversation is that the scale of the deckplans will vary according to the size of the "subject."

As for stand-alone deck plan projects, I'd be very carefull. The FASA deckplans did not do well after the initial sales burst.

I'd think that you'd have to stick to very utilitarian vessels, such as shuttlecraft or light freighters, etc.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, May 11, 2002 - 08:12 pm: Edit

If we do standalone deckplan products, it will be for things we know will sell well, if only initially. Fed CA, Klingon D7, etc.

Probably few and far between.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 12, 2002 - 02:00 pm: Edit

Ramblings on deck plans....

1. Nobody but SVC has any business saying what we would or won't print, or why. So I'd appreciate it if people who aren't SVC would stop saying that we would, or might, or would not, or might not, do X or Y.

2. It wouldn't be at all hard to print a larger set of deck plans in Modules Prime if the players would put up with 11x17 sheets that they had to lay down next to each other.

3. It wouldn't be impossible to include much larger folded deck plan sheets bound into the centerfold of Modules Prime. I've already had meetings with printers about how this would be done.

4. Stand alone deck plan projects are entirely possible. I'd say it's VERY likely we'll do one this year or early next year and, if it sells, do a lot more of them.

5. If you're going to do deck plans in a scale where miniatures can move around on them, then it's either going to be small ships or very big very expensive plans.

6. Fed CA and Klingon D7 would probably never be done. Why? Because other companies have already published those, and we would either have to declare their work wrong and replace it (something players might well reject) or we'd have to violate their copyrights (not happening).

By Jim Davies (Mudfoot) on Sunday, May 12, 2002 - 06:34 pm: Edit

Regarding deck plans where miniatures could move around, I doubt you'd have to do the whole ship; rather just a few key areas where character movement might matter (read, combat). For example:

Bridge
Brig
Shuttle Bay
Typical stateroom and corridor
Agoniser Booth
Transporter room
Lab
Sickbay
Aux Con
Typical weapon control room
Galley / Mess hall
Klink Security Station

and maybe one for each other type of box on the SSD (Trac, Probe, Impulse, Warp, APR, Btty, P1, Web, Mech-link, etc). This might add up, though.

After all, there must be a huge amount of essentially identical spaces on a CA; you'll probably only need one of each.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Sunday, May 12, 2002 - 09:14 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

3. It wouldn't be impossible to include much larger folded deck plan sheets bound into the centerfold of Modules Prime. I've already had meetings with printers about how this would be done.

---

By Sean Bayan Schoonmaker (Schoon) on Monday, May 13, 2002 - 12:34 am: Edit

I like the idea of doing specific areas of a ship.

It has the added advantage that a "Fed Bridge" could be used for any number of other Federation vessels.

In theory, you could do a pack for each of the major races. Much more versitile than doing specific ships.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, May 13, 2002 - 12:52 am: Edit

Thats what I was thinking. You could have single examples of each races major componants. Then small plans for the over all ship. Minis would be places on the Room plans. One might include a hall map that would be laminated and detailed with wax penciles or dry erase markers on the fly. Ya! There ya go.

By Nick Blank (Nickb) on Monday, May 13, 2002 - 01:04 am: Edit

I can see doing the complete set as a smaller scale, and then larger versions of the key rooms.

I personally wouldn't want just the key rooms, I want to see the whole thing!

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Monday, May 13, 2002 - 03:35 am: Edit

This is something we talked over a long time ago.

You definitely need a map for each deck of a ship. But you don't have to detail out each and every room and compartment, just one of each.

If a ship has 45 cabins that are identical, you only need to show the contents/layout once, and that can be in miniature scale. Ditto unique and/or heavily used compartments like the bridge, sick bay, and the transporter room. A generic passageway section, a couple of junctions and so forth, etc.

The ships we are currently working on are frigates, and are mostly small enough where you can detail out the whole thing. But for bigger ships, I think we'll have to go with the above.

By Robert Herneson (Herneson) on Monday, May 13, 2002 - 03:46 am: Edit

Sean has swerved back to the idea I popped up way back of 'generic areas' ala the Cardboard Dungeon produck and Steve has said he's favorable to a varient of that idea.

Now, if we do what Nick suggests, then we can also take Gary's thoughts and produce 11"x17" plans showing the overall layout, but when a GM needs a specific area he can reach for the Cardboard Starship collection he has. Set this bridge section next to that bridge section, put your turbo lifts and opperation stations where they are noted on the smaller diagram and 'voila!' one playable area.

Steve is happy because he gets to sell Cardboard Generic Starships, Cardboard Generic Bases, Cardboard Federation Starships, Cardboard Klingon Starships, Cardboard Shuttles, etc...
Gary is happy because MP can now be used to supply the master diagrams or who products can be done for BIG ships.
Players are happy because they get ships & play areas.
The only one not happy is my wife because I've bought more toys. (Guess I'll have to make it up to her -- shucks!)

Side note Gary, I suggested 30mm becuase that is the scale miniatures are mostly done at now. It makes little difference though if we just make 1" hex = 1 yard.

Robert

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Monday, May 13, 2002 - 08:58 am: Edit

Another possibility is to do the larger ships at a scale such that you can easily go down to your local copy shop and have the sections you need blown up to miniature size.