[4e] Mapping custom ships

[Rabek]

Are there any guidelines for creating floor plans for custom ships designed with Interstellar Wars?

I've started a campaign where I intend a lot of the time to be spent with the PCs roleplaying with the rather extensive crew.

We designed a custom ship all together, and I'd like to map out some floorplans to make this goal a bit easier, but I have no idea where to start to make it feasible.

[BraselC5048]

I have some help for you. I've been drawing deckplans for long time, and I think my methods work well. First, you'll want some graph paper, a pencil (not a pen, you'll need to erase a lot), and a ruler (so the lines are straight and it looks nice).

First, the basics, courtesy of classic traveller's Starter Traveller. The basis of deckplan drawing is the traveller ton. It's 13.5-14 (either is close enough) cubic meters, or the volume of 1 metric ton of liquid hydrogen. (It's a unit of volume, not weight). Think of it as displacement, if you will. I don't have Interstellar Wars, so I don't know what units it uses. If everything is simply done in 'tons,' it might well be traveler tons. The book probably has a line somewhere explaining what it uses.

A traveller ton is the equivalent of 4 1.5 meter cubes, which is about 5 feet a side. Decks are spaced (normally) 3 meters apart, so when drawing deckplans, 2 1.5 meter squares equals one traveller ton (when the height is taken into account). Depending on the size of the ship, you might want each square on the graph paper to represent 1 1.5 meter square, or for larger ships, 3 meters square (containing 4 1.5 meter squares). For larger ships still, you'll probably want either bigger sheets of graph paper, or using multiple sheets per deck.

The next step is one of the hardest. If you know what the ship looks like, you could try drawing top and side views on the graph paper (half the scale of the deckplans works well), until you get a shape and size you like, and that comes out to the right volume (or at least within 20-25% either way). If you don't know what the ship looks like, now is the time to figure it out.

Next up, draw out each deck on that graph paper, starting with the outline of the hull of the ship at that deck. Try to make sure you don't leave anything out. How many 'traveller tons' each component takes up in the ship's design process should guide how much space it takes up on the plan. For guidance, each stateroom is usually 2x2 squares, taking up two tons, leaving 2 tons (4 squares) for other volume not otherwise accounted, such as hallways, common areas, sickbay and the like. A hallway is usually 1 square (1.5 meters) wide. Depending on the scale of the drawing, you could represent doors with dashed lines.

One of the things you'll quickly discover is that the other 2 tons of the stateroom tonnage, and the bridge tonnage (usually not all on the bridge), isn't actually enough for all the assorted stuff not included in the design sequence. Don't worry too much, you can take the extra volume by reducing the size of the fuel or cargo space on the plan, and don't forget that 25% overage in tonnage you're allowed!

The more thought you put into the plan, the better it will turn out. Don't be intimidated, the more you do it, the better the plans will get.

Good Luck!



Almost forget: on a warship the armor tonnage doesn't actually end up getting represented on the plan, so think of it as "free" tonnage you can use in addition to the leftover stateroom tonnage.