Spaceships, Floor / Deck Plans, Volume and Hexes

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Sure, but revising your thinking on bunk size allows you more room for other necessary uses of space. A double-occupancy cabin could be, say, five hexes, with three-ish hexes left over for a share of common space like a kitchen, mess hall, and bathroom facilities.

Except for a jail cell or luxury suite I doubt you have much more then a small sink, if that. On most ships you would have a mess hall and shred bathrooms.

[vicky_molokh]

There's also the Establishment habitat unit (bar, brothel, casino, gym, massage parlour, nursery, salon, classroom, or retail store), which provides enough space for 20 patrons and 3 staff in the space of 2 cabins. Which is a total space of 5.32 to 16.64 hexes.

[vicky_molokh]

I'm currently looking real hard at the idea of just calculating volume based on SM and dividing it by the systems involved. But I'm not sure which way to go: calculate the volume of a sphere of the same SM? (Spheres count as 2 SMs higher than their diameter would indicate.)

[Langy]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm currently looking real hard at the idea of just calculating volume based on SM and dividing it by the systems involved. But I'm not sure which way to go: calculate the volume of a sphere of the same SM? (Spheres count as 2 SMs higher than their diameter would indicate.)

Naw. Just multiply the mass by some factor; when I wanted to calculate volume of a ship I just used Mass in Tons * 100 cubic feet/ton (which is an average density of 20 lbs per cubic foot).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm currently looking real hard at the idea of just calculating volume based on SM and dividing it by the systems involved. But I'm not sure which way to go: calculate the volume of a sphere of the same SM? (Spheres count as 2 SMs higher than their diameter would indicate.)

Do it based on the ship's actual shape. If the ship is approximately a sphere, do it as a sphere. For more typical non-streamlined vessels, a rectangular box with width=height=(length/2) would probably work. For streamlined ones, the width and height may well be 1/4 (or less) the length. This should give a decent approximation.

EDIT: I wish I had my book with me, but it occurs to me that a rectangle with length/2=width is 1 SM larger than its height would indicate. A 2-yard-long, 1-yard-wide/high ship would be SM+1 under that ruling, while its face (a 1-yard square, so SM-2 +2 for being a square) would be SM 0. So, height/2=width may well be the rule for streamlined vessels, meaning unstreamlined will be closer to equal. A 1.5x1x1 yard vessel would be SM+0 from the side (SM-1, +1 for being "boxy") and SM+0 from the front (SM-2, +2 for being a square).
So, it may be more accurate for unstreamlined to have (length*2/3)=height=width, while streamlined are (length/2)=height=width.

[David L Pulver]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Greetings, all!

Trying to figure out the amount of space, I see something troubling. According to the author's expansion, an SM+8 ship's systems provide about 16-50 one-yard hexes each. A Habitat module for SM+8 provides 6 Cabins, with each cabin being suitable for accommodating two people.
That's somewhere between 1.33 to 4.16 hexes per person.
A single one-yard hex is the equivalent of 0.54m² (0.64yd²). At best, this means 2.24m² (2.66yd²) of place per person.

How is one supposed to fit a bed, let alone a cabin, into that amount of space?

Thanks in advance!

A hex is one yard wide, but it's not one yard high.

From Kromm in answer to my question:

> If so, what *is* the volume of a hex (not sure if the height is 1 or
> 2 yards, also).

Canonical hex height for powers and magic is in fact 12' (four yards),
and has been since 1986; see pp. B101, B239 for the current references.
Volume is thus ~93.53 cubic feet, or ~3.46 cubic yards.

Thanks!

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Do it based on the ship's actual shape. If the ship is approximately a sphere, do it as a sphere. For more typical non-streamlined vessels, a rectangular box with width=height=(length/2) would probably work. For streamlined ones, the width and height may well be 1/4 (or less) the length. This should give a decent approximation.

The Spaceships system says just about nothing about the shape and size of a ship. It does, however, say something about its volume - specifically because it says something about the ship's mass. As I said in my previous post, the best way would probably be to take the mass and multiply it by the density.

Also, the Pyramid Designers Notes apparently assume a density of less than 15 cubic feet per ton or more than 133 pounds per cubic foot; this is a ridiculously high density, making a Habitat more than twice as dense as water; it apparently assumes that a very large fraction of the habitat is solid metal. The density of armor is apparently on the order of 1,333 pounds per cubic foot, which is about three times as dense as steel.

EDIT: This assumed a hex height of 2 yards for deckplan purposes; if it's supposed to be 4 yards, that's a ridiculously high deck and it'll halve the density figures I gave.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Langy

The Spaceships system says just about nothing about the shape and size of a ship. It does, however, say something about its volume - specifically because it says something about the ship's mass. As I said in my previous post, the best way would probably be to take the mass and multiply it by the density.

As I said, I don't have my books with me, but I seem to recall the SM table giving an approximate length for each SM, even though mass was the emphasis. Failing that, SS does use SM for purposes of targeting, so determining volume based on that should work.

Not that using density wouldn't work, of course, but I'm somewhat-unconvinced that we can decide on a semi-accurate density very easily. With what I'm proposing, an SM+8 unstreamlined vessel (30x20x20 yards) has a volume of around 12000 yd^3, while a streamlined one (30x15x15 yards) has a volume of around 6750 yd^3. This is going to make things a good deal more cramped on the SL vessel (assuming we have systems each take an ~equal chunk of space), which is as it should be (although these numbers may have a bit too much of a difference).
An SM+8 sphere would have a volume of around 33000 yd^3, making it the roomiest option thus far.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Varyon

As I said, I don't have my books with me, but I seem to recall the SM table giving an approximate length for each SM, even though mass was the emphasis. Failing that, SS does use SM for purposes of targeting, so determining volume based on that should work.

Those figures can vary hugely. Spaceships gives rough estimates for length, but they're not meant to be taken literally.

Not that using density wouldn't work, of course, but I'm somewhat-unconvinced that we can decide on a semi-accurate density very easily. With what I'm proposing, an SM+8 unstreamlined vessel (30x20x20 yards) has a volume of around 12000 yd^3, while a streamlined one (30x15x15 yards) has a volume of around 6750 yd^3. This is going to make things a good deal more cramped on the SL vessel (assuming we have systems each take an ~equal chunk of space), which is as it should be (although these numbers may have a bit too much of a difference).
An SM+8 sphere would have a volume of around 33000 yd^3, making it the roomiest option thus far.

By RAW, a streamlined vessel of the same SM has about double the length of a non-streamlined vessel. That won't make it more cramped;) (it should also have the same volume as a non-streamlined vessel; no idea why it would have less, as the density of the ship shouldn't change just because it's streamlined)

I'm not sure why you're unconvinced about being able to get a semi-accurate density. It's not exactly all that difficult; we should be able to at least assume that the ship will at most be as dense as water (most likely less so); this is because ships are likely to be roughly as dense as sea ships, which have to be less dense than water in order to float.

Even if we assume a density equal to water, we get a mass-volume multiplier of 32, yielding 32 cubic feet per ton. Thus, an SM+8 ship should have a volume of 32,000 cubic yards or higher.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Langy

Those figures can vary hugely. Spaceships gives rough estimates for length, but they're not meant to be taken literally.

By RAW, a streamlined vessel of the same SM has about double the length of a non-streamlined vessel. That won't make it more cramped;) (it should also have the same volume as a non-streamlined vessel; no idea why it would have less, as the density of the ship shouldn't change just because it's streamlined)

Something with the same SM from the side and -1 SM from the front/back should have less volume (and thus higher density if it's the same weight) with that SM all-around.
As for the SL vessel being twice the length of the US, I can't figure out any way to make that work. 2x length is going to correspond to +2 SM, meaning there needs to be an effective loss of -2 for targeting purposes. The only way to get this to work would be if a US is a square box/sphere while the SL is long enough that it doesn't get any + to SM from its width... but at the that point the SL vessel would be targeted at -2 from the front/back, rather than at the -1 given by SS.
Looks like this may be one of those cases where the abstract nature of SS makes such an analysis break down...

Originally Posted by Langy

I'm not sure why you're unconvinced about being able to get a semi-accurate density. It's not exactly all that difficult; we should be able to at least assume that the ship will at most be as dense as water (most likely less so); this is because ships are likely to be roughly as dense as sea ships, which have to be less dense than water in order to float.

Even if we assume a density equal to water, we get a mass-volume multiplier of 32, yielding 32 cubic feet per ton. Thus, an SM+8 ship should have a volume of 32,000 cubic yards or higher.

I don't see why a spaceship would need to have a density comparable to a sea vessel. With that said, however, I seem to remember calculating that an SM+0 spaceship would be around 200 lbs under the SS system, which isn't too far off from the weight of an SM+0 human. Considering my system breaks down when trying to apply it to the SS rules, I'd say going with density equal to or slightly less than water would indeed work just fine.