Spacecraft as homes [Spaceships]

[Bengt]

I think personal space is more important for homes than fancy special locations, so in Spaceships terms, making each "flat" from several cabins. E.g. having your own kitchen is more important for comfort than a single gourmet kitchen. There should be some communal entertainment, Establishments or whatever, but if there is too much emphasis on that over personal you'll get a hotel feeling rather than a home IMO.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Bengt

I think personal space is more important for homes than fancy special locations, so in Spaceships terms, making each "flat" from several cabins. E.g. having your own kitchen is more important for comfort than a single gourmet kitchen. There should be some communal entertainment, Establishments or whatever, but if there is too much emphasis on that over personal you'll get a hotel feeling rather than a home IMO.

A dorm-like setup where most facilities are shared can very much be home - and potentially a much safer approach to 'home' in an artificial biosphere than one with lots of private facilities.

It may not be immediately comfortable to people accustomed to individual housing, though.

EDIT: That said having cabins that are individual or shared within family units rather than high-density shared rooms is definitely likely to be good for morale.

[RyanW]

You know, it suddenly occurs to me that there already is a kitchen, in Spaceships 7 under Habitat Options (p 9) as a Craft Shop. A lot of the other options there make sense as well, to represent rooms dedicated to whatever craft hobbies or occupations the residents might care to pursue.

[AlexanderHowl]

Concerning space on a spacecraft, I assume that spacecraft will have the density of liquid hydrogen, which fits considering that is likely one of the most common forms of reaction mass (and allows the armor DR to actually make sense). In that case, a habitat component of a SM+10 spacecraft will take up around 7,000 cubic meters, which end up being around 29 cubic meters of living space per cabin (assuming systems take up fifty percent of the volume and common areas take up twenty-five percent of the volume). For a bunkroom, that means over 7 cubic meters per person, which is around the space allocated in the enlisted quarters of a US Navy destroyer (when you include personal storage lockers).

[jackcelso]

i think that depend entirely on the size of the ship and TL. With enouch space and technology i would stick with the star trek examples: the holodeck (that can substitute a gym, game room, sports facilities, lounge, solarium, etc) AND the good old fashion Bar.

[jason taylor]

A Gypsy train can go quite a while with a single wagon to each family. That is about equiv to having a stateroom to each family.

What precisely are your space nomads doing in space though? Are they peripatetic traders? Artisans serving primitive people? Are they Nobles attending court in various places in their realm the way English monarchs used to?

[Rupert]

Assuming that the 'TL7 Steel' of Spaceships is RHA and DR70/inch (dDR7), I get three armour systems covering 5,250 square feet. That's enough to coat a sphere a little over 40 feet in diameter, with a volume of 35,770 cubic feet. At 1,000 short tons weight that's a density of ~56 lbs/ft^3, or about 0.9 that of water.

However, such a sphere would only have a size modifier of SM+7 (+5 for length 11-15 yards, +2 for being a sphere).

A SM+10 sphere needs to be 31-50 yards in diameter, and thus have a volume of ~421,000 ft^3 to ~1,767,000 ft^3, and a density of 4.75 lbs/ft^3 to 1.13 lbs/ft^3 (0.076 to 0.018 that of water). That's a bit more that the density of liquid hydrogen to rather less.

So actually, if spaceships are as big and low-density as their SM to tonnage ratio suggests, they are being given a lot more dDR (about ten times in this example) than they should be. If they have the right dDR, they are being made easier to see and hit than they should be.

Feel free to check my maths. I'd be happy to be wrong one way or the other.

[PTTG]

The ships tend to be boxy or cylindrical shapes by default, which is at -1 or even -2 compared to the sphere model. Good way to calculate the rough volume, though.

Keep in mind also, spaceships are probably going to be much, much easier to target based on their EM emissions and temperature (in particular their drive plume and habitats), and those tend to scale with the mass much more than the volume.

This thread in general is great for me, because I've been thinking of zero-g atmospheric ships. This taking place in a smoke ring type situation, the vessels probably look much more like classic science fiction or dieselpunk craft... and they're often inhabited for months or years at a time.

[AlexanderHowl]

A realistic zero-gravity atmospheric situation would be difficult to imagine (there are a few possibilities, but they are really difficult to model). Larry Niven's The Integral Trees setting might qualify, though the magnetic fields of neutron stars are probably too intense for life to develop in such an environment. Of course, there may be some technological solutions.

One possibility would be for a Precursor civilization to have created an energy collection sphere around a neutron star. Over the course of billions of years, the entrapped neutron star might become gravitational bound with a passing star system and end up orbiting within the habitable zone of the star. Any gas giant that came close to it would become its satellite and would likely have its atmosphere stripped from it similarly to the scenario posited by Niven.

If we assume a Sol-type star, the enclosed neutron star could have planets within 0.3 AU. Most of the planets of the system that survived the gravitational binding of the neutron star would likely end up orbiting close to the neutron star, though the closest planet would have to be a gas giant in order to create the gas ring. A gas ring with an orbit of 0.1 AU and a radius of 0.01 AU would be quite massive, though the tidal forces of a rotating neutron star and close orbiting gas giant may prevent it from compressing.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by PTTG

The ships tend to be boxy or cylindrical shapes by default, which is at -1 or even -2 compared to the sphere model. Good way to calculate the rough volume, though.

A sphere gives the best armour for weight, and encompasses the most volume for a given surface area. If the armour is excessively thin, or the ship too small as a sphere it'll be worse for other shapes.

Keep in mind also, spaceships are probably going to be much, much easier to target based on their EM emissions and temperature (in particular their drive plume and habitats), and those tend to scale with the mass much more than the volume.

Note that aside from being too small, the higher density version makes more sense - it gives a sensible armour value and a density that's about right for a complex machine with access and living spaces within.