Steve Jackson Games Forums - Spaceships, Floor / Deck Plans, Volume and Hexes

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Re: Spaceships, Floor / Deck Plans, Volume and Hexes

Quote:

Originally Posted by Varyon (Post 1601289)

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...

Do remember that SM in the Spaceships system isn't about size - it's very specifically only a measure of mass.

Re: Spaceships, Floor / Deck Plans, Volume and Hexes

Quote:

Originally Posted by Langy (Post 1601298)

Do remember that SM in the Spaceships system isn't about size - it's very specifically only a measure of mass.

It's also used for targeting the vessel, and decreases when you target a SL ship from the front or from behind, meaning it's also (in a highly-abstract way) measuring the vessel's dimensions. I was hoping to be able to use this to calculate a vessel's volume. Clearly, I was wrong.

Re: Spaceships, Floor / Deck Plans, Volume and Hexes

I would start with the mass, and give an estimate of how dense each type of component will be. Cargo holds the least, habitats next, etc.

There are some estimates of this sort on the Traveller forum.

Re: Spaceships, Floor / Deck Plans, Volume and Hexes

I had the opportunity to visit a Russian sub in San Diego. And holy moly, but it was a claustrophobic experience. The crew was almost hundred, altogether, hot-bunking in small bunk beds, slotted into the walls with three beds stacked together, the lowest almost on the floor. I think there was only two toilets, too. Cramped corridors, bulkheads with circular openings just barely big enough for me to duck through without needing to try and slide through head first. So yeah, for very limited-space configuration warship, I could easily see three bunks in 2 m2, and those bunks hot-bunked (shared by 2 or even 3 crew-members, so that there is always someone sleeping there). So you could fit 6 - 9 people in 2 m2, and given that the ceiling wasn't too high either, it comes to less than 1 m3 per person. Add the narrow corridor in the middle and you are still well below 1.5 m3 per person.

Re: Spaceships, Floor / Deck Plans, Volume and Hexes

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whyte (Post 1601407)

But that's exactly the point: those are bunks. A single 'cabin unit' can contain either a bunk (4 people), a cabin for 2 people, a luxury cabin for 1 person, or one half of an establishment (bar, brothel, casino, gym, massage parlour, nursery, salon, classroom, or retail store) which can serve 10 patrons (20 for two cabin units worth). Now, one could argue about whether a normal cabin has a toilet/shower, but a luxury cabin worthy of the name definitely does.