Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

No smaller hull sizes planned at present, but you can build 30-ton and 100-ton designs, which are moderately typical of average mecha.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Is cool ,was hoping for the 2.5 to 3.5 meter range, Along the lines of Shirow's landmates, Votom's and Heavy Gears.

But I'll bet they will be covered else where.

In related question kinda, Intrum ship hull sizes between the current set?

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Not at present - that would require numerous pages of tables, as well as having a significant effect on the rules. The tables themselves are regular enough that you can probably figure out how to do this should you wish to, though.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Artwork and layout looks great! My players will be overjoyed that they can begin making their own Defiants, K'Vorts, Vorchas, and Sovereigns! And, I will be overjoyed that I don't have to! Yippee!!!!

Thank you to Mr. Pulver and SJGames!

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Is there a schedule for the rest of the books in this series? The New Releases page doesn't say.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Not yet on the schedule, but first drafts of other books have been worked on even as the core book moved through editing, and the series is well under way.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Cool, I like the size of this release, I don't feel guilty about the price, or it is like the old days where 10-20 bucks got me a lot of crunch for my money. GDW's classic Traveller releases were fantastic for that, how I miss those joyful little digest sized books.

Any how's keep up the good work.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Will the additional volumes contain example deckplans, including spacestations? That'd be handy.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I'm afraid not. SJ Games ruled that out. I believe they prefer to sell deck plans separately (and seemingly only for Traveller).

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

That's too bad, I'm a total sucker for deck plans and other maps :(

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I'm going to say "me too" and ask if there are any plans for deckplans.

So, are any plans for deckplans in your plans?

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Are you looking for specific plans or just generic sf?

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

In an ideal world, I'd like things like those provided by Skeleton Key or Future Armada but with hexes instead of squares but I'd take pretty much anything with hexes.

There is a guy over on the Star Hero boards who has put together some deck plans for Traveller using hexes that are really nice....hope it's okay to mention them here :) Be nice to get some generic ones though!

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Re: Future Armada, I'll drop Ryan an email to ask how hard it would be to include hexes.

I should have thought of that myself - I love the Jo Lynne.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Hexs are nice, but they tend to limit the modularity of a design, if you are creating mix and match peices, I have been pondering stagered squares as of late as a copromise between the two systems.

But to be quite honest I have a clear vinal mat so either squares or plain work just as well for me.

My current issue is the lack of station/starport plans. I have started on the details but not the floor plans. The current plan is for several campaign specific dockside businesses I have yet to figure out how they will fit together.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Generic sci-fi but Traveller can be hijacked just fine.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I was wondering if the Hull Size tables on page 9 can be extended downward in the same way as upward.

SM........Loaded Mass.....Length..........dST/HP...Hnd/SR
SM+2.......1 ton.........5 yards (15ft).......7........+1/3
SM+3.......3 tons........7 yards (21ft).....10........+1/3
SM+4......10 tons......10 yards (30ft).....15..........0/4

This way, smaller spacecrafts become possible. I wanted to build a TIE/ln (which is 6.3 meters long or 20 foot 8) and a 30 tons SM+5 hull size seemed way to large.

A smaller categorization in massed would be preferable to distinguish small (dis)advantages between several types of fighters.

Any hints on how fighters are designed in the forthcoming Staship series?

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

The TiE fighter is mostly a ball, so 30 tons is probably not to bad. Just assume it's fuel system is very dense: remember for spherical things, the actual dimensions can be half or so. At present, fighters are mostly planned to be built in the 30 ton and 100 ton range, but it may be possible to cover smaller SMs.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

In GURPS T:IW the hulls are all spherical, I assumed that the hull table in Spaceships were also spherical.

In the examples the Starflower is a 1,000 tons ship, is 75 yards long and has SM+8. If they would take the hull which was most ideal for their length of thip they should have chosen a 3,000 tons hull.

This makes me believe again that the hulls given in the Hull Size Table are spheres although the text says it represents a typical unstreamlined cylindrical spacecraft.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

According to http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony...ource=features the TIE Interceptor is 50 tons. And the Imperial Guard TIE Interceptor is 80 tons.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

er? A ton in Spaceships is 2000 lbs. (a short ton) the Imperial Guard TIE Interceptor is 80,000 lbs (personal asumption) which would make it 40 tons.

I use the assumption of pounds over kilograms in that in pounds the ships make sense in a weight to size ratio, if they are in kilograms then all the ships on that sight are built from lead.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

The Hull Size Table on page 9 lacks the Tech Level modifiers. Higher tech materials weigh a lot less.

I'm gonna wait until the Fighter book is ready. It is said that you can make starfighters who are comparible with WWII fighter planes. Which, I think, reflect the fighters used in the Star wars movies.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

The table on page 9 lists the loaded mass of the entire ship for a given Hull Size - as in the weight of al the ships systems, cargo, passengers, fuel, etc. The weight of the hull itself is pretty minimal compared to the rest of the ships components, so really doesn't change the Loaded Mass of the ship on this scale of resolution. For those ships systems which have significant materials weight savings at higher TLs (such as Armor) their stats reflect the reduction by giving them higher dDR or other performance characteristics for the same weight (that is, more advanced armor types have higher dDR, engines have a higher Acceleration, etc).

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Making up house rules to do a Traveller-style Modular Cutter is pretty easy.

For instance, you could allow the sacrifice of X ship 5% mass units in exchange for the ability to fix Y modules slowly or Z modules quickly (with Z being a lower number than Y, representing quick-fit plug-and-play sockets).

The Modular Cutter, in GURPS Traveller, had a mass of 50 dtons, of which 30 were an open module slot. Now, I have some issues with how that was done (which boils down to modular cutters not being punished sufficiently compared to mission-dedicated ships), but that's what we'd be striving for: Slightly more than half of the mass units being devoted to one or more module slots.

So we could give up 12 slots (60% of mass) for either (shipwright's choice) the ability to quick-fit a module unit with 10 slots or a slow-fit module unit with 11 slots (more efficient, but requires many hours to fit instead of maybe half an hour).

That leaves us with 8 slots for control room, armour, drives and fuel tankage.

And if that turns out not to work too well, perhaps we should just use lower numbers. Sacrifice 8 slots (40% of mass) in exchange for either the ability to quick-fit a 6-module unit or slow-fit a 7-module unit.

Quick and dirty, but probably quite workable...

(Standard options, such as allowing super-sized sensor arrays, should of course be available.)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

If you're going to use any hulls that are SM+4 or smaller, you will need a house rule for super-sized modules, to squeeze in a one-man control room.


As for interrim sizes, between the size classes, that's not something I think is needed at all.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Extrapolating down to SM+4 should be pretty easy, except for one thing: What would the Hnd and SR modifiers be?

While you're at it, what would they be for SM+3?

Having those two nailed down should be plenty, because I can't see any need for SM+2 or smaller. As far as I can see, you'll already need to devote 10 modules for a mega-sized Control Room, in an SM+3 ship, just to fit in one pilot. That's half the mass allotment, and you can't go any higher than that.

(In a SM+2 ship, you'd need to devote 30 modules to a one-pilot Control Room, but you only have 20!)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I've got a modulated version of Traveler:IW at http://members.chello.nl/l.deckers3/sw_gurps.html (Alternative Starship Rules)

It also includes era modifiers for the Star Wars Universe. There's one example in it, theZ-95 Headhunter, and some series of that same type of craft. I didn't make more ships using that T:IW-system because I was waiting for this new starship building system.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

All bolding added for my emphasis.

At the risk of being nitpicky, weight is not mass. Weight has no place on a starship, unless it only ever lands on one planet. Even then, it's silly, as mass is much more useful in determining spaceflight characteristics. The two terms seem to be used interchangably in Spaceships, for no reason that I can figure out.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Probably because it was written by those planet-side pinheads.

But you can't blame em really, all that gravity pulls the blood towards their feet.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Well, as the book uses a units of weight (pounds, short tons) as if they were units of mass, using the terms interchangeably in the text is perhaps understandable.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Depending on the measurement system, there are pounds-mass(Mass) and pounds-force(weight)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Once SJ Games goes metric, I'll be happy...

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Won't we all....

SI all the way....

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Once our primary target audience goes metric, we'll be happy to.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

...
Goodbye, liter! So long, meter!
heh

"That does it! Out you two pixies go, through the door or out the window!"

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

So, the primary target audience is US only (not counting liberia and myanmar I guess).

But wouldn't an international SI Edition be much more cost-effective than providing many versions in foreign languages? There's no german GURPS 4e, for example, and light rules won't be of much help.
This imperial(?) system used now is causing me headaches every time I want to calculate something and stuff like 6'2" just doesn't connect with an idea of how big a person is. Building ships out of units of 14,158423296m³ (500cf) doesn't help, neither...

I really think this costs SJ Games Buyers.

Edit. mixed up yards and feet ( ' and " ) q.e.d.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

That's where the vast majority of our consumers live, yes.

Steve Jackson Games does not produce any foreign language versions of our games; we license the properties to local publishers who do the translations.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I want to become the emperor of America, just so I can put my size 10.5W on the continent's chest and force the metric system down it's throat. I just started helping machine some tail fins for the Aerospace Society's amateur rocket, and we're doing everything in inches. It makes my head parts hurt. I totally understand the GURPS system use of American units. I'm glad that they went with yards, which are at least close to meters.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

GDW got major sales in the eighties with books that were all-metric, though...

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I believe certain GURPS books possess conversion charts and there are simple formulas that help: KM to miles divide by 2 and add 5 for example.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

What? I don't get it. 10km are just over 6 miles. 10 miles are roughly 16 km.

I don't see where divide by 2 and add 5 fits in here.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

That's true. But were those sales a result of being metric, or was it the content, independent of the measuring system, that generated the sales?

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Of course - how many tenth of a percent of the gamers outside the US are willing to pay for your products as long as those aren't metric?
In my opinion, it's the same reason Vehicles 2e didn't sell too well. While gaming, People want to have fun, not headaches or having to think about how big a person or item is in convenient units.

Don't get me wrong, I like GURPS. But I don't like the idea of having to use some units I am not able to see a system in if there already is a good system used by roughly >99% of the world's population and most scientists.

And you would be able to get a lot of the money earned by them for your own company. As the vast majority of your customers are US americans, it shouldn't cannibalize much of your sales on the original editions, too.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

I work in scientific research, and I had to bring this up. Mars Climate Orbiter *crashed* because of confusion between whether data to upload was in metric or Imperial measurement systems... Just goes to show one of the dangers of working in different systems.

Also goes to show that sometimes even rocket scientists aren't, necessarily, rocket scientists :)

But having said that, I have to support SJ Games decision here. You write a game system for an audience, and if the audience works and thinks in feet and pounds, then you write the game system accordingly.

I would certainly prefer that everything were metric. I drive 9 miles to work, only to start working in millimeters and microliters all day.

-P.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Many people in the UK use imperial measurement, Europe recently gave up trying to force Metrification (I've no idea if that is actually a real word) on us, so shops are still allowed to sell in Pounds and Ounces.

I know my height in inches and weight in pounds, in metres and kilograms I have no idea.
Distances are in Miles, Speeds in MPH (conversion to KM and KPH is easy enough).

So I for one, non-US citizen, support SJG in the use of Imperial measures!

Si

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

It has to be said that sometimes metric is simply easier. I'm a scientist of sorts (physics and acoustics) and when performing calculations, SI units are much easier to use. That said, in real life I use imperial units. I'm English, not American, and I likewise think of distances in miles, speeds in MPH, my weight in stone, length of boats in feet, etc. Small distances are an exception, I can think in either, though people's heights I'm used to in feet.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

In Brazil, the translated version of GURPS 3e was metric. The much-delayed 4e will also be, because no one here know about the imperial system.

I understand that SJGames need to sell books in imperial, doing otherwise would hurt sales, hurt the company and in the end hurt players because a company that sell less produce less.

But the rest of the world cant understand the head-in-a-hole mentality of the americans, rejecting a perfectly rational system for a "12 inches is a foot, 3 foots is a yard, 220 yards a furlong, 8 furlongs a mile, 16 ounces a pound, 14 pounds a stone, 2 stones a quarter, 4 quarters a hundredweight (with makes a hundredweight 112 pounds not 100, and do not confuse these quarters with quarter-pounds!)" system... It is enough to explode the brain of any rational being.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

This is akin to saying "Those crazy Russians, they have a different letter for everything!" You get comfortable with what you learn as a child, and that's all there is to it.

I've been comfortable with using the MKS system since at least junior high science class (30+ years), and I still have no intuitive, sense-memory idea of how much a kilogram weighs in the hand or how far a kilometer is to walk.

Basically, Americans don't need to change domestically, and the country and population are big enough that most people can get by on the English system just fine. It's not as if the definitions change every fifty or hundred miles (80-160km) or so like they did in pre-19th-century Europe.

(And by the way, nobody I've ever heard of still uses hundredweights; furlongs are only used in horse racing; and only Britons use stones and quarters, never Americans.)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I grew up with Imperial, but I can and do switch between the two. When I have to do a lot of calculations, I prefer to use metric. When I have to do a lot of estimates (and rely on my Imperial-trained eye), I prefer to use Imperial.

Still, I'd love to see a conversion to metric for all units of measurement: space, mass, energy, and time.

I've found kiloseconds to be very useful as a replacement candlemark, for example, and I celebrated my birth-gigasecond a few Earthling years ago. And 100 kiloseconds is closer to the natural human sleep cycle than this 24-hour day-night thing.

I can't understand the head-in-a-hole mentality of the Earthlings, rejecting a perfectly rational system for a "60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 30 days in a month, except for all the other months, 365 days in a year (so weeks don't divide evenly into a year)" system . . . It is enough to explode the brain of any rational being.

Especially when the Earthlings' own years don't even match up every time. And what are they going to do when they colonize Mars?

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Largely content, but there's actually a content advantage for an SF game to use metric, because to the American consumer metric units look high-tech.

Of course, this applies in reverse to Fantasy.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Yet D&D uses base ten coinage. Odd that, eh?

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Spot on. Everytime I open up GURPS Space and see miles as a measurement it loses it's appeal as SF to me. I purposely run my modern day campaign set in the USA so I don't have to worry about conversions, the only issue is teaching the kids the imperial system.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Vehicles had two editions, and VE2 went through at least three printings. I'm not sure it can be said to have not sold well.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

And yet I've known a British gamer who could not use GURPS because of the Imperial measures. She'd been educated in metric from the start of her schooldays, and those other units meant nothing to her. Lost sales there.

And, well, Imperial might look more appropriate for pseudo-medieval fantasy, but drag it into a cyberpunk setting - given that cyberpunk writers use metric more or less as a matter of stylistic standard, because they deal in rationalised fast-forward futures in which tradition and convention are dead - and the result just looks a bit sad.

Frankly, I think that 4e should have done whatever was necessary to be fully dual-system. I can work with Imperial units, but that doesn't make them right for purpose.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

And GVB had the little switch to change units whenever you wanted, too.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I apologize if I've dredged up the age-old debate. I was attempting to highlight our reasoning. We really aren't ready to be converted.

Get it? Converted?

Oh, I kill me!

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

...
Where's that shepherd's crook?

*g*

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Hey, I'm just glad to see that the GURPS Spaceships POD is in the works...whatever the units!

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

The USA was supposed to go metric in 1980. Freeway signs and containers (cans, bottles, etc) had "English/metric conversions" and there were programs coming online to educate the populace. Then, a groundswell of resistance, as I recall almost out of nowhere and the project was killed.

Anyway, neither system makes my brain hurt. It'[s just another system of measurement. So relax.


Me too!

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

The next book in the series - on commercial ships - is now in playtest as well.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Unfortunately, you can't really go "dual-system" and still get nice, neat numbers. Even two measures that are close to each other - meters and yards - will wind up giving odd results under most circumstances.

Let's say we go through the books and change all references from yards to meters. If those were our only measurements, it would probably work well enough, but that's not the case. We scale all the way up to miles, light-seconds, and AUs. There's 1000 meters in a km, but 1600 for a mile, and 1760 (rounded up to 2000 in some places) yards. That's a pretty big fudge factor, but it gets worse. A light-second is just under 300,000 km, easily rounded to that, but 186,282-some miles, often rounded to 186,000, and even that isn't especially convenient to work with. In Spaceships, Pulver rounds an AU up to 100M miles, but it's already pretty darn close to 150M km.

So one measurement system has to be the "main" system in use, and unfortunately, the primary audience for SJG uses Imperial.

It's unfortunate, because it's extremely easy to convert metric between length an volume. Your mass in metric tons is (assuming an average density of 1) EQUAL TO the volume in kl. If you try to convert short tons to cubic feet (which most people can't think in anyway), you need some multiplication factor (which I'm not going to take the time to figure out what it is). Very handy with ships and cargo spaces and the like.

Like Seasong, I have discovered the value of measuring time solely in seconds (and ks, Ms, Gs); makes it INCREDIBLY EASY to figure out spacecraft velocities and travel distances when you do away with 60's and 24's, though to help others wrap their heads around it, I make 100-second minutes, 100-minute hours, 10-hour days, 10-day weeks (megaseconds), 4-week months, 10-month years... Makes counting time easier, and your gigasec-birthday is every 25 of these years, rather than 33 and some change.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Yaaaay! So if the series does well enough, is there a chance of getting a POD bundled version? Once all of the pieces are out, combining them into a single book?

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I'd be in favor of that, whether POD softback or "traditional" hardback.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I would say the chances of each installment getting a POD edition are very high. Bundling them all together? I'm not going to say "never," because POD technology continues to change, making today's "complex" tomorrow's "push a button and go." However, I see many roadblocks which would make a bundle significantly less profitable than just keeping the individual softcovers in print.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

*Vehicles* sold very well.

I believe it would it have sold *exceptionally* well if it had been metric. GURPS books are often picked up by non-GURPS players. But there is a significant sized audience - primarily of Traveller-raised fans - that reject GURPS (and Vehicles) soley on the grounds that it is Imperial.

As is, GURPS likely lost market share to other companies that were willing to adapt to customer desires. A more flexible approach - for example, having the core design rules work in metric numbers (for easy calculation) with the final design output being converted into mph, knots, kph, etc. at the end - would have, I think, resulted in a significantly enhanced crossover market. It would have also also allowed brazilian, korean, japanese etc editions; instead, the imperial-heavy notations have so far defeated translation

(The reason for Vehicle Design being e23 and optional is primarily to remove complexity from the core rules.)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

It doesn't matter. GDW achieved excellent sales to a US audience with a metric science fiction game in the 80s. It's been argued that GURPS is Imperial because US audiences don't get metric measurements. This makes little sense to me: the GDW sales figures for Traveller in the 80s suggest that mass gaming audiences happily accepted and understood metric.

Moreover, Traveller's fan base - one of the largest group of science fiction gamers that use gearhead rules like vehicle design systems - were conditioned for 10 years that metric = the true way in their favorite science fiction game. The number one reason I see on Traveller news groups for rejecting GURPS: "it's not metric." Some of that is fannish hyperbole, but the sentiment is repeated over and over.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

It could be worse: I vaguely recall one of the very earliest pre-drafts of vehicles measured everything in cubic inches.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I guess you meant the other way round, David? :)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Probably. Unless I mean they're deliberately ornery.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I prefer the term "cussed" :\ ;)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I'd like to think the same point is true of GURPS.

More GURPS Spaceships Series Goodness
 

So anybody else bouncing up and down for the next release?

Re: More GURPS Spaceships Series Goodness
 

I'm bouncing up and down for the next five. That's a lot of bouncing.

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I'm all rubber ball-like :-)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

I told you kids to stop jumping on that bed!

heh

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

But Daaad!!!!! we want it now.... Tell Steve an, Pual an, Dave to give it to us....


Or on a completely different tack


We Needs our precious.......

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Probably have the final draft of the second book finished in a week or so. (Finished, as in "handed in to SJ Games" of course - it will take time for them to edit and lay it out.)

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Heh...heh....heh.....

The bouncing commences.....

I might get something for Christmas after all this year....

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

Ooh... Shiny!

Re: GURPS Spaceships Series
 

It's been a while; but better late than never:

Extrapolating the Hnd downward is easy: it appears to be increasing by one every three levels. So SM+4 has a Hnd of 0, while SM+3 has a Hnd of +1.

SR is a bit trickier. Using the vehicles from Basic Set as a (rough) guideline indicates that there tends to be far more variability in vehicle stability than GURPS Spaceships implies: but as far as I can tell, both SM+3 and SM+4 craft seem to have much the same SR as SM+5 craft do.

Take another look at the Control Room progression for control stations. Running it backward from SM+15 to SM+6, you have: 60, 40, 30, 20, 15, 10, 6, 4, 3, 2. If you were to continue following that pattern without paying attention to the absurdity of having a fractional number of control stations, SM+5 would be 1.5; meanwhile, SM+4 would be 1, and SM+3 would be 0.6. So I see no problem in allowing a SM+4 craft to have a Control Room as written.

Now take a look at the number of cabins that a Habitat gives you. Note that by backtracking the progression, SM+6 ought to give you 0.6 of a cabin; but the chart rounds this up to 1. A case could be made that a similar approach is warranted for control stations: since 0.6 is closer to 1 than it is to 0, be nice and say that it counts as a full control station. Thus, the Control Room table can be extrapolated down to SM+3 without breaking. Likewise, Passenger Seating probably goes as low as SM+4.

You could extrapolate the "Control Room" even further down; but below SM+3, the spacecraft would have to be unmanned, since its loaded mass would no longer be able to include the pilot as well as everything else that it has to account for. At that point, "control room" is probably a bad name for it, since there's almost certainly no room involved. But it still supplies operating electronics such as sensors, communications, and a computer, as well as station-keeping thrusters.

Of course, you could still go with your notion of "oversized systems", where dedicating three slots to a system lets you raise the effective SM of the system by one, and dedicating ten slots lets you raise it by two. With oversized systems, you could design a manned spacecraft as small as SM+1.

Note that I didn't say "oversized Control Rooms"; this concept theoretically applies equally well to just about any system. You could fit a Habitat or a Factory in a SM+4 spacecraft by dedicating 10 slots to it; or you could fit a Jump Gate into a SM+7 spacecraft, or Open Space in a SM+6 craft.

Pretty much the only systems that can't be Oversized are Hull systems such as Armor and Weapons, and Upper Stage. That said, oversizing most systems is identical to installing them multiple times; so there's little point in doing so.