GURPS Spaceships Design Spreadsheet

[Celti]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

Are there any rules about converting system masses into deck plan areas or volumes?

The Designer's Notes give suggestions for deck plan conversions that extrapolate to a rule-of-thumb of 1-3 hexes per three tons of non-armour systems.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

To give you an idea about the size, the total deck area of the habitat ring is about 155 acres (13 decks that average about a mile long) and would take 156 pages to map. How do I convert this into an SM and systems?

Originally Posted by Celti

The Designer's Notes give suggestions for deck plan conversions that extrapolate to a rule-of-thumb of 1-3 hexes per three tons of non-armour systems.

Using that as a baseline:

An acre is 43560 square feet, or 43560/9 = 4840 square yards.
A 1 yard hex is 0.866 square yards area.
An acre contains 4840/0.866 = 5589 hexes.
155 Acres contain 866,281 hexes.
This corresponds to a mass of 288,760 to 866,281 tons.
Which corresponds to a SM of +13 to +14.
Which puts it in the ballpark of SM+15 based dimensions.

One other thought I had was to compare tonnage to size of a real world large vessel - the USS Nimitz. These have a displacement of 100,000 tons and a length of 364 yards. This puts them solidly at SM+12 by mass but a bit over SM+13 by length, so a discrepancy of one to two SM between the two isn't out of the question, especially when you stray away from "boxy" shapes.

[DaltonS]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Using that as a baseline:

An acre is 43560 square feet, or 43560/9 = 4840 square yards.
A 1 yard hex is 0.866 square yards area.
An acre contains 4840/0.866 = 5589 hexes.
155 Acres contain 866,281 hexes.
This corresponds to a mass of 288,760 to 866,281 tons.
Which corresponds to a SM of +13 to +14.
Which puts it in the ballpark of SM+15 based dimensions.

Thanks for the calculations. One thing to consider: in GURPS a hex is supposed to be 6 feet high. My plans use a 12 foot deck spacing with 8 feet of head room (based on a picture of Kubrick reaching for the drop ceiling of the set) leaving the remaining 4 feet for deck plates, piping, wiring, ventilation, structural members, ceiling panels, lighting, crawl spaces, etc.. How would that affect these calculations?

Dalton “And this doesn't include hub or spokes yet” Spence

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

Thanks for the calculations. One thing to consider: in GURPS a hex is supposed to be 6 feet high. My plans use a 12 foot deck spacing with 8 feet of head room (based on a picture of Kubrick reaching for the drop ceiling of the set) leaving the remaining 4 feet for deck plates, piping, wiring, ventilation, structural members, ceiling panels, lighting, crawl spaces, etc.. How would that affect these calculations?

It shouldn't. Deck plans have to make similar assumptions to yours to make sense, and extra headroom doesn't change the mass very much. Real World buildings are pretty much 10-12 feet per story; the Empire State Building is 1250' to the top and 102 stories - just over 12 foot per story; the twin towers were 1362 feet and 110 stories, again just over 12 foot per story.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

Thanks for the calculations. One thing to consider: in GURPS a hex is supposed to be 6 feet high.

Is it? That is not even tall enough for many people. I recall a bigger height being used in Pulver's guide to converting systems to hexes.

[vicky_molokh]

I apologise if this question was asked at some point in the past (especially if it was by me and I forgot), but how do I adjust the SM of the crew and thus various rooms in habitats? I see the SM+0 listing next to them, but it seems to be a protected cell. I guessed there should be a crew SM field somewhere, but I didn't find it.

[Celti]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

Thanks for the calculations. One thing to consider: in GURPS a hex is supposed to be 6 feet high.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Is it? That is not even tall enough for many people. I recall a bigger height being used in Pulver's guide to converting systems to hexes.

The Designer's Notes don't specify a deck height, but the standard height of a hex (or any area, when volume matters) has always been four yards, or 12 feet, not six. I don't see any reason why those notes would (or should) differ.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I apologise if this question was asked at some point in the past (especially if it was by me and I forgot), but how do I adjust the SM of the crew and thus various rooms in habitats? I see the SM+0 listing next to them, but it seems to be a protected cell. I guessed there should be a crew SM field somewhere, but I didn't find it.

The SM option is set for each appropriate system under the System Options, in the section above the Design Table section.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

The SM option is set for each appropriate system under the System Options, in the section above the Design Table section.

Ah, thanks. I was trying to optimise specific rooms. (I'm thinking lab equipment may still require the same total mass and volume per lab even if the controls are optimised for a smaller SM. While cabins should be fully SM-specific.)

[DaltonS]

Originally Posted by Celti

The Designer's Notes don't specify a deck height, but the standard height of a hex (or any area, when volume matters) has always been four yards, or 12 feet, not six. I don't see any reason why those notes would (or should) differ.

I may have been confusing SM+0 with hex height. I am sure you are right, but I just went through every occurrence of the word "hex" in GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns (157 if you must know) and didn't see any reference to the height of a hex. Let me check Basic Set: Characters (only 13 references there). Nope. Could you tell me where you learned this?

Dalton “Is this legacy data from 3ed that didn't evolve?” Spence