[Spaceships] Gem Class Casino Liner

[Cernig]

I thought I'd get away from warships for a while and design some unusual commercial ships, something to hanfg an adventure around. Here's the first.

The sleek Gem Class is a popular pleasure liner combining style and gracious living with affordability. Each has a large casino area, sports courts, spas, cabins ranging from common to luxurious and other fittings commensurate with a holiday liner. Ships in the Class all have names beginning with some form of gemstone and then having a unique identifier. E.g. Diamond Fate, Ruby Lucky Star. One ship of the class, the Garnet Bon Chance, was the scene of the most awful pirate atrocity incident in recent memory.

Description: The Gem Class is middling-luxurious and is intended for major trade route pleasure trips. Most have status as extra-territorial casinos, paying no taxes to any system. They are 700 feet long, SM11 at 30,000 tons and are not intended for planetary landing despite their streamlined appearance - that‘s just for looks. They are unarmed and unarmored.

Embarked smaller vessels: 15 Shuttles and 25 Cutters for passenger/cargo transfers.

Systems Table

Front Hull
[1] Nanocomposite Armor/ Tertiary Battery ! (4x turreted 30MJ RF Lasers, 550 tons food storage and cargo space)
[2] Control Room (15 control stations plus 3 workspaces. C9 computer, Lvl 10 sensors)
[3] Crew Habitat, 3 workspaces, 200 cabin equiv. (20 single cabins, 63 2-person cabins 10-bed automed sickbay (10), 8 offices, 1 vault (2), 1 ship’s armory, 1 kitchen(2), 1 crew’s dining room (7) I officer’s wardroom(2), 3 cells, 1 gym, 1 briefing room, 400 tons steerage cargo)
[4] Family Open Space, 10 areas, 10 techs (3 casino areas, 1 restaurant, 1 bar, 1 crèche/play park, 1 amusement park, 1 100-seat theatre, 1 pool, 1 low-g skate park)
[5] Hangar Bay, 1000 tons/ 200 per min. 3 workspaces ( 10x 100 ton cutters)
[6] Hangar Bay, 1000 tons/ 200 per min. 3 workspaces (10x 100 ton shuttles)
[Core] -

Central Hull
[1] 1st Class Habitat, 4 workspaces, 200 cabin equiv. (Luxury kitchen (2), luxury dining room (4), private bar (2), 7 private games rooms (14), luxury cabins for 90 passengers.)
[2] 2nd Class Habitat, 3 workspaces, 200 cabin equiv. (200 2 person cabins)
[3] Open Space, 10 areas, 10 techs (5 casino areas, 2 restaurants, 2 bars, 1 ballroom.)
[4] 3rd Class Habitat, 3 workspaces, 200 cabin equiv. (200 2-4 person cabins)
[5] Open Space, 10 areas, 10 techs (5 food-producing ornamental gardens, 200 seat auditorium, 100 seat cinema, 1 sports area, 1 solarium/pool area.)
[6] Hangar Bay, 1000 tons/ 200 per min. 3 workspaces (10x 100 ton cutters)
[Core] Fusion reactor, 3 workspaces (2 power points)

Rear Hull
[1] Facilities/Crew Habitat, 3 workspaces, 200 cabin equiv. (100 4-person bunkrooms, 20 1 person manager‘s cabins, 1 briefing room, 9 offices, 1 kitchen(3), 1 crew dining room (7), 300 tons steerage cargo)
[2] Cargo Hold 1,500 tons
[3] Hangar Bay, 1000 tons/ 200 per min. 3 workspaces (5x 100 ton Shuttles, 5x 100 ton cutters)
[4] Fuel Tank (1,500 tons)
[5] Fuel Tank (1,500tons)
[6] M-Drive Hot Reactionless Engine 3 workspaces !
[Core] J-2 Drive Super Stardrive 3 workspaces !!

Spacecraft Table

TL: 10^
dST/HP: 200 Hnd/SR: -2/5 HT:13 Move: 1G/c SM: +11
DDR: 25 / 0 / 0 LWt: 30,000 tons ( 6,000 Dton displacement)
Occ: Crew: 15 Control + 70 other flight crew Others: 420 facilities crew, 1290 passengers. Total 1795.
Load: 1,429.5 tons steerage cargo.
Air performance: 0
Annual Operating Costs: $ 7.5% cost plus fuel.

The class has artificial gravity and gravity compensation. Other standard equipment: 100 days food (400 tons), rescue bubbles for all passengers and crew.

Ticket prices (per person): 3rd: $5,100 per parsec. 2nd: $7,000 per parsec. 1st: 10,500 per parsec

Cost: $2,556 Million

[David Johnston2]

Given the nature of the liner, I'd think it would have at least a little light weaponry to fend off the pirates.

[Cernig]

Hi Dave,

This one usually doesn't go off the main routes, which are within the D100 limit of well patrolled main systems. The reason the Garnet Bon Chance is so infamous is that the pirates carried out an audacious hijacking right under the local Navy's noses. The hijackers, who had worked with the local mob to subvert security at the starline operators and plant their own people in advance of the heist, rigged the nav comps to Jump to a minor system where their cronies were waiting. there were very few survivors by the time a patrol found them - the players in my current adventure arc have characters who have now survived the event.

[thtraveller]

No armor/structural mass? For basic micro-meteorite and radiation protection?

[Cernig]

Hi thtraveller. The book says you don't need it and it's a civilian craft. It would at least have the same non-decade DR as structural steel plate, though. (the book says DR3 unstreamlined, DR2 streamlined)

However, rethinking Dave's point, it won't harm my scenario now and there might well have been pressure to redesign given the Garnet Bon Chance incident. That refrigerated cargo bay is a bit redundant and I'd been toying with giving it more 3rd class habitat but instead I'll edit for a little front armor and some light weaponry. The power's already available.

The ticket prices have to go up, to give at least a revenue over an average of 20 trips a year of 140% of operating costs for a basic ticket.

[thtraveller]

Originally Posted by Cernig

Hi thtraveller. The book says you don't need it and it's a civilian craft. It would at least have the same non-decade DR as structural steel plate, though. (the book says DR3 unstreamlined, DR2 streamlined)

I worry about levels of external DR that the most minor of passenger accidents could accidentally knock through. Let alone the risk anytime you do a docking manouver.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by thtraveller

I worry about levels of external DR that the most minor of passenger accidents could accidentally knock through. Let alone the risk anytime you do a docking manouver.

You shouldn't worry.

Exceeding external DR is not nearly enough damage to breach the hull. It's enough to damage the hull...usually below the level of resolution of the Spaceships system, unless you're calling a 'minor accident' something that would leave a human unconscious. To create a hull breach would require enough damage to disable a system...at least 200 points of damage.

And there's not a lot of point worrying about the damage from docking...even the very slow collisions will pretty much destroy the smaller ship docking, and very likely smash the larger one up quite badly armor or no. If you somehow roll 6 on 6d, a docking or landing accident 'merely' causes 1.8 times the HP of the smaller vessel. An average roll is enough to instantly swat the smaller ship to wreckage...though armor would reduce the average damage from a glancing collision with an SM+5 minishuttle to below the 50% HP line, which is something.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by thtraveller

No armor/structural mass? For basic micro-meteorite and radiation protection?

If ships ordinarily required a system's worth of structural mass or of micrometeoroid protection, the rules would say so, and they would not make a special case of streamlined vessels. It is nonsense to say that "a streamlined spacecraft must have one Armor system" if in practice every spaceship must have at least three.

Spacecraft without any armour systems have DR 2 if streamlined and DR3 if unstreamlined, which is sufficient for micrometeoroid protection if it is configured advantageously (stuffed Whipple shielding). It should also be sufficient to prevent passengers from breaching the hull when they stumble against it.

Spaceships have a hull. This is stated on p.9. The mass of the hull and of structural bracing is figured in to the performance of engines, and its cost is pro-rated among systems. You do not need to represent the framework and the hull as armour systems. If you did the rules would say so. The convention that every ship design should have at least on armour system in each hull section (which seems to be gaining ground) is to be deplored.

[thtraveller]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

If ships ordinarily required a system's worth of structural mass or of micrometeoroid protection, the rules would say so, and they would not make a special case of streamlined vessels. It is nonsense to say that "a streamlined spacecraft must have one Armor system" if in practice every spaceship must have at least three.

This has already been discussed to death on the Armor thread you started. I am with Mr Pulver on the "robust" argument in particular http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...9&postcount=54.