GURPS Starships and volumetric designs...?

[Kage2020]

Just a quick questions for you guys, but I wanted to use GURPS Starships as part of a community project (yeah, I know) to develop "detailed" floor plans of a starship. Starships seems more "mass-based" (e.g. Hangar Bay and Cargo Hold stats.) so I wondered if anyone had any advice on how to bridge the gap?

Conversion from GURPS Vehicles or what?

An obvious answer, I feel, but I thought that I would look for the easy answer rather than crunching the numbers myself.

Hey, I'm lazy! :D

Kage

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

Just a quick questions for you guys, but I wanted to use GURPS Starships as part of a community project (yeah, I know) to develop "detailed" floor plans of a starship. Starships seems more "mass-based" (e.g. Hangar Bay and Cargo Hold stats.) so I wondered if anyone had any advice on how to bridge the gap?

The designer's notes had a brief bit on how many hexes a single system would take up at each SM.

Ah, here they are.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

Just a quick questions for you guys, but I wanted to use GURPS Starships as part of a community project

Perhaps we could establish which product you're talking about first? Gurps _Starships_ is a Traveller supplement. Gurps _Spaceships_ is a line of E23 pdfs and a rather different system. At least I'm probably qualifed to answer questions on both of them :)

I'm not big on deck plans for large ships myself and Spaceships in particular is vague at that level of detail. Actually it's deliberately vague on volume altogether, being an almost entirely mass-based system.

For Spaceships I'd mostly say to count however much of everything the system gives you and fit it onto a deckplan however it looks good to you. It's extremely difficult to get it officially "wrong" because the system doesn't _care_.

[Kage2020]

The designer's notes had a brief bit on how many hexes a single system would take up at each SM.

Thanks for the pointer.

Perhaps we could establish which product you're talking about first? Gurps _Starships_ is a Traveller supplement.

Sorry, it was late at night. GURPS Spaceships.

I'm not big on deck plans for large ships myself and Spaceships in particular is vague at that level of detail. Actually it's deliberately vague on volume altogether, being an almost entirely mass-based system.

The vagueness of something like a cargo hold with x tons of capacity does kind of give that away. I was just wondering if there were any general guidelines for the volumetric approach, so thanks Turhan's Bey Company. Much appreciated.

For Spaceships I'd mostly say to count however much of everything the system gives you and fit it onto a deckplan however it looks good to you.

That's essentially what is to be done. I just have an artist nagging at me, that's all. :D

Edit: Hmmn... What about conversions between the engine systems of the two systems: Vehicles vs. Spaceships? I find the system in Spaceships to be more elegant (or, perhaps, easier) than that of Vehicles.

Again, just wondering.

Kage

[thtraveller]

There are really only two numbers worth remembering from VE2 for density
20 lbs/cf and 50 lbs/cf

20 lbs/cf is the number normally used for average density cargo or 5 sTons per 500cf or per Traveller DT or TS space

50 lbs is used for dense things like machinery or robots, though with long term access space usually found in spacecraft that normally drops back down to about 20 lbs/cf

[Kage2020]

Thanks for that, thetraveller.

Do you have any information about converting the sublight drives? That "mps" is just too darned simple to use, and in my mind if no one elses certainly more meaty then "gallons per hour."

Kage

[thtraveller]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

Do you have any information about converting the sublight drives? That "mps" is just too darned simple to use, and in my mind if no one elses certainly more meaty then "gallons per hour."

Converting which sublight drives to what?

[Langy]

For drive systems, the acceleration in gravities is (motive thrust / engine weight) / 20.

Fuel usage in Vehicles is in gallons per hour. Multiply acceleration in gravities by 18 to get the delta-V in miles per second for a one-hour burn. Multiply the gallons per hour by the weight of the fuel then divide by 2000 to get the number of tons of fuel needed per hour of engine use.

Now we'll need to account for the size of the module - I recommend normalizing based on an SM+10 ship, which has 500 ton (1,000,000 pound) modules. That way you don't need to recalculate for every different ship size.

Delta-V per tank is: (module size in tons / fuel usage per hour in tons) * delta-V per Hour