Cruise Ships

[WarriorKnight]

"I may not use this in traveller, but I am kicking around the idea of running a Top Secret one-shot for nostalgia, and part of that is set on a cruise ship."

Hmm, I stil have to learn who to do quotes...

Top Secret had an adventure set on a cruise ship, but I don't recall if it had complete deckplans or not. My group had prepared for a completely different mission, and were in a plane in route, when we were retasked to this cruise ship which had been taken over by terrorists. We had to parachute in--I landed in the bloody swimming pool!

I have that adventure around here somewhere(been so long since I ran TS I don't know where I put it.).I think it only had 4 decks for the ship;mainly the upper decks & nothing if engineering. Funny thing is when I started looking where I kept the TS stuff I found the deckplans for the Greenpeace replacment ship Rainbow Warrior 2 that GP set me back in the late 80's hoping to beg up some money to fund it.

 

[Icosahedron]

"I may not use this in traveller, but I am kicking around the idea of running a Top Secret one-shot for nostalgia, and part of that is set on a cruise ship."

Hmm, I stil have to learn who to do quotes...

Top Secret had an adventure set on a cruise ship, but I don't recall if it had complete deckplans or not. My group had prepared for a completely different mission, and were in a plane in route, when we were retasked to this cruise ship which had been taken over by terrorists. We had to parachute in--I landed in the bloody swimming pool!

Cajon, it's
[quote] and [/quote].

There's a way to show you the commands without the commands doing anything, but I can't remember how to do that.

If you want to know how to code something, choose a post that contains the code and hit your 'quote' button at the bottom of the page as if to quote it in a reply. All the code will show up and you can read it without actually sending the reply.

Feel free to try out an experiment here.

 

[Mithras]

Ha cruises, great for a rping adventure. I'd sure as hell hate to be on one.

I'm not one for shopping/lounging around/gambling/swimming. I'm a walking, hiking, climbing, exploring type of guy who likes to do his own stuff. I'd feel like a prisoner on bloody cruise ship.

But ... like I said, some great adventure ideas ....

 

[Scott Martin]

Oasis of the seas just launched - the Titanic x 5, image gallery here (including construction photos)
http://www.oasisoftheseas.com/image-gallery.php

Scott Martin

 

[BlackBat242]

Funny thing is when I started looking where I kept the TS stuff I found the deckplans for the Greenpeace replacment ship Rainbow Warrior 2 that GP set me back in the late 80's hoping to beg up some money to fund it.

So, you can plan out the DGSE's redux operation (to be done at sea, to prevent witnesses)?


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

 

[WarriorKnight]

So, you can plan out the DGSE's redux operation (to be done at sea, to prevent witnesses)?


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

Nice,maybe I'll use our t2k SpecOps game to do it with.(Just can't work on TS anymore;I was working on a game when my Mom died & the two are connected in my mind always now a days.).Maybe our SEAL Team will have to intercept the DGSE team.

 

[Icosahedron]

Thanks for the edit, Aramis, yes it was the 'noparse' command pair I'd forgotten.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Oasis of the seas just launched - the Titanic x 5, image gallery here (including construction photos)
http://www.oasisoftheseas.com/image-gallery.php

Scott Martin

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/c...-on-board-the-worlds-largest-cruise-ship.html

 

[Starflyer]

As an ex-cruise ship captain I like the ideas you guys are posting and would like to add.....

When the cruise-lines indoctrinate their crew in training, they express again and again that as soon as the pax get off the coach we're taking their money! No kidding. Whether it's the obligatory boarding the gangway photo or selling cool drinks as they queue in the sun to board. Everything is geared to parting them from their cash (ironically many cruises claim to be cash free..........just need space on your plastic).

I think having players getting ripped off by unscrupulous crew may provide a hook or two.

Additionally must mention that Judges Guild published, Doom of the Singing Star, a crashed cruise liner. Although the plots an book were up to usual JG standards there was a nice large set of deck plans included.

 

[abomination]

I think liners would be less about cruising & more about transport. Like the days before transatlantic air travel. Not everyone would travel in luxury, there wouls still be the equivalent of the economic migrants cooped up in steerage.

That said, what be the replacements for deck quoits. I can certainly see the swimming pool replaced with a zero-g equivalent.

 

[cajon5]

I think liners would be less about cruising & more about transport. Like the days before transatlantic air travel. Not everyone would travel in luxury, there wouls still be the equivalent of the economic migrants cooped up in steerage.

Agreed. In Traveller they call that low passage, don't they? :devil:

 

[aramis]

Agreed. In Traveller they call that low passage, don't they? :devil:

No. Steerage. (See TNE...)

Low Passage is desperation travel.

Steerage is still hopeful; you're still awake, you're crammed 3 to a stateroom, maybe 4... or given a chunk of space in a cargo container, 3-4 per 4Td container. Steerage also seems to be unlawful in the 3I, which is why it first appears in TNE.

 

[cajon5]

Well, in TNE, yes. In CT, never heard of it, like you said. Truth to tell, that aspect of TNE (along with much else) really bugged me. In CT (I never actually played MT) the rules explicitly state that you must have a stateroom for life support, or a small craft cabin or bridge, or some tonnage set aside, which I assumed included not just physical space but life support. Now a ship can support, for at least one week if not many weeks, as many folks as can be crammed into the cargo hold. Limitations on life support equipment, whazzat?

 

[aramis]

The limitation on LS was, for TNE, 2 per stateroom long term; If your crew are SO, and your steerage triple, on a 5-man crew 13SR boat, that's 26 in 8 SRs worth of pax. Steerage still costs the same in LS... even in hold... but there are several places where it is said you can share LS 2:1... if cargo space is empty, let them camp in hold for comfort.

 

[cajon5]

Yes, but O2 recycling, water recycling, CO2 and humidity scrubbing, all those (to me, anyway) had, before TNE, always seemed to be tied to tonnage dedicated to life support. Put 15 people in a metal box for weeks--what keeps the air breathable?

 

[aramis]

The cabins are, per TTB, capable of supporting 2 people each full time. One of the adventures shows that they can handle 4 per each SR with accumulating smell for emergency purposes, for over a week, tho' I can't recall exactly which.

Best Of JTAS #1 includes asteroid mining; 2000 person-days of food & LS can be purchased in advance for KCr50 taking one ton of cargo (and massing 2000kg); that's 285 Person-Weeks, at Cr175 per week. This implies strongly about 5 to 7 L per kg net density. (d=0.2 to 0.14 kg/L), and thus 70-100L of locker space per SR

Which is about 1/6th the cost listed for normal ship food. Think normal LS as high-quality microwave meals, plus canned air and replacement scrubber filter units; bulk is replacement media for the extant scrubbers, plus MREs. (Water is really not likely to be an issue... but the system needs to be capable of filtering out 3-4L per person per day for recycling and storage.)

I'd suggest that the gear can't keep up with more than 2 active persons, but 3-4 sedentary persons actually burn fewer or the same calories, and use FAR less water. (A sedentary person doing no work burns about 800 calories a day; an active person 1500-2500 per day, and peak military performance in excess of 4000 cal/day. Total Bedrest hits about 400 cal a day, most of which is housekeeping (basic brain, circulation, respiration).

 

[cajon5]

OK, you are correct about 4 people per stateroom not being a problem, and I agree that if steerage passengers can carry enough food and water on board to last the trip, that is also no problem, provided there is some sanitary facilities or the ship's own recycling system has enough room to store the, uh, used water.

Hmm, looking over some materials, it seems that the concept of steerage passage was introduced in MT for Hard Times, prior to TNE. Arrival Vengeance has a scenario where a subsidized merchant is carrying economic refugees "packed into the hold, shoulder to shoulder." How many people can be packed into the cargo hold of subsidized merchant? Maybe 100?

The problem, as I see it, is not bringing along what they will use in the trip i.e. food, water--heck, even O2 could be brought in compressed canisters. The problem is getting rid of what they've used, and I don't just mean the sewage. With every breath each one takes, they are passing CO2 and water vapor into the air. IIRC correctly from my days as a hospital corpsman, the water loss from respiration is greater than that from perspiration and urination combined. All that exhaled water goes into the air. Likewise the exhaled CO2.

As it builds up, the exchange of gasses in the lungs becomes less effective. We are able to get the metabolic waste CO2 out of our bodies through simple diffusion in the lungs--the CO2 flows from an area of concentration (blood carried to the lungs) to an area of lesser concentration (air). When the CO2 level in the air gets too high, this transfer will no longer occur. At least, that's how I remember it from many years ago. Wasn't this one of the crises faced by Apollo 13?

I don't say that it would be unfeasible to install equipment to deal with this, but I do feel that simply "packing them in like cattle" would be a death sentence, not a rescue, and of course, any starship captain would know this and refuse to take more than his/her ship could handle. Something like a full life boat refusing to pull anyone else out of the water.

 

[aramis]

All you have to do is run the air through the LiOH filters. Which are part of the recharges. (If not LiOH, something similar; it binds CO2.) Those filters don't NEED to be in the atmosphere circulation system of the ship; a circulation fan pushing air through will work.

 

[abomination]

I don't go as far as steerage. But even the Queen Mary had bunks in tourist class (with eye hurting fabrics)

http://home.compuall.net/~dianerush/archives.html

My 3rd class staterooms are replaced with "Japanese coffin hotel" type bunks. These are 1m x 1m x3m and contain a small locker. Any further luggage has to be paid for. As does any food or drink purchased aboard. Very much in the style of a cheap "no frills" airline like Easyjet. In fact that's such a good comparison I may start calling it "Easyjump"

I use a similar bunk design for ship’s crew, (only officers get state rooms). The difference is that the locker in a crew bunk contains a vacc suit & they can open the door in an emergency. Passenger bunks will lock automatically & their occupants will be played a mixture of "please stay calm" messages & soothing music endlessly on a loop while the air runs out. Like being put on hold permanently:devil:

I'm still trying to think of better entertainment than deck quoits.

 

[Darkhstarr]

I'd love to have the deckplans of the cruise ship from Fifth Element.

Cruiseships have been a favorite setting for my campaign. Even had one where the pirate PC's aboard the cruiseship wound up fighting another bunch of pirates who hijacked the ship before they could. The last one involved a mutual enemy of Baron Manax Darkhstarr & Bette Noire (who were aboard for a romantic tryst & didn't know their enemy was aboard). The villain approached the players in a fit of terror, convincing them that Darkhstarr was a dangerous criminal out to rob & kill him. The players actually bought the premise & hired out to kill the 'criminal' for the bounty.

I also like cruise ships using random recurring characters as a running gags (the Jetsons, for instance) they parties always run into.

Watch The Fifth Element again for how a cruise liner might be in Traveller. Whatever you may think of the movie overall the scenes in the cruise ship are what I've always thought it would be like in a space-going cruise ship.

Just one never-ending party, unbelievable views, and since you don't have to worry about storms and if the port is deep enough you can make the thing as big as you want.

If a line company wanted to do something really different (or save money) they could use the old hull from a cruiser or carrier and refit it for a themed liner - similar to the ones you can find today where you are on a sailing ship and get to act as part of the crew.