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Ship Design - Deck plans

not all life support can be in the ducting (wall/ceiling). food would need to be stored near/in the food prep/galley area. some of the life support equipment needs to be someplace easily accessible for maintenance & storage of supplies, and the rest of life support is behind the walls/ceiling/deck (pipes, ducts, wiring).

I did deck plans once and put in space for life support based on how many staterooms there were. I think it took up 5 tons of space...

and then the life support equipment/space requirements will differ based on ship missions. the 2 week jump. star port mission needs less space than a months/years long mission needing more space for life support.

when I think of life support for the ship, there are the O2 tanks, the air scrubber, water supply, water pumps, water reclamation, sewage storage (sure, you can just dump it into space, but then it becomes a space hazard...), spares for life support repairs, heating & ac, water cooling/heating, boards/computers station showing status of life support system for the ship (this would be mirrored to the bridge), hydroponics for long mission ships, and probably other stuff I can't think of right off the top of my head.

the author Elizabeth Moon had a sci-fi series where 1) a crew member was hiding smuggled goods in the life support of a star yacht. this caused problems later on that required lots of money & time to fix (which was how the smuggling was discovered). 2) in a rogue military situation, a captain of a naval ship discovers that some crew is being negligent when it comes to life support/security protocols, and an incompetent officer puts the ship and crew at risk due to their ignorance of the correct life support maintenance procedures.

I like the idea of space for life support. it's too important to just have it 'in the walls accessible by a hatch/crawl space' but out of sight & out of mind. of course, some adventures, that's ok, but in others, well, life support is a great way to sabotage/hijack/emergency! something in life support is broken!/fill in the blank, a ship.
 
In terms of deckplans, I rather suspect that Azhanti Lightning has the clearest demonstrations of conduits, though it's basically laid out like a high rise building.

I'd say tailsitter, though I rather doubt it could land dirtside.

So, dumb waiter.
 
Condottiere said:
In terms of deckplans, I rather suspect that Azhanti Lightning has the clearest demonstrations of conduits, though it's basically laid out like a high rise building.

I'd say tailsitter, though I rather doubt it could land dirtside.

So, dumb waiter.
Click to expand...
Steward Libel! I'll have you to know that many of them are quite well educated. Good day, Sir.
 
Why I like the 0-Hr deck plans (though not particularly good Traveller deck plans as there is not enough fuel tankage) as he does put in bathrooms, food storage, life support and food prep areas. And though this is a T5 thread, there was an actual food freezer in Death Station so traditional deck plans can have food storage areas.

Life support is called out as part of what's in a starship in the accommodation section which at least could imply it is part of the stateroom tonnage As with all rules, there is a lot of interpretation available in any reading of the rules. The actual section on life support just gives more info on freshers and medical (including a counsellor I just noticed. Shades of TNG!) And again the life support is apparently subsumed into the tonnage for accommodations so built into the tonnage of the staterooms. It is in the paragraph title about staterooms but not specifically called out later that I could find.

Anyway, for me it comes down to how I want to play. For myself, yes, I draw deck plans and put in physical space for life support. But in following Marc Miller's approach of only as needed: only those players who like the crunchy view will care if their food comes from spigots in the walls or a dedicated food preparation station with plenty of storage and counter space (something no kitchen can have enough of!). The life support does not affect the ship as much as the consoles and other things affect the efficiency and comfort levels, which in turn potentially affect the desirability of the ship and passengers.
 
coliver988 said:
And though this is a T5 thread, there was an actual food freezer in Death Station so traditional deck plans can have food storage areas.
Click to expand...
Annic Nova has two refrigerators, and a well-stocked pantry too. The kitchen/galley is described, but not drawn onto the deck plans (then again, they're short on detail in general).

And there are a few deck squares allocated to life support machinery.

It also has only two bathrooms shared among eight staterooms...
 
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whulorigan said:
I guess it would be rather annoying to get a knock on the door in the middle of the night from the guy down the hall . . .
Click to expand...
It gets better: They're each shared by two staterooms (each of those two staterooms have direct access) and there's no access from outside the staterooms. That's right, half of the crew has to go through somebody else's stateroom to go potty.

See the modified deck plans under the spoiler in This Post [Link fixed], and note the added walls and doors (in brown).
 
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Grav_Moped said:
It gets better: They're each shared by two staterooms (each of those two staterooms have direct access) and there's no access from outside the staterooms. That's right, half of the crew has to go through somebody else's stateroom to go potty.
Click to expand...


And the guy down the hall wakes you up in the middle of the night to go thru your stateroom to the fresher, only to discover that the guy in the other stateroom with which it is shared has been in there for the past 20 miniutes because dinner didn't sit well. And you wait . . .
 
So it sounds like:

Life Support (integral to any ship or Smallcraft) = between decks and other “void” spaces, subsumed into ship tonnage and fuel-based “duration” which must include maximum crew and passengers for said “duration”
Adaptable, Luxury, Extended Life Support = some additional tonnage must be allocated

Luxury & Extended probably just require tonnage in the cargo hold. More and/or better supplies

Adaptable probably requires machinery on the deckplans. Maybe also cargo, depending on the environment required

I guess the “holding tanks” in the CT Safari Ship are the prime example for Adaptable. They each showed IIRC a single deck square (½ dton) for machinery to make the holding tanks allow for various environments. So, at least in the CT-verse, 1 dton of LS machinery = 12 dtons of Adaptable environment.

Working off memory here, please try to see my point when you shoot down the numbers.
 
AnotherDilbert said:
As Life Support determines mission duration, it would have to include all human consumables, e.g. food, water, air, and scrubber supplies as well as recycling machinery.

As Traveller ships generally does not have very long mission durations, but are assumed to resupply every few weeks, shipboard hydroponics are generally not included. It's presumably specialised equipment for specialised circumstances?
Click to expand...
T4 FF&S has them. Costs aren't given in the book; The figures given are my SWAG; I've also noted my rounding for my last two campaigns. Before T4, I used 20Td , 5T, and MCr2 for indefinite...
TLTypeVol
Td		Vol
m³		Mass (T)MWMinimum
Capacity		 Aramis
Td		Aramis
Sugg. MCr
8Va (Algal Vats)7.14100500.01 25 72
9Vb (Vats & Gardens)14.29200750.0230 145
10Vc (Add small animals)35.715001250.0540 3515
10Vd (Add large animals)107.1415002000.0575 10050
 
Nothing like the bleating of a slaughtered goat in the galley to act as an appetizer for dinner.

No doubt appropriate for Aslan, but I would think the other ships would simply carry freezers.
 
bookwyrm said:
not all life support can be in the ducting (wall/ceiling). food would need to be stored near/in the food prep/galley area. some of the life support equipment needs to be someplace easily accessible for maintenance & storage of supplies, and the rest of life support is behind the walls/ceiling/deck (pipes, ducts, wiring).

I did deck plans once and put in space for life support based on how many staterooms there were. I think it took up 5 tons of space...

and then the life support equipment/space requirements will differ based on ship missions. the 2 week jump. star port mission needs less space than a months/years long mission needing more space for life support.

when I think of life support for the ship, there are the O2 tanks, the air scrubber, water supply, water pumps, water reclamation, sewage storage (sure, you can just dump it into space, but then it becomes a space hazard...), spares for life support repairs, heating & ac, water cooling/heating, boards/computers station showing status of life support system for the ship (this would be mirrored to the bridge), hydroponics for long mission ships, and probably other stuff I can't think of right off the top of my head.

the author Elizabeth Moon had a sci-fi series where 1) a crew member was hiding smuggled goods in the life support of a star yacht. this caused problems later on that required lots of money & time to fix (which was how the smuggling was discovered). 2) in a rogue military situation, a captain of a naval ship discovers that some crew is being negligent when it comes to life support/security protocols, and an incompetent officer puts the ship and crew at risk due to their ignorance of the correct life support maintenance procedures.

I like the idea of space for life support. it's too important to just have it 'in the walls accessible by a hatch/crawl space' but out of sight & out of mind. of course, some adventures, that's ok, but in others, well, life support is a great way to sabotage/hijack/emergency! something in life support is broken!/fill in the blank, a ship.
Click to expand...
Funny thing, I've just been rewatching the nuBSG and I got the hostage taking on the Cloud 9 and how Lee scoots into the maintenance service way and uses a dry ice drink to fool an oxygen sensor to trip some decompression doors. So, yep life support can be important, both consumables and hardware. :)
 
Grav_Moped said:
Cycle twice, it's a long way to the officer's club.

(Really, you would cycle it twice. Once after you do your business to freeze-dry the excreta, and one more time to sweep it out into space.)
Click to expand...
No spacer, you don't waste air to push your poo out the airlock, get the broom out of the locker and do it yourself. Yeesh, air ain't free in space. Damn noobs..oooo look air lock go whoosh. :p
 
Now, my contribution.

Back when Rob had his Shipyard App I found out that it could be customized and proceeded to add things like a brig, offices, and gardens both decorative and foodstuffs. I figured that ships both long term and those like yachts would want greenery for oxygen generation to back up the air bottles and well trust me as a guy who spent a glorious year in a NYC 14th floor apartment with a balcony garden there is nothing like grabbing some herbs and chives out the planter to add to the ramen.

I totes support the use of a lot more than just food in boxes and air in bottles. Because it don't matter if the drives and plant are working if no one is alive to run them.

EDIT: Also, gardens help with the ship morale as again, there's nice green plants, maybe even some nice flowers to look at when you get sick of the stars.
 
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