Working on a flattened Sphere trader

[kilemall]

Just a minor thought- different way to differentiate high vs medium is have same space per room but have a high only dining room/activity space. That way you can rent out whichever overflow you like without ‘I shouldn’t get a mid room with high ticket’ scenes.

Alternatively, high passages get private freshers and mid passengers are more like Pullman berths.

 

[Rupert]

For your standard 3I ship they should be the same size, the difference being in the quality of food, service, and amount of 'free' luggage space/mass. Hence the small price difference, and the whole 'if you get bumped, you can just pay the extra KCr2 and bump the next guy' thing.

If the setting is more like TNE, then you might have smaller middle-passage staterooms, or you might just put them in two a room (which has the advantage you can make it a high passage room just by folding up one of the beds). Because they're only paying KCr5 for middle passage the level of service New Era middle passengers get is probably awful (but still better than steerage).

 

[spank]

I had another go at designing the passenger area, this time with all the bunks the same size.
13 cabins, 52 dTons total.
50 dTons illustrated the other 2 being in the galley thru the forward passage

 

[coliver988]

with iris valves, I always leave space beside the door as those leaves / petals / whatever the door parts are called have to go somewhere. But no real idea about reality vs what I think. And it may not take as much space as I think as the shape of the blades could be more narrow than I was thinking. So - nevermind.

manual override version:

 

[spank]

with iris valves, I always leave space beside the door as those leaves / petals / whatever the door parts are called have to go somewhere. But no real idea about reality vs what I think. And it may not take as much space as I think as the shape of the blades could be more narrow than I was thinking. So - nevermind.

manual override version:

I hadn't thought about it, but some quick math shows these diagonal walls are about 1.67 meters, or 65-ish inches. The doors in my house are 28" and the outside door is 31"

That would leave plenty of room for them to slide into the wall Star Trek style.


As far as iris valve go I'm not sure, but if I made a WAG I'd say they could comfort ably fit in an area equal to 1/2 their diamer on each side.

Of course that is strictly a WAG

 

[Spinward Flow]

One thing that I (personally) find most impressive is the shape of the "corner alcoves" in the hallway(s), so as to avoid the dreaded "dead corner space" issue. Moving to a "incomplete pentagon" shape solves that problem quite brilliantly, actually.

The other thing is the sheer "space efficiency" of the double Fresher arrangement ... although having only 2x Freshers for that many "bunkrooms" could be potentially problematic. 2 for 13 feels like it might be a problem in terms of demand for surge capacity at certain times of the diurnal cycle onboard.

 

[Badenov]

I had another go at designing the passenger area, this time with all the bunks the same size.
13 cabins, 52 dTons total.
50 dTons illustrated the other 2 being in the galley thru the forward passage

I like this floortplan overall, but, 2 bathrooms for 13 people feels more like the Navy than High Passage. (4 shower stalls for 36 people and we had the smallest berthing on my ship!) Could the chair's space in each cabin be replaced, allowing facilities to be placed in each room? Moving facilities into each room would let you recover (most of) the 2 bathrooms for slightly larger cabins to accomodate individual facilities. They'd fit in your current floorplans as demonstrated, but you might plus up each cabin a smidgen with the recovered space to accomodate passenger baggage associated with High Passage.

.

 

[Badenov]

Oh, also, what is your scale? My math says 50dT x 14m³ is 700m³, which for a 3m ceiling is about 15mx15m.
That makes your squares 1.5mx1.5m? I was visualizing 1m x 1m, so your plan is more spacious than I had imagined it.

 

[whartung]

I had another go at designing the passenger area, this time with all the bunks the same size.

I get anxiety just looking at these things, and I'm not (mostly) claustrophobic (I don't do well getting stuck in caves, I'll say that).

I mean, get some masking tape and tape one of those staterooms out in a garage or driveway and tell me what you think then.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I mean, get some masking tape and tape one of those staterooms out in a garage or driveway and tell me what you think then.

To be excessively fair ... the interior of a starship IS a "sealed, pressurized, life support environment" ... and the closest real world analogy (using actual tech, as opposed to Magical Space Tech™) is ... the submarine experience.
Not surface naval ship (with open air to the decks above water) ... no ... the submarine.
Get down in the HOLE ... and dog the hatch closed after everybody's inside.

In those kinds of environments, interior volume is at an absolute PREMIUM.

After that's it's mostly a matter of "playing TETRIS" to make "all the shapes that can't scale down any more" actually FIT within the individual compartments, without needing to "clip through walls" or other weirdness.

When stateroom spaces are just "empty boxes" (as commonly seen in LBBs during the CT era), it's easy to imagine all kinds of different arrangements of "stuff™" that goes into those spaces. As soon as you start actually PUTTING STUFF™ into those spaces (like bunk racks and freshers) ... all of a sudden those "adequate" spaces in the deck plan start feeling really cramped and not at all forgiving in terms of alternate arrangements of interior elements.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I had another go at designing the passenger area, this time with all the bunks the same size.
13 cabins, 52 dTons total.

My own personal sensibilities for deck plan design would have started with this, instead:

This is a really nice "dense" packaging arrangement, which minimizes the amount of floor space dedicated to access hallways. Lots of room access for minimal common access walking space between them. You're getting 4 rooms per 5x5 deck squares, which is mildly impressive, especially since you're only spending about 5.5 deck squares out of those 5x5=25 deck squares on access hallways, which is almost(!) as good as you can get.

I would then simply "redecorate" 3 of the 4 rooms to be common areas ... probably 2 freshers and one galley ... out of the "central 4" room compartments.
Put the freshers on one side (probably the portside of the central hallway) and put the remaining stateroom and galley on the other side (probably to starboard). That would work.

 

[bookwyrm]

although having only 2x Freshers for that many "bunkrooms"

2 bathrooms for 13 people feels more like the Navy than High Passage.

I don't know about other rule sets, but in T20, it's one Fresher for every ten Middle Passengers or ten Crew (when using small cabin instead of staterooms). Also, a Small Cabin is Middle Passage/Crew only. High Passengers & Officers are Staterooms.

The way I see it, a grungy tramp freighter might pack 10 Mid Pax per 1 Fresher while a 'nicer' tramp freighter might have a 4-7 ratio per Fresher. Spank has a 6.5 to 1 ratio while SpinwardFlow's configuration is a 6 to 1 ratio if he took out the middle 4 and replaced with 2 Fresher & a Galley + common area like he mentioned in his post.

For those wondering, using small cabins for middle passengers instead of a stateroom means you don't lose money compared to the double occupancy reduced rates.

2 mid pax in stateroom (4 dton) - double occupancy - KCr 13 or Cr 3250 per dton.

2 mid pax in 2 small cabin + 1 Fresher ((2 x 2 dton) + 0.5 dton = 4.5 dton) - 2 single occupancy - KCr 16 or Cr 3555 per dton.

2 high pax in stateroom (4 dton) - double occupancy - KCr 16 or Cr 4000 per dton.

High passengers require Stewards while you don't need Stewards for Middle passengers until you reach 50+.

Another thing, there have been many posts on the subject of the difference in food for High vs Middle Pax, so why not 1 Fresher per 1 or 2 Pax in a Stateroom vs 1 Fresher for up to 10 Middle Pax in Small Cabins?

 

[spank]

Oh, also, what is your scale? My math says 50dT x 14m³ is 700m³, which for a 3m ceiling is about 15mx15m.
That makes your squares 1.5mx1.5m? I was visualizing 1m x 1m, so your plan is more spacious than I had imagined it.

Yeah, I'm at 1.5m squares, Works well with Snapshot.
So about 12.5 foot by 10 foot for the rooms.

 

[spank]

One thing that I (personally) find most impressive is the shape of the "corner alcoves" in the hallway(s), so as to avoid the dreaded "dead corner space" issue. Moving to a "incomplete pentagon" shape solves that problem quite brilliantly, actually.

The other thing is the sheer "space efficiency" of the double Fresher arrangement ... although having only 2x Freshers for that many "bunkrooms" could be potentially problematic. 2 for 13 feels like it might be a problem in terms of demand for surge capacity at certain times of the diurnal cycle onboard.

Yeah, those "dead corners" kicked my but for quite a while. This just didn't feel like enough space for a proper door.

 

[spank]

I don't know about other rule sets, but in T20, it's one Fresher for every ten Middle Passengers or ten Crew (when using small cabin instead of staterooms). Also, a Small Cabin is Middle Passage/Crew only. High Passengers & Officers are Staterooms.

The way I see it, a grungy tramp freighter might pack 10 Mid Pax per 1 Fresher while a 'nicer' tramp freighter might have a 4-7 ratio per Fresher. Spank has a 6.5 to 1 ratio while SpinwardFlow's configuration is a 6 to 1 ratio if he took out the middle 4 and replaced with 2 Fresher & a Galley + common area like he mentioned in his post.

For those wondering, using small cabins for middle passengers instead of a stateroom means you don't lose money compared to the double occupancy reduced rates.

2 mid pax in stateroom (4 dton) - double occupancy - KCr 13 or Cr 3250 per dton.

2 mid pax in 2 small cabin + 1 Fresher ((2 x 2 dton) + 0.5 dton = 4.5 dton) - 2 single occupancy - KCr 16 or Cr 3555 per dton.

2 high pax in stateroom (4 dton) - double occupancy - KCr 16 or Cr 4000 per dton.

High passengers require Stewards while you don't need Stewards for Middle passengers until you reach 50+.

Another thing, there have been many posts on the subject of the difference in food for High vs Middle Pax, so why not 1 Fresher per 1 or 2 Pax in a Stateroom vs 1 Fresher for up to 10 Middle Pax in Small Cabins?

There's alot of useful stuff in T20, It's often overlooked and well worth picking just to steal ideas from. For example, I like the the Hazardous, Security and Priority Cargo rules

 

[Badenov]

Yeah, those "dead corners" kicked my but for quite a while. This just didn't feel like enough space for a proper door.
View attachment 7330

Yeah, that's one reason why I asked about the scale. It doesn't look like it's wide enough for a door, but half a square is 75cm, or 29.5 inches. A standard US interior door is 30-32 inches, so if these doors slide into the bulkhead so when open, you get the entire width, 75cm doors ought to be entirely suitable. And then you get to use the entire 2x2.5 square floorplan (3m x 3.75m).

 

[spank]

My own personal sensibilities for deck plan design would have started with this, instead:

This is a really nice "dense" packaging arrangement, which minimizes the amount of floor space dedicated to access hallways. Lots of room access for minimal common access walking space between them. You're getting 4 rooms per 5x5 deck squares, which is mildly impressive, especially since you're only spending about 5.5 deck squares out of those 5x5=25 deck squares on access hallways, which is almost(!) as good as you can get.

I would then simply "redecorate" 3 of the 4 rooms to be common areas ... probably 2 freshers and one galley ... out of the "central 4" room compartments.
Put the freshers on one side (probably the portside of the central hallway) and put the remaining stateroom and galley on the other side (probably to starboard). That would work.

I do like the symmetry, I like it alot.
But I really want a common area or two.
And having 13 staterooms will make symmetry difficult.
I should mention it's intended to be 8 passengers and 5 crew, give or take. So the crew will be deferential to the passengers when using the accommodations, and they should have access to another fresher in the crew area of the ship. It'd be easy to draw a dTon or so from the 20 Tons of the Cockpit.
With a little shuffling around I can get the layout to look semi symmetrical.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I should mention it's intended to be 8 passengers and 5 crew, give or take.

In that case, for security reasons (see: anti-hijack) it's probably best to NOT mix the crew accommodations with the passenger accommodations, in terms of compartmentalization, I'm thinking.

 

[spank]

In that case, for security reasons (see: anti-hijack) it's probably best to NOT mix the crew accommodations with the passenger accommodations, in terms of compartmentalization, I'm thinking.

That would be the ideal case, and you could segregate 7 of the cabins by adding a central door. But sometimes compromises are made......

As I recall the Marava specifically mentions that if they carry a full load of passengers one of them has to bunk next to the bridge.......

 

[Badenov]

I do like the symmetry, I like it alot.
But I really want a common area or two.
And having 13 staterooms will make symmetry difficult.
I should mention it's intended to be 8 passengers and 5 crew, give or take. So the crew will be deferential to the passengers when using the accommodations, and they should have access to another fresher in the crew area of the ship. It'd be easy to draw a dTon or so from the 20 Tons of the Cockpit.
With a little shuffling around I can get the layout to look semi symmetrical.

So, I'm used to MgT1, where crew and Middle passage get double bunked in 4T staterooms. I had come up with the attached suggestion assuming it was all passengers, incorporating the one refresher per cabin thing (only shown in 2 cabins, but meant for all) because I can't imagine 1st class cabins with an external, shared facility, particularly having only 2 for 13 people. I had liked the original idea of the common element, but I thought 1st class passengers should also have a more formal dining experience, so I rearranged the common areas to make a formal dining room. (It's pure chance I got 8 and 5, but that means you get a crew table and a passenger table.)