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2D300 ton Far Trader (Traveller): 2D plans

traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
edited April 2014 in Work in Progress #1
Hello all,

I'm working with Capt Dave on this; the Fat Cat class Far Trader for the Traveller universe. I'm working on the 2D plans now, which will lead to a 3D model later on.

He just wrote the specs and turned me loose (no, I don't know if he knows what he's in for :flippy: ).

Here's the general design - 300 tons, the main hull is roughly 30m by 14m.
f-34-concept.png
a-34-concept.png
footprint.png

WIP shot - the bridge, located in the main hull on the underdeck.
wip-0125-bridge.png

I'll post some of the specs shortly. Look for updates every few days or so!
Post edited by traq on
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  • JennyJenny2 Posts: 0Member
    Nice start. Remember that Traveller ships have huge fuel tanks.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    thanks. according to my specs, almost the forward half of each secondary hull is fuel tankage, plus a little extra in the main hull. A little less than 80 tons total.

    This is my first Traveller ship, and I've never played - so comments are welcome!
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    Worry not I will keep him in line.

    Its a Jump 2 (parsecs per Jump), Thrust 2 (g's of acceleration), 300 ton Fat trader. It has a crew of 6, carries 8 passengers and 100 tons of cargo.

    The concept behind the ship is that its a Fat trader built in the Versis Principalities (A stellar nation I'm writing for that exists within the HCS version of the Foreven Sector of the OTU). This ship, like many of their design, is designed to carry a good portion of cargo along with several passenger in descent comfort.
  • ZoxesyrZoxesyr332 Posts: 0Member
    for a 300 ton ship, the flight deck is about 10x too big. Traveller flight decks were cramped, especially on civilian ships. it should just barely hold three people.

    and you have a very nice ship started here!
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    Zoxesyr wrote: »
    for a 300 ton ship, the flight deck is about 10x too big. Traveller flight decks were cramped, especially on civilian ships. it should just barely hold three people.

    and you have a very nice ship started here!
    This ship is designed according to the MGT rules. According to those rules a ship of 300 tons requires a 20 Ton bridge. Thats approximatively 280 m3. This space includes the ships fight controls, computer systems, and ships locker.

    With a scale of one map square representing a valume of 1.5m(w) x 1.5m(L) x 3m(h) (6.75 m3), two map squares would represent a single displacement ton (13.5 m3). So the bridge would be 40 map squares.

    The missing .25 m3 per square (or 11.11 tons over the hole ship) is simply glossed over and assumed to be between decks where the power conduits and the like are hidden.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    for clarification (I didn't print the map squares on the image above), the bridge, in its current WIP state, is about 95m^2 (285m^3 at 3m tall), so I am a little over. But I'm sure it'll work itself out (low ceilings, maybe? :p )
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    traq wrote: »
    for clarification (I didn't print the map squares on the image above), the bridge, in its current WIP state, is about 95m^2 (285m^3 at 3m tall), so I am a little over. But I'm sure it'll work itself out (low ceilings, maybe? :p )
    Its nothing to really worry about as I have yet to see a published ship in any of the traveller materials that was truly accurate. The Broadsword class Merc Cruiser was clearly made by the Gallifreians as its internal volume is about 2.5 times (on the plans) what its stats say (and its canon).

    And if anyone want to grognard about these little inconsistencies (and they will) they can email me and tell me all about it. Your customer feed back is always welcome. (can't seem to find the smily for round file...)
  • DannageDannage236 Posts: 634Member
    "When I bought the ship, the first thing I did was strip out the crappy cramped bridge and installed a new one from a junked luxury cruise liner..."

    There you go, now the pilots story is confirmed, whatever the fanboy rules monkeys think... Nice looking 2D plan. I assume this was done in illustrator as most of these deck plans seem to be. Guess only way I'm going to make deck plans is to buy that damned expensive application.... And a kitchen... and new roof... So, that's this years bonus spent, assuming I get one! :D
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    dannage: nope, I use Inkscape. freeware. (I have Corel, too, there's a few things I need it for; but stuff like this is no problem.)

    p.s. that's a big bonus if it'll cover illustrator and a new roof
  • JennyJenny2 Posts: 0Member
    Hmm. I have Inkscape. I was thinking of picking up TurboCad, but if Inkscape can do things like that....
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    Learn how to use the path commands right away.

    Here's some of the design concept I'm working off of:
    The ship is divided into three sections. The Main hull is 120 dtons, the port and starboard hulls are both
    90 dtons.

    Main Hull
    The Main hull contains the bridge, staterooms, sick bay, fuel processor, power plant, 12 dtons of fuel,
    20 dtons of cargo and the air/raft bay.
    Bridge
    The bridge has 20 dtons of hull space allocated to it and is located toward the bow of the ship. Within
    this space are the six duty stations, the ships computer cores, and the ships locker.
    The six stations are Pilot, copilot, navigation, tactical, operations, and an auxiliary station. The ships
    stations all have holographic displays and controls. These holographic interfaces are easily
    reconfigured allowing the display be optimized to fit user and the specific function assigned to it. This
    means that if any one station goes down, another can be switched to a new function. The station with
    the least priority is them moved to the auxiliary station.
    The Fat Cat carries two computer cores. The primary computer is dedicated to the heuristic control core
    and library data server, the secondary computer is dedicated to flight control, navigation, and jump
    control.
    The ships locker is a secured compartment where weapons, armor, and other valuables are secured.
    Other essential equipment is stored here as well. The ships locker is placed on the bridge to ensure that
    passengers will not have access to any weapons, as a safety precaution, during flight.
    Accommodations
    The ship has 8 Staterooms reserved for first class passengers. Each state room is able to embark two passengers/crew.
    Each stateroom includes two bunks, refresher, and modular storage attachments.
    The Captain has his own room, and crew are "hotbunked" in another cabin/dayroom.
    Luxuries: These are special things that make life aboard the ship easier for passengers and crew. The
    staterooms feature morphic surfaces that can alter their appearance to generate a wide variety of surface
    textures and image patterns. This includes generating view screens, and view ports. There's a galley for
    the crew to prepare food for themselves and passengers, and a comfortable dining area.
    The ship also features a two bed sickbay and a surgical room. This allows the ship to handle just about
    any medical issue that may come up during flight, provided they have a doctor on board.
    The ships power plant is also located in the main hull.
    The ship has one empty hard point with one dton of hull space reserved for fire control systems.
    Port and Starboard hulls
    Each of the port and starboard hulls measure 90 dtons. The majority of these sections are dominated by
    the 40 dton cargo holds and 32 dton fuel tanks. Each also has 10 dtons of jump drive and 2.5 tons of
    maneuver drive. An empty hard point is located in each secondary hull.
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    Traq, when you design the outer hull, decide whether it is capable of planetary landings for loading/offloading cargo from its bays. If it's not designed for planetary landings it might be wise to install clamps on the exterior for cargo pods. If it can land on planets, add drive up cargo bays.
    P.S If it is involved in smuggling, some interior space needs to be reserved for the goodies, lol
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    I don't know about the smuggling... I imagine the smugglers would prefer to add such secrets themselves, rather than buy a ship with known factory "options" ... :)

    It does land. the main cargo holds are in the secondary hulls and will have huge doors. I'm debating on having the entire bays basically interchangeable modules, as well. we'll see where that goes.
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    According to a lot of the technobabble i have read about how a jump drive works, A ship can carry extra cargo on its hull. but doing so will require the jump drive to be calibrated to the new size.

    For example, the Fat Cat can make a 2 parsec jump at its designed volume. If it strapped on additional cargo modules the ship would only be able to travel 1 parsec per jump, but it could strap on up to 300 additional tons of cargo modules; doubling the ships volume.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    You want to design for that, Dave? wouldn't impact too much at this point. would it be limited to cargo? could modules with habitable volume be strapped on? or auxiliary craft?
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    This it what I had in mind, for a cargo hauler. The size might be too large, but the cargo pods would count as interior volume, for the jump drives.
    http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m245/fredd_007/model%20crap/cargo.jpg
    Waaaay too much hauled cargo!
    It was just a explanatory image, of the basic idea, traq
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    @Fre'dni - I have a variable displacement design already stated up. The concept of that design is very different from this one. Its main hull contains all the habitat and engineering stuff, with all the cargo and passengers in interchangeable modules that connect to a docking ring.

    This project was started a while back, but the artist I had at the time changed jobs and then was unable to continue with the project.

    The original concept model.
    3658817075_45c234eec8.jpg
    I was never truly happy with how the cargo containers were arranged, I felt that the ring should hold only 40 of the containers, with the remaining 5 containers attaching to the main hull. Two attaching to the main hull forward of the ring, one each to port and starboard. Two more attaching the same way aft of the ring, and one more attaching to the belly.

    This design is 300 tons for the base ship, and up too 900 tons more in cargo containers. I have several stat designed all based off the same concept. All ranging from 100 ton base ships that can strap on an additional 500 tons of cargo, to a 400 ton base ship that can strap on 1600 more tons and still make jump 2.

    But these ships would be aimed more toward background fluff, as they really aren't good for PC's as they are unlikely to be used for "adventuring", but rather strait cargo hauling, and where's the fun in that?

    @Traq - If you want you can design for that, I would limit it to an extra 100 tons of cargo space. Say a 40 ton unit that docks with the dorsal of the main hull, and a 30 ton unit that docks with each of the secondary hulls.

    But as I said above, I already have a concept for that type of ship.
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    Well, any of the Traveller players could have a piratical nature. Boarding a cargo ship, would not seem that much fluff, with the deckplans handy. But i agree with you about too many cargo holds on the ring. They need to be situated better
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    I think I'll design for them. Some good possibilities there.

    Fre'dni: that's close to the idea I've got in my head for the secondary hull cargo add-ons, but expanding out from the hull instead of docking flush (they are, after all, add-ons).

    That ring-cargo design has potential, too; maybe we can mess around with that one later. might be fun.
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    Trac, the module idea you had, the Fat Trader, in times of war could attach modules giving it an offensive capability, plus other uses. Similar to the Nebula design.
    I played Traveller many years, to sum it up, was Star Wars designed ships, before the movie every came out. For some odd reason the jump design was based on volume displaced by the craft, not mass involved. It techno babble, but i guess traveller people today enjoy their babble, as much as trek fans do. So include the volume of the externally mounted cargo pods, along with the ships volume, specified for the jump/volume ratio. I bet the fussy traveller fans will appreciate it
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    I suppose it could, like mine laying or something. But my understanding was that Traveller (rules) would require actual weapons (lasers, missiles, etc.) to have hardpoints to attach to. (This design does have three hardpoints; one on the bow, and one at each outside corner aft on the secondary hulls.)

    Here's some work on the belowdeck cabins; the captain's to port and the crew's to starboard.

    The captain's berth is larger (naturally), and the cabin door is inside the corridor (giving it secure access to the bridge, aft).

    The XO has a separate berth in the crew cabin, which can be partitioned off for privacy. I will be placing a small food preparation area in the crew cabin as well. The crew has their own refresher and a day head. The bunks are either going to be doubles, or singles and the crew will be hotbunked (this hasn't been decided yet.). Either way, the bunks will be able to be folded up/back into day seating. There is a single large display / terminal at the end of the room, which will be linkable with portable terminals for crew use.

    Forward, you can see where the airraft launch bay will be, and I'm planning on having an access stairwell in the cargo bay as well.

    wip-0129-crew.png

    As a side note, I have lengthened the forward section of the main hull by one meter. This has a minimal effect on tonnage (I think it's actually more accurate, now), but really helped a lot with laying out compartments.
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    @Fre'dni - That is an interesting idea. A Q-ship so to speak. The Extra tonnage could be built as small craft, with their own power plants and weapons systems. They could also have a carried craft in them as well, say a 10 dTon fighter (30 dTon fighter in the main hull add on).

    I also have a "Sector Guard" patrol ship (with the alternate Versis FTL drive) thats designed for long range patrols throughout Versis "secured" space. Its also designed on a 300 dTon ship design. It could potentially be based on the same basic hull, but with a different configuration on the insides.

    @Traq - I might point out that traveller doesn't have any form of "force fields" like you see in star trek. So the cargo bay must be sectioned off with a wall and portal that can withstand hard vacuum if it is to preform a space drop for cargo.

    Also, as I said above, if the add-ons are designed as small craft, they can have their own everything systems independent of the "mother ship". This is a slight stretching of the rules, but its still legit in my book.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    Capt Dave wrote: »
    @Traq - I might point out that traveller doesn't have any form of "force fields" like you see in star trek. So the cargo bay must be sectioned off with a wall and portal that can withstand hard vacuum if it is to preform a space drop for cargo.
    of course, I thought so. There will be a "rollover" door that goes over the airraft - basically, the airraft's docking bay will also be its own airlock. (From your email comment about docking between double cargo doors. I'll draw that up next, to clarify.)
    Capt Dave wrote: »
    @Fre'dni - That is an interesting idea. A Q-ship so to speak. The Extra tonnage could be built as small craft, with their own power plants and weapons systems. They could also have a carried craft in them as well, say a 10 dTon fighter (30 dTon fighter in the main hull add on).
    I like that. I was imagining several different modules (cargo, passenger, maybe even a "skylounge" for rich owners... :)), but docking an auxiliary craft would be great. Would it be "legit" to do that as-is, or would the hardpoints need to be re-positioned to accommodate dockings like that?
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    @Traq - if the hard points are going to be where your first map indicates then I don't see them being in the way. In my minds eye I see the add ons attaching to the ships dorsal hull. Kinda like a car top carrier.

    I'll stat them up and email them too you. I also need to restat the main ship for the docking systems. I think I'm going to split the volume between the main ship and the add on.
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    Trac the crew compartments are looking nice
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    OK, the more I run the numbers on this, the more I come to realize that the add ons just isn't going to work.

    To make it work, I have to dump 44 tons of cargo space to expand the fuel capacity, upgrade the jump drive, power plant and maneuver drive. At which point the ship starts to take off in a hole new direction. And its in a direction I've already decided was for a different ship.

    So for this ship, Sorry if you all got your hopes up, but I got to pull the plug on the add ons.
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    No biggie. It was a fun idea, though.

    The main hull cargo / airraft bay. I also moved a few things around, most notably the forward bulkhead in the crew cabin. A little less space, but better use of the space.

    The airraft (which will not look much like what I have drawn currently, other than being a similar size) will dock from below, in a form-fitting drop bay. Most of the airraft will be contained within the floor of the cargo bay, with the space doors slightly higher. When docked, the doors can be opened for boarding / loading, but are generally kept closed.

    wip-0208-airraft.png

    The port and starboard hulls, so far. Still working on the engines. The forward third of each hull is fuel tankage, and the middle is devoted to cargo. (Keep in mind that the secondary hulls are almost two decks tall, so there's a lot more volume than there appears to be.)

    I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with the inner/outer cargo bay configuration. It doesn't sacrifice too much space, and I can see other advantages to the design.

    The driving idea here is that, when landed, the outer bay actually swings out and extends down to the ground (with a ramp extending between the inner and outer bays) to facilitate cargo staging and loading. While I love the concept, I'm not sure it'll work. I need to play with it on the 3D model a bit.

    wip-0208-sechull.png

    Comments welcome
  • Capt DaveCapt Dave0 Posts: 0Member
    For everyone else's edification: The air/raft you have looks like your typical 1 man sky car, but that like a hole lot smaller than the one in this ships design. The air/raft for this ship is meant to be a multi purpose vehicle able to be easily reconfigured so that it can transport a small amount of cargo (about 2 dtons) or up to 7 passengers in descent comfort.

    The way you have the cargo bays I can see working. But ya I'd have to see something in 3D to make a call one way of the other.

    As for the hole modular bit, you will get to have all the fun you want with it the next ship(s).
  • Fre'dniFre'dni0 Posts: 0Member
    The airraft docking system reminds me somewhat of the flying subs system in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea series. Which both are in sync with the design you developed. The exterior ramps are a good idea also, for planetary landings. Nothing beats a drive up ramp for loading/offloading. All I see wrong is that the jump drive should be in the main hull, with thrusters located on the secondary hulls.
    For the volume, is it 10% of total volume for each parsec jumped, in fuel cost?
  • traqtraq0 Posts: 0Member
    Capt Dave wrote: »
    For everyone else's edification: The air/raft you have looks like your typical 1 man sky car, but that like a hole lot smaller than the one in this ships design. The air/raft for this ship is meant to be a multi purpose vehicle able to be easily reconfigured so that it can transport a small amount of cargo (about 2 dtons) or up to 7 passengers in descent comfort.
    Yeah, it doesn't really look like the design I have in mind. I'll get that straightened out and show you guys. It's a little over 6m long ( ~20ft, as long/longer than most full-size passenger vans - you can also use the XO's bunk as a size reference ).
    Capt Dave wrote: »
    The way you have the cargo bays I can see working. But ya I'd have to see something in 3D to make a call one way of the other.
    concept-cargoload.jpg
    Kinda, but not quite. we'll see.
    [ edit ]
    Well, not as bad as I thought. comments?
    cargo-concept1.png
    .
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