A forest that is a bit more dense in trees. Two small concession stands that sell water, sodas, and snacks. This is meant for quiet walks and relaxation. Map is 500' x 400'.
There was one incidence where jungle sounds of big apex predators was played... the being that did that, has vanished.
The next one was the playing of jungle birds, with texts in reply to the office says this is a temperate forest. No being vanished, but they were asked to not do that again.
The large deck plans are just too big to put walls on them. So, I have decided to use color areas for each type of location on this 32 mile long Medina Station.
I had a version of this for earlier versions of my Starship Wanderer on my Traveller Site.
I forgot Kitchens... I'll add them later this week.
This makes sense, Jim, though I do wonder if even this will work out - would features like libraries, med bays, dining halls and even the omitted kitchens really take up enough space to be visible as colour-coded blocks at this scale? Many should be really tiny at this level. The engines are already getting on for the size of the Krell's planetary power source after all (from the movie "Forbidden Planet"). Might be more useful to think on a much broader scale - things like "Storage", "Living Quarters", "Administrative Areas", "Power Generation", etc., maybe?
They way I am envisioning a huge ship like this isn't huge individual areas dedicated to one thing, but more like divided up into "residential zone A", "residential zone B" and so on, where each individual zone have all the services needed for that zone, such as kitchens, storage, living quarters, recreation, security and more. Each zone being more or less self-contained (maybe even designed to be able to be isolated in the case of an emergency.
Actually similar to how a city today works. You don't find all the kitchens of the city in one corner, they are distributed out so people have access to a local restaurant without crossing the entire city.
Outside the residential zones which contains everything needed for the citicens, you may have some large engineering sections (but even a lot of that would probably be part of a residential zone, you can't risk having all the oxygen production in one part of the ship), maybe a huge hangar deck for the main transport ships bringing supplies and people on board. Maybe a command section, but that again probably would just be a tiny spec at this scale.
My big problem with large ships is visualizing the layout/deck plans.
I forget whether you mentioned having a copy of any of the Metamorphosis Alpha RPG books or not now Jim, though I suspect from this comment probably not, as even the limited floorplans for the two complete decks, and the brief notes on all the others, in the first edition rules from 1976, would have given you a few pointers in this regard.
In one sense, Remy's right in suggesting it may help to think of the whole ship as like a huge city, actually more like a small country, given its gigantic size. Depending on how you envisage the entire craft as functioning, it's perfectly possible some of the decks might have a single function, or several major functions, each. Something like a farming deck for food production and air recycling, including breeding populations of domesticated animals, for instance, while there could be huge areas given over to parked-up machines on another deck for use on whatever planet the ship eventually reaches to colonise (since that's the primary reason such vast craft were envisaged originally). Elsewhere, there could be factories and machinery for use in them stored on another deck, again to get things functioning once the planet was reached, with maybe one entirely water-filled, for living aquatic foodstuffs, and as a water supply for the ship (could easily be segregated into fresh and sea water parts). Plus power supplies of varying kinds, of course.
It might help to work out what the total floor area is for the whole craft, and then compare that to a populated area on Earth somewhere, and see exactly what sort of features lie within a similar-sized zone, and what of those would be useful/essential on a ship destined to be in space for hundreds of years or more.
Hopefully in all this, we can help get you back on course!
I've not seen the 4th edition book for Metamorphosis Alpha, which I think is the more recent (from 2008, updated in 2013, according to the DriveThru RPG product page). Oddly, none of the links to the Ward Co sites are still functional (after the original author and still-owner of the game, James M Ward).
Your more cluttered CC2 view seems quite reasonable for a small-scale segment of one deck, though I'm not sure a generation ship would have any distinction between "passengers" and "crew/employees", as they'd all be, literally, in it for the (very) long-haul.
Yep, always best never to throw away anything RPG-related - you never know when it might come in handy decades later! Certainly true for me as well. And you do know Wizards of the Coast have "stolen" your idea regarding the gravitational field being "up" on both halves of a ship in their recent "Spelljammer" boxed set release, don't you?! 🚀
Thanks for that link Jim. I've never been much involved with Traveller, so hadn't come across these. They are much too detailed for the general area maps for the generation ship, of course, but great for much smaller areas - so if a deck's a city, these ship plans are the houses in the city, perhaps.
I came up with this last night. Instead of 'see page 15 tab GG' I think it would be a bit better if I made each deck a square grid for each deck. With numbers in each square.
Deck 1, location plan. 400' x 320' each square is 40' x 40'. Since the game uses metric, I'll work on making all of this in metric.
0003 and 0004 are the locations for the command deck for flight.
Just behind them 0103 and 0104 are the quarters for the flight crew, dining areas, etc.
Each deck will be larger, until the center of the ship, the decks are 32 miles long.
My tentative idea for 'connections' are Deck number, location number from the grid.
So for example: Deck 1 0306 connects to Deck 2 whichever the location number will be for that deck. I'll use for example 0306. But it is likely to be different. I realize that Traveller, et al uses just a string of lettes and numbers for thngs... I don't like it.
So I think I'll use Deck number, square number ( from the grid).
I realized later these squares will get too big. I'll be back where I was with too large symbols.
So it will be Deck number, Section number, then square number. I think when the squares get above hmmm I'lll say, about 100' across there will be another section.
It may work out differently when I make the location maps.
I realized that in the past, I sort of knew it all along, that I was just tossing things around on these ship deck plans. Not planning anything.
Hopefully I did better this time.
Same deck plan color chart. I'll have to make some additions before I add much to this location map.
Here we go.
I used CA164 symbols for some of the areas, but I couldn't locate all of the ones I need. I found some Hazard symbols, but I need ones for areas, like communications, disposal, and some others I don't remember off hand.
Progress on deck 03. Turbo lift on the left brings in folks from Decks 01 and 02. The other 2 bring in kitchen staff and folks from other decks.
Snack bar has sandwiches, buttermilk biscuits, casseroles, fried fish, boiled and fried potato pieces, apples, oranges, sausages, and pears. 7 tables, each seats 4 people.
The Kitchen has perishable storage, the green and brown objects, contain sodas, bottled water, orange drinks, etc. If you ask kindly they may have received a shipment of items from Japan, like corn soup in a can. Also a stove for heating some items up. One table. Two utility bots and 3 trollys ( carts) to help with food delivery.
The Storage room has 4 refrigerators for perishable items, two carts for fresh fruits, storage boxes for snacks of various sorts. One table.
I may swap out some of the boxes for refrigerators.
Restrooms and wash basins next to the right hand turbo lift for those who get dirty at wwork
edited some typos and incomplete sentences.
My Internet provider is doing their best to get me to switch... Urf.
I have added a Lab, Ancients in three rooms A, B, and C. Just to the right of A, is a store room behind the lift. The folks who work in these labs are not happy as they cannot get storage gear or a desk in there.
Comments
Concessinaire A CSUAC and Bogie symbols.
Concessionaire B
I checked the length of some of the weapons, and they look correct to me.
A forest, with concessions, and a rental office for the houses and towers. A place to take a break from work.
map is 500 feet across.
A forest that is a bit more dense in trees. Two small concession stands that sell water, sodas, and snacks. This is meant for quiet walks and relaxation. Map is 500' x 400'.
There was one incidence where jungle sounds of big apex predators was played... the being that did that, has vanished.
The next one was the playing of jungle birds, with texts in reply to the office says this is a temperate forest. No being vanished, but they were asked to not do that again.
Forest B.
The large deck plans are just too big to put walls on them. So, I have decided to use color areas for each type of location on this 32 mile long Medina Station.
I had a version of this for earlier versions of my Starship Wanderer on my Traveller Site.
I forgot Kitchens... I'll add them later this week.
This makes sense, Jim, though I do wonder if even this will work out - would features like libraries, med bays, dining halls and even the omitted kitchens really take up enough space to be visible as colour-coded blocks at this scale? Many should be really tiny at this level. The engines are already getting on for the size of the Krell's planetary power source after all (from the movie "Forbidden Planet"). Might be more useful to think on a much broader scale - things like "Storage", "Living Quarters", "Administrative Areas", "Power Generation", etc., maybe?
My big problem with large ships is visualizing the layout/deck plans.
Originally on Wanderer, I had made small areas and noted which decks they are on.
But its not working for me.
No idea how to fix this.
I had thought about looking for large deck plans. But the Traveller ones I have are much smaller than Medina Station and Wanderer.
They way I am envisioning a huge ship like this isn't huge individual areas dedicated to one thing, but more like divided up into "residential zone A", "residential zone B" and so on, where each individual zone have all the services needed for that zone, such as kitchens, storage, living quarters, recreation, security and more. Each zone being more or less self-contained (maybe even designed to be able to be isolated in the case of an emergency.
Actually similar to how a city today works. You don't find all the kitchens of the city in one corner, they are distributed out so people have access to a local restaurant without crossing the entire city.
Outside the residential zones which contains everything needed for the citicens, you may have some large engineering sections (but even a lot of that would probably be part of a residential zone, you can't risk having all the oxygen production in one part of the ship), maybe a huge hangar deck for the main transport ships bringing supplies and people on board. Maybe a command section, but that again probably would just be a tiny spec at this scale.
Updated both the color chart, some parts might be used later for smaller maps, and the Deck map.
My big problem with large ships is visualizing the layout/deck plans.
I forget whether you mentioned having a copy of any of the Metamorphosis Alpha RPG books or not now Jim, though I suspect from this comment probably not, as even the limited floorplans for the two complete decks, and the brief notes on all the others, in the first edition rules from 1976, would have given you a few pointers in this regard.
In one sense, Remy's right in suggesting it may help to think of the whole ship as like a huge city, actually more like a small country, given its gigantic size. Depending on how you envisage the entire craft as functioning, it's perfectly possible some of the decks might have a single function, or several major functions, each. Something like a farming deck for food production and air recycling, including breeding populations of domesticated animals, for instance, while there could be huge areas given over to parked-up machines on another deck for use on whatever planet the ship eventually reaches to colonise (since that's the primary reason such vast craft were envisaged originally). Elsewhere, there could be factories and machinery for use in them stored on another deck, again to get things functioning once the planet was reached, with maybe one entirely water-filled, for living aquatic foodstuffs, and as a water supply for the ship (could easily be segregated into fresh and sea water parts). Plus power supplies of varying kinds, of course.
It might help to work out what the total floor area is for the whole craft, and then compare that to a populated area on Earth somewhere, and see exactly what sort of features lie within a similar-sized zone, and what of those would be useful/essential on a ship destined to be in space for hundreds of years or more.
Hopefully in all this, we can help get you back on course!
Argh, my phone hiccuped and no draft. Not much text anyway.
Those are some good ideas. I had thought about buying the latest pdf for Metamorphasis Alpha, but that will have to wait until later in January.
Below is the CC2Pro deck plan from Wanderer. Scale is much smaller.
Original drawing, based on a sketch I made about 1971, and I'm glad I kept it.
I've not seen the 4th edition book for Metamorphosis Alpha, which I think is the more recent (from 2008, updated in 2013, according to the DriveThru RPG product page). Oddly, none of the links to the Ward Co sites are still functional (after the original author and still-owner of the game, James M Ward).
Your more cluttered CC2 view seems quite reasonable for a small-scale segment of one deck, though I'm not sure a generation ship would have any distinction between "passengers" and "crew/employees", as they'd all be, literally, in it for the (very) long-haul.
Yep, always best never to throw away anything RPG-related - you never know when it might come in handy decades later! Certainly true for me as well. And you do know Wizards of the Coast have "stolen" your idea regarding the gravitational field being "up" on both halves of a ship in their recent "Spelljammer" boxed set release, don't you?! 🚀
I don't think I'm the original one on that.
While posting in another forum, I remembered I have sample area deck plans for Traveller. I'll look at those tomorrow.
This is where I mention them:
Ah, here is the source, free download.
Thanks for that link Jim. I've never been much involved with Traveller, so hadn't come across these. They are much too detailed for the general area maps for the generation ship, of course, but great for much smaller areas - so if a deck's a city, these ship plans are the houses in the city, perhaps.
My idea is to make small maps, and connect them in some fashion, sort of like drawings for a blueprint.
A plan with column and row numbers, and each small map has that number set on one map, and the reverse number set to go back the other way.
I think the problem will be deciding which size to make these maps.
250 x 200 is likely too small. 1000x800 is too big.
I came up with this last night. Instead of 'see page 15 tab GG' I think it would be a bit better if I made each deck a square grid for each deck. With numbers in each square.
Deck 1, location plan. 400' x 320' each square is 40' x 40'. Since the game uses metric, I'll work on making all of this in metric.
0003 and 0004 are the locations for the command deck for flight.
Just behind them 0103 and 0104 are the quarters for the flight crew, dining areas, etc.
Each deck will be larger, until the center of the ship, the decks are 32 miles long.
My tentative idea for 'connections' are Deck number, location number from the grid.
So for example: Deck 1 0306 connects to Deck 2 whichever the location number will be for that deck. I'll use for example 0306. But it is likely to be different. I realize that Traveller, et al uses just a string of lettes and numbers for thngs... I don't like it.
So I think I'll use Deck number, square number ( from the grid).
What do you all think ?
I realized later these squares will get too big. I'll be back where I was with too large symbols.
So it will be Deck number, Section number, then square number. I think when the squares get above hmmm I'lll say, about 100' across there will be another section.
It may work out differently when I make the location maps.
Here is Deck 1, location areas.
I realized that in the past, I sort of knew it all along, that I was just tossing things around on these ship deck plans. Not planning anything.
Hopefully I did better this time.
Same deck plan color chart. I'll have to make some additions before I add much to this location map.
Here we go.
I used CA164 symbols for some of the areas, but I couldn't locate all of the ones I need. I found some Hazard symbols, but I need ones for areas, like communications, disposal, and some others I don't remember off hand.
Looks like I'll have to make some symbols, like the green ones in the above location plan. So, this will go on hold for now.
Like I don't already have a bunch of maps on hold...
I decided to make deck 01 small. The entire thing is 100' x 80'.
The text and scale were larger. I used a light gray around the scale instead of color zero.
I'll add in walls, emergency berths, turbo lifts, etc. later.
edit: And Thanks Sue !
Your like kicked me over to 1.6K likes.
Update, with walls and more furniture added.
Larger in my gallery in the Expanse maps.
Deck 2, more beds, restrooms, another shower. A room of engineering gear on the left. Same size as Deck 01.
I was going to make a bigger deck, but... I forgot the turbo lift. Anyway, I made this one instead.
Larger in my Expanse gallery.
Update on Deck 01. Added more text, and measured the sizes.
The lift and break area is in three 'pieces'. I thought I was just copying the text...
Deck 02 update, same dimensions. Command becomes Engineering 2.
Still working on Deck 03.
Progress on deck 03. Turbo lift on the left brings in folks from Decks 01 and 02. The other 2 bring in kitchen staff and folks from other decks.
Snack bar has sandwiches, buttermilk biscuits, casseroles, fried fish, boiled and fried potato pieces, apples, oranges, sausages, and pears. 7 tables, each seats 4 people.
The Kitchen has perishable storage, the green and brown objects, contain sodas, bottled water, orange drinks, etc. If you ask kindly they may have received a shipment of items from Japan, like corn soup in a can. Also a stove for heating some items up. One table. Two utility bots and 3 trollys ( carts) to help with food delivery.
The Storage room has 4 refrigerators for perishable items, two carts for fresh fruits, storage boxes for snacks of various sorts. One table.
I may swap out some of the boxes for refrigerators.
Restrooms and wash basins next to the right hand turbo lift for those who get dirty at wwork
edited some typos and incomplete sentences.
My Internet provider is doing their best to get me to switch... Urf.
Update, and I think mostly done, on Deck 3.
I have added a Lab, Ancients in three rooms A, B, and C. Just to the right of A, is a store room behind the lift. The folks who work in these labs are not happy as they cannot get storage gear or a desk in there.