).
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Logic is the beginning of wisdom
[This message has been edited by Saboc (edited November 15, 1999).]
Seriously, it might be an older ship with more and/or bulky equipment. Or (wonder of wonders) nobody at paramount thought about it and just decided that "this-is-the-way-things-are-now-get-back-to-work!"
--Baloo
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Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
--Mark Twain
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
Someone went to my site... I never hear what people here had to say about it so I was surprised to see it mentioned. Those figures come from the DS9 Tech Manual, which some people have tried to forcefully forget.
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Calvin: "I'm a man of few words."
Hobbes: "Maybe if you read more, you'd have a larger vocabulary."
Federation Starship Datalink - Now with a pop-up on every page...damn you Tripod!
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-You're crazy!!!
-I thought I was pisces!
complement \Com"ple*ment\, n. [L. complementun: cf. F. compl['e]ment. See Complete, v. t., and cf. Compliment.] 1. That which fills up or completes; the quantity or number required to fill a thing or make it complete.2. That which is required to supply a deficiency, or to complete a symmetrical whole.
History is the complement of poetry. --Sir J. Stephen.
3. Full quantity, number, or amount; a complete set; completeness.
To exceed his complement and number appointed him which was one hundred and twenty persons. --Hakluyt.
4. (Math.) A second quantity added to a given quantity to make it equal to a third given quantity.
5. Something added for ornamentation; an accessory. [Obs.]
Without vain art or curious complements. --Spenser.
6. (Naut.) The whole working force of a vessel.
7. (Mus.) The interval wanting to complete the octave; -- the fourth is the complement of the fifth, the sixth of the third.
8. A compliment. [Obs.] --Shak.
(Sorry, but temptation sometimes overwhelmes me ).
--Baloo
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Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
--Mark Twain
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/
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Logic is the beginning of wisdom
(just kidding)------------------
"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK
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"Resolve and thou art free."
First, you need to determine the volume of the hulls of a ship (for example, the Constitution class). You can do this by breaking a ship into mathematical solids (spheres, cones, cubes, etc), by measuring deck area and multiplying by a constant deck height, or by making models in clay and then measuring the volume of clay used. Once the volume (in cubic meters) is determined, you divide the known crew size by the volume to get the number of crewmen per cubic meter, a kind of "crew density" factor. I've calculated that the crew density of the EntA is about 0.00227 crewmen per cubic meter, or about 440 cubic meters per man. Then when you design ships of the same type and same era, you multiply the hull volume by "crew density" to get the crew size. This is a rough method, but it's better than guessing.
A similar method can be used to determine displacements of starships, either for hulls and engines or for complete ships. By the way, the weights of starships in recent canon and quasi-canon sources (official tech manuals: millions of tons) are much higher than in sources for the TOS and movie era (hundreds of thousands of tons).
Sorry, these articles are not posted anywhere. But if someone is really interested, I can email a copy.
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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Logic is the beginning of wisdom
"Consistent, consistent? what is consistent?"
By the way, how are you figuring out volumes? The old-fashioned way (number crunching) or with a CAD program?
How can I get a copy of my articles to you? I don't have a website.
By the way (2), I notice from your info that you're from Mpls. I grew up in Rochester.
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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Logic is the beginning of wisdom
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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"Alright, so it's impossible. How long will it take?"
-Commander Adams, Forbidden Planet
By the way, remember that since we're working in three dimensions, you need to muliply the volume of a model by the cube of the scale. This means if the scale is 1/1270, you need to multiply the model's volume by 1270 x 1270 x 1270.
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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Logic is the beginning of wisdom
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Logic is the beginning of wisdom
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
I would then use that displacement as a guide to how many cubic meters the ship itself would displace. I then drew a design that displaced that much volume, taking care that the shape would allow decks of fairly uniform height. Living space, as was all the internal equipment was defined in tons of displacement. For equipment that required someone to be inside it when it was operating (the bridge, for instance), I arbitrarily assumed that the average such unit would be composed of 50% equipment plus 50% room for operators. At higher tech levels, the smaller size of components was offset by adding more equipment for additional capability, so the ratio remained the same. In the example of the bridge, given above, not all the equipment would be located on the bridge, but at remote locations throughout the ship (sensors and life support, for example).
Once I had calculated the relative volumes of equipment and crew space, I drew in the equipment, then divided the ship into decks of a standard height (3 meters, 1/2 meter of which was deck/overhead/outer hull material. The outer hull was 1/4 meter thick (about 10") while the inner decks were 1/2 meter thick. All equipment interconnects were routed through the decks, mostly along the corridors. Some walls also contained equipment, if only to interconnect systems on different decks.
When I was done, I had a 3-view drawing of the ship (Front, side, top) plus several sheets showing the internal layout of the vessel. The crew complement was determined by a complicated table that assigned a certain number of crew members per ton of displacement or per item of equipment. In retrospect, I suppose higher tech level equipment ought to have required fewer maintenance personnel, but it wasn't a really bad system, since it allowed you to calculate how big your proposed ship was, what it could do, and how many people it required to operate at maximum efficiency. I was satisfied if my calculations came within 10 percent of projections.
When FASA came out with their starship designing supplements for the Star Trek game, it was awful. You really needed a spreadsheet program to properly design a ship. I eventually hijacked the Traveller system and modified it so you could design a "known" UFP starship and get ballpark figures that were close to what they ought to be. Are there any starship design programs or rules for the current crop of Star Trek role-playing games?
--Baloo
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It is far less important to agree than it is to understand.
http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Baloo/index.htm
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-Father of Vulcan phylosophy(forgot his name): "Nothing unreal exists"
-Spock: "Logic is the beginning of wisdom..."
BTW, the Galaxy seems to have the most room per crew member by far. The TNGTM says somewhere that 110 square meters per crew member are available, and my rough estimation confirms it.
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"When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative - violence. Force must be applied without apology. It's the Starfleet way."
A somewhat different Janeway in VOY: "Living Witness"
Ex Astris Scientia
Baloo, your method seems rather too complicated for my purposes. As I recall, Traveller is a kind of role-playing game, right? So internal layout of ships is part of the game environment. As a noncanon ship designer, I have only a vague idea of the internal arrangement of my ships. I only calculated weights and densities on the basis of components so that I could come up with a single number for ship displacement.
Working backwards from numbers given in the SFTM, I calculated the TOS Enterprise to have the following densities (in tons per cubic meter): primary hull and neck, 0.757; secondary hull + nacelle pylons, 0.993; Nacelle (each), 1.286; whole ship, 0.964. These densities are probably near that of present war ships and would allow starships to float. Note that as hulls or components get more "mechanical" they get more dense. Also as ships become more technolocially advanced, they might use lighter materials and other means, such as the SIF, to hold the ship together. As a result, the ship would become less dense. I have calculated the EntA primary hull to have a density of about 0.598 t/m3. I woulld expect that Galaxy would be even less dense.
As I mentioned earlier, each person on TOS Ent needs about 440 cubic meters. This is not the actual living space, but the amount of hull space, usually filled with equipment and fuel, to support one crewman. I have no idea how large a crewman's actual quarters would be. I'm satisfied with this level of detail.
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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-You're crazy!!!
-I thought I was pisces!
But seriously, a larger ship needs more engineering personnel, if there is more equiment to be maintained. The Galaxy's engineering room may not be that much more roomy than that of an Intrepid, but there are a lot more systems to maintain, especially life support, etc.
--Baloo
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It is less important that you agree with me than it is for you to to understand what I'm saying.
http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Baloo/index.htm
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Spend all your time waiting for a second chance, a break that would make it ok...
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
The section is good for ship scans, though. ------------------
"Forgive me if I don't share your euphoria!" (Weyoun to Dukat, Tears of the Prophets)
Dax's Ships of STAR TREK
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-Striker
kob.diabloii.net
The crew complement was changed to 430 following the upscaling, but the mass number stuck around. The figures on ships in the DS9TM are based on Rick Sternbach's 4.5 million ton estimate of the Galaxy's mass, which in turn was based on the ship's volume x density figures of present day spacecraft.
As such, the refit Constitution designs seem to have a mass approaching that of the Intrepid. Bearing in mind the fact that the earliest figure didn't apply to the final Enterprise design, the question remains open to discussion.
Boris
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"Wrong again. Although we want to be scientifically accurate, we've found that selection of [Photon Energy Plasma Scientifically Inaccurate as a major Star Trek format error] usually indicates a preoccupation with science and gadgetry over people and story."
---a Writers' Test from the Original Series Writer's Guide
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
I'm surprised that very few people have tried to calculate volumes of various starships, something that would be rather easy to do. All you need to do is put a scale model in a container with water, and measure the displacement (the change in volume). You'll still need to make the correction for scale, but that shouldn't be too hard either (x scale^3?).
I don't know how water affects the models, but Rick Sternbach advises to seal'em up well.
Boris
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"Wrong again. Although we want to be scientifically accurate, we've found that selection of [Photon Energy Plasma Scientifically Inaccurate as a major Star Trek format error] usually indicates a preoccupation with science and gadgetry over people and story."
---a Writers' Test from the Original Series Writer's Guide
By the way, I calculated the volume of the TOS Enterprise (with pencil and paper) to be 197,178.09 cubic meters. If the weight is 190,000 tons, its density is close to that of water. A Daedalus class ships has a volume of 26,436.55 cubic meters.
I question whether using present day spacecraft to determine the weights of Starfleet ships is valid. The functions and constructions of modern spacecraft is very different from that of starships. Launch weights of modern rockets are mostly fuel whereas starships carry relatively little fuel. Rockets are basically just cans of fuel with a motor at the end. Unmanned space probes are a poor comparison since they don't carry any crew and are mostly machinery. Also, modern spacecraft that operate only in a vacuum are constructed to be extremely light: they can't be constructed as sturdily as combat starships. I think a better comparison would be modern naval warships or perhaps aircraft and the space shuttle. In particular, warships are extremely similar to starships in layout, function, and crew. Also, their density is less than water, or else they'd sink.
For these reasons I think the weight of TOS Enterprise of about 200,000 tons seems correct. It's certainly better than 1 million tons, which would require a density 5 times greater than water.
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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum