Quote from: KieroSimply because there's a difference between wanting to "play the movies", and wanting to "play in the Star Wars universe". A licensed setting contains a lot of easy touchstone material to make sure everyone's on the same page. But different people have different comfort zones about how far you stray from that source.

But if you change things that easy touchstone effect is lost.

   
Player One: Star Wars! Wow. Cool. I want an X-Wing.

GameMaster: There are no X-Wings.

Player One: Huy?! Why not?

GameMaster: Because they employ "smart missiles" -- specially built droids who do the same thing as star fighters, but which are more expendable.

Player Two: Okay. My character's a Corellian. He used to be an assistant to the Regional Governor.

GameMaster: Couple of problems there. First Corellians have all been genetically modified to live in the hard vacuum of astroid belts and need full life-support when on the surface of a planet. Second, there are no regional governors.

Player Three: How does the Empire run things then?

GameMaster: It's all centralised. They use super-AIs located on the capital planet.

Player Two: Coruscant.

GameMaster: Actually, in this game it's called Gerais.

Why not just say it's a space opera game? By just identifying the genre, you get all the same advantages as by identifying a particular example of the genre, but avoid the problems of players assuming things from their knowledge of the that particular example.

I mean, it's not like Star Wars is the only example of space opera out there. When I saw the trailer for the first movie all those years ago, my reaction was "Oh, cool! Someone's done a Lensman movie!"

QuoteCase in point which disproves your assertion that you can't muck about with the canon and still be Star Wars: the Knights of the Old Republic games. No Skywalkers in sight, no Galactic Empire, pretty much nothing in common with the events established in the movies. Yet it still feels like Star Wars.

I never said you couldn't muck with canon. I said I didn't see much point to it.

If you're going to run a Marvel Universe game, but leave out all the bits that make it Marvel -- the established super heroes, SHIELD, the Skrulls, Kree, etc. -- then why bother saying it's a Marvel Universe game? If you're going to make up your own background anyway, just say it's a super hero game and be done with it.

QuoteFor added complication, what those fundamentals are seem to vary from person to person.

Which is why I suggested Koltar check with the player to see what elements she considers fundamental.

Quote from: KoltarOne of the toughest things in some games is trying to come up with maps or starship deckplans quickly.

YES.
This has been my biggest problem to date with star wars. I qouldn't know where to start except possibly taking general ideas from current navy designs and layouts. Also, my google-fu isn't good enough to find any good deckplans.

Quote from: KoltarThe same night were brainstorming possible ideas, I asked if I could use the deckplans of the SERENITY in an Old Republic game. She was resistant to the idea. Said that it belonged i the "Firefly" universe.

You were asking a player's permission to do something as a DM? :confused:
Seriously, if you want to use that deckplan because you like it, you just use it. And if she happens to recognise it, you just reply "Episode 1 alone had completely canonical, on-screen appearances of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek, a Spinner from Blade Runner, and a small model of a Space Pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey. That's all canonical, since it appeared on the silver screen. Will you shut up now, or shall I also list all the other non-Star Wars-universe ships from the other movies as well? Thought so."

Anyway, to address Saskwatch's problem of not knowing where to start making your own deckplans... I'm going to copy&paste a pretty lengthy article on the exact same matter, originally written by Star Wards tech commentator Robert Brown and hosted on his now long-dead website. Some of the formatting will be probably screwed up a bit, sorry for that.

 INTRODUCTION

 The internet abounds with rather poor fan-based StarWars ship deckplans. The 'official' materials published by WEG and others are scarcely any better. Yet there are thousands of StarWars fans, RPG fans and modellers who are screaming for good deckplans.     The new SWRPG license holders, Wizards of the    Coast (WoTC), in their new "StarWars Gamer" magazine present an article on designing starships. They set forth a five-point system. So far their system deals mostly with the narrative aspects of a starship; its name, its origins etc. Now this is vitally important to roleplaying, since good gaming is essentially freeform narrative creation, but many gamers want more. Many GM's (and players) wish they could actually see the interior layouts of their ships. (Especially if you want to play out a running gun battle with boarding pirates or stormtroopers!) Those plans offered in the past by WEG were poor to the point of blatant incompetence.    

 It is one thing for deckplans in an RPG to be a    little brief or even substandard, after all its the game story that maters isn't it? *BUT* since 'official' RPG source materials carry so much weight in influencing the interpretation of StarWars technology in other products (PC games, toys etc), WEG's poor workmanship did more damage than the lazy designers ever thought possible. We are all looking forward to WoTC doing it right!
     

 This page attempts to set forth some simple (and to my mind, OBVIOUS) principles to follow so that your deckplans will 'work'.    

   

      INDEX      Common        deckplan syndromes
Form        Follows Function - or does it? ... external issues
Drive        Systems & Power
Maintenance        Access
Artificial        Gravity & Other Fields
Life-Support        
Decks -        the 3rd dimension
Corridors        vs. Rooms
Who Goes        Where? & watertight compartments
Symmetry        
Bridge -        command & control
Weapons        
Supplies        / Fuel
Droids        
Escape        Systems
Deconstructing        Canon Ships
Credits

    Common Deckplan    Syndromes

 The flaws in most available deckplans are as many as varied as you may care to imagine, but some errors are so common and pervasive that they can virtually be considered syndromes. Please avoid these syndromes like the plague they are.     Deckplan Syndrome #1: "implausibly    tiny engines"
Deckplan Syndrome #2: "inadequate headroom" (what third    dimension?)
Deckplan Syndrome #3: "tacking on extra weapons anywhere that    looks cool"
Deckplan Syndrome #4: "more corridors than rooms"
Deckplan    Syndrome #5: "space for fighter/shuttle hangars"
Deckplan Syndrome #6:    "when in doubt use magic-tech or crystals"    

   


     Form Follows Function - or does it? ...    external issues

 Your first issue is the EXTERNAL shape of the ship. Sometimes this is decided for you, because you may be trying to 'populate' the interior of someone else's exterior design. Often however, you may wish to build your own ship from the keel up.     The most common criteria used by fans to design the    external shape of a fan-based StarWars ship is "koolness". Certainly this is important to maintain a StarWars look'n'feel and to maintain interest - but it doesn't hurt to inject just a little of the practical into    your ship's design.    

 In biology there is an old saying, "form follows function" ... this means essentially that things LOOK like they can do what they do. Crabs need to grab things to catch, subdue & kill their prey, so (surprise surprise) they have big claws! Sounds stupidly simple doesn't it? But you'd be surprised how often "fan-ships" (and I include WEG ships and many 'official' EU vessels in this category) feature "kool-looking" features that serve little or no function.    

 In essence a starship is just a flying box. It is an enclosed space with a drive, life-support, carrying capacity and probably weapons. But as a box is rather dull to look at (gotta feel sorry for the Borg huh?) you'll doubtless want to be a bit more creative.    

 At this point, this page will NOT get bogged down into hard numbers and rules about external shapes ... but here's some ideas to consider:    

 [1] try for some degree of SYMMETRY (not a firm    rule)       StarWars ships DO 'tend' to be      symmetrical more often than not - so symmetry is the style. Further however, a symmetrical ship will be easier to balance on its drive units ... ie: the thrust from the drive units drives the ship forwards, not in a circle. (go build the ST:TOS USS-Enterprise as a rocket-model and see      what happens when you light the blue touch paper    *grin*)[2] what is the FUNCTION    of the ship   Freighters need to have large empty spaces for freight .. together with mechanisms to allow the quick and easy loading and unloading of same. The so-called "Rebel Transport" Gallofree Freighter is an excellent example of this. The YT2400 "Outrider" is an appallingly bad example of a freighter, with minimal storage space and virtually no loading capability.      Warships do not have vast and luxurious accommodation ... they are guns with engines that squeeze people in and around the machinery. The CORE idea is to deliver fire-power quickly where it will do the most good. They try to keep mass down - every extra component needs more engine but every bit more power needs more mass to generate it! There is a vicious cycle here.      

Carriers are slightly different - they are more like 'military freighters' where the entire 'freight' area is devoted to the storage, retrieval and maintenance of fighters etc. WEG in particular was guilty of grossly underestimating just ho much space is need for each and every fighter you carry. Ask yourself why aircraft carriers are so big! Each fighter needs a heck of a lot more space than just the minimum it takes to "pack 'em in" ... as a rule of thumb, allow about three times the actual space of each fighter for the main hangar, and as much again (at least) elsewhere in the ship for fuel, pilots accommodation, maintenance crew, spare parts etc etc etc      

Fighters suffer from "fan syndromes" more than any other ship class. You should remember that a fighter is a support ship. It protects its fleet - it extends the eyes of the fleet and it extends the strike capacity of the fleet. It is NOT a "one man fleet". Please try not to glue as many weapons as you can imagine onto a box and call it a "guaranteed capital ship killer" - there has never been such a thing, and never will be.

[3] Engines   A huge chunk of your ship (about 25%-30% of its total mass/volume) will be engine space / power generation (this will be discussed below). Try to place your engines on or near the centre-line-of-mass of the vessel and allow that there will NOT be a lot of internal space available near the engine outlets! If your engines are largely external (like Queen Amidala's Nubian Cruiser in SW:TPM) then assume that there will be a fair bit of structural and mechanical 'stuff' inside the main hull where the engine nacelles attach ... if you just put exhaust vents on the outer edge of the vessel (like a StarDestroyer or the Millennium Falcon) then assume that a HUGE chunk of the interior space (~30%!!!) will be filled with the engines and associated mechanisms.[4] Structural    elements   The hull of most StarWars vessels is      exoskeletal like an insect. That is, the outer hull is a hard shell and the internals are relatively lightweight "filler" but this is not the end of the story. Allow for the fact that large components such as engines, launch systems, landing gear and weapons require bracing - they have      to be attached to something solid ... not just stuck to the outside of the      hull with model-glue !!![5]    Docking and landing   Is your ship able to land on a planetary surface or dock inside a larger vessel/base? Are your docking points so buried amongst "kool fins" that no other ship could ever dock with you?      If you have "bits that fold up" (a StarWars fave) then remember that such gross-motor systems require a LOT of mass, heavy structural members and power systems - leave room for them!

[6] Weapons   Seems obvious, but ensure that your      weapons have fire-arc on their intended targets! Remember that weapons do not just "sit on the outside" ... they are like icebergs... most of the weapons' systems are inside! (more on this below)Deckplan Syndrome #1:    "implausibly tiny engines"     This is a simple notion. StarWars ship drive systems occupy about 30% of the available mass/volume of the entire vessel - end of story.
There is not a single exception to this. Even the humble TIE fighter is "an engine with a seat" when you consider the bulky "connections" between the spherical capsule and the radiator fins. Some ships place a chunk of their drive systems "outside" the habitable shell, such as the Corvette, the Nubian Cruiser and most fighters - but many others have their drive systems contained within their habitable shell, such as the YT1300 (Millennium Falcon), Slave1, Star destroyer, Calimarian Cruisers and the Galofree transport.    

 There are usually no less than three, and more    often, four separate drive systems in a starship:       (1) Hyperdrive - only works outside of      gravity wells
(2) Sublight engines (often an ion-drive) - for STL use      outside of gravity wells
(3) Repulsor anti-grav systems - only work      within gravity wells
(4) Station keeping, attitude jets - for fine      movements in landing and dockingadd to this:   (5) Power Core Reactor - the 'generator'      that powers ship systems and weapons   Your main power core reactor should be more or less in the centre of the ship. These things are BIG and HEAVY! Very large vessels will have secondary and tertiary redundant power systems to keep core systems (life-support, gravity, weapons, comms) going in the event of damage or break-down. (According to the SW:RoTJ novelisation, the evacuation of the DSII was sparked by failures of these back-up systems, which resulted from the crash of the Executor into        the DSII hull)WEG, and most other lazy thinkers, choose to conveniently forget just how big the engines and power systems of a starship truly are. Time and again we see childish floorplans that portray the engines as being little more than a thin strip of machinery just inboard of the visible engine outlets. Some deckplans even go so far as to place crew accommodations in hull space that    should be occupied by hard-radiation engine systems!     Heat dissipation in space vessels is a severe problem, especially when power systems become very compact. The TIE fighter is the best example of this, its incredibly tiny power system requires vast heat radiation panels to balance things out. If you keep engine size down, you'll have to provide your ship with radiator systems! (even then the drive systems will occupy a big chunk of ship mass/volume)    

 Keep in mind however, that it is possible to    distribute SOME of the drive/power systems ... they may be located in spaces    around the habitable space, BUT for a believable and realistic deckplan, always assume that at least half of bulk of the engines will lie DIRECTLY BEHIND their outlets (ie: at least about 15% of the total available space) ... and yes, that will "poke into" the main shell of the hull. the rest will be clustered in 'blisters' or similar usually above or below the habitable areas. Sorry if that eats into your plans for "hundreds of fighters" or "heaps of guns" ... but these are the sorts of constraints that divide DESIGN from PLAY.    

 If the drive systems take up so much space that you cannot hold all the freight / passengers / fighters or weapons you wanted - then you are simply going to need a BIGGER ship with, (surprise surprise) BIGGER ENGINES! ... perhaps you now begin to see why StarWars ships can tend to be so large!    

 Look on the bright side - paradoxically the MORE constraints you have, the EASIER the design process is ! If you plan for the compulsory components first, your final product will be so much more believable. If you start from a blank-slate and just doodle away (like WEG did) then you'll end up with rubbish (like WEG did).  

   
 

 Maintenance    Access

 Starships breakdown. They are vastly complex systems with a need for constant maintenance. Whilst the advanced technology of the StarWars galaxy certainly would give rise to a degree of self-diagnosis and perhaps even a degree of self-repair, there will always be a need for intervention.     Whilst significant repair such as the entire replacement of a ship's engine is certainly a "drydock" affair, smaller running maintenance tasks should be carried out by crew & ship's droids. To facilitate this, always allow some degree of accessways to core equipment areas. They do not need to be particularly big, or comfortable, but they should be there. Preferably you should allow for most repairs to be conducted internally, especially for large and military vessels. External activities are dangerous and time consuming, even with droids.
 

 Artificial Gravity and Other    Fields

 StarWars vessels are blessed with cheap and effective artificial gravity. These usually direct gravity in a consistent orientation so that the crew experience a planetary style "down". Starships are not limited in this however, and localised variations in gravity orientation are entirely possible. Remember the Millennium Falcon gunpits? I suspect that there must be some sort of grav-field system under the decks (or above the ceilings - pushing down?) of starships. keep this in mind when deciding how far apart your decks can be, and how thick the floors are.     StarWars starships can undergo astonishing accelerations. The crew simply must be shielded from these accelerations or they'd be squashed flat against the bulkheads! We know the Millennium    Falcon is equipped with 'alluvial dampers' which may the the units responsible for this shielding. Leave room for this system, and remember that it must reach its effect throughout the ship.    

 Starships are also fitted with antigrav 'repulsor' drive systems (one of the four main drive systems). These probably are located at or near the centre of mass of the overall vessel.    

 Starships are often equipped with tractor beams, for capturing smaller vessels, landing fighters, docking and cargo handling etc. These are stand alone units which can even be mounted on gimbaled or turreted abutments. Expect to find them near hangars and cargo hatches. Remember though that these systems transfer the mass of the 'target' to the hull of your ship via the mounting of your tractor-beam projector ... so allow for the mount to be at a very structurally sound point - well braced.    

 Any open areas (such as hangar bay portals) are shielded with atmosphere shields (a specific form of particle shielding I believe). Remember to allow for the machinery and power requirements of your atmosphere shielding!    

 Of course all starships MUST have particle shields to keep micro-meteorites from punching through the hull as the vessel travels in real-space at near relativistic speeds. Most also have ray shielding for defense from energy weapons. WEG and other poorly though-out 'designers' (and I use the word loosely) have tended to make the defense shielding units EXTERNAL to the hull shell. They also propose that these units protect everything BUT the projector itself! (what rubbish!) Now we saw in Episode#1 SW:TPM that the shielding can be global (droideka) or form-fitting (N-1 fighter) - so both options exist. A global shield is probably generated from a unit at the centre-of-mass of the vessel whereas a 'form-fitting' shield may well be emitted (but not generated) from several external points. Think carefully about these objects - do not build in a stupid weakness by making your shield generators vulnerable!    

 [An interesting story/RPG idea suggested by Mr Mike Horne (former WEG sourcebook author) is that grav systems could be deliberately disabled or wildly varied to disorient unwelcome boarders]    

 Deckplan Syndrome #6: "when in doubt    use magic-tech or crystals"    

 StarTrek introduced the concept of a "structural integrity field" (SIF) which has been deployed in some SW fan plans. Now I hope that the Trekkish SIF itself is *not* a magic-tech that mystically "holds the ship together" - and certainly there is no canonical mention of such a thing in the StarWars universe. However, we must realize that metallic structures in the absolute cold of space, which have the direct lights of suns upon them, undergo massive deformations as parts heat and other parts cool. Further, the acceleration stresses upon a ship that is hundreds or thousands of metres long are incredible ... through inertia, the bow of the ship doesn't start to move forward until the aft is underway and the whole vessel undergoes incredible compression stresses. As I mentioned earlier, most large StarWars vessels are rather 'exoskeletal' in design which is doubtless a method of minimising these stresses, but that alone cannot be the entire answer. Whilst StarWars thankfully lacks Trek's 'magic' SIFs, they almost certainly would deploy their various inertial-damping, ray-shield, gravity and tractor fields in such a manner as to minimise the load upon the physical shell. It's probably safe to say that if you found a large powerless vessel, strapped on some booster drives and tried to fly it away without getting its various fields up and balanced, you'd probably crack it in half! If you wanted to destroy a large capital ship by stealth, I'd go for the fields if I couldn't find the main reactor! (now there's a plot hook for all you    RPGers!)    

 Darth Maul's Infiltrator craft from SW:TPM is credited with the ability to become invisible (although this has only been seen in comic books so far) and in SW:TESB there is a mention of stealth technology - "no ship that size has a cloaking device!". Dr David West-Reynold, formerly of LFL, author of the first few DK cutaway books, proposed that Maul's ship gained its incredible abilities (for a ship that size) from an array of 'magic volcanic crystals'. It is fairly clear from the text that these crystals were invoked by Dr Reynolds in an effort to try and explain just how this particular ship could side-step the size-restriction on cloaking devices, but it remains unrealistic, since surely StarWars era chemists could synthesize these crystals and build cloaks into small ships any time!    

 May I just say right now, and please just take this on faith, IT IS A VERY VERY WEAK SOLUTION TO APPEAL TO MAGIC CRYSTALS.
Just don't do it - never ever. Please.

Life Support

 Our 'box in space' would be no good if the crew couldn't    live in it. Whatever you do, do not forget to allow plenty of space for    life-support.
Consider that your crew needs:        (1) atmosphere         - the right mix of gases
-        scrubbing of gasses exhaled by the crew
- filtering of air-borne        particles
- maintenance of correct atmospheric pressure
-        atmosphere containment shields (at hangar portals      etc)(2) temperature &      humidity control
(3) protection from radiation sources, internal &      external
(4) correctly adjusted gravity
(5) light
(6)      waste-management: recycling and expulsion
(7) water         - every carbon-based lifeform needs        clean water
- humans need several litres per day, other species        may need even more
- water is heavy, 1 litre is 1 kilogram, so        try not to store a few hundred tonnes of water off-centre!
- consider        the need for water recycling systems These are not trivial matters. To keep dozens (let alone    tens of thousands) of sentients functioning in an enclosed space for long    periods requires a LOT of life-support. Vast reserves of atmospheric gasses,    giant scrubbing filters and a ventillation system that runs through the entire    vessel and can operate separately in independent zones. Huge tanks of water    and extensive plumbing systems throughout the vessel. Recycling systems    capable of extending the life of water & atmosphere supplies.     Certain functions are probably only possible in    real-space, remember that StarDestroyers usually dump their garbage    before jumping to hyperspace.    

 [distasteful as the subject is, do    not forget that living beings generate a LOT of waste ... provide toilets and    washrooms as well as garbage disposal systems]    

 Remember, starships operate in space. You cannot    just pop the hatch and let in some fresh air! You can't pause at a mountain    stream and collect some water!    

 The air and water circulation systems will spread    through the entire ship, like blood vessels. Consider these when you decide    how thick your walls and floors are!
Just as an aside, you may (or may    not) wish to make sure your ventillation shafts are large enough (or not) for    spies, alien monsters and rebels to hide in!    

 You cannot FILL a fishtank with    fish or they'll die of oxygen starvation. The rule of thumb is "one inch of    fish per square inch of surface area" (or something like that) and your    starship should be similar. Each sentient inhabitant needs FAR more 'space'    than just their bunk! Large StarWars structures (ships, bases, cities etc) are    punctuated with HUGE ventillation shafts. These void spaces are    not just for looks ... they are vitally necessary for air circulation,    temperature & humidity control and also can serve as bulkheads for    dividing ship sections, and providing accessways for intraship travel systems    (lift-tubes) and infrastructure (water etc).    
 

 Decks - the 3rd    Dimension

 Deckplan Syndrome    #2: "inadequate headroom" (what third dimension?)     Probably the single biggest flaw in the worst of    the WEG-type deckplans is to ignore the 3rd dimension.
WEG artists had a    disturbing habit of looking at the top-down sillouhette of the entire ship and    simply drawing in lots of 'stuff' without even pausing to see if there was    actually any habitable space there AT ALL. In one notable example, one WEG    plan placed rooms in an area of radiator fins! (an area barely 1m    thick!)    

 Please remember that ships have more than two    dimensions! Don't "do a WEG" and place rooms in places so shallow that even a    Jawa couldn't stand up (as they did with the Millennium Falcon!). But    this can work FOR you as well as against you - remember that you can store    quite a bit of the ships infrastructure (ventillation etc) in 'bulges' and    'boxes' above and below the habitable decks (again. look at the Millennium    Falcon)    

 How many decks can you cram into a ship? Well    that's a good question! In a 20th Century earth naval vessel you'd be lucky to    find decks much more than 2m high at best (often much less, especially in    lower decks). In StarWars vessels however, the decks seem to be quite    generously high. There is a psychological basis for not making your crew feel    too claustrophobic over long voyages! However, just by trimming deck height by    10%-15%, you may fit an extra deck or two into the ship, which will allow for    more equipment, storage, accommodation etc.    

 The Millennium Falcon ring corridor is a    tube 2.5m in diameter. After you fill in a section for the flat deck flooring,    you are left with doorways just on 1.8m (6') high and a maximum height of    2.15m at the apex of the tube. The headroom is quite a bit more in the forward    hold, whose floor is sunk slightly, and whose ceiling resides under the 'upper    jaw' of the ships mandible systems.    

   
Image cropped - dimensions of ring corridor


 


      In a single deck ship, be sure to locate the deck    more-or-less in the middle of the ship (vertically that is) to maximise    habitable space. This is a real problem for analysts of the Millennium    Falcon as its cockpit is vertically "off centre".    

   


 Image cropped - Millenium Falcon deck layout


      In larger ships, you need to calculate how many    decks there are before you can generate separate deck-outlines for    each.    

    (1) Decide how thick your outer hull is,      and how close the pressurized habitable shell is to that outer hull.
(2)      Decide how high your headroom will be on each deck (I'd say 2m-2.25m is a      good figure for large vessels)         - not all decks have to be the same        height. Non-living areas (maintenance etc) need not have full headroom.        Certain 'recreational' areas may have considerably MORE headroom.
-        there is no rule against 'californian split-level' ships ... do not be        afraid to make your crew go up a small ramp or a couple of steps if        necessary, although good design of the ship should minimise this        need.(3) Figure out how 'thick'      the deck floors must be. Consider:         - needs of structural rigidity
-        conduits for communications, lighting, ventillation, plumbing etc
-        accessways for maintenance of these 'tweendeck' systems.
- (judging by        external lights, Star Destroyer decks are about 3m apart ... probably 2.5m        headroom and 0.5m of "floor")
- interdeck spacing in StarDestroyer        command towers is between two and five metres, but in some areas the        lights are more closely spaced, suggesting multi-level compartments or        perhaps vertical travel spaces. Remember also to allow for certain areas that may be more    than one deck high, such as hangars, engine space, cargo holds etc.     Also remember to plan for vertical movement.    How many lift-tubes will the ship have ... are they in useful locations? Are    there ladders and/or stairwell or ramps (for wheeled droids and heavy goods    etc) in case of power failure to the lift-tube systems?    

 In truly massive vessels you may wish to use travel    tubes that can go vertically AND horizontally. These will be moving through    canyon like gaps between decks and walls (bulkheads). These systems can take    advantage of the VOID SPACES you will have to provide (for ventillation) in    very large ships (like StarDestroyers and the DeathStar). [think of the travel    tubes inside the ship Excalibur from the Babylon5 spin-off series,    CRUSADE]    

 In a humorous aside: in the marvel StarWars comics    there was an incident where the Imperial Admiral Giel punished a crew member    (for not wearing his cap, or something equally trivial) by making him run five    laps of the ship ... somewhere around one hundred kilometres in that case!!    
 

 Corridors vs.    Rooms

 Deckplan Syndrome #4:    "more corridors than rooms"     Once you have derived your outlines for each deck,    and deducted space for engines/power, life support etc you can start the    creative task of "populating" the interior.    

 REMEMBER: the purpose of the habitable space is to    have rooms for people, cargo, machinery etc. Do not waste valuable interior    space (and by now you must realize it is hard to come by!) filling your ship    with endless corridors that go no-where useful!    

 Science Fiction series and movies tend to show more    corridors than rooms because it is CHEAP to built a few sections of "generic    corridor" than to fabricate dozens of individual rooms. Further, on screen,    corridors have LOTS of bends and corners because that means the set-builders    only need to make a stretch a few metres long! YOU however, are designing a    "real" ship, not a TV show about one, so do not fall for these traps!    

 Corridors serve one main function ONLY: to allow    access to otherwise 'closed' spaces.    

 Whilst they can ALSO serve as part of the    ventillation system (and other circulatory infrastructures such as plumbing)    etc, you should be trying to MINIMISE the amount of corridors in your ship at    all costs! Countless fan-plans have fallen into this trap. Perhaps the worst    would be the old 'Selyanna" class Millennium Falcon plans.    

 Not all corridors are the same size. Crawlways into    the engine bay will be probably smaller than the main 'central avenue' through    heavily populated areas, or the oversized "cargo loading" corridors near the    hold.    

 It's a bit like a geometric "Minimum surface area"    problem, or the old "five-colour" problem with maps ...    

 A popular StarWars Commentator offered this summary    of the problem:    

    A ship is divided into      functional space and access space.  We try to maximise the ratio of      functional space to access space.  However there are constraints:      repairmen, service droids etc must be able to fit through the access      space.  Corridors need to be straight and have [at most] gentle curves      to maximise the directness of access, and to ensure that big pieces of      hardware/cargo/whatever aren't jammed in corners.  All functional      spaces must be directly or indirectly connected to access    space.    
Life Support

 Our 'box in space' would be no good if the crew couldn't    live in it. Whatever you do, do not forget to allow plenty of space for    life-support.
Consider that your crew needs:        (1) atmosphere         - the right mix of gases
-        scrubbing of gasses exhaled by the crew
- filtering of air-borne        particles
- maintenance of correct atmospheric pressure
-        atmosphere containment shields (at hangar portals      etc)(2) temperature &      humidity control
(3) protection from radiation sources, internal &      external
(4) correctly adjusted gravity
(5) light
(6)      waste-management: recycling and expulsion
(7) water         - every carbon-based lifeform needs        clean water
- humans need several litres per day, other species        may need even more
- water is heavy, 1 litre is 1 kilogram, so        try not to store a few hundred tonnes of water off-centre!
- consider        the need for water recycling systems These are not trivial matters. To keep dozens (let alone    tens of thousands) of sentients functioning in an enclosed space for long    periods requires a LOT of life-support. Vast reserves of atmospheric gasses,    giant scrubbing filters and a ventillation system that runs through the entire    vessel and can operate separately in independent zones. Huge tanks of water    and extensive plumbing systems throughout the vessel. Recycling systems    capable of extending the life of water & atmosphere supplies.     Certain functions are probably only possible in    real-space, remember that StarDestroyers usually dump their garbage    before jumping to hyperspace.    

 [distasteful as the subject is, do    not forget that living beings generate a LOT of waste ... provide toilets and    washrooms as well as garbage disposal systems]    

 Remember, starships operate in space. You cannot    just pop the hatch and let in some fresh air! You can't pause at a mountain    stream and collect some water!    

 The air and water circulation systems will spread    through the entire ship, like blood vessels. Consider these when you decide    how thick your walls and floors are!
Just as an aside, you may (or may    not) wish to make sure your ventillation shafts are large enough (or not) for    spies, alien monsters and rebels to hide in!    

 You cannot FILL a fishtank with    fish or they'll die of oxygen starvation. The rule of thumb is "one inch of    fish per square inch of surface area" (or something like that) and your    starship should be similar. Each sentient inhabitant needs FAR more 'space'    than just their bunk! Large StarWars structures (ships, bases, cities etc) are    punctuated with HUGE ventillation shafts. These void spaces are    not just for looks ... they are vitally necessary for air circulation,    temperature & humidity control and also can serve as bulkheads for    dividing ship sections, and providing accessways for intraship travel systems    (lift-tubes) and infrastructure (water etc).    
 

 Decks - the 3rd    Dimension

 Deckplan Syndrome    #2: "inadequate headroom" (what third dimension?)     Probably the single biggest flaw in the worst of    the WEG-type deckplans is to ignore the 3rd dimension.
WEG artists had a    disturbing habit of looking at the top-down sillouhette of the entire ship and    simply drawing in lots of 'stuff' without even pausing to see if there was    actually any habitable space there AT ALL. In one notable example, one WEG    plan placed rooms in an area of radiator fins! (an area barely 1m    thick!)    

 Please remember that ships have more than two    dimensions! Don't "do a WEG" and place rooms in places so shallow that even a    Jawa couldn't stand up (as they did with the Millennium Falcon!). But    this can work FOR you as well as against you - remember that you can store    quite a bit of the ships infrastructure (ventillation etc) in 'bulges' and    'boxes' above and below the habitable decks (again. look at the Millennium    Falcon)    

 How many decks can you cram into a ship? Well    that's a good question! In a 20th Century earth naval vessel you'd be lucky to    find decks much more than 2m high at best (often much less, especially in    lower decks). In StarWars vessels however, the decks seem to be quite    generously high. There is a psychological basis for not making your crew feel    too claustrophobic over long voyages! However, just by trimming deck height by    10%-15%, you may fit an extra deck or two into the ship, which will allow for    more equipment, storage, accommodation etc.    

 The Millennium Falcon ring corridor is a    tube 2.5m in diameter. After you fill in a section for the flat deck flooring,    you are left with doorways just on 1.8m (6') high and a maximum height of    2.15m at the apex of the tube. The headroom is quite a bit more in the forward    hold, whose floor is sunk slightly, and whose ceiling resides under the 'upper    jaw' of the ships mandible systems.    

   
Image cropped - dimensions of ring corridor


 


      In a single deck ship, be sure to locate the deck    more-or-less in the middle of the ship (vertically that is) to maximise    habitable space. This is a real problem for analysts of the Millennium    Falcon as its cockpit is vertically "off centre".    

   


 Image cropped - Millenium Falcon deck layout


      In larger ships, you need to calculate how many    decks there are before you can generate separate deck-outlines for    each.    

    (1) Decide how thick your outer hull is,      and how close the pressurized habitable shell is to that outer hull.
(2)      Decide how high your headroom will be on each deck (I'd say 2m-2.25m is a      good figure for large vessels)         - not all decks have to be the same        height. Non-living areas (maintenance etc) need not have full headroom.        Certain 'recreational' areas may have considerably MORE headroom.
-        there is no rule against 'californian split-level' ships ... do not be        afraid to make your crew go up a small ramp or a couple of steps if        necessary, although good design of the ship should minimise this        need.(3) Figure out how 'thick'      the deck floors must be. Consider:         - needs of structural rigidity
-        conduits for communications, lighting, ventillation, plumbing etc
-        accessways for maintenance of these 'tweendeck' systems.
- (judging by        external lights, Star Destroyer decks are about 3m apart ... probably 2.5m        headroom and 0.5m of "floor")
- interdeck spacing in StarDestroyer        command towers is between two and five metres, but in some areas the        lights are more closely spaced, suggesting multi-level compartments or        perhaps vertical travel spaces. Remember also to allow for certain areas that may be more    than one deck high, such as hangars, engine space, cargo holds etc.     Also remember to plan for vertical movement.    How many lift-tubes will the ship have ... are they in useful locations? Are    there ladders and/or stairwell or ramps (for wheeled droids and heavy goods    etc) in case of power failure to the lift-tube systems?    

 In truly massive vessels you may wish to use travel    tubes that can go vertically AND horizontally. These will be moving through    canyon like gaps between decks and walls (bulkheads). These systems can take    advantage of the VOID SPACES you will have to provide (for ventillation) in    very large ships (like StarDestroyers and the DeathStar). [think of the travel    tubes inside the ship Excalibur from the Babylon5 spin-off series,    CRUSADE]    

 In a humorous aside: in the marvel StarWars comics    there was an incident where the Imperial Admiral Giel punished a crew member    (for not wearing his cap, or something equally trivial) by making him run five    laps of the ship ... somewhere around one hundred kilometres in that case!!    
 

 Corridors vs.    Rooms

 Deckplan Syndrome #4:    "more corridors than rooms"     Once you have derived your outlines for each deck,    and deducted space for engines/power, life support etc you can start the    creative task of "populating" the interior.    

 REMEMBER: the purpose of the habitable space is to    have rooms for people, cargo, machinery etc. Do not waste valuable interior    space (and by now you must realize it is hard to come by!) filling your ship    with endless corridors that go no-where useful!    

 Science Fiction series and movies tend to show more    corridors than rooms because it is CHEAP to built a few sections of "generic    corridor" than to fabricate dozens of individual rooms. Further, on screen,    corridors have LOTS of bends and corners because that means the set-builders    only need to make a stretch a few metres long! YOU however, are designing a    "real" ship, not a TV show about one, so do not fall for these traps!    

 Corridors serve one main function ONLY: to allow    access to otherwise 'closed' spaces.    

 Whilst they can ALSO serve as part of the    ventillation system (and other circulatory infrastructures such as plumbing)    etc, you should be trying to MINIMISE the amount of corridors in your ship at    all costs! Countless fan-plans have fallen into this trap. Perhaps the worst    would be the old 'Selyanna" class Millennium Falcon plans.    

 Not all corridors are the same size. Crawlways into    the engine bay will be probably smaller than the main 'central avenue' through    heavily populated areas, or the oversized "cargo loading" corridors near the    hold.    

 It's a bit like a geometric "Minimum surface area"    problem, or the old "five-colour" problem with maps ...    

 A popular StarWars Commentator offered this summary    of the problem:    

    A ship is divided into      functional space and access space.  We try to maximise the ratio of      functional space to access space.  However there are constraints:      repairmen, service droids etc must be able to fit through the access      space.  Corridors need to be straight and have [at most] gentle curves      to maximise the directness of access, and to ensure that big pieces of      hardware/cargo/whatever aren't jammed in corners.  All functional      spaces must be directly or indirectly connected to access    space.    
Life Support

 Our 'box in space' would be no good if the crew couldn't    live in it. Whatever you do, do not forget to allow plenty of space for    life-support.
Consider that your crew needs:        (1) atmosphere         - the right mix of gases
-        scrubbing of gasses exhaled by the crew
- filtering of air-borne        particles
- maintenance of correct atmospheric pressure
-        atmosphere containment shields (at hangar portals      etc)(2) temperature &      humidity control
(3) protection from radiation sources, internal &      external
(4) correctly adjusted gravity
(5) light
(6)      waste-management: recycling and expulsion
(7) water         - every carbon-based lifeform needs        clean water
- humans need several litres per day, other species        may need even more
- water is heavy, 1 litre is 1 kilogram, so        try not to store a few hundred tonnes of water off-centre!
- consider        the need for water recycling systems These are not trivial matters. To keep dozens (let alone    tens of thousands) of sentients functioning in an enclosed space for long    periods requires a LOT of life-support. Vast reserves of atmospheric gasses,    giant scrubbing filters and a ventillation system that runs through the entire    vessel and can operate separately in independent zones. Huge tanks of water    and extensive plumbing systems throughout the vessel. Recycling systems    capable of extending the life of water & atmosphere supplies.     Certain functions are probably only possible in    real-space, remember that StarDestroyers usually dump their garbage    before jumping to hyperspace.    

 [distasteful as the subject is, do    not forget that living beings generate a LOT of waste ... provide toilets and    washrooms as well as garbage disposal systems]    

 Remember, starships operate in space. You cannot    just pop the hatch and let in some fresh air! You can't pause at a mountain    stream and collect some water!    

 The air and water circulation systems will spread    through the entire ship, like blood vessels. Consider these when you decide    how thick your walls and floors are!
Just as an aside, you may (or may    not) wish to make sure your ventillation shafts are large enough (or not) for    spies, alien monsters and rebels to hide in!    

 You cannot FILL a fishtank with    fish or they'll die of oxygen starvation. The rule of thumb is "one inch of    fish per square inch of surface area" (or something like that) and your    starship should be similar. Each sentient inhabitant needs FAR more 'space'    than just their bunk! Large StarWars structures (ships, bases, cities etc) are    punctuated with HUGE ventillation shafts. These void spaces are    not just for looks ... they are vitally necessary for air circulation,    temperature & humidity control and also can serve as bulkheads for    dividing ship sections, and providing accessways for intraship travel systems    (lift-tubes) and infrastructure (water etc).    
 

 Decks - the 3rd    Dimension

 Deckplan Syndrome    #2: "inadequate headroom" (what third dimension?)     Probably the single biggest flaw in the worst of    the WEG-type deckplans is to ignore the 3rd dimension.
WEG artists had a    disturbing habit of looking at the top-down sillouhette of the entire ship and    simply drawing in lots of 'stuff' without even pausing to see if there was    actually any habitable space there AT ALL. In one notable example, one WEG    plan placed rooms in an area of radiator fins! (an area barely 1m    thick!)    

 Please remember that ships have more than two    dimensions! Don't "do a WEG" and place rooms in places so shallow that even a    Jawa couldn't stand up (as they did with the Millennium Falcon!). But    this can work FOR you as well as against you - remember that you can store    quite a bit of the ships infrastructure (ventillation etc) in 'bulges' and    'boxes' above and below the habitable decks (again. look at the Millennium    Falcon)    

 How many decks can you cram into a ship? Well    that's a good question! In a 20th Century earth naval vessel you'd be lucky to    find decks much more than 2m high at best (often much less, especially in    lower decks). In StarWars vessels however, the decks seem to be quite    generously high. There is a psychological basis for not making your crew feel    too claustrophobic over long voyages! However, just by trimming deck height by    10%-15%, you may fit an extra deck or two into the ship, which will allow for    more equipment, storage, accommodation etc.    

 The Millennium Falcon ring corridor is a    tube 2.5m in diameter. After you fill in a section for the flat deck flooring,    you are left with doorways just on 1.8m (6') high and a maximum height of    2.15m at the apex of the tube. The headroom is quite a bit more in the forward    hold, whose floor is sunk slightly, and whose ceiling resides under the 'upper    jaw' of the ships mandible systems.    

   
Image cropped - dimensions of ring corridor


 


      In a single deck ship, be sure to locate the deck    more-or-less in the middle of the ship (vertically that is) to maximise    habitable space. This is a real problem for analysts of the Millennium    Falcon as its cockpit is vertically "off centre".    

   


 Image cropped - Millenium Falcon deck layout


      In larger ships, you need to calculate how many    decks there are before you can generate separate deck-outlines for    each.    

    (1) Decide how thick your outer hull is,      and how close the pressurized habitable shell is to that outer hull.
(2)      Decide how high your headroom will be on each deck (I'd say 2m-2.25m is a      good figure for large vessels)         - not all decks have to be the same        height. Non-living areas (maintenance etc) need not have full headroom.        Certain 'recreational' areas may have considerably MORE headroom.
-        there is no rule against 'californian split-level' ships ... do not be        afraid to make your crew go up a small ramp or a couple of steps if        necessary, although good design of the ship should minimise this        need.(3) Figure out how 'thick'      the deck floors must be. Consider:         - needs of structural rigidity
-        conduits for communications, lighting, ventillation, plumbing etc
-        accessways for maintenance of these 'tweendeck' systems.
- (judging by        external lights, Star Destroyer decks are about 3m apart ... probably 2.5m        headroom and 0.5m of "floor")
- interdeck spacing in StarDestroyer        command towers is between two and five metres, but in some areas the        lights are more closely spaced, suggesting multi-level compartments or        perhaps vertical travel spaces. Remember also to allow for certain areas that may be more    than one deck high, such as hangars, engine space, cargo holds etc.     Also remember to plan for vertical movement.    How many lift-tubes will the ship have ... are they in useful locations? Are    there ladders and/or stairwell or ramps (for wheeled droids and heavy goods    etc) in case of power failure to the lift-tube systems?    

 In truly massive vessels you may wish to use travel    tubes that can go vertically AND horizontally. These will be moving through    canyon like gaps between decks and walls (bulkheads). These systems can take    advantage of the VOID SPACES you will have to provide (for ventillation) in    very large ships (like StarDestroyers and the DeathStar). [think of the travel    tubes inside the ship Excalibur from the Babylon5 spin-off series,    CRUSADE]    

 In a humorous aside: in the marvel StarWars comics    there was an incident where the Imperial Admiral Giel punished a crew member    (for not wearing his cap, or something equally trivial) by making him run five    laps of the ship ... somewhere around one hundred kilometres in that case!!    
 

 Corridors vs.    Rooms

 Deckplan Syndrome #4:    "more corridors than rooms"     Once you have derived your outlines for each deck,    and deducted space for engines/power, life support etc you can start the    creative task of "populating" the interior.    

 REMEMBER: the purpose of the habitable space is to    have rooms for people, cargo, machinery etc. Do not waste valuable interior    space (and by now you must realize it is hard to come by!) filling your ship    with endless corridors that go no-where useful!    

 Science Fiction series and movies tend to show more    corridors than rooms because it is CHEAP to built a few sections of "generic    corridor" than to fabricate dozens of individual rooms. Further, on screen,    corridors have LOTS of bends and corners because that means the set-builders    only need to make a stretch a few metres long! YOU however, are designing a    "real" ship, not a TV show about one, so do not fall for these traps!    

 Corridors serve one main function ONLY: to allow    access to otherwise 'closed' spaces.    

 Whilst they can ALSO serve as part of the    ventillation system (and other circulatory infrastructures such as plumbing)    etc, you should be trying to MINIMISE the amount of corridors in your ship at    all costs! Countless fan-plans have fallen into this trap. Perhaps the worst    would be the old 'Selyanna" class Millennium Falcon plans.    

 Not all corridors are the same size. Crawlways into    the engine bay will be probably smaller than the main 'central avenue' through    heavily populated areas, or the oversized "cargo loading" corridors near the    hold.    

 It's a bit like a geometric "Minimum surface area"    problem, or the old "five-colour" problem with maps ...    

 A popular StarWars Commentator offered this summary    of the problem:    

    A ship is divided into      functional space and access space.  We try to maximise the ratio of      functional space to access space.  However there are constraints:      repairmen, service droids etc must be able to fit through the access      space.  Corridors need to be straight and have [at most] gentle curves      to maximise the directness of access, and to ensure that big pieces of      hardware/cargo/whatever aren't jammed in corners.  All functional      spaces must be directly or indirectly connected to access    space.    

Who Goes Where?

 It may seem obvious, but it needs to be said:     Not every person on board a ship needs (or is    allowed) access to ALL parts of the vessel. Passengers on liners rarely see    into the engines, or the bridge! In large military vessels, crew can spend    their entire service careers and never see more than their own assigned    'section' of the ship. (A gentleman of my acquaintance who served in the Royal    Australian Navy was amazed when I took him on a tour of the HMAS    Vampire (a destroyer berthed permanently at the Australian National    Maritime Museum where I once worked) ... even though he had served for years    onboard her ill-fated sister ship HMAS Voyager he had NEVER been into    the upper decks of what he termed "officer country". Crewmen assigned to the    forward sections of a submarine may never see the aft areas, as they are not    permitted to pass through the command section amidships unless with good    reason.    

 Crew onboard a monstrous vessel, such as a    StarDestroyer (let alone a DeathStar) probably couldn't live long enough to    visit all parts of the ship!    

 Each 'section' (however you decide to break it up)    should have somewhat independent infrastructure - its own stores, food, bunks,    entertainment, comms, escape systems etc.    

 "Watertight Compartments"

 Ocean going vessels usually have their lower decks divided    into individually sealable sections, each constituting a "watertight    compartment". (Those of you who suffered through the soppy romance film    Titanic may recall that the compartments on that ship were not fully    sealed, but were like a series of open topped "buckets". Once the ship had a    certain number flooded, she tilted so far that the water spilled-over from one    to the other - and that is why she sank).     In a military vessel (such as HMAS Vampire)    the lower decks are so securely divided that there is no access whatsoever    between them. Once below the 'weather deck' you must climb through a small    submarine-like hatch in the floor to the lower decks. You are now in a small    section of hull (perhaps only one sixth or eighth of the overall length) that    is several decks deep. To move to the next section along, one is obliged to    climb all the way back up to the weather deck, travel forward or aft to the    next hatchway, and then back down! To stand way down on the keel plates of a    warship is a sobering experience .. when you realize just how much metal you    must crawl through to escape if the ship were to start sinking!    

 Now of course unlike ocean-going ships, starships    do not (usually) float in water, but they ARE in danger of losing their    atmospheres just the same. You should consider (especially for large military    vessels) dividing the outer areas (those near to the outer hull) into sealable    sections, each with its own infrastructure and escape systems. (Not just the    "bottom" but the entire 'outer layer' of habitable space ... like the skin of    an orange) The only "broadway" corridors running the length of the ship should    be either BETWEEN these sections or in the centre of the ship, well away from    the outer hull.    

 These voids are also necessary for moving    large-scale components through the ship. Remember that in SW:TESB the    StarDestroyer Avenger dumped "garbage" than consisted of units often    larger than the Millennium Falcon. These units were moved INTERNALLY    from their place of origin, to the waste-port located at the base of the    command tower. You don't want to have to rip a ship apart in order to be able    to replace or install a large component.    

 This sectioning can be instituted as part of a    "modularity" in ship design - which can be an aid to both construction, and    habitation. You may feel it is wasteful to duplicate so many systems    throughout a ship, but that is exactly what happens in biology, and with good    reason! Redundancy equals survivability!    
 

 Symmetry

 It is something of a matter of individual taste I am sure, but I tend    to believe that the internal layout of a ship should be more-or-less    symmetrical. It appeals to my sense of order I suppose, but it also serves    several useful functions:        (1) it makes the interior of the ship      easier to navigate, especially in emergency circumstances. You may be      trapped outside your usual section, but you can still 'guess' where the exit      should be etc.      (2) it assists in balancing mass - you don't want      all your water storage tanks etc on one side - places unreasonable strain on      the hull and drive systems and artificial grav    systems!

 You see, the interior    layout of an artificial environment is a form of    Human-Machine-Interface, in a way, no different to the dialogue boxes    of your software!
Just as they are designed (or supposed to be) with an    eye to good design principles, so should a ships internal layout. The interior    should be LEARNABLE, PREDICTABLE, FLEXIBLE, ROBUST and CONSISTENT.    
   Bridge - command &    control

 Probably the first thing everyone    draws into their plans is the bridge. After all, its the part of the ship that    one always gets to see on TV isn't it?
But what many people do not know is    that military vessels, and medium-to-large vessels of almost any sort have    more than one bridge!     A 20thCentury earth naval battleship has a    navigation bridge, the 'classic' bridge with the windows and the ships' wheel.    But in times of battle the ship is actually run not from there, but from an    armoured control room called the "conning tower" (OK - hands up everyone who    thought that only submarines have conning towers?). You will also find small    'bridge-like' rooms for gunnery directing, for lookouts etc etc. There will be    secondary and even tertiary steering rooms (often buried in the armoured parts    of the ship) in case the main ones are damaged. If all else fails, the ship    can be steered from right aft, at the rudder itself! remember also that    special functions of the vessel require extra levels of control, aircraft    carriers must also have air-traffic control bridges and cargo vessels may have    sub-bridges for the loading and unloading of cargo. Even the (dare I say it?)    humble freighter Millennium Falcon had secondary control systems    available from the navigation/tech station in its forward hold.    

 Many associated systems are located near the    "bridge" ... communications, navigation, chart rooms etc. The Senior officers    quarters are usually not too far from their respective stations. As    battleships evolved, this collection became a 'command-tower', not just a    single 'bridge room'. This whole structure was the "nerve centre" of the    entire vessel with communications and control linkages to all sections. The    sensors and comms arrays were also often clustered near this command tower for    obvious reasons. The Corellian Corvette collects its command and control    systems into an entire sub-hull, the infamous "hammer head". The YT-1300 and    variants have their control systems complex off-set to allow for central cargo    loading facilities, you could seal off the cockpit from the rest of the vessel    altogether. Gallofree transports have elevated "observation" bridges as well    as internal bridges and probably cargo-loading bridges on the underside near    the ramps. (think of the small dedicated "away-team" bridge used by the    Science Officer of the Commercial Towing Vehicle Nostromo to    co-ordinate surface outings in the film Alien)    

 StarDestroyers have a command tower so immense and    complex that it is the size of a 20thCentury aircraft carrier and sits above    the main hull of the ship! But they also have any number of tiny "control    points" throughout the vessel ... there is an air-traffic control bridge    inside the hangar bay, there are small "gunnery bridges" near each of the    major batteries (as seen in SW:ANH "look there goes another one!" "hold your    fire..."). I am sure that the entire ship could be run from emergency control    systems located deep inside the main hull, in case the bridge tower should    suffer a cataclysmic accident (such as running into a large asteroid!).    

 By The Way: There is no law    requiring the Captain to have a chair in the center of the bridge    !!!    

 So, do not put all your eggs in one basket when you    build your bridge! Its not just a "kool room" where your hero characters sit -    its just part of an entire complex! Your own brain (I hope) is not just your    eyes, they're just the visible part of a much larger system.    
 

 Weapons

 Deckplan Syndrome #3: "tacking on extra    weapons anywhere that looks cool"     The biggest misunderstanding of all has to be the    subject of weapons. Fans (and WEG) tend to just bolt-on as many weapons as    they can - declare the ship to be "kool" and "awesome" and walk away    satisfied.    

 "Hey dewd, I just designed the kewlest most awesome    fighter in the galaxy! ... the [randomn letter]-wing, with way more weapons    than ANYTHING else!"    

 *sheesh* ... if it was that easy, don't you think    we'd see things like that flying around now?    

 NO - weapons systems are BIG. Think ice-berg. The    gun turret is just the tip. Behind the scenes are layers and layers of    infrastructure.    

    - Weapons needs MASSIVE power feeds (and      "ammo" - whatever that consists of in the StarWars galaxy)
- they need      solid and rigid bracing as their recoil and just the stress of their rapid      movements place immense strain on the hull
- they need targetting      systems, control systems, cooling systems Consider this: a WW2 battleship displaced about 20,000 tonnes. It was    the size of a football stadium and needed 1000 crew ... all just to get about    9~12 largish cannons from place to place. Every other system on the ship is    subordinate to that. A battleship is a gun-platform first and foremost. If it    was possible to move that kind of firepower around more cheaply and easily,    don't you think they'd have done it? A battleship turret is a massive    structure SIX STOREYS HIGH. We are *not* just talking about whipping out the    model glue and sticking some more guns on every flat spot of hull!     Earlier i suggested starting with drive systems    when you design. In a battleship however, they started with the guns, their    structure, power systems, command and comms, ammunition etc. Then the figured    how much mass that was, what sort of hull was needed to carry it - then power    systems, armour etc etc etc A battleship is a balancing act between firepower,    armour and speed (just like a battlefield tank!) and you cannot max-out any    one of those without costing elsewhere.    

 Deckplan Syndrome #5: "space for    fighter/shuttle hangars"    

 If you're designing a carrier, the rule is similar.    Figure the space needed for ALL functions of carrying ships (fuel, training,    maintenance, spare-parts, etc etc) then add engines etc around it. Go look up    the cross-section of any aircraft carrier and see just HOW MUCH of those huge    ships is just for the fighters. You simply CANNOT stack a few fighters in a    spare bit of hull and call a ship a carrier - the EU has been particularly bad    in this regard!    

 It should be recognised however that a key feature    of terrestrial aircraft carriers is the need for long flight-decks for    take-offs by heavily armed warplanes. Aircraft carriers using V/STOL or helo    aircraft are able to be built considerably smaller. Most StarWars fighters    have just such V/STOL capacity as we have seen onscreen. However this does not    mean you can just "rack 'em up" ... regardless of flightdeck length, aircraft    carriers require approximately 1000 tons of ship PER FIGHTER! (this reduces to    about 700 tons per aircraft for helicopters).    

 Looking at earth, small multirole carriers such as    the Soviet Kiev or the British Invincible provide excellent    "bang for buck" compared to massive US nuclear carriers, however the big    carriers are faster and can deploy a more significant strike capacity once on    station. All carriers however require significant escort screens, they    represent an enourmous target!

 Supplies /    Fuel

 Big ship = big crew = big appetite.    You will need to carry massive amounts of food and drink. Multiple galleys    (kitchens) and mess halls (dining rooms) with massive crews of chefs and    stewards. This all adds to the mass of the ship too! Add to that medical    supplies, uniforms, bedding, tools, raw materials etc etc etc. A ship has to    be a self-sufficient city for the duration of its voyage.     Now, no-one has quite solved the riddle "what do    StarWars ships run on" - but they must run on something and you need a    LOT of space to store it. Think about the risk of explosion and/or battle    damage, also ease of refueling and the risk of leakage into habitable areas of    the ship.    
 

 Droids

 StarWars has one great advantage we lack here and now. Droids.     Automated crew members do not place as big a strain    on life-support, they can function 24 hours a day (if they are maintained) and    do not go on strike or complain about a boring lifestyle. Furthermore, as we    saw in SW:TPM, they can be sent outside into vacuum rapidly to attend to    external damage.    

 Small droids do not require as much headroom or    living space as human crew. They can be packed tightly into droid holds    (again, as seen in SW:TPM) and deployed as needed.    

 Essentially, droids are an extension of the ship    itself, and constitute its prime means of 'self-repair'. Consider having a few    droid holds in strategic parts of your ship, with a compliment of appropriate    droid models never too far from where they may be needed. Remember though that    nothing is free - droids need constant maintenance and repair and draw a hefty    amount of power from the ships systems. Allow for spare-parts and repair bays    and several sentient engineers to oversee the droid crew. You will also need    quite a few "human-cyborg relations" models to facilitate liaison between the    sentient crew and automated  inhabitants of the ship!    

 Some systems of the ship (even one as small as the    Millennium Falcon) may well have "droid-level" intelligence of their    own. Fighters, which often host an astromech droid, probably lack this    capability - the droid IS the artificial intelligence of the ship.    

 An important issue: droids do not need to be saved    in an emergency ... they just drift away and power down - you can find them    later if you need to! The more droids, the less 'live' crew you need to plan    for in your escape systems.    
 

 Escape Systems

 Passenger liners are required to have lifeboat capacity for    all onboard. Military vessels are not primarily designed to be escaped    from and yet they do carry escape systems. Military vessels often carry    far more crew than similarly sized commercial ships (dozens or even hundreds    as times as many) and simply cannot provide luxurious escape pods for    everyone. Most the escape systems in a warship are inflatable emergency    rafts.     Escape pods for two to four crew (with limited    travel capacity) of the sort seen onboard the Corellian Corvette are about    five or six metres long and about two to three metres wide, they reside in    launch tubes a shade wider and longer than this, with airlock entry doors and    launch equipment. Inflatable short-term emergency rafts for one or two crew    would probably be stored as deflated packages of just two or three cubic    metres, but they must be stored near some sort of air-lock.    

 The same principle applies to starships. The best    defense is to design a ship NOT to go down at all ... but you must    allow for mechanisms of escape should the worst happen (or no one would ever    want to serve in your ships!). Each section of the interior should have some    form of escape route planned and clearly marked.    

 Consider having emergency lighting and 'pop-out'    hand-holds in walls, floor and ceiling in case the gravity systems    fail.    

 if you find you just cannot fit enough escape pods    in your ship, then perhaps you have too many crew! Rethink the function and    scale of your ship!    
 

 Deconstructing Canon    Ships

 Trying to figure out how "real"    StarWars ships are arranged internally is a very very difficult thing to do.    
All of the ideas and rules outlined above must be kept in mind at all    times.
The following steps may help:        (1) establish precisely the scale      of the vessel
(2) determine how many decks it may have
(3) identify      gross external features         - radiator fins
- engine outlets        
- escape pods
- hangars
- command areas
- weapons        pods(4) establish the overall      FUNCTION of the vessel and use that to ascertain the key design      constraint         - cargo capacity OR
- major        weapons systems OR
- passenger capacity OR
- carrier        capacity(5) outline the      sillouhettes for each deck
(6) place major systems (engines etc)      according to clues from external features All this can help, but you'll still be left with problems. If the film    has left you with some internal footage, you are obliged to try and make that    fit within the hull in a useful manner. The problem is that (as described    above) TV & movie studios tend to just invent endless corridors (watch the    opening sequences of SW:ANH!!!) and it can often be almost impossible to fit    these into the ship without either straying outside the external walls, or    simply filling the ship with corridors and no rooms!     Use the guidelines and ideas of this webpage and a    good deal of common-sense. If necessary, you may have to make some small    variation in the canonical evidence to make the ship "work" ... try to keep    these to a minimum.    
 

 Credits

 Special Thanks goes to: (in alphabetical order)     Mr Mike Horne - for a    thorough proofread and some good advice and ideas.
"SAXMAN" - for extra details of US Aircraft Carriers.    
Mr Aden Steinke - for valuable feedback and    suggestions.

Honestly, when I've needed deckplans, I've just drawn up something quick and basic and said "there."  While that looks like something that would be interesting to do, it's a lot of work for something that probably isn't going to be used in-game for very long.

Quote from: PremierYou were asking a player's permission to do something as a DM? :confused:
Seriously, if you want to use that deckplan because you like it, you just use it. And if she happens to recognise it, you just reply "Episode 1 alone had ...............

YES - I actually talk with my players and am friends with them when we are not in the middle of a game.

This was an informasl, mostly accidental brainstorming session aboput potential campaigns or game sessions.

I'm not a dicttor when just discussing things that I "might" do an upcoming game.
 Plus this goes to people saying I should ask her what she expecyts from it  - this goes to that.


 As for the rest? I know you were trying to be helpful - but a link spot to that web page would have worked  just well.

 Thank you tho,


- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarAs for the rest? I know you were trying to be helpful - but a link spot to that web page would have worked  just well.

As I mentioned up there, the website no longer exists. (And archive.org copies seem to be empty, too.)

Quote from: Zoran BekricThe more general response.

I've never really understood the desire to use an established setting, such as Star Wars, and not go with the canon. I mean, what's the point? Why not just do a space opera game and incorporate those bits of Star Wars you like?

The only reason to do Star Wars that I can see is:

• you don't have to create the details of the background yourself, you just take them from the source material;
• the players' familiarity with the source material lets them get into the world of the game that much more easily.

If someone is going to change big slabs of the background material, then they loose both of those advantages in return for no real gain

Well, in the case of Star Wars part of the issue is that there are different levels of 'canon'. First there are the movies, obviously: The original trilogy, and the prequels - which some people don't like because it didn't fit their established notions of what they should've been.

Then there's the myriad of comics, novels and videogames which make the so-called 'Expanded Universe', which have been created by a plethora of authors with different conceptions about the SW universe (many of them arguably straying too far of the core concept). As these are of uneven focus, consistency and quality, it's not uncommon for fans to like one particular contribution while disliking or even outright hating another.

In the end, the prospective Star Wars gamemaster needs to establish what constitutes canon for his game - by deciding what elements to keep, ignore, or discard from the pre-existing SW corpus.

Thanks Premier for that. I figured something like this was around and someone gallant, daring and noble might donate to the poor.

Quote from: RezendevousHonestly, when I've needed deckplans, I've just drawn up something quick and basic and said "there."  While that looks like something that would be interesting to do, it's a lot of work for something that probably isn't going to be used in-game for very long.

True, dat, but as someone whose favourite part of every space opera is the starships I could almost see creating deckplans for new or old Star Wars ships as something I might do now if I'm bored.

Quote from: AegyptoWell, in the case of Star Wars part of the issue is that there are different levels of 'canon'. First there are the movies, obviously: The original trilogy, and the prequels - which some people don't like because it didn't fit their established notions of what they should've been.

Then there's the myriad of comics, novels and videogames which make the so-called 'Expanded Universe', which have been created by a plethora of authors with different conceptions about the SW universe (many of them arguably straying too far of the core concept). As these are of uneven focus, consistency and quality, it's not uncommon for fans to like one particular contribution while disliking or even outright hating another.

In the end, the prospective Star Wars gamemaster needs to establish what constitutes canon for his game - by deciding what elements to keep, ignore, or discard from the pre-existing SW corpus.

Exactly. Which is why there is a point to "calling something Star Wars" even when you muck about with the canon, and it's not futile. Star Wars is not simply sticking faithfully to everything that happened in the movies. You're not better served with AnySpaceOperaSetting in it's place if you're changing things, because it still has meaning beyond some of the specific things that are within it.

If I want to play a game set in the KotOR era based largely on the games and comics, not the six movies, I wouldn't be better served just making up my own setting that's broadly like it. There are still Star Wars constants in there (like how the Force works, and what you can do with it) that are common.

And at what point does your generic space setting become a pale, derivative clone (heh)? Lightswords and mystic powers, constantly fighting against the threat of evil magically powered sword fighters that always come in twos...

"Dude, why don't we just play Star Wars?"

I always thought it would be a fun campaign to recreate the prequels in a do-it-yourself kinda way. Don't like Anakin's whiny ass? Don't think the Republic would be tricked so easily? Can't stand Gungans and Pod Races?

Well, this is OUR way the Empire rose to power and the Jedis were lost to the ether.

And I might be the only person who would love the crap outta that.

Quote from: KieroIf I want to play a game set in the KotOR era based largely on the games and comics, not the six movies, I wouldn't be better served just making up my own setting that's broadly like it. There are still Star Wars constants in there (like how the Force works, and what you can do with it) that are common.

One of the things I really dug about the KotOR videogames is how they got over the problem of not being able to use Rebellion-era designs like ships droids) by using designs with the same aesthetic sensibilities: dutiful  astromech droids, wacky protocol droids, Republic and Sith ships with strong resemblances to their Alliance and Imperial counterparts, stark metal interiors for enemy bases. It went a long way to make the universe familiar, and showed how you can change some things and still make it feel like Star Wars.

(I loved, frex, how you could set foot on Tattooine and it would look basically the same, even if it was four thousand years earlier - which added to the 'space fantasy' quality of SW)

Quote from: AegyptoWell, in the case of Star Wars part of the issue is that there are different levels of 'canon'.

Yes. And the nice thing about Star Wars is they actually define what those different levels are. See the Wikipedia entry on Star Wars Canon.

QuoteFirst there are the movies, obviously: The original trilogy, and the prequels - which some people don't like because it didn't fit their established notions of what they should've been.

Now this is interesting. The thing I most liked about the prequel trilogy was that they were completely different to what I expected. I thought that was great.

I didn't go see The Phantom Menace when it first came out because I figured I would just be bored -- not being fourteen any more. But it was on TV one night and I ended up watching it because I didn't have anything else to do and I ended up really enjoying it. There were lots of fun bits and the film rewarded close attention. The villains were intelligent and the climactic duel with Darth Maul was great; Maul actually employed a sensible and effective strategy!

Intelligent villains. What a concept!

QuoteIn the end, the prospective Star Wars gamemaster needs to establish what constitutes canon for his game - by deciding what elements to keep, ignore, or discard from the pre-existing SW corpus.

I was mostly responding to various posts on the first few pages of this thread that were saying things like ignore the canon or only the first five minutes of the first film happened. I figured if you're going to do that, why bother calling it Star Wars at all? Just say it's a space opera game and go for it.

But, you're right. A prospective GM needs to establish what bits are "canon" for their particular game -- and that applies to anything, not just Star Wars. As I said, I ran Pendragon and if you think Star Wars can get confusing, just try investigating the corpus of Arthurian literature.

Quote from: KazAnd at what point does your generic space setting become a pale, derivative clone (heh)? Lightswords and mystic powers, constantly fighting against the threat of evil magically powered sword fighters that always come in twos...

Who cares?

I got into RPGs in the early eighties and one of things I liked about them was that almost every GM had their own world(s). Every high school D&D Dungeon Master had his or her own fantasy world. Most were highly derivative -- you didn't have to look too hard to see bits of J.R.R. Tolkien or Robert E. Howard or Michael Moorcock, with the occasional flash of Jack Vance or Fritz Leiber -- but so what? Most people are highly derivative when they start out -- look at the early works by various authors, they wear their influences on their sleeve.

And, anyway, the point wasn't to be blindingly original. The point was to have fun.

I thought we were on the cusp of some brand new flowering of creativity. If anyone had told me at the time that come the early 21st century people would be buying RPGs for their settings and popular culture would be full of revamps, reboots and reimaginings, I wouldn't have believed them.

Derivative works are how popular culture develops. Someone likes Sherlock Holmes and instead of doing endless reworkings of Sherlock Holmes, creates their own private detective character. And others do the same. And suddenly you've got a whole genre. All derivative, but all different. And many of them end up being interesting in how they're different and what elements get brought over from the original and what bits get ignored.

Or super-heroes. Instead of endless reworkings of Superman, people create all sorts of new super-heroes -- Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man. Would any of these have existed if not for the success and popularity of Superman? Probably not. But all of them are different to Superman and interesting because of that.

So run a space opera game about mystically-powered fighters who use laser swords and fight against evil counterparts who always come in twos and it will turn into something different to Star Wars. It really will. I'm not saying it will be great (though it could be), but it will be your own and that will make it interesting.