Hi all,
I would like to hear people's opinion on the usefulness of starship deck plans/maps as an RPG resource. I happen to be a concept designer with Dramascape (among other things), so I'm wondering how useful you guys find products like this: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/105491/Modular-Rocketship?term=rocketship
And while we're at it, what kinds of things do you need/want to see in a starship deck plans product?
Thank you all in advance for any suggestions and feedback :)
Best wishes,
Vidar
I love looking at complex detailed maps of technological artifacts, but I haven't much use for them in gaming to be honest. I divide the outline of the ship into zones and have various (random) locations and random encounters within each zone, I find this produces a truer exploration experience without needing to fuss with which corridor goes where, also you can get lost.
Something like this is nice but not neccessary
(http://www.chinaodysseytours.com/yangtzecruise/yangzi-explorer/deck-plan.gif)
Characters are more often going from the bridge to the ready room or the shuttle bay or wherever, you don't need explicit layouts. If something happens en route, roll a random location (corridor, bulkhead etc). As a visual aid this is pretty though (apologies to those on phones):
(http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/Seadream/Deck_Plan-01_b.jpg)
What I would keep in mind though is that these are space ships, so include alien elements that make no immediate sense. Enhance the feel of the future by using futuristic areas.
I really like that diagram, Traveller. I'm putting together a house-ruled Stars Without Number game, and if I could find some deck plans comparable to that for starships, I'd love it.
I've done pretty much the same thing as Traveller did on a couple occasions; grab the deck plans for a cruise liner or cargo ship and convert them.
It's not fancy stuff, but with a little photoshop/GIMP work you can have very functional and realistic deck plans.
civilian stuff tends to be the most useful, like the yacht/liner (great share, traveller :) ) but also stuff like "research outpost" or "mining station/platform" etc. i'll agree that more detail is nice, but the minimum needed are just the main zones/important locations.
Quote from: Angelman;631443Hi all,
I would like to hear people's opinion on the usefulness of starship deck plans/maps as an RPG resource. I happen to be a concept designer with Dramascape (among other things), so I'm wondering how useful you guys find products like this: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/105491/Modular-Rocketship?term=rocketship
And while we're at it, what kinds of things do you need/want to see in a starship deck plans product?
Thank you all in advance for any suggestions and feedback :)
Best wishes,
Vidar
Honestly, the Modular Rocketship from Dramascape is just too busy to be useful as a map. It appears to be in color and has too many additional bits on the map for use as miniatures terrain with a system like
Snapshot or
Azhanti High Lightning. In fact, you should get
Snapshot,
Traders and Gunboats, and the
Mongoose Traveller Core Rulebook and look at their maps before diving into this.
As far as style goes, look at the artwork of Peter Elson, Syd Mead, and Ron Cobb along with the artwork of Bryan Gibson and David Dietrick.
For starship deckplans I want something compatible with
Traveller and easy to print out on an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper from my cheap home printer (or possibly displayed on my tablet computer or eReader). The full color images are pretty but just look like shit when reduced to greyscale. The extra bits (furniture, fittings, textures) are extraneous to the needs of a map for miniatures, which should be deliberately minimalistic and black & white line art.
I hope I'm not sounding too harsh here, but there are plenty of free ships and deckplans on
Citizens of the Imperium and in the
Gearhead Webring, so your product needs to be exceptional to pay for it or free for many to grab it.
All good replies here. Thank you. And keep it coming :)
Quote from: jeff37923;631487I hope I'm not sounding too harsh here, but there are plenty of free ships and deckplans on Citizens of the Imperium and in the Gearhead Webring, so your product needs to be exceptional to pay for it or free for many to grab it.
This is the real issue.
If you can get a plan as good as this after a 10 second search in google why pay?
(http://www.quannet.org/corey/graphics/nova_variant_deck2.gif)
The above is not a good deck plan. For starters, most usable deck plans have grids on them for ease of miniature play. Secondly, it is not done in black & white or greyscale. Thirdly, it is a very tiny image, so control stations are not clearly visible - not important in an image, but important to a Player in the middle of a scenario trying to access ship systems. Fourth, the design doesn't make much sense because if it is Star Trek based then those turbolifts that do not look like they go anywhere a perfectly good corridor would work instead as.
And how many toilets does this damn thing need, anyways?
Quote from: jeff37923;631700Fourth, the design doesn't make much sense because if it is Star Trek based then those turbolifts that do not look like they go anywhere a perfectly good corridor would work instead as.
I think a certain cthulhoid was too busy swilling booze when he wrote that so called sentence... :D
-clash
Thousands of fan drawn and fair use Star Trek blueprints.
The Star Trek LCARS Blueprints Database (http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints-main2.php)
Quote from: flyingmice;631716I think a certain cthulhoid was too busy swilling booze when he wrote that so called sentence... :D
-clash
Mea Culpa, I was in a rush getting ready for work. Brain hurt typing evil, smarts gone. :D
OK, enough of my bullshit. Here are some examples:
(http://juliahwest.com/Traveller/Brook_West/images/t20scout.png)
These are some deckplans based on Bryan Gibson's imagining of the venerable Traveller Scout/Courier. They are in color, which I said is not right, except in this case the different colors are used in a subdued manner to help differentiate items and there are only 4 (red, yellow, and B&W greyscale).
The colors are subdued and when the deckplan is printed out in B&W, they will not cause a mess of undifferentiated greyscale. Each color is specific to a purpose, the red is for grid squares and the yellow for electronics/avionics. Everything else is done in B&W and greyscale, with solids for things that are impassible, like the machinery in engineering.
The drawing is minimalistic, making it easy to assimilate with a single glance, which helps in prep work using the deckplan. The image is not 'busy', which makes it seem more like a schematic - a bit of style that should not be ignored if creating something for use in a SFRPG.
The key is short and sweet, but does include some important things like an image of a human for scaling comparisons - something that many deckplans lack.
(http://www.profantasy.com/images/cos3/poll03.jpg)
These are some direct copies from GDW's Traders and Gunboats for Traveller and represent the base style for most Traveller deckplans.
These are all B&W and greyscale, they also show just the bare bones of the ships. These are made so that people can use them for playing other GDW chit wargames such as Snapshot or Azhanti High Lightning. Again, they show just enough to be used as deckplans.
Now I break my rules for deckplans again, and show you some more.
(http://wiki.maquis.com/images/6/6e/Talon-3a.jpg)
This is the Talon class scout from a fan Star Trek page. It is B&W only and looks nice as clean white lines on a black background, but I would not use this for a paid product. Mainly because most home printers place black lines on white paper and this image would white out an ink cartridge (plus that much black on a white sheet of paper will not 'cure' well and the huge about of black will tend to easily scrap off. Better to use a white background with black lines on it. Also because it does not have grid squares for use with miniatures or chits.
And now I will shut up, but only because I need to get to sleep.
Hope that all helps.
Quote from: Kuroth;631822Thousands of fan drawn and fair use Star Trek blueprints.
The Star Trek LCARS Blueprints Database (http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints-main2.php)
Cor, that's a pretty great site. Some of the starships designs are a bit funky though.
Quote from: Swiss Toni;631911Cor, that's a pretty great site. Some of the starships designs are a bit funky though.
Star Trek is Star Trek...
Good very large collection of Star Wars deckplans.
Colonial Chrome: Deckplans for Star Wars freighters, speeders, starfighters and capital ships (http://www.colonialchrome.co.uk/Pages/Root_1_Ship_Menu.html)
Somehow I think many here would prefer something like this from the 1930s. It is cool. The Satellite from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Artwork by Dick Calkins (1930).
(http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/deckplans/buckRogers06.jpg)
This one too from Modern Mechanics (August 1931).
(http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/deckplans/exploring_the_moon_1c.jpg)
Jeff has said everything I would have. I prefer functional and easily printable (and scalable for minis use if needed) over pretty, too.
jeff--thanks for that bryan gibson scout, a great example of a player-ship. love his work.
the trek one? yeah, has potential, but as you say--i'd never print that, what a fucking mess for ink. unless i wanted to use a printer at work ;)
while i'm familiar with the cygnus trek site (hit or miss there, but the potential is still excellent) i had no idea about a star wars version. kudos to all posters for this topic!
One More Thing.....
Angelman, if you are serious about producing deckplans for purchase, give this suggestion a thought.
Many gamers use eReaders now for their game needs. Create a set of deckplans that use the advatages of those eReaders and you will probably have a solid competative product on your hands.
Take a look at The Traveller Map website (http://www.travellermap.com/) as an example. On the website, you can zoom out so far that 1/64th of a pixel is equal to a parsec (galaxy scale) and zoom in so that 512 pixels is equal to a parsec (system scale). PDFs cannot do that easily, but imagine a set of map deckplans that could for an eReader.
What if you create your deckplans in layers which a customer can choose to view? One could be minimalistic and in B&W (which I recommend) but you could also include full color ones with all of the furniture, textures, and fixtures detailed which the customer can then choose to use.
Make it interactive with a tablet computer and snap on special bases for minis. Set it up so that when you move the mini, the map "floats" so that it always is centered on the mini even though you have travelled further on the map. Include a random dungeon generator and some dice rollers, then market it as a way to play Your Favorite Game solo. Include some method of networking and you have a Skypeable tabletop game.
There is a lot of new technology out that has not been fully utilised by businesses.
Did I mention the possibilities for smartphone apps yet here?
Thank you for all the feedback and suggestions, people. They are very much appreciated. I pass on the technical suggestions to the artists and techies, but I suspect we won't do very complicated products. The idea is to have a good usefulness-to-cost balance, with an emphasis on cheap. Doing 'bigger' products might very well be something we look into, but it would be another kind of product to what we're currently aiming for - but it is very interesting and one needs to stay onboard the tech development wagon :)