starship scale

nomotog · May 17, 2015

This is more of a general thought here, but how big should a spaceship be?

I kind of think that, for a table top RPG, small ships (About the size of a house.) are the best. They keep the players closer to the action rather then far away in the bridge. It keeps the players important and involved. Small ships are also easier to map and display on the board.

What are some other people's thoughts?

Morrus · May 17, 2015

It depends what you're doing with it. The Death Star is a great location to infiltrate - you couldn't really make much of an adventure rescuing Leia from the hold of a tiny ship. If you're doing starship combat, getting too big can make the game less mobile, though. Is the ship a major part of the game? Is it a base, or just transport; or does it have other roles?

Umbran · May 17, 2015

It also depends on what kind of technology your game presents. In a science and engineering sense, your minimum ship size is limited by the size of the power plant and environmental support systems for the people.

So, you don't get down to Star Wars single-person fighter ships that are also capable of galactic travel until you are dealing with a culture for which energy is really a solved problem, and nobody is ever short for energy, pretty much ever. If your culture is still limited to, say, fusion power, then you are probably left with ships at least the size of modern-day capital naval vessels, if not larger, because nuclear technology does not miniaturize well.

nomotog · May 17, 2015

Morrus said:
It depends what you're doing with it. The Death Star is a great location to infiltrate - you couldn't really make much of an adventure rescuing Leia from the hold of a tiny ship. If you're doing starship combat, getting too big can make the game less mobile, though. Is the ship a major part of the game? Is it a base, or just transport; or does it have other roles?

Ya if your using a ship as an adventure location, then being bigger helps. You want at least dungeon size likely. With a transport ship, it doesn't really matter in most cases, you would just want to worry about the other things players would do with it. With a ship as a base, I think you want enough room for everyone to have their own room they can customize and then some space for some more things like a shuttle and such. (Your still looking at about the size of a house.) With combat, it really depends on your combat system how that works.

Umbran said:
It also depends on what kind of technology your game presents. In a science and engineering sense, your minimum ship size is limited by the size of the power plant and environmental support systems for the people.

So, you don't get down to Star Wars single-person fighter ships that are also capable of galactic travel until you are dealing with a culture for which energy is really a solved problem, and nobody is ever short for energy, pretty much ever. If your culture is still limited to, say, fusion power, then you are probably left with ships at least the size of modern-day capital naval vessels, if not larger, because nuclear technology does not miniaturize well.

You make all that stuff up. Like you can make the rules to work with the fluff, but you can also work the fluff to support the rules you want in the first place.

Umbran · May 17, 2015

nomotog said:
You make all that stuff up. Like you can make the rules to work with the fluff, but you can also work the fluff to support the rules you want in the first place.

You can make it all up as is convenient, sure. But, then you get "science fiction" without any science at all - like Star Wars. Science Fantasy or Space Opera, really. All the trappings, but none of the content.

If you want more science in your sci-fi, you are limited by what is plausible in current science understanding, and extrapolations from that.

It is the moral equivalent of the Continual Light question. If a town has for decades had clerics that could cast Continual Light, why are the streets not permanently lit? If you have power systems such that you can have an X-Wing fighter, that has logical consequences for the rest of the setting. Failing to recognize them leaves you plot holes you can fly Star Destroyers through

Dannyalcatraz · May 18, 2015

Morrus said:
It depends what you're doing with it. The Death Star is a great location to infiltrate - you couldn't really make much of an adventure rescuing Leia from the hold of a tiny ship. If you're doing starship combat, getting too big can make the game less mobile, though. Is the ship a major part of the game? Is it a base, or just transport; or does it have other roles?

Pretty much this.

If the characters are independent, small starships are great for mobility. Missions to starbases, etc. can be done at will.

If the characters are part of a military, exploratory, industrial, or colonial group, you REALLY need big ships. Otherwise, they won't have the proper plot-specific resources at their disposal. Shuttlecraft, small scouts, fighters (maybe Mecha) & manned probes would be available, but wouldn't necessarily be the focus.

Bluenose · May 21, 2015

nomotog said:
This is more of a general thought here, but how big should a spaceship be?

I kind of think that, for a table top RPG, small ships (About the size of a house.) are the best. They keep the players closer to the action rather then far away in the bridge. It keeps the players important and involved. Small ships are also easier to map and display on the board.

What are some other people's thoughts?

Small ships may keep the players involved in that they're crewing each station, but they also have the possibility of making them less involved because those ships aren't effective in some situations. And of course automation and simplicity makes it possible for a small crew to man a very large ship - modern supertankers and container ships have crews of twenty to fifty people (lower if maintenance is mostly done in port), for example.

To a large extent I'd say it depends on what you want. I think [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] is quite right to suggest that the "science" in science fiction means extrapolating from modern equipment is desirable, but FTL drive systems simply aren't part of that - even fusion power isn't really part of that just yet. And I rather suspect that there aren't that many people familiar with the technology to produce sensible values, the smallest nuclear powered submarine being only 400 tons (though that was an unmanned experimental design; the smallest manned ones are the French Rubis class at just under 3000 tons). If your drive systems don't require a huge amount of power to make FTL speeds practical, then you could use much cheaper and smaller technology such as Hydrogen Fuel Cells. If people want spacecraft that are cheap commodities like modern cars, then pick options that justify that; if you want them to be more like private aircraft, use that; and if you want travel to depend on buying tickets, then pick options that support that - massive and expensive drives that mean travel between planets is only possible on really large ships that are expensive even for governments and beyond the reach of individuals, say.

nomotog · May 22, 2015

Bluenose said:
Small ships may keep the players involved in that they're crewing each station, but they also have the possibility of making them less involved because those ships aren't effective in some situations. And of course automation and simplicity makes it possible for a small crew to man a very large ship - modern supertankers and container ships have crews of twenty to fifty people (lower if maintenance is mostly done in port), for example.

To a large extent I'd say it depends on what you want. I think [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] is quite right to suggest that the "science" in science fiction means extrapolating from modern equipment is desirable, but FTL drive systems simply aren't part of that - even fusion power isn't really part of that just yet. And I rather suspect that there aren't that many people familiar with the technology to produce sensible values, the smallest nuclear powered submarine being only 400 tons (though that was an unmanned experimental design; the smallest manned ones are the French Rubis class at just under 3000 tons). If your drive systems don't require a huge amount of power to make FTL speeds practical, then you could use much cheaper and smaller technology such as Hydrogen Fuel Cells. If people want spacecraft that are cheap commodities like modern cars, then pick options that justify that; if you want them to be more like private aircraft, use that; and if you want travel to depend on buying tickets, then pick options that support that - massive and expensive drives that mean travel between planets is only possible on really large ships that are expensive even for governments and beyond the reach of individuals, say.

Yep An FTL drive can work a lot of ways. It's basically imaginary, so make it in a way that supports what you want to do. Like I like small ships, so my imaginary drive has a inbuilt size limit that means most ships are about millennium falcon sized. Because the ships are only so big, the space stations an planet settlements only get so big. The idea is that space is basically big and sparely populated because it's so hard to move massive amounts of people and things. (This also leaves a door open for larger ships without FTL drives and larger populations on long established settlements.)