Let's talk Star Destroyers!

[CRMcNeill]

Permission to join (or rejoin) a conversation is not required at the Rancor Pit. Welcome back.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[Mojomoe]

^ I certainly don't think it's at all required to ask permission, I'm doing it simply as a matter of courtesy. There's a TON of work put into this project, a lot of moving pieces, and having been gone so long I want to jump back in in the least disruptive way possible. Trying not to be a dick, as it were I was, after all, gone like 6 months.

All the work I'm seeing done seems focused in the lower, primary engine block/hangar bay hull. Perhaps I shall continue developing the command deck?

I've made some progress with the upper levels, but I've reached a point where I'll need more information from the forums to solve some logistical issues and I don't want to do anything unilaterally.

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[CRMcNeill]

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[Mojomoe]

So, to update you on where I'm currently at:

The following image shows what I've got for Deck 6. My brain's getting pretty sleepy so I can elaborate in the morning, at least on some of the specific questions I've got. But I wanted to get something on screen to talk about.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22297088/Deck6_bw.gif

This jpg is a rough sketch of where I could see the layout for Deck 6 going - cutting down the primary command/bridge center hallway and splitting it just abaft of the radiation-shielded section housing the power generators and the shield generator. The blue circles represent turbolift hubs - the forward ones, at least, are illustrated in the Executor bridge module cutaway, so I know those work. The other ones I can infer from things like the Technical Journal cutaway. The red circle and box is conjecture, but I was thinking primary structural, power, and computer core components running up the entire neck. Everything else is rough placement on a grid of 3x3x3m hallways, with every 3rd x and y hallway being a larger 5m arterial (same thing we had blocked in months ago if I recall).



Given what I've been thinking about what needs to be in the command sector, and catching up on everything we've discussed so far (24 pages worth!), I was thinking of the aft end of the 'wings' (lateral with the red dot, aft of that last 3m hallway) being devoted to maintenance, repair, bulk material, and waste extraction - that way, they can just jettison whatever they don't like out the aft hull if needed.

Now I'm remembering - I had started to stub in barracks - the row of beds outboard and abaft of the rad-shielded section - before I reviewed the material that pointed towards only high-ranking officers and VIPs being actually quartered in the command section, which was what I wanted to get feedback on.

[Mikael Hasselstein]

This is awesome! You've really plotted some things out very faithfully. I'm psyched to have you back.

I think you're right that there would be mess halls at the bridge deck (deck 6), as that was derived from the cross-section of the Executor. Are those areas just inside of the mess halls the galleys, or do you figure they're the buffet area, where the officers can serve themselves? (This is perhaps excess detail.) I figure that the very senior crew would have a separate dining arrangement. Possibly on another deck?

Regarding the barrack halls, I think that you're right that those might not be on deck 6, but possibly elsewhere, though I could see there being quarters for stand-by personnel, but we should think that through. I do think there ought to be a medical bay at level 6. Not only would that be (relatively) centrally located in the tower, but it would also be nearer at hand for more senior personnel.

In a game I'm running (and I think I might have derived it from our earlier discussions) there's a throne room in the very forward peak of the command tower (Deck 0?). You also point to it in your image of the command-tower decks at the bottom of page 5. I could see the executive suites and senior staterooms being located on decks 1 and 2, right below the throne room deck. Deck 2 would also have those auxiliary bridges that we talked about (though I forget what conclusion we came to).

I'm still inclined to call those six forward-facing ports on decks 4&5, which you pointed to as possible escape pods and fuel ports as being turbolaser ports. I also notice them on the Executor cross-section, but they're (proportionally) much smaller than on the Avenger model. Is that a scale difference, or are they (whatever they are) just smaller on the Executor?

[Mojomoe]

Glad to be back in business!

Let me be sure to cover your points:

Mess halls, port and starboard - Yeah, those are mess halls as illustrated in the Executor bridge module cutaway. Outboard sections have seating and tables, inboard sections have what I could interpret as either a buffet or automated service system (droids), with two pantries that could potentially be used for vertical intraship/dumbwaiters, or simply storage or recycling. I don't think it's excessive detail at all! That's the level of detail I'm hoping for. If we have a mess hall on each floor, it could naturally be segregated by officer rank, keeping the different ranks apart. This would necessitate, as you mention, a special one for VIP/admiralty/captain's mess.

Barracks - Everything I'm seeing so far, from real world to in-universe, agrees with what you said - junior and enlisted barracks are situated in the lower sections of the superstructure, forward of the bridge module, and vertically by rank (higher ranks are bunked higher in the ship). The only barracks we'd need int eh command module are high-ranking officers that would afford 'prestige quarters.' Indeed, the Executor cutaway shows Admirals' suites several floors directly above the bridge, with their own dedicated escape pods. I think this makes sense - no barracks below the bridge deck (Deck 6), and only high ranking officers above, in increasing rank - Lts, Commanders, Captains, Admirals, VIP, and finally the Throne Room on Deck 1. I think this is really smart.

Auxiliary Bridges - I think this is a good call, and putting it above the bridge in the command module is good. We should also potentially include a tertiary bridge somewhere in the superstructure below the bridge as well, down where the junior officers are barracked.

The 6 forward ports - I could go either way, honestly. There's nothing saying there's armament in the command module, so it's a potentially non-canon addition. I also know there's plenty of mention (though I forget where) of mass exodus escape pod sections, I'll see if I can track those references down. Not specifically in reference to these doors, just that they exist SOMEWHERE in the command section.

One thing I DID want to mention - I've finally come to start watching the Clone Wars series - and thei show plenty of the inside of the Venator-class! It's very, very good reference. For one, they show the hallways and the engine room, and they also show that there are the afore-mentioned mass-exit escape pod sections where Ahsoka chases Ventress into an escape pod which is in a line of multiple others, right off of a main hallway.

I've also been bashing my head against this one, and I wanted to get everyone's opinions on this - how to grid off the ship and call meaningful sections. I tried about half a dozen different sectioning methods, but I've got one I like reasonably well:



What we have here is an alphabetical sectioning, running inboard to outboard, and a numeric sectioning running from the front of the deck to the back, and differentiated by port or starboard. Sections that run the center of the deck without being split port/starboard (a center-aligned med bay, for example) would simply not use the port/starboard designation. Some examples here:

The Bridge is Deck 6, Section A1.
The computer core occupies Deck 6, Section A6-A7.
The mess halls are Deck 6, Section D2 Port and Deck 6 Section D2 Starboard, and so on.

Does this make sense as a basic sectioning logic?

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[Mojomoe]

Mess halls - Agreed on these not needing to be on each deck. I'll admit that even though I'm using the Executor cutaway, I goofed in assuming the mess hall was on Deck 6 - the illustration clearly shows it on Deck 12. That doesn't mean is ISN'T on all decks, just that we ONLY know it's on Deck 12, and cannot presume it's on Deck 6 as well. I bow to your suggestion here!

Shifts - I found the pertinent information on or about page 7-9, I can't recall. It's here:

[Mikael Hasselstein]

Mess halls - Let's figure out how many mess halls might be needed.


Shifts - I'm somewhat partial to 3x8hrs. It takes less explaining (given that it's relatively familiar to RL), it gives people 8 hours of sleep, and means you need bunks for 1/3 of the crew.


Throne room on Deck 1

[Mojomoe]

Let me start with Shifts here, and we'll get to the other points in a moment, since this is a big issue!

So, we had already covered some of this ground before, and I'm still getting caught up on the specifics because it was left slightly open, but it's on page 14. The key point is that there are confirmed:

37,085 crew and 9,700 stormtroopers aboard an ISD-II. Of the crew, 9,235 are officers, 27,850 are enlisted. Of the enlisted, 274 are gunners. That leaves 27,576 enlisted who are not gunners.

Sorry, let me clarify:

ISD-II
TOTAL 46,785
Officers 9,235
Enlisted 27,576
Enlisted Gunners 274
Stormtroopers 9,700


By 3x8hrs I'm seeing three 8 hour shifts. Doesn't that mean that 2/3 of the crew are off-duty, and could potentially be in their bunks? As in, what if everyone not on duty is sleepy?

If these numbers are agreed-upon, we'd need to figure out ratios. Security, Engineering, Operations, etc. From that, we could then figure out rank ratios of the officers.

I feel sheepish asking, but the pilots come from the ranks of the enlisted, yes?

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[Mojomoe]

Still getting to your other points, but a quick search turns out that the pilot's name in TIE Fighter was Maarek Stele, and this is his bio: