Baudo Class Yacht - Deckplan

[Ultramyth]

Well, you actually get a lot of space back when you start using the nooks and cranies of the design to your advantage. For example, cabin spaces, where the bedding is fit into the recesses and alcoves to allow for better living space.

I think it's important to remember when it comes to Star Wars that we are not used to seeing expensive ships. Even the empire prefers quantity over quality, and the goal there is saving money. A luxury yacht on the other hand spares no expense. And with expense in the Star Wars universe comes the possibility for miniaturisation, at least insofar as I am concerned. The capacity in which I am working with it is for purely roleplaying interests.

Additionally, there is nothing to say that air intakes could not be on the underside either, since really, the underside has not been shown in any official capacity. I can however see your concerns, they are very large engines, and the ship is supposed to be quite maneuverable.

I agree that there should not be a bathroom in every room, and that some would probably have bunks.

The cargo is not hard to find space for, it's about creative storage. The sides of the ramp down to the cockpit for example, and towards the back either side of the engines I found room for two 1.5×2m doors that could fit a substantial amount of cargo, even if the area was reduced for additional engine space. Assuming a low deck ceiling of around 2 metres, there are lots of overhead places for systems as well, and some of them up to a metre plus thick.

[Fallon Kell]

Yeah. The Baudo is just shy of 105 feet long, with the sublight drive (probably the largest single use of space) clearly defined. The cargo maximum is expressed in weight, which makes volumetric limits flexible. I think 70 cubic meters is easily enough. At 5 meters long by 2 meters high by seven meters wide, that would probably fit nicely in a lower deck beneath an the engine room. A hyperdrive of roughly the same size as the one depicted in TPM, a reactor, and a shield generator would probably fit nicely in said engine room, forming a two deck operations section extending out from the sublight drive. Just guessing at the volumes in question, and allowing for use of the nooks and crannies for things like fold-out beds and toilets, there seems to be enough room for two state rooms under the bulges each at least as large as my living room, and six sets of passenger quarters the size of my bedroom. That would fill up the "wing" sections on either side and leave room for a galley and a pilot's quarters in the "neck" nearing the bow.
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[Bren]

For convenience I use a rule of thumb for converting mass to volume based on the volume of water. So 1 metric ton of cargo capacity takes up the volume of 1000 kilograms of water or 1 cubic meter of volume.

Which, IIR, was the same formula that Traveller used.

So 5m x 2m x 7m = 70 cubic meters or 70 tons of cargo space.

[CRMcNeill]

I think either Tramp Freighters or Pirates and Privateers used that exact same rule of thumb, so at the very least, it is an optional rule. That means that, as far as cubic volume of cargo space, there is a lot to find space for, likely more than is available in the "nooks and crannies." I made the point before that even rich people will want some bulk cargo space, as it comes in handy for hauling a speeder bike or two (after all, you can't take a starship down the street to the hotel from the star port), or space to haul those crates of fine wine and fancy clothes back home from their vacation.

As far as my recommendations for the floor plan, I'm not just trying to account for gaming convenience. I'm also trying to account for practicality and efficiency of design, as well as the ease of conversion between stock and the one known modified version. Remember that the Gilded Lily traded off 4 passenger spots for an extra 40 metric tons of cargo space, so when designing a floor plan, that modification needs to be accounted for.

Now, just because the ship's thrusters are visible on the exterior drawings, that gives us no real idea as to the actual volume required by the ship's drive. However, logic would indicate that a large, fast ship would have a sizeable portion of its interior volume taken up by engines and the associated power and fuel systems. WEG and WOTC produced laughably ridiculous floor plans that failed to take this into account (as well as other minor issues like boarding ramps and the fact that their 2D floor plans don't fit into a 3D ship design. They also put unrealistically tiny engines into ships.

If there is one thing I have noticed from deck plan design, it is this: think small. In other words, when in doubt, you probably don't have enough room. You may think you have enough space to fit, but there is almost always something you forgot, whether it is height constriction due to the hull shape or some other minor detail.

As for my previous floor plan suggestion, it is intended to address both design efficiency and the modification issue. Moving the engines / reactors out to the wing bulges leaves a large, 2-deck high space between the engines. It makes sense to put the main cargo bay on the lower level (the door to the cargo bay is only a meter or two from the top of the boarding ramp, greatly facilitating ease of loading and unloading. The upper level is then available for passenger berths, or a lounge, or it can be torn out completely to make more cargo space (ala the Gilded Lily).

The hologram ceiling is an interesting idea, but you don't need to have the room in the pods to make it work: the projectors could be set up in any or all rooms of the ship and be just as effective.
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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

[Ultramyth]

I agree about the setup with the holographic projectors - may as well be in every cabin to give the illusion of windows.

As a pont of interest, the ship I am working on is not the Gilded Lilly, it's the Banshee, the ship used in Dawn of Defiance, which is as far as I know a stock model.

An observation on the beautiful full colour maps that have been done in the Christopher West deckplan style, they are very nice looking, but the bulbous areas discussed are not in the correct proportions. I suppose it's only on the outside of the hull and is for the most part cosmetic.

About the escape pods, I am wondering if the shape on the top of the deck about the midship is some sort of hatch. Last episode, the heroes had the banshee pick them up from beneath a crevasse in the floor on Cato Neimoidia. Having already modellled the ship, I realised that this would be a difficult task, given the fact that the only known entrance is under the ship. It also would make docking with a Nebulon-B difficult ala Falcon style, which the ship also needs to do from time to time.

As for the cargo again, I have assumed that much of the space is for volumes less than a cubic metre. Therefore, there is much under the floor storage space. I may actually reduce some of the cargo space I have assigned.

Is 2 metres an acceptible ceiling level? Some creatures in the SW galaxy would find that uncomfortable, and Mendel Baudo is an Aqualish that can be up to 2 metres tall. Perhaps 2.1 or 2.2 would be more acceptable? This would mostly be cabin headroom. What do you guys think.

[Henrik.Balslev]

most costructions today have a cieling height of 2.4 meters, although I'll admit that my expereice comes mostly form actual housing.
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[garhkal]

[CRMcNeill]

[Bren]

2.4 meters sounds pretty reasonable to me given the varied heights of beings in the Star Wars Universe.

I use the following (from the player handout for my smuggler campaign).
Cargo Capacity

• 1 metric ton of cargo capacity = the volume of 1000 kilograms of water or 1 meter^3
  
• Head space in cargo bays is assumed to be 2.5 meters so 10 tons of cargo = a 2 meter x 2 meter section of cargo bay. Light cargo has less mass, but still takes up volume. Dense cargo e.g. metals or minerals takes up less volume, but allowable mass to be carried is still limited and counts against the ship’s overall lifting capacity.

Head space in passenger/crew areas is likely to be lower to allow for additional ducts and wiring.

[atgxtg]

[Bren]

It's a rule of thumb atgxtg, I'm not actually filling the hold with water and if you are worried about straps and packing material you are being way too analytical for the level of detail provided in a Star Wars deckplan.

• I assume the ship has a limit on what mass of cargo it can lift.
  
• I assume that ship builders typically allot a volume for that mass based on some uniform density, I used water since I happened to know the density, you can use hydrogen if you prefer a larger volume for your cargo holds.
  
• I assume cargo holds have a ceiling that allows most sapient species to not hit there heads - so I assumed a head space of 2.5 meters.
  
• These assumptions get me to 70 tons = 70 cubic meters = 4m x 7m deck area.
  
• As a quick check to see if those assumptions are unreasonable, I note that 70 cubic meters is about the volume of the original intermodal container unit (2.44 m wide by 2.44 m high by 12.19 m long) - those corrugated steel thingies that get shipped via ship, railroad, or flatbed truck. The head space of an ICU is 2.44m so not far off the 2.5 meter I assumed, and the real world does not have Wookiee first mates so I'm comfortable with a little higher head space.
  
• Also as a check, the mass for a ICU is ~ 30 metric tons. But unlike a starship, I don't think an ICU is intended to be able to haul metal or ore - hence I use a higher density for my calculation. So the assumptions of volume/mass seem like they are not unreasonable, though some folks may want a bulkier cargo hold for ships that usually carry lower density items.
  
• Again as a check on the assumptions, figuring that a light freighter can haul something in the range of 1-2 ICUs seems about the right ballpark volume to me and a 8m x 5m cargo hold (or series of holds) for a ship the Millenium Falcon's size doesn't seem too far off the deckplans.

These assumptions and the resulting volumes/deck areas work for me. YMMV.

[Leon The Lion]

The Buado never interested me much, however reading all this discussion got my creative juices flowing. Like it or not, I just had to produce my own definitive take on it. So, after a few days quiet fiddling, here it is.

Some boring technicalities:
For the exterior, I started with Frank Bonura's (Star Wars Deckplans Alliance) orthographic projections, scaling them up a bit, from his "bluescale" to the "M20" standard used by the Star Wars Design Alliance. I do all my deckplanning in this scale, and there's a ton of material in this scale to use as building blocks and inspiration.
For the deckplan, I started with the one crmcneill posted on page 1.
I went with crmcneill's idea of splitting the powerplant and placing it in the "bulges", which freed up the space in the center rear hull. This space I divided into two levels, lower one for the cargo hold, and the upper for cabins.
Headroom is somewhat low on the entire ship, especially in the hold, but there's really no way around that. Humans will do OK generally, bigger species, like Wookies, will be rather uncomfortable.
All four cabins are quite cramped but appointed in high class. Beds are bunked in pairs.
You'll notice I lowered the overall occupancy of the ship, from 9 (1 crew plus 8 passengers) to 8. I just found no satisfying way to include the living space, and escape pod, required for a ninth person.
Speaking of escape pods, they are placed vertically, stacked in pairs in the launch tubes on both sides of the "neck".
I added a small vertical airlock between the galley/lounge and the "neck", leading up to the dorsal hatch, which also includes a standard extandable docking tube.
The hold includes a big cargo elevator (actually, most of the floor in the hold is the elevator) - big enough to fit a speeder car or boat.
To give the pilot some decent forward visibility, the pilot's chair is very low and leaned back (if you played Mass Effect, think Joker's chair on the Normandy).



So, like it or not, this is how a stock Buado Star Yacht will look like inside if one ever appears in my game.
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[CRMcNeill]

Holy crap, that is amazing! Are you involved with the either of the SWDAs? That is some amazing work for just a few days effort. I really like what you've done here, but I have a suggestion that might save even more space. Deckplan designers tend to put full-service bathrooms into their designs, but in a high-tech environment where space is at a premium, you could potentially save even more space by condensing the bathroom into a much smaller space. I got the idea from pilot episode of the series Firefly, where Mal is seen using a toilet in his quarters that folds back into the wall, with a pull out sink unit just above the toilet unit.

What I picture is a space on deckplans measuring 1 meter wide by 1.5 meters long by 2 meters high, enclosing a usable space of 1 meter by 1 meters by 2 meters (with the missing space taken up by the mechanics of the fresher unit). I figure it could have a retractable toilet, a retractable wash station, a retractable bench seat (for changing clothes) and a sealed compartment for keeping clothes and personal items. The stall itself would also serve as a shower stall (either sonic or water). The facilities could be basic (bare metal and simple manual controls) or luxurious (marble tiling, voice activated controls, auto-laundry that cleans your clothes while you shower, etc.), but the key is that it takes up much less space than a full-sized bathroom with separate units for toilet, bathing and washing. Thoughts?
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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

[Leon The Lion]

Thank you for the kind words.
No, I am not involved with either of the SWDAs. The first one, Frank's, is pretty much dead. The second one - well, they do some outstanding work, which I never hesitate to steal from... I mean, get inspired by. But I don't much care for their ultra-completist deckplan design philosophy. You'll notice my deckplan doesn't really include much "green stuff" - the mechanical guts of the ship. For the plan to be "worthy" of SWDA, I'd have to develope, plan and draw all the mechanical stuff inside too, the engines, shield generators, fuel tanks, life support machinery, repulsors, sensors, the whole shebang. And I'm just not really interested in that. I'll do it sometimes, but only when modifying an existing plan where the work is basically done and I just have to fiddle with things a bit. For my gaming purposes, I only care for the personel spaces to be fully presented. For the "guts", I'm more than fine with a general idea where a particular device is located. Also, I expect I would chafe severely under their strict adherence to canon. I'm not above just up and changing stuff, because I feel, for whatever reason, that my changed version will work better for my game world or just me personally. You can't have that in the SWDA, I don't think.
And they also count among their number people like the (in)famous "Admiral". Ask ZzaphodD about that champ sometime.
So yeah, I'm a freelancer and quite happy with it.

As to the bathrooms. What you're describing is in fact included in the SWDA work sheet, and called a "fresher" by them. My deckplan includes bigger, more luxurious versions of those in the bathrooms for the forward cabins (look for the shower stalls with the toilets inside). I generally only use freshers if there's absolutely no way to fit in a proper bathroom, especially if the bathroom must be shared by more than 2 people. Notice that Mal had his fresher all to himself. And no other cabin on the Serenity housed more than two. And for the Buado, even substituting all the bathrooms with bare freshers, I couldn't carve out enough space for an additional person - not configured in a way I'd be happy with, anyway. As far as I'm concerned, luxury means proper bathrooms, however cramped, unless totally impossible.
_________________
Plagiarize! Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes! So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure to call it, please, "research".
- Tom Lehrer

[CRMcNeill]

The only problem I see there is that luxury does not necessarily equate to square footage, especially on small starships where space is at a premium. Luxury can be found in the details not seen on a deckplan that make a habitable space of limited size much more comfortable. I can certainly agree that large comfortable living spaces would be appropriate on pleasure boats like the Starwind or the Luxury 3000 class, but a ship like the Baudo is designed for high speed and maneuverability, not big luxurious crew quarters. Plus, if you can reduce the area taken up by the quarters, it gives you more room for things included in the stock version, especially the one crew.

As much as I like what you have done here, this doesn't work as a stock deckplan, for two main reasons: 1) the deckplan doesn't make provision for the ship's crew, and 2) the life pod placement has no corresponding hatches on the stock exterior images. Reducing the size of the crew quarters would provide you with room to work with to include these things while sacrificing none of the luxury. Just something to think about...
_________________
"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