Cargo Expectation of a Heavily Modified YT-1300

[tetsuoh]

Okay so I have an Issue - Off the top of my head I created a heavily Modified YT-1300 for the new group, but now I have an issue.

The issue? Cargo Space. How much there is of it to be exact.

Heres a pic of your average freight configuration YT-1300.



And now may I present - The Fat Lady



Shes a work in progress of course.

As you can see - she was split on her x and y axes and several meters of hull was added, enlarging her cargo areas by quite a bit.

So the question now is: just how much cargo space does she have?

Whats your guys opinions?

[garhkal]

I'd say that you added 40% more space than the stock normally has MINUS the other upgrades (weaponry, shields, better engines etc.
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[cheshire]

I find it interesting that the engineering bay was expanded as much as it was. What is the rationale?

BTW, it looks fantastic. Did you do this in photoshop, or did you do your own rendering?
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[tetsuoh]

The idea was that with the extra weight comes a need for more power *tim allan grunt*

Not only that was increased either - the landing gear are heavily reinforced and the maneuvering thrusters were replaced with larger models.

Its just a photoshop of the example pictures above, simply chopped and reworked.

I love working with this style of deckplans for modifications on group vessels.

Which this one may be reworked at a later date as the crew has been contemplating some more heavy modifications - such as replacing the cockpit in between the forward mandibles, and converting some space into a medbay.

Its a good thing they had all that engineering room to - as they have since taken the x3 three main and x14 backup hyperdrives and replaced them with x1 and x4 drives - taken up large swathes of the engineering bay.

I have yet to add in those details - I also plan on putting in some more bits and baubles here and there to - such their loading droid's repair bay and some cargo crates, etc etc.

[Fallon Kell]

It looks like approximately 50-100% more volume. Weight carried is dependent on engine power, I would think.
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[CRMcNeill]

It's an intriguing idea. My only issues are the same issues I have with almost every other deckplan generated by WEG and WOTC: lack of a credible engine, and a blatant disregard for the third dimension when placing internal features. Years ago, Robert Brown had a webpage devoted entirely to unraveling the design of the Millennium Falcon from a physics and design standpoint. He ultimately concluded that the ship we see in the films is physically impossible, just from an internal and external layout standpoint. Rather than just leaving that conclusion hanging, he collaborated with an artist named Mike Marincic to generate a YT-1300 deckplan that incorporated as many of the features of the Falcon as possible while still being physically feasible (i.e. rooms and compartments not extending beyond the hull of the ship, etc). This is what they came up with:



I would suggest basing any YT-1300 off of this deckplan, as opposed to something generated by WEG or WOTC.

Apart from that, doing a width expansion on a YT-1300 is an interesting concept. Once I considered doing a length expansion, but nothing ever really came of it.
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[ZzaphodD]

What I miss on most deck plans (exterior/interior space issues aside) is a credible way of loading/unloading cargo. Most designs have a cargo hatch/lift in a corridor or similar, then you have to move the cargo through the corridor, through a door into the cargo room (often 'normal' sized or slightly larger) with a cart or something (hovercart?). A freighter should of course have a large cargo bay hatch opening to the outside of the ship. The hatch should be as wide as possible (preferrably as wide as the cargo room itself).
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[CRMcNeill]

Good point. I know on the Mike Marincic design, they made the gap between the bow mandibles into a loading of crane of sorts that fed standard sized cargo boxes into a conveyor system that sorted the boxes between the port and starboard forward bays. The design also turns the port and starboard boarding tubes into bulk cargo loading doors, complete with double door access to the forward hold on the port side.

As far as the original post, IMO, moving the cockpit to the center-line of the ship is actually a much more efficient placement. The long hallway connecting the cockpit to the rest of the ship is a tremendous waste of space on a ship with such a limited volume to work with. Putting the cockpit forward of the ship's main lounge connects it directly to that room and allows the cockpit hallway to be removed and converted into more cargo space.
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[atgxtg]

I beleive the rule of thumb for Star Wars (for both the RPG and Lucasfilm) is 2 tons of cargo per sqaure meter. So if you overlay a 1 meter grid on the ship and count the squres you can get a decent estimate.If 2tons/m2 doesn't work, try comparing the space with that of a stock YT-1300.


The thing is, making the ship larger really shouldn't increase the cargo capacity. as cargo in expressed in terms of mass rather than volume. It really isn't that there isn't room for the cargo, but that the engines can't haul around the extra mass--at least not at the same acceleration and SPACE rating. So a bigger YT-1300 should be more sluggish, with lower speed and maneuver ratings.

[CRMcNeill]

However, the expanded design does make room for a larger engine, which will, in turn, allow for increased cargo capacity, even if does take up a sizable percentage of the available space.
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[garhkal]

True, but the larger engines, thrusters and power generators also take up available space..
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[vanir]

There's also a difference between physical cargo capacity which is more related to size and mass hauling capacity which is related to structure and fit.

For example, I worked at Nissan once and we used to modify cab Patrols for cargo trays but the problem was the legal tare for the chassis was limited, so even when you put a cargo tray on the back that could physically fit two tons or more, even though the engine had no problem with that, the legal tare on the chassis still limited you to only a couple of hundred kilograms (around 500lbs) once you put accessories like a winch and bullbar on. It was a structural-design limitation on that vehicle.

On the other hand when the Apollo space program was underway some cargo aircraft were modified to carry some of the booster sections internally, they were called the Guppy and Pregnant-Guppy and had a massive increase in fuselage diameter and overall size to take the cargo. But it didn't weigh very much, had no problem keeping under the max take off weight, they were just physically very large pieces of cargo.


So there's that.


And also I've mentioned before the "canonical" external dimensions of the Falcon are based off the filmwork mockups at Mos Eisley et al, they don't match the in flight models, proposed dimensions or things like the Bespin landing pad model, which are about 40-metres in length (about 30m across the disc), not the ~27m that got popularised by early LucasArts publications that used the Mos Eisley mockup as a reference (it's a 3/4 scale mockup for the shootout scene).

[tetsuoh]

Thank you all for your comments. And keep them coming.

I had forgotten to about the need for an increased drive to supplement the larger engines and thrusters.

And while I do often agree with you crmcneill, I must say that one thing I feel many people do in regards to deckplans is forget the unrealistic standards set in the star wars universe - where a ship like the x-wing can house a 1x hyperdrive and speederbikes can reach ludicrous speeds and have insane maneuverability while built on a frame the size of a matchstick.

Seemingly the mystically high tech levels is the answer - but in truth, its just movie magic rearing its illogical head.

While I myself do agree that the engine size present in the yt-1300 diagrams above doesn't seem reasonable. I myself don't know if I can agree with the amount taken in the picture you provided. Though I do understand why they would build the deckplan like that.

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On the grounds of cargo and its variations of mass and volume.
Our group understands this.
Twice now the ship has been loaded with a "full" cargo that took up well below the actual volume of the ships bays due to the mass of the cargo in question. And once they were loaded to the brim with cargo that didn't max out the ships carry weight.

[CRMcNeill]

[CRMcNeill]

The other big issue I have with most deckplans is glaringly obvious in most official YT-1300 plans. If you look at the exterior of the ship, the disk portion of the hull starts off relatively tall at the center of the ship, then slopes down to less than a meter at the outer edge. This means that any rooms located in the disk-hull section can only be standard ceiling height at or near the center of the disk; the further away from the center one goes, the less headroom one has, until there is less than a meter left at the outer edge. In spite of ths lack of available headroom, many deckplan artists insist on putting full height deck sections all the way out towards the edge of the hull, completely ignoring the fact that there is no vertical space available for a full-height room in that location.
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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