# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Sci-fi/Modern Mapping >  2300AD: Ship design Clarke Class Explorer

## middenface

Hi,

1st post. I've been doing some work for Mongoose, I have been creating maps for Traveller and 2300AD. 
This is one I did for my self. Done in Sketchup and Illustrator. Its very much in the classic GDW Traveller, so no frills, which means it is easier to read.


Also created the flight patch too, but thats the old one.

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## bartmoss

Awesome deck plan, and I love the logo.

But.

This is not a 2300AD ship.

Why? Because the plans obviously assume artificial gravity, which does not exist in 2300ad.

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## Chashio

That is a cool plan. =) Nice job. I'd also be interested to see a side view, either flat elevation lines or full body render with materials. The first might fit better with your style, though a render would be sweeet.  :Wink:

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## Kearnaun

> Awesome deck plan, and I love the logo.
> 
> But.
> 
> This is not a 2300AD ship.
> 
> Why? Because the plans obviously assume artificial gravity, which does not exist in 2300ad.


Because of the direction into which the reaction drive would develop thrust? Other than that I have to say its a fine deckplan. Gives me hope that one of these days I'll be able to something similar in Blender. Currently I'm ... not even close to a result like that.

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## mearrin69

Love the ship but bartmoss makes a good point. Awesome for CT, though!
M

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## Krazma

> Awesome deck plan, and I love the logo.
> 
> But.
> 
> This is not a 2300AD ship.
> 
> Why? Because the plans obviously assume artificial gravity, which does not exist in 2300ad.


There are other 2300AD vessels that utilize a similar configuration. This is obviously intended to land on a planet, which *does* have gravity, so you have to have a deck orientation you can operate in when landed.

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## DEWLine

Not having direct access to all my old *2300 AD* stuff at the moment...were any classes of stutterwarp-capables able to safely make planetfall?

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## bartmoss

> There are other 2300AD vessels that utilize a similar configuration. This is obviously intended to land on a planet, which *does* have gravity, so you have to have a deck orientation you can operate in when landed.


I actually don't buy that either, the mass ratio of this vessel is way off. Or in other words, without magic gravitic technology, that thing could never land and take off again.




> Not having direct access to all my old *2300 AD* stuff at the moment...were any classes of stutterwarp-capables able to safely make planetfall?


Yes and no. Stutterwarp efficiency decreases greatly in local gravity fields. Ships need conventional rocket thrusters for takeoff/landings. I don't recall where the cut-off is but basically anything suborbital and below was definitely out of stutterwarp reach. But the design rules do allow you to mount both on a ship. I dont have my books with me either so I can't look up the exact mechanics.

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## atpollard

While the mass ratio appears way off for real life (needs to be 90+% fuel), I am too unfamiliar with ‘Shutterwarp’ and 2300AD tech in general to pass an informed judgement on how much fuel 2300 magic drives require.

That said, the ship appears to have a ducted fan system to provide VTOL lift and control (note the ducted exhaust), a rear mounted MHD reaction thrust system to provide aircraft-like thrust in atmosphere and rocket-like thrust exo-atmospheric (just like the Shuttles main engines), and a ‘Shutterwarp’ drive for (deep space travel?).

Forgive my unfamiliarity with ‘shutterwarp’, but could a shutterwarp drive propel the ship straight up (perpendicular to the floor) at 0.5 G while travelling between worlds or stars in deep space?

Upon approach to a planet, the ship enters orbit leaving the crew operating in zero G (like the ISS or an orbiting shuttle). The MHD drive accelerates (or more likely slows) the ship to a stable orbital velocity and initiates a reentry burn at the desired ‘reentry window’.

The ship enters like the shuttle – aerobraking and thermal protection coating on the belly – until final approach where a flare could initiate a stall and the vectored ducts transition to hellicopter-like flight and a gentle belly landing.

For a launch, the ducts lift the ship off the ground while the reaction thrusters accelerate forward until the wings and body can provide lift. The thrusters continue to accelerate and climb in the atmosphere and eventually transition to rocket mode and accelerate to escape velocity.

As the ship places enough distance between itself and the world, it rotates ‘belly down’ and the shutterwarp ‘magicly’ propels it through deep space at a constant 0.2-0.5 G acceleration creating the necessary ‘artificial gravity’.


For the record, I acknowledge that three different drives make it a bit of a ‘Rube Goldberg’ system … I simply question whether it is necessarily ‘broken’ under the 2300AD rules.

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## bartmoss

Stutterwarp does not provide real acceleration (it is a series of tiny "jumps", each very short, giving the ship pseudo-acceleration - it looks like the ship is moving through space like a regular rocket, but it isn't - it is "tunneling" through space very rapidly - if you know what I mean?). Besides Stutterwarp, 2300AD is supposed to be "hard" science, so if a ship's design is way off, it shouldn't have a place in the 2300AD universe. And just to reiterate, I think this ship is way cool - it just doesn't work in 2300AD.  :Frown:

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## atpollard

Such a configuration 'might' work if the VTOL drives on the wings could provide say 0.2G constant acceleration in deep space, making the ship a vertical torchship with moon-like pseudo-gravity.  I assume that torchships (constant acceleration to midpoint and deceleration to destination) are beyond 2300AD 'hard science', but I wanted to defend the plausibility of the deep-space aircraft layout for other non-'artificial gravity' applications. 

Obviously, the only advantage over a more traditional design would be aerobraking and atmospheric flight - requiring a very specific pair of worlds at either end of the route to justify the expense and complexity of an airframe.

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## Krazma

Are you saying it "doesn't work" for 2300AD because of the deck configuration? 

The point isn't that there would be any gravity (artificial or otherwise) while the ship was in space. The deck configuration -- like that of the Space Shuttle -- is for when it's landed (or landing) in a gravity well (i.e. a planet). 

If you are saying the ship just wouldn't (or couldn't) fly, that seems sort of irrelevant to a discussion of whether it is a proper deck plan for 2300AD. Other (official) deck plans for 2300AD have a similar layout.

In any event, I think it's a nice deck plan.

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## bartmoss

> Such a configuration 'might' work if the VTOL drives on the wings could provide say 0.2G constant acceleration in deep space, making the ship a vertical torchship with moon-like pseudo-gravity.  I assume that torchships (constant acceleration to midpoint and deceleration to destination) are beyond 2300AD 'hard science', but I wanted to defend the plausibility of the deep-space aircraft layout for other non-'artificial gravity' applications.


2300AD doesn't have torch-ships. In the game, Stutterwarp is efficient enough (lightyears per day) that no trip takes really long. So even if they oculd build a fuel-efficient torchship, stutterwarp would still be used for everything outside a gravity well.




> Obviously, the only advantage over a more traditional design would be aerobraking and atmospheric flight - requiring a very specific pair of worlds at either end of the route to justify the expense and complexity of an airframe.


Stutterwarp ships don't really pick up any delta-v on their voyage. They retain their initial vector from whatever orbit etc they were in. I am guessing - and I won't bother to do the map - that you can compensate much of that by clever positioning before you come out of stutterwarp.





> Are you saying it "doesn't work" for 2300AD because of the deck configuration?


Yeah, pretty much.




> The point isn't that there would be any gravity (artificial or otherwise) while the ship was in space. The deck configuration -- like that of the Space Shuttle -- is for when it's landed (or landing) in a gravity well (i.e. a planet).


Fair enough, but I don't see ships of this size making landings/take-offs off of planets. The shuttle has a huge fuel requirement to even get into LEO and is far smaller than the Clarke Class Explorer.





> If you are saying the ship just wouldn't (or couldn't) fly, that seems sort of irrelevant to a discussion of whether it is a proper deck plan for 2300AD. Other (official) deck plans for 2300AD have a similar layout.


Entirely possible, I personally can't remember seeing a deck plan in an official 2300 AD product but I haven't looked into them in years (and I am not touching another Mongoose product). Even so, it's not unreasonable to assume that product designers opted for a "cool" deck layout instead of something that would "work" even if they understood the problems inherent in space flight.




> In any event, I think it's a nice deck plan.


That it is.

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## middenface

Thanks for the comments, by the specs its built from it should be able to take off and land, BIG vtol engines and some aerodynamics... basic lifting body. Reminds me to build the model. She's kind of based on the Prometheus, just went a different way.

Well in space, the interior is zero-g, so its just like the shuttle, its mission profile is planet exploration, so it will spend a fair amount of time planet side, hence the lack of spin sections etc.

The Aconit is a very similiar vessel design wise and a lot less aerodynamic, think of the Nostromo. Big hefty bugger that still can land. In fact I drew the plans and all the others in the new Traveller 2300 book.

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## middenface

> Entirely possible, I personally can't remember seeing a deck plan in an official 2300 AD product but I haven't looked into them in years (and I am not touching another Mongoose product). Even so, it's not unreasonable to assume that product designers opted for a "cool" deck layout instead of something that would "work" even if they understood the problems inherent in space flight.


You may want to check out the Thorez plans, I beleive they appreared in Challenge.


Sorry, that's a wrong assumption and unreasonable, the above statement, I didn't do it because it looked 'cool', maybe you should see the specs. This is supposed to land, survey and go home. I'm part way thru building the model, its its got a fair amount of streamlining, in fact the specs call it a lifting body.
I worked closely with Colin Dunn who wrote the new rules and 2320, so I have a good understanding of the system.

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## middenface

> Awesome deck plan, and I love the logo.
> 
> But.
> 
> This is not a 2300AD ship.
> 
> Why? Because the plans obviously assume artificial gravity, which does not exist in 2300ad.


Thanks,  theres no Artificial Gravity, I know that, can't stress enough this is for landing on planets.
Sorry you have got it wrong, I'll find the specs.
So it is a 2300AD ! ship, the Thorez and the Aconit both have no AG, but land on planets. 

Anyway:

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## middenface

Ah, found the specs!

http://biomassart.files.wordpress.co.../clarke-v2.pdf

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## middenface

> Not having direct access to all my old *2300 AD* stuff at the moment...were any classes of stutterwarp-capables able to safely make planetfall?


Yes Thorez and Aconit are two. You can safely land with a stutterdrive, its not the stutter drive doing the work, reaction drive, rockets etc are. The Stutterdrive is for space/FTL travel.

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## GJD

Under MGT2300AD design rules only a relatively small proportion of the ships tonnage needs to be devoted to thrusters to make and break orbit. The MHD turbine can be modified to run a high bypass jet engine, that converts to a plasma rocket at high altitude. The Clarke's VTOL engines can also be accounted for in the tonnage that is allocated to give the ship VTOL or STOL capability. The MGT2300AD rules also typically include two sets of fuel calculations - one to run the ship during interstellar travel when the MHD turbine is only running the stutterwarp - typically based around how long it would take to travel 7.7 light years, as this is the limit of stutterwarp drives endurance before they explode - and one for a certain number of hours of thruster use - typically calculated based on time to surface and time to orbit for a planet with 1g gravity. You'd therefore see something like "Endurance:2 weeks of operations plus 22 hours thruster use". This fuel tonnage is also often stored in inter-deck tanks, which are often not depicted. Can't say if that's the case here, though.

Stutterwarp in and of itself provides no thrust vector or acceleration, as the ship is effectively teleporting a few hundred yards each time the drive cycles by using an effect based on a macro scale application of the electron tunnelling phenomena. By very rapidly cycling the drive you can jump hundreds of thousands of times per second and thereby achieve FTL travel, even though the ship is actually not _moving_ faster than light.

From a deckplan point of view, I saw this a little while ago as it was being developed. A personal pet peeve of mine is the lack of compartmentalisation seen on many deckplans for interstellar ships. One long corridor, or full width open spaces that a single micrometeorite or a dangerous fire could compromise the whole ship. I prefer to see a few more doors and bulkheads, and on larger ships a couple of routes to and from essential services so if one is out of use there's another way to get from engineering to the sickbay or the bridge. I mentioned this to Middenface and he's upped the compartmentalisation - which makes me happy.

G.

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## Nekron99

I like it.  I have been using the Thorez for my in play ship for years and now at least I have a real 2300AD replacement.  Travellers artificial gravity is just too normal for me, I like the alien and odd feel of having to worry about the gravity while on board the ships, in Traveller it is just an enclosed group of rooms, with potted plants and all, but not with 2300AD.
Overall I like the ship and will agree with GJD about the compartmentalization.  I think Colin had created a pretty neat and viable cutter or patrol ship some time ago, it had more the feel of the Eagle from Space 1999, but that would be the military for you, the Clark is more of a showpiece with a different mission all together so the look is fine.
Now the Aconit is a different matter, looks like it would be a flying brick, but what do I know, I just look at the pretty pictures.

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## Ark

Cool ship. I especial like the details in the avionics (rather than just leave them a single black blob, you get the sense that these really are the silhouettes of sensor equipment.)

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