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Plumeria Class Refit input/discussion (Image warning)

The Fuji is a yacht with guns intended to ferry diplomats and princesses to the farthest reaches of unknown space in hopes of expanding the empire while being suvivable enough to do it alone.

The Plumeria refit is a compact Century bunker that's packed with equipment and loaded with tons of guns to fight, fight, fight.

They're both "gunships" but have entirely different roles, purposes, and specialties. While there's a point that there are only so many stations a small ship can or would have, it still makes more sense to have each ship with its own bridge type (even previous modular compartments get custom descriptions for each ship they've been used on after the first, revealing that speciality always wins out above modularity).
 
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Yeah. This Plumeria will have a greater capacity for vehicles to assist it in combat, so sensor and comms stations are even more important for one to coordinate those forces effectively. Any thoughts on special stations or what roles are needed for a new Plumeria's bridge given its roles? It's still capable of deep space travel/exploration like before, and can use the barracks for storage or other needs if that's preferred. The support of a century is meant to be an as-needed on a mission-by-mission basis thing. A Kagai is more optimal, but a Plumeria is fine too.

Science stations, or perhaps even spare stations to be assigned to personnel as needed could be a good thing...give a political officer or a centurion a spare station if prudent. I'm not sure what it takes to make a good bridge though.
 
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I really love this new Plumeria for all the options it has, and the large PA compliment it can field. :)

Also, I don't think the current bridge setup has to be modified too much from its' flexible 4+1 setup, except maybe adding a 5th customizable station where the storage lockers are, and updating some of the bells and whistles to the most modern versions?
 
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Possible. One idea I am pondering is to have it all as one level with transparent floor and stuff...and have a sphere of volumetric projectors around them for a 360 degree view of the battlefield. I'm not sure about the practicality though...
 
Possible, if I use volumetrics...though at that point it may as well just be a half-sphere with optical tracking for everyone on the bridge. Which might be safer.
 
I think its looking pretty good, @Toshiro, though I might make one suggestion, move the command chair up to be more centralized, right now the 2 aft station bridge officers will always have the Captain in there peripheral vision, which could be a distraction from their duties, give them the feeling the captain is always hovering over them while they work. That could then free up the aft bulkhead for a nice big master system display like in star trek, or even easily accessable storage lockers or even a small meeting table like on the Defiant or NX-01

Edit: i just read that it has a door on the back wall, so for sure right now the captains chair blocks use of that door, going by the art
 
I intentionally moved the Captain's station back from the center because the Captain blocked everyone's view and path to everyone else. I made sure to leave enough room for that door in the back, as well as for people to get through around the seats to access it. I was extremely careful there about just that thing, and am confident that it is not really an issue when looking at the floor plan. In fact, this bridge initially had 2 more seated stations that were pulled to ensure the easy movement of people through this area. Also, this current version of the bridge has volumetric projectors and force fields to where the entire thing can be a display as it is. The GM can define its use pretty freely. The old main display in front is only retained for redundancy purposes.

Your comment about the Captain always being visible and looking over the other two stations' shoulders is an interesting one, and is giving me some thought, but I'm finding it hard for that to justify the change especially when considering that I intentionally put stations there that will involve direct and regular coordination with the CO anyway. One is a piloting and weapons station which can either be overidden by the CO if vacant or the CO can take some of the slack off the pilot (managing point defense and some secondary weapons, etc). As such, they're supposed to work together and coordinate by design. The other station is a 'guest station' for various functions or unforeseen events that is otherwise held by the XO. In other cases a diplomat may be seated there, a member of the Admiralty, or the CO may be shuffled over to this Guest Station for the Admiralty to take center stage.

I'm not trying to knock out all your suggestions, @Gunsight1 , there's just a specific way I have it set up that uses the recessed CO's seat and coordination with those stations as a feature. If those officers are a bit nervous about seeing the CO in their peripheral vision, they might just have to get used to it coming with the territory...or they can look straight ahead and get to work. I looked at the angles involved and looked up the field of view for a human (194 degrees), and if they keep their eyes on their station, the CO will be about 25 degrees outside of their peripheral view.

This bridge already storage lockers built into the walls, on either side of any of the console. It has 24 normal-sized drawers and 8 smaller drawers. If you didn't see them, then I succeeded in making them less intrusive looking than on the original. :p
 
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@Gunsight1 I just got out the DOGA floor plan and my protractor to verify for sure. The edge of the CO's chair is actually 13 degrees beyond the peripheral vision limit of a human, presuming they are looking straight ahead. If they turned their head 13 degrees to the side they might see the CO in their peripheral vision, but they should be busy looking at their screen. When focused on a console in front of them, though, 13 degrees is more freedom than it sounds like.

So this shouldn't be a problem. Verified with SCIENCE.
 
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Bridge article updated with new art as well as updated text. Closer to the final version, though unlikely to be submitted until the ship itself is ready.
 
I've never defined a top underwater speed for the Plumeria, I've realized, at any specific depth. Are there any ideas for how fast it should go at a specific common depth, and what measurements I should use?

Also, Wes mentioned that he wanted a go at adjusting the bridge art (such as carpeting), but the bridge is otherwise approved.
 
I've added the revamped "Compartments" section to the wip, which describes every room on the ship, its occupancy, etc. It's a very long read and took a lot of measuring to figure out escape pods, missile and round storage, etc. I need to find a way to truncate this wall of text. Even adding pictures only goes so far.

Also adjusted the Weapons and Vehicle Compliment section for a better idea of just how much stuff is aboard. Also added "Ammunition Storage" above Weapons to indicate how much ammo it holds.

Once again, the Plumeria's internal space was vastly underrated...I could have made it hold more missiles and rounds in the space allocated, but tried to avoid overkill by assuming thick and robust feeding systems.
 
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I've done the basic changes to the "Ship Systems" section. It's still a very big article...and a bit lacking in art on the second half, but I'm finding that hard to help right now.
Any inputs or recommendations?

Truncations of sections that don't reduce the detail would be nice if anyone thinks of some.
 
I need some input, people. Currently, the Cargo Bay and Vehicle Bay take up places on two decks -- Decks 4 and 5. On the original Plumeria, these are 8 meters deep, though my version has them as over meters deep due to a thicker Deck 4 that is based directly on the proportions of the DOGA model.

I'm actually debating splitting these into a dedicated cargo bay on Deck 4 that's about 6 meters tall and a dedicated vehicle Bay on Deck 5 that's 4 meters tall. There are no vehicles on the Plumeria that I intend to carry that are over 4 meters in height, doing this expands usable vehicle bay and cargo bay flat floor space (as opposed to a two deck deep curved floor for a cargo bay), and many of the things that I seek to carry on the Plumeria still stack well with a 6 meter cargo bay height. It also means independent doors for loading and unloading each. The Plumeria could also carry 4 SSCC-Huge in its cargo bay and 2 more in the pylons with this geometry. A downside is that it can't carry anything that has its smallest dimension as being larger than 6 meters and that vehicles would need taken to the Fabrication Area via Zero-gravity Passageway or a cargo lift connecting the Cargo and Vehicle Bays.

I need more input to determine which is preferred here.
 
Ideally the cargo bay would be very big (more versatile) and have a generally rectangular shape for containers and enough overhead space for a powerful crane to move around on a rail on the ceiling. If there's a way to get an 8-meter tall cargo deck that would be cool. I guess it's not mandatory, though.
 
I think you should try to limit the number of similarily named locations down to as few as possible.

Not all roleplayers keep up narratively as well as others. For example: on the YSS Miharu, we had two power armor bays (the Nozomi-class was the likely inspiration, since it also has a pair of those). People would state location and board thier power armors, but then would turn to talk to their compatriot as if he/she was next to them when said compatriot was actually in the other bay, unable to have that face-to-face.

Sure, in hindsight we can handwave and think up volumetric windows and what not, but the truth is that people get confused easily, so, it's best to make the environment as user friendly as possible. Not everyone will grasp the environment - maps or no - as well as the designer or the GM.
 
Hmm...So it's looking like I should keep the old arrangement that the Plumeria's crew is used to having. Okay. Of course, there's only so much we can do if people aren't willing to look at a map regarding Fred's issue...unless he has issues with specific names somewhere.
 
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