New sketches to show today.
First, I tried detailing the front torpedo tubes.
First up is just a quick perspective view of the fore tubes. The ship is to be able to fire four torpedoes forward, four torpedoes back - a total of eight tubes (note: I'm used to calling these torpedo launchers, but it seems the correct use of the word in naval terms are 'launchers' for above-surface torpedoes and 'tubes' for below-surface torpedoes - I figure starships qualify as 'below-surface')
Then I did a quick cutaway view of the side of the torpedo compartment. Below I drew how it could look from above, and to the left of that I drew what I thought the torpedoes and probes would look like.
Then under that I stuck with a sideview and tried defining a bit more my elements. I was trying to figure out how the torpedoes would be stacked, seeing how having two stacks for each tube caused complications as far as reloading the 'magazine' due to space concerns.
Another point of interest for me was the loading chamber itself. I realized that it wasn't just a matter of using a railgun or gravitic boost to push the torpedo out... but that the loading chamber also served as an airlock (I did my homework on submarines).
That, if nothing else, would largely impact the rate-of-fire of a torpedo tube. I mean... you have to insert the torpedo into the chamber, close it, depressurize it, then fire it, then repressurize it in order to be able to load the next warhead because the whole inner workings need to retain its atmosphere. Even with its advanced technology, just how fast can a KFY airlock go through the pressure cycle? Firing one torpedo per 10 seconds could be quite a feat.
Though, eh, that's part of why there are four tubes and not just two.
I suppose you could put that deck in vaccuum and not have the trouble of pressurizing/depressurizing the loading chambers, thus increasing the firing rate, but that consigns those decks to be accessible only while wearing an environmental suit. Not sure wether that's desirable or not.
Finally, the last view at the bottom was me trying to determine how many torpedoes I could stack in the magazine with two decks to play with. 10 was the number I got, assuming the space a torpedo would occupy would take 50cm of magazine space. Each deck is estimated to be 4 meters high, with 2.5m of living space and 75 centimeters above and below of 'flooring', which includes ventilation, life support, electronics and power lines (those lights don't power themselves) and gravity plating.
10 per tube totals 40 per facing, and 80 total. Not bad compared to Miharu's 48 (if they're small warheads). A second stack per tube would increase the number to 20, and double the total to 160 - a pretty nice number for a light cruiser - might tie in better with the more ample cargo space too.
Otherwise, I kind of went overboard scribbling other details I'm not sure whether they're good or bad.
Here's a sheet I was writing when I returned to the issue of the ship's bridge (which I broached a while ago, but wasn't satisfied with the result).
I was playing with the number of positions I needed, where I wanted supporting NPCs to be, what I wanted players to do on the bridge, and how close would some of those be disposed within that environment.
One thing that bothered me, and I decided to put serious thought into it, was to make sure that no one on the bridge would need to turn around in their chairs to look at the captain. turning their heads would have to be sufficient to look at their CO, and looking over their shoulders at most to glance at their colleagues.
It's an ergonomy thing, I guess. I just felt that Nyton, Miyoko or Yukari having to turn around their chairs to crane their head sup to report to Kotori was kind of cumbersome and awkward.
Tried a couple of layouts. Some weren't good enough. Some did the job but were boring. I kept fiddling on it until...
...I felt I struck gold.
The bridge, as presently designed, is a balcony in a virtual reality chamber. Under normal circumstances, the boundaries of the chamber depict a projection space around the ship, with the 'balcony' representing the ship itself, to scale. Not much
unlike this.
The bridge 'balcony' itself is set on three tiers (each is really just a step down from the other to keep the difference in elevation to a minimum, but also insure that anyone can easily see anyone else's face without obstruction. The general styling of the bridge would be high tech... I'm presently influenced by
some early NX-01 Enterprise bridge art as well as some of the
high-tech stuff from the artist RedJuice999.
The middle tier opens up with two entries into the bridge, with a supply cabinet in-between them and just behind the captain's seat.
I originally started with just a single rear exit, but I did not like the fact that the captain would be blindsided by anyone entering the bridge. Now, at least, peripheral vision can pick up anyone coming in.
The 'cabinet' was an idea I was nursing, seeing how bridge people on stand-by - especially in hurry-up-and-wait combat situations - had little chance to go and refresh themselves. I figure the cabinet could include snacks and lunches, perhaps an icebox equivalent if thecook happens to deliver sandwiches but that you can't eat them all before something comes up (allowing a place to stow drinks and snacks without it getting underfoot), a water fountain, glasses - enough supplies to make a long bridge stay more comfortable, without bringing enough food to make much of a mess.
The middle tier consoles to the left of the captain are tactical and the external monitoring station (name subject to change). The use of the tactical station is pretty much the same as it was on Miharu.
The port monitoring station includes external ship communication and most external passive sensors (with a focus on fire control) - the goal of that station is to serve for monitoring things happening outside the ship - for an NPC to report on it to serve narration. Like "Defolds detected 3 AU's away" to "Direct hit on their port engine".
To the right is navigation and further after is the iternal monitoring station.
Navigation ends up the same. It's ship movement, from sublight, to lightspeed to fold along with fancy evasive maneuvers and such. There's no communication gear, however. Note that while all consoles likely default as glassy touch screens accompanied by floating volumetric displays, I've plans to allow peripherals to be attached to the consoles; such as trackballs, throttles, joysticks, levels, pedals and such. not everyone has a SPINE interface or prefers using it in favor of other mediums for narration.
The starboard internal monitoring station in more for in-ship communication, reporting ship condition ("Barriers weakening", "Casualties on deck 2, dispatching medical team", "Heat saturation rising on fore-dorsal armor"), managing ship logistics, damage control and internal/allied ship communication. It's an NPC position to assist with narration.
The captain's seat is center, and for now it's just a seat. I haven't decided if I wanted the seat to just have versatile armrests, or to have it centered on its own auxiliary control station like on
Hoshi's bridge.
The
upper tier has two consoles which are a step up, on the sidemost edges of the balcony. Left is operations and right is engineering.
Operations isn't too different from what Miyoko used, but it's a station meant for player action. From there, the user ought to be able to do active sensor scans, electronic warfare (which the ship will be very well suited to do) and other advanced operations.
Engineering is the console meant to manage a ships resources, effect damage control and overview actions done by the ships techs. Since the starboard monitoring station is the one telling everyone the ship's condition, the chief engineer can focus on actual work from diverting power, to boosting power to certain system, to tweak a vessel's shield effectiveness, order techs to do certain operations, adjudicate the use of supplies such as coolant reserves and so on.
The lower tier, a step down from the middle tier, is dominated by a volumetric projection plate in the middle which normally shows only the Star Army's logo, but when active can project a damage overview of the ship, or a starmap of known space and such. One other use is face to face communication (with the person spoken too actually appearing in a 3d volumetric projection - kind of like how Shepard and the Illusive Man speak to one another in Mass Effect 2).
At the base of each middle tier consoles are couches to sit on, making them ideal places to have observers sit. I figure that from there, a tactical officer could view a projection of a complex where the ship's armor teams are deployed and direct their actions. An admiral could command a small flotilla from there while the captain would command the ship proper. A situation briefing could also be held in that place - it'd be an ideal spot for all of those.
So... that's all for today.