GURPS Traveller Ships 2.03.00
(GT2)
Copyright © 1999-2000
by Thomas L Bont
Table of Contents
Introduction
Repository
Menu Items/Speed Buttons
Print Control
Ship Options
Ship Information
Ship Crew
Editing Existing Modules
Tutorial
Notes on
GURPS Space 3rd Edition Support
Introduction
GURPS Traveller Ships 2.0 (GT2) is the latest version of a program designed
to reduce construction time of starships and non-starships using the rules from
GURPS Traveller 2nd Edition. This version is radically different from 1.x but
still follows the tradition of being fast and easily configurable.
Included in this version is a programming strategy I developed for
calculating values when needed called JITCalc. JITCalc knows what particular
modules depend on other modules and how they contribute to a particular output
value and only accesses those modules when the value needs it. There are no
stored values other than those specific to module inputs. Everything associated
with an output value is calculated from the ground up each and everytime it is
accessed based on the dependancies of the design system. This prevents creeping
in final values and eliminates the need for any "re-calc" to be
performed. You may think this would slow the program down, but in actuality, it
is faster than the previous release.
Backwards compatibility was maintained as much as possible. However, to take
advantage of some of the new features (Reactor Size!!!), you need to replace
your old modules with the new ones. And besides, when GURPS Traveller Starships
is released with its plethora of other modules, you will be one step closer to
using those modules.
As in version 1.x, GTS has two distinct parts; Ship Designer and Repository.
The major difference is the repository is now located on the main window along
with the ship designer. As you can see by looking at the program, the ship is
now represented with a tree view. Each major section of the vessel is contained
in separate logical blocks to ease your development effort (and mine).
The last section of this document includes a tutorial to help you build your
first ship.
The Main Screen is divided into four parts. Starting in the upper left-hand
corner and working clockwise, the different sections (or panes) are called;
Ship Tree, Ship Module View, Repository Module View, Repository Tree.
Repository
The Repository is where all modules are stored for use. You drag modules
from the repository and drop them on the particular sections of the ship where
you want them.
Before we build a ship, it is important to understand the Repository and how
it works. Firstly, it is NOT a true database. It is a collection of programming
objects with a common set of parameters. Some of these parameters may vary from
module type to module type, but in the end they all pretty much have the same
information; mass, cost, volume, etc.
Creating a new module in the Repository is quite easy. There are three ways
to do it:
- Select the category you wish to add a new module to in the Repository Tree.
Select the menu item Repository/New Module... You can also get access to this
function by using the hot-key sequence or the speed button.
- Select the category you wish to add a new module to in the Repository Tree.
Double-click in any empty space in the Repository Module View pane. A dialog
pops up with all information blank.
- Copy an existing module. To do this, highlight the module you want to copy
and then press CTRL-D (or the Repository/Duplicate Module... or the speed
button). This copies the module (and places it at the bottom of your list).
Just double-click on it to begin editing
Listed below are some of the different module types and a brief explanation
of the parameters. If a module type is not listed, it is a standard module and
the parameters are self-explanatory.
Aux Vehicles - Auxilliary Vehicles are
vehicles carried in Spacedocks, Vehicle Bays or mounted externally. They have
Volume, Mass, Cost, Crew and may or may not have a power requirement from the
ship's reactor. 99.99% of the time, they are completely self-sufficient and do
not require power. An example of a vehicle that requires power is one that
doesn't have an internal power source and relies strictly on batteries for
power. When it is time to recharge, it requires some power from the ship's
reactor to do so.
Cutter Modules are grouped under Aux Vehicles because they fit there better
than anywhere else. Besides, they usually end up in the Hangar Bay don't they?
Accomodations - There are five different
types of crew accomodations; Crew Quarters (usually staterooms), Low Berths,
Misc Crew Facilities and Sickbays. They all have Volume, Mass, Cost, Crew and a
Power Requirement. The following are additional/revised parameters:
- Crew Quarters - this section includes other module that has a life support
slice in it except for Passenger Seating (below).
- Occupants - Number of personnel the life support slice supports.
- Low Berth
- Num Tubes - Number of cryotubes in the module.
- Crew Facilities
- Users - Number of users that can use the facility simultaneously.
- Passenger Seating
- Passengers - Number of passengers than can be seated.
- Sickbays
- Patients - Number of Patients that can be taken care of simultaneously,
either through automatic means or by a doctor.
Control Areas - There are four different
types of control areas; Bridges, Sensors, Secondary Systems and Software. All
but Software have Volume, Mass, Cost, Crew and Power. The following are
additional/revised parameters:
- Bridges, Sensors, Secondary Systems.
- Complexity - The complexity of the computer (if any) in this module.
- Utilization X - This is an abstract representation of the computer power
actually contributed to the "normal" operations of the vessel. For
instance, if you have a bridge with a Complexity Rating of 10, it can run two
Complexity 10 Programs. However, if you have a computer with the Robotic Brain
option, it can only run one Complexity 10 program; it can only run at 50%
normal capacity. Thus you would enter 0.5 in the edit box. Auxilliary Bridges
and the like do not usually contribute to the normal computing capacity and
therefore should have a 0 entered. The final Computer Capacity is calculated
from all Control Areas and is used to determine how many programs can be run
and of what complexity they can be.
- Hrdnd Mass/Cost Mod - Hardened Mass and Hardened Cost. This is the added
mass and cost of a bridge with the Hardened option applied. If the base module
is already hardened (like the Military Information Center), then the "Base
Module is Hardened" checkbox should be checked to speed up configuration
during the ship construction phase.
- User Notes - This is typically used to represent the capabilities of the
bridges electronic systems. 38/42/35, 5k/10k/2 for instance, represents the
bridge's PESA/AESA/Radscanner ratings followed by the Radio/Laser/Meson
communicators' ranges in GT hexes. Some communication modules have four numbers
instead of three. They are Radio/Maser/Laser/Meson.
- Software - Software comes in three different varieties according to
my house rules; Skill-based, Bonus-based and neither. They seem to work
ok so I decided to implement it in GTS2. You can still use the rules as
dictated in GT2, but if you wish to extend those rules, they are here for you.
- Base TL - This is the TL at which the program first becomes available.
- Base Cost - This is the cost of the program in its most basic form.
- Base Complexity - This the lowest complexity the program can run as.
- Skill Based - Skill-based programs usually run autonomously and have a
skill of their own. Gunner for instance is a Skill Based program.
- Base Skill - This is the lowest skill the program is capable of running at.
- Skill Name - Description to describe what particular function or skill the
program is emulating.
- Bonus Based - Bonus-based programs augment character skills. Damage Control
is an example of a Bonus Based program.
- Base Bonus - Minimum bonus the program is capable of providing.
- Skill Name - Character skill augmented by the program.
Engineering - This is the base engineering
module as described in GT2 as well as Jump Drive, Manuever Drive, Fuel
Processors, Fuel Tanks and Gravitic Systems. They all have Volume, Mass, Cost
and Crew. All but the Engineering modules have Power. In the Repository you may
see an entry like 'Fusion Reactor' with no values for mass, volume or cost.
This is used as a placeholder to represent the reactor when cockpit/systems are
used. As the reactor is included in a bridge module, the placeholder will allow
you see the size of the reactor.
- Size Constant (Engineering Module)- This is used to determine the final
size of the ship's reactor. It is an abstract value found by referring to the
table in VE2 page 86. Assume 1 (one) represents the base volume as defined by
the formula (KW / 50). TL10+ Fusion reactors use the constant 0.2. If you are
using TL9 Fission, your constant is 1 (one). If you are using TL9 NPU, your
constant is also1 (one) although the value in the book is 2. Remember that NPUs
divide final weight by 100 and not 50. They are half the size per lb than other
reactors are. Unless you are defining your own engineering modules, you
shouldn't have to worry too much about this value.
- Jump Drive
- Max Displacement - This is the maximum displacement this drive is capable
of producing. TL10 Jump Drives can only displace up to 3 Parsecs per week so
their Max Displacement is 3.
- Manuever Drive
- sTons Thrust - This is the total thrust the drive is capable of producing
in sTons (2000 lbs).
- sTons Lift - This is the total lift the drive is capable of producing in
sTons. All standard reactionless thrusters are vectored and produce the same
lift as thrust.
- Reaction Drives
- sTons Thrust - As Manuever Drive above.
- sTons Lift - As Manuever Drive above.
- dTons/Hr - This is amount of fuel in dTons per Hour the drive burns. All
values in the included Repository from GS3 have been converted from mass per
hour.
- Fuel Processors
- dtons/Hr - This is the number of dtons of unrefined fuel this processor can
process into refined fuel per hour.
- Gravitics
- dtons Covered - This is the number of dtons one module is capable of
producing artificial gravity for.
Shields - These include Meson Shields, Nuclear
Dampers and Black Globes. They have Volume, Mass, Cost, Crew and Power.
- Meson Shield
- DR Multiplier - Fudge Factor used to determine effectively of the shield.
The default 20,800,00 is found in GT2 under the description of Meson Shields.
- Nuclear Damper
- Initial Range - This is the range capable of being covered by one module.
- Increment - This is the number of miles the initial range is extended each
time the number of modules doubles.
- Globes
- %Flicker - This the percentage of the time the globe is on. 40% Flicker
means you can see out of the globe 60% of the time. See JTAS article Naval
Architecture for GURPS Traveller, Part II for information how to use Black
Globes in GT.
- PD Added - This is the PD added to the ship due to using a Black Globe.
Weapon Mounts
- Internal Volume - This is the volume consumed by the mount "separately
from any volume consumed by the actual mount itself." For instance, a
turret has three spaces dedicated to weapons. There is one extra space that is
used for the rotation space and crew workstation. It consumes internal volume.
Pop-up turrets consume four internal spaces; 3 for the weapons and 1 for the
mounting hardware.
- Weapon Volume - This is the volume available for weapons or other items.
Turrets have 3 weapons spaces, 50-ton weapon bays have 50 dtons.
- Area - This is the area of the mount. This value is used to calculate armor
weight and cost and affect final atmospheric speed due to streamlining effects.
Internal bays (the default of the 50-ton weapon bay) do not have any area.
Turrets do. Depending on how you wish to handle pop-turrets, you may or may not
with to include an area value.
- Internal Mount (checkbox) - Use this option to indicate the weapon is
wholly mounted inside the skin of the ship and does extend out past it or is
actually mounted on the hull. This is the old "Hull Mount" option
from GTS 1.x.
Menu Items/Speed
Buttons
File
- New Ship File- Clears the current ship in memory and prepares a new ship
object.
- Open Ship File - Opens a ship file (or multiple ship files).
- Save All Ship Files - Saves all opened ships.
- Save Ship File - Saves a previously saved ship file.
- Save Ship File As - Prompts user for a file name to save the ship as.
- Close Ship File - Closes a ship file. Prompts user if ship requires saving.
- Close All Ship Files - Closes all ship file. Prompts user if ships require
saving.
- Output/Print - Displays the Print Control dialog box.
- Exit - Exits the program.
Navigation
- Ship Tree - Sets the cursor focus on the Ship Tree (upper left).
- Ship Modules - Sets the cursor focus on the Ship Modules Pane (upper
right).
- Repository Tree - Sets the cursor focus on the Repository Tree (lower
left).
- Repository Modules - Sets the cursor focus on the Repository Modules Pane
(lower right).
Ship
- Edit Module - Edits the currently selected ship module.
- Delete Module - Deletes the currently selected ship module.
- Ship Options - Displays the Ship Options dialog box.
- Ship Information - Displays the Ship Information dialog box.
- Ship Crew - Displays the Crew Names dialog box.
- Sort Systems - Sorts all ship modules alphabetically.
Repository
- Edit Module - Edits the currently selected repository module.
- Duplicate Module - Copies the current selected repository module and opens
a dialog box for editing.
- New Modules - Creates a new repository module and opens a dialog box for
editing.
- Delete Module - Deletes the currently selected ship module.
- Open - Opens a Repository file.
- Save As - Prompts user for a file name to save the current Repository as.
- Import - Displays the Import Database dialog box.
- Sort - Sorts the Repository Alphabetically and resolves all duplicates with
TL.
Tools
- Travel Times - Quick and easy calculator to get travel times over a
distance. Enter any two values, select the radio button for the third value
press Calculate.
Help
- About - Display About box :)
Print Control
This version of GTS no longer sends the printouts straight to the printer.
It now dumps the printout to a formatted HTML document. As you are more than
likely reading this from a browser, there is a very good chance it is either
Netscape or the other one. You can now view your printout in your browser and
if you don't like the way it is formatted, change it. You can then preview the
output in your browser and send it to the printer that way.
I do send one thing to the printer directly, however. That is the Gunner
Worksheet. Too many people whooped and hollered when I put that in the last
version so I decided to keep it. It is access via the Preview Gunner
Worksheet button.
This dialog box is used to select what particular sections are sent to the
HTML file.
- Ship History, Ship's Crew, Crew Roster, Crew Quantified, Modules, Weapons,
Computer Dump - All these will turn on or turn off the dumping of their
respective sections.
- Use Graphic - I no longer support BMP files in the printout. Netscape
doesn't support them. I only support jpg files. So, if you have ship picture
files in bmp format, you need to convert them to jpg before they will show up
in your document. The picture is ultimately scaled to 550x280. If you want a
different size, you will have to manually edit the HTML document ... you know?
I suppose I could put in an option to let you specify that. Maybe I'll do that
someday :)
- HTML Terse - This button prompts the user for a filename and dumps a very
bare-bones output.
- HTML Verbose - This button prompts the user for a filename and dumps a very
descriptive output.
- Preview Gunner Worksheet - Displays a print preview of the gunner worksheet
from version 1.x. The print button for it is on the preview dialog.
- Dump Spreadsheet - Dumps a spreadsheet (fixed-width columns) of all modules
in the ship. This is useful for verification during playtests.
Ship Options
This dialog box is used to set options that affect the way the ship
calculates is final values. These options are saved with the ship and are reset
upon program restart. These values also affect the Repository input values.
- Use VE2 Crew Corrections - Used to calculate crew requirements for all
engineering systems as per VE2 instead of GT2. This usually results in fewer
crew but also necessitates the need for multiple shifts should ship regulations
require it (ie. military ships).
- Crew Arranged in Multiple Shifts - Selecting the checkbox indicates that
Engineering and Main Bridge crew should be mulitplied by the Number of Shifts
(below).
- Number of Shifts - Number of shifts or watches the ship's crew rotates
around. Typically this is three.
- Mass, Volume, Area, Power, Velocity, Currency, Distance drop-down boxes -
All values are converted to this unit. Printouts and all final calculations are
converted.
Ship
Information
This dialog box is used to specify "color text" for the vessel
being designed.
- Tech Level - The base tech level of the vessel should be entered here. It
has no affect on any modules and but should accurately represent the tech
level.
- Ship Class - Class name of the vessel. ie Vanderbuilt would be the entry
for the Vanderbuilt-class yacht.
- Common Use - Typical use of the vessel. ie. Yacht.
- Ship Name - Ship name and ship codes (GT2/160). ie. INS Vanderbuilt, YP-4
- Designed By - Your Name!
- Shipyard - Shipyard the vessel was built at.
- Date Commissioned - When the ship was commissioned (or when it was designed
in "Real World" (tm) dates).
- Ship History - A writeup of the vessel's history, common tactics, etc. As
the final output is now in HTML, just about any HTML command codes you wish to
use will work. Typically '<P>' is all you need to separate paragraphs.
Ship Crew
This dialog box is used to specify the names of important crewmembers. The
list view at the top has a large assortment of departments and positions
defined. Select the department you are interested in and then double-click the
entry on the right. A dialog box is presented to enter in the crewman's name.
You may also specify additional information other than a crewman's name;
department size for instance.
- Total Crew Size - There are three different values that are useful for
determining the minimum number of crewmen required for your vessel.
- Total - This is the total number of crew required by your modules.
- Routine Maint - This is the total number of crew required to perform
routine maintenance on your vehicle each day as per GT:FT page 75.
- Recommended - This value is kinda fudged. What the program does is take the
Total Crew and divides it by 3. The remainder can, technically, perform the
routine maintenance. If there is a shortfall between this remainder and the
Routine Maint value, extra crew are added to the Total and displayed as
Recommended. You do not need to have this many but it is advised as it prevents
those nasty HT rolls due to lack of maintenance.
- Actual - This is where you actually enter in the number of crew onboard.
- Allocations - Displays the Crew Allocations dialog box.
- Custom Crew Description - How you describe your crew complement is as
personal to some as their family. Selecting this checkbox allows you to enter
exactly what you want the crew description to look like. You can also use the
Default button to start out with the string GTS2 generates for you and then
modify it to your tastes.
Editing Existing
Modules
As you add modules to your ship and start configuring these modules, you
will notice that several dialog boxes have different options. Most, however,
have some that are paramount to proper use of GTS2.
- Do Not Print - Instructs the program to ignore this particular module when
printing.
- Multiple Shifts - If your ship is configured to calculate multiple shift
crew totals, this checkbox instructs the program to calculate them for this
module.
- Main System - This is probably the most important checkbox in the program.
It instructs the program to treat this particular module as the main one in its
group for purposes of overall shipboard record keeping. For instance, you may
have two bridges. One of them must be the Main Bridge. Select the bridge you
want as the main bridge and check this box. You don't have to have a main
system, but some JITCalc dependencies require a main system to attach to.
- Lock Rating - Used to force the program to generate the correct number of
modules required to achieve a user-defined performance vector. ie. In a Jump
Drive module, locking the rating and entering 1 for a 100-ton ship will force
the program to set the quantity to 2 modules.
Tutorial : Building your first
ship with GTS2
We will now build a ship using GTS2. The ship we want to build is a 200 dton
Armed Merchant. It will have above average armor for a ship of its class and
have weapons in both of its turrets.
- Start the program :)
- Select the menu item Repository/Open...
- Select the GTSRepository_GT2.gtr file.
- Select the Open button.
Note : If you rename the gtr file to GTSRepository.gtr it is automatically
loaded each time you start the program.
- Select the menu item File/New Ship File...
- This brings up the Ship Information dialog box. For now, just select the
OK button. We will come back to this later.
- You should now a fully collapsed tree in the Ship Tree pane.
- Expand the Ship Tree.
- Select the "Hull" node. GTS2 automatically creates a hull to
begin with. It is displayed in the Ship Module View to the right. Its name is
Hull. Double-click on it.
- You should now be staring at the Configure Hull dialog box.
- Enter in a name for the hull. It doesn't really matter what you put in
here. It will only show up during the spreadsheet dump and when you view the
hull node.
- Select the appropriate TL. This is the TL of the Hull and it determines
what values to use to calculate the hull values and armor values. Let's leave
it at TL10.
- Enter the tonnage. You can enter any valid floating point number. Enter
200.
- Select an armor DR. The minimum you can enter is 100. Enter 150. You can
use your cursor keys to change the value.
- Select Very Good Streamlining. This is the default for all streamlined
vessels.
- Select Medium Frame Strength. This is the default.
- Select Standard Frame Materials. This is the default.
- Select Expensive Armor Quality. This is the default.
- Leave Compartmentalization at Standard. This is the default.
- Select Basic Stealth and Basic Emission Cloaking.
- The Sealed checkbox is checked by default. All starships need to be sealed
if they have passengers.
- As we are only building a TL10 vessel, we cannot use Thermal
Superconducting armor.
- We are not worried about Zhodani's. They take damage like everyone else.
Leave the Psi Shielding unchecked.
- We are not about to automate our ship. AI is 'bad' so leave the Robotic
Hull option unchecked, too.
- You may have noticed that as you changed values, the captions on the right
and bottom changed. That is JITCalc in action!
- Select the OK button.
- I know that Engineering is not the next node on the list but it is the next
logical section we should edit.
- Expand the Engineering node in the Ship Tree.
- Select the Engineering node in the Repository Tree.
- You should see many Engineering modules and other aux equipment already
built for you in the Repository Module View pane. Two are the standard as per
GT2 and the rest I either created myself or got from other published sources.
- Using your mouse, click on the TL10 Engineering module. With your mouse
button still down, move your mouse up and over the Engineering node in the Ship
Tree. It changes to an arrow to to let you know you can safely drop the module.
When you see the arrow, release the mouse button.
- You should now see the Engineering module in the Ship Module View pane.
Double-click it.
- You should now see the Configure System dialog box for an Engineering
module. Select the Main System checkbox.
- A caption in the lower left-hand corner appeared. 0.0 dtons (0.00MW). This
is telling you the size of your reactor is 0.0 dtons in size and is capable of
producing 0 MW. Later as we add more modules to the ship, this caption will
change. Feel free to come back here at any time and see it.
- Select the OK button.
- Expand the Drive nodes under the Engineering node in both the Ship Tree and
the Repository Tree.
- Select the Jump node in the Repository Module View.
- Using the steps from Engineering, select the TL10 Jump Drive and drag it to
the Jump node in the Ship Tree.
- You should see the Jump Drive in the Ship Module View. Double-click it.
- Select Main System
- Select Lock Rating
- Enter 1 in the Locked Rating edit box.
- Notice the volume went to 4 dtons and the caption in the lower right
changed to Jump-1.
- Also notice the Fuel Tank drop down box is empty. We have to add a fuel
tank. Later we will tie this drive to the fuel tank.
- Select the OK button.
- Expand Fuel Systems under the Engineering node in both the Ship Tree and
the Repository Tree.
- Select Fuel Tanks in the Repository Tree and drag the TL8 Cryonic Internal
Tank in the Repository Module View to the Fuel Tank node in the Ship Tree. The
TL8 Cryonic Internal Tank is the same exact one from GT only it has a different
name. If you are not familiar with the other tank types and what they do, I
recommend sticking with this one.
- Double-click on the new module in the Ship Module View pane.
- For a 200-ton ship capable of Jump 1, we need 20 dtons of fuel. Enter 20 in
the Quantity edit box.
- In Mass per dton, enter 1. One dton of fuel weighs one ston. This value is
not used when calculating EMass and everthing else based on it.
- Select Main System.
- As we are using Hydrogen, we need to change our User Note to reflect this.
Change the Fire 0 to Fire 13.
- Select the OK button.
- Go back and edit the Jump Drive module we edited earlier (in the Ship
Module View).
- In the Fuel Tank drop down box, we now have the tank we just added. Select
it and notice our lower left-hand caption change to Jump-1(1). This means, the
ship can travel Jump-1 and has enough fuel for 1 jump. If we add more tank, say
10 more dtons, this changes to Jump-1(1.5).
- Select the OK button.
- We want to be able to refine our own fuel so select the Fuel Processors
node in the Repository Tree.
- Drag the TL10 Fuel Processor in the Repository Module View to the Fuel
Processor node in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click on it in the Ship Module View.
- Select Main System.
- Under Tank to Process, you should see your fuel tank. Select it.
- Your description caption changes to 2.5 hours to refine Cryonic Internal
Tank. If you ever change the name of your Fuel Tank (say to Main Fuel Tank),
you will need to come back to this dialog box and reselect the tank (and the
Jump Drive module). I let you name your modules whatever you wish, but if you
established any links with them, you need to re-link them if you change the
name.
- Select the OK button.
- Select the Maneuver node in the Repository Tree.
- Drag the TL10 Maneuver Drive from the Repository Module View to the
Maneuver node in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click on the Maneuver Drive in the Ship Module View.
- Select Main System.
- Select Lock Rating.
- Enter 1.2 in the Locked Rating edit box. GTS2 will calculate the
minimum number of Maneuver Drive modules needed to produce 1.2 Gs of
acceleration. Notice the caption in the lower left hand-corner. It actually
reads 1.36 / 1.5 Gs, 280 stons thrust. This represents LAcc / EAcc and the
amount of thrust your engines produce. You also notice you have 7 dtons of
Maneuver Drive. If you only had 6 dtons, your acceleration would be less than
1.2. To test this, uncheck the Lock Rating checkbox and enter six in the
Quantity edit box. Notice the Acceralation is 1.18 / 1.31 Gs. Go ahead
and check Lock Rating again.
- Now, everytime you add something to your ship that increases its mass,
JITCalc reverifies you have enough Maneuver Drive modules to meet the
specification you selected.
- Select the OK button.
- Select the Gravitics nodes in the Repository Tree.
- Drag the TL10 Utility to the Gravitics node in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click on the Utility module in the Ship Module View.
- Select Main System.
- Select Lock Rating.
- The value remains at 1 because each Utility module covers 500 dtons. Our
ship is only 200 dtons in size. There are half-size utility modules available
(as for most other systems). Later, you want to optimize (see : Munchkinism),
using half-size modules may get you back a couple/three dtons.
- Select the OK button.
- Now we need a bridge.
- Expand the Control Areas nodes in the Ship Tree and Repository Tree.
- Select the Bridge node in the Repository Tree.
- You will notice quite a few different bridges to choose from.
- Drag the TL10 Basic Bridge in the Repository Module View to the Bridge node
in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click on the bridge module in the Ship Module View.
- Select Main System.
- Let's select the Hardened option, too. It is, after all, an Armed Merchant.
- Notice when you select Hardened, the mass and cost change. It knows how
much to change because the Bridge Module in the Repository has those values
entered.
- Select the OK button.
- We should also add some internal sensors.
- Select the Sensors node in the Repository Tree.
- Drag Standard Internal Sensors (SIS) from the Repository Module View to the
Sensors node in the Ship Tree.
- You may view the module you just added if you wish. There is really nothing
there to add unless you want to have more than one system.
- There are no Secondary Systems we are going to add.
- We will add Software later.
- Now the good stuff.
- Expand the Weaponry nodes in the Ship Tree and the Repository Tree.
- All weapons that get mounted on a vessel must go in a mount. Even if it is
Hull Mounted, it still needs a "mount."
- Expand the Mounts node in the Repository Tree.
- Select the Weapon Turret node in the Repository Tree.
- Drag the Turret module in the Repository Module View to the the Weapon
Turrets node in the Ship view.
- Notice you can now expand the this node. Expand it.
- You see your turret is now part of the Ship Tree. If you select it, nothing
shows up in the Ship Module View. There is nothing in it yet.
- Now we have to add weapons. Lets add 1 Laser, 1 Missile Rack and 1
Sandcaster to it.
- Expand the Weapons node in the Repository Tree and then select the Turret
Weapons node.
- Drag the 250 Mj Std Laser to the Turret node you just created.
- Drag the TL20 Lt Missile Rack to the Turret node you just created. The [82]
means you can get 82 missiles in this rack.
- Drag the Sand Caster to the Turret node you just created.
- You now have three weapons in your turret. But you don't have missiles or
sand canisters yet. We have to add them, too.
- Expand the Armaments node in the Repository Tree and select he Missiles
node.
- Drag the TL10 Lt Missile Turret Load [x82] to the Turret you just created.
The [x82] means you have 82 missiles in this loadout.
- Select the Sand Canisters node in the Repository Tree.
- Drag the Sand Caster Full Load [x200] module in the Repository Module View
to the turret you just created.
- You should now see five different items in the Ship Module View when you
select your Turret node.
- Now we need to edit the Turret and set up a few parameters. Select the
Weapon Turrets node (the one above the Turret node) in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click on the Turret module in the Ship Module View.
- GTS2 has a much easier method of assigning batteries and crewmen than
version 1x. For this particular vessel, we want two batteries of the same type
turret. Each battery consists of one turret and has one crewman per turret.
- Enter 2 in the Batteries edit box.
- Under % of Full DR, enter 100. We want the maximum armor we can have for
this turret installed. Maximum armor is defined as 500 at TL8, 1000 at TL9,
2000 at TL10, 4000 at TL11 and 8000 at TL12 ... OR ... half the ship's armor
whichever is less. There is a minimum of DR100 on turrets, though. If you wish
more than that, enter a number greater than 100.
- Notice the Description says we have overloaded our turret. This is not
really the case, but the program needs to be told that.
- Select the OK button and then select the Turret node in the Ship
Tree.
- Double-click on Missile Turret Load in the Ship Module View.
- Select the Do not include Volume in Ship Total. This tells GTS2 that we
don't want to track the volume of the missiles. Missile Racks have enough room
in them for one of these modules.
- Select the OK button.
- Double-click the Sand Canister in the Ship Module View.
- Select the Do not include Volume in Ship Total. This tell GTS2 that we
don't want to track the volume of the Sand Canisters. Sand Casters have enough
room in them for one of these modules.
- Select the OK button.
- Select the Weapon Turret node in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click on our turret module in the Ship Module View.
- Notice the description changed. On some machines, the description may run
off the side. This will not affect final printout.
- Select the OK button.
- Now we have to assign some crew.
- Select the menu item Ship/Ship Crew...
- The Recommended Crew Size is 7. This may or may not be what you really
want. On a ship this small, the Basic Bridge probably wont have all five
workstations filled. Review the Allocations dialog box (by selecting the
Allocations buttons).
- Select the Has Crew checkbox.
- Notice we could proably get away with one engineer for both drives. That's
one.
- We need two gunners. This is an Armed Merchant so it would probably be wise
to keep two on the books. That's two, total three.
- The bridge requires five. We really only need a Captain/Pilot and a
Navigator/Sensor/Commo. That's two, total five.
- Select the Close button.
- Theoretically, this ship could get by with just five crewmembers, but we
are going to completely fill it up. Enter 7 in the Actual edit box.
- Now let's see what our crew description will look like on the printout.
Select the Default button and then Yes on the confirmation dialog
box.
- Obviously we aren't going to have 5 Command and Control so we need to edit
the description. Select the Custom Crew Description checkbox.
- Enter "7 Total. Caption/Pilot, Navigator/Sensor/Commo, 2 Engineers, 2
Turret Gunners." without the double quotes. You may want to add a note
specifying that the Gunners help out with maintenance or bridge duties when not
firing the weapons. Indeed, the total of 7 the program recommends assumes that
2/3 of the crew is free 1/3 of the day to help out with maintenance. But it
also assumed we would have five people on the bridge when in actuality we wont.
This will become important in the next section.
- Select the OK button.
- Expand the Accomodations nodes in the Ship Tree and the Repository Tree.
- Select the Crew Quarters node in the Repository Tree.
- Drag the TL10 Stateroom to the Crew Quarters node in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click on the Stateroom module in the Ship Module View.
- We know we have seven crewmen. We need at least four staterooms. But we may
want to pick up passengers, too. Enter a 10 in the Quanitity edit box.
- Select the Main System.
- We also want our printout to reflect how many people are actually using the
staterooms. In the User Notes edit box, enter '7 of 20' without the
quotes.
- Select the OK button.
- We also might need some Low Berths and Sickbays.
- Using the same method we used to add staterooms, add a Low Berth module and
a Sickbay module.
- Edit each of these and select the Main System checkbox.
- Go back and review the Crew Requirements. Notice the recommended went to
eight. We added a sickbay which has a crew requirement itself. Don't change the
Actual Crew unless you really want to, though. We had a slack of two crewmen.
Now we have a slack of one.
- We want to add a Launch to our vessel. We really need the space for cargo
so we will put it in a Vehicle Bay.
- Select the Storage Bays node in the Repository Tree.
- Drag the Vehicle Bay in the Repository Module View to our Storage Bay node
in our Tree View.
- Notice this also results in a new node being added to our Storage Bay node.
- Select the Storage Bays node in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click the Vehicle Bay in the Ship Module View.
- Enter 10 in the Quantity edit box.
- Notice our description tells us how much room we have left. As we add
things to our storage bays, GTS2 tracks our remaining volume. When we have no
more room left, our description disappears, informing us we are full.
- Select the OK button.
- Expand the Storage Bays node in the Ship Tree.
- Expand the Aux Vehicles node in the Repository Tree and select the
Spacecraft node.
- Drag the Launch in the Repository Module View to the Vehicle Bay node in
Ship Tree.
- Double-click the Launch module in the Ship Module View.
- Select the Remove for EMass Calculation.
- Notice our Crew requirement for this vessel is 3. Well, we are not going to
have three guys just sitting around with nothing to do. Ship's crew can double
for Launch Crew. Enter 0.
- Select the OK button.
At this point, we need to make a decision. Look at the Status Bars in the
middle of the screen. Look for the box that says Free : 62.5. That's all the
space we have left. We can't even completely fill that remaining space with
Cargo because we have our Maneuver Drive locked. As we add cargo, our drive
size will go up because our ship is getting heavier. A Beowulf has more cargo
than that. So, in a completely personal decision, I decide I want to reduce my
Loaded Acceleration to 0.9 Gs and drop my staterooms to 9. To do this, I edit
the Maneuver Drive module and reduce my Locked Rating to 0.9. I then reduce my
staterooms to 9. I make sure to change my User Notes to '7 of 18' to reflect
the change.
- Select Storage Bays in the Repository Tree.
- Drag the 1/2 dton Hold to the Storage Bays node in the Ship Tree.
- Expand the Storage Bays node in the Ship Tree.
- Double-click the Hold module in the Ship Module View.
- As we are dealing with a 1/2 dton module, we need to enter in twice the
number of modules we normally would. Enter 127 in the Quantity edit box.
This give us 63.5 dtons of cargo.
- Enter 5 in the stons/dton edit box. This is a standard value.
- Select the OK button.
We should now verify our Crew Requirements. Look at the Ship Crew dialog
box. We are still ok but let's increase our Actual to 8 (personal decision) and
change out description to "8 Total. Caption/Pilot, Navigator/Sensor/Commo,
3 Engineers, 2 Turret Gunners, 1 Medic." without the quotes. Now change
our User Notes in the Stateroom module to 8 of 18.
That's it. Well, not quite. We have to save it.
- Select the File/Save Ship File... menu item.
- The Ship Information dialog box comes up. We need to enter in some values.
- Enter TL10.
- Enter Blowfish in the Ship Class edit box.
- Enter Armed Merchant in the Common Use edit box.
- Enter SS Prickly in the Ship Name edit box.
- Enter your name in the Designed By edit box.
- Fill in the rest as you see fit.
- Select the OK button.
- That dialog disappears and the File Save dialog box shows up. Enter a file
name (ie. TL10 200-ton Armed Merchant).
- Select the Save button.
Now we want to print our ship out.
- Select the File/Output/Print... menu item.
- Defaults are usually good enough on this page.
- Select the HTML Verbose button.
- The File Save dialog box comes up. Select a name for your HTML file. By
default, it takes the Ship Name.
- Select the Save button.
- Now you can view your file in any browser and use it to print it out, put
it on your web page, whatever you want to do with it.
Notes
on GURPS Space 3rd Edition Support
Although the design system between GS3 and GT2 are very similar, there
are some things that completely different and are not readily supported by
GTS2. You can build a GS3 vessel in GTS2, however. It will just take a bit of
work on your part to find the features you want and how to configure your
Repository. I have tried to compile a list of I found while building the
Repository for it, but I am sure there are other nuances that do not make
themselves apparent until you try to use them. Perhaps as time goes by and the
demand is high enough, I'll start modifying GTS to take advantage of the system
from GS3.
- GTS2 only supports the GT2 Jump Drives. You can still use the FTL
drives in the Repository, but you will have to calculate the final speed by
hand and then edit the output.
- Life Support totals will not be accurate. As GT2 includes the life support
slice in the individual staterooms, bunkrooms and seating, it is easy to
determine how many people can be supported. With the GS3, you cannot. You have
two options
- Delete the Occupants field in the all the berthing modules so GTS2 will not
add them up.
- Edit the file by hand after you have done the calculations.
- Bridge Computer Utilization is practically non-existant for GS3. It is a
little more abstract than GT2. This makes figuring the computer load impossible
unless you know what the complexity is. If you find out what the complexity is
for the different bridges at the different TLs, drop me a line and I'll add
them in.
- Engineering Reactor size is going to be totally wacked. GTS2 depends on a
reactor slice per module to calculate the total reactor size. Your best bet
here is to just delete the reactor size description in the output file.
- Shields. You will have to do all calculations by hand. I have no support
for GS3 style shields.
- Weapons. All weapons are listed under the Turret Weapon heading. As in GT2,
I only track volume in a turret, I don't track number. You could theoretically
put 10 Light Weapons in a single Medium mount. This is against the rules in GS3
... for now that is. If you want to mount a weapon in the hull, you still have
to put a zeroed out "turret" marked as Hull Mounted in your ship.
Then fill it up as in GT2. I could have put the larger, non-turretable weapons
in the Spinal Mount heading but I was lazy. They were just as well here.
- There really aren't any bays in GS3. They are either mounted in the hull
(as spinal mounts are) or in turrets.
- I am not 100% sure the turret armor masses and costs are being calculated
correctly. If someone finds a problem and you have a clue as to how to solve
it, drop me a line.
I think that about sums it up. There is really nothing major that it doesn't
support, mainly just the FTL and shield stuff. Someone may even figure a way to
handle the shields if they play with the numbers enough ... hint, hint.