Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: quadinhonic_II on July 08, 2002, 02:27:39 pm
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Back when I was on the VBB I started a thread called "Crew sizes" In it was the crew sizes of GTVA cap ships. I did have a copy long before the VBB closed but I can't find it anywhere.
Does anyone have a copy?
I need this info for my campagin.
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Official [V] info, they weren't.
That doesn't mean they're wrong information... but actually it's not been told anywhere so I don't think even :v: knows...
Copy I haven't got, sadly.
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Neither me :(
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They should've made a Homeworld like book with FS...
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Originally posted by TheCelestialOne
They should've made a Homeworld like book with FS...
I think the reason why Fs2 doesnt have a book like HW is because FS has the Tech Database. If you recall HW does not have any tech database thing at all, thats why they have a book with the ship data in it.
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I don't have a copy here, but there are a couple of people who say they have archived the VBB - it might come up in a search since it was mentioned in here. I wasn't able to find anything at archive.org either, their saved records only go up to mid-2001. But you could look there if you could think of ways to refine the search.
I can vaguely remember some non-canon values, such as 125 in Charybdis and 250 in Fenris (don't take my word for it) and a few are mentioned in the games themselves e.g 10,000 in Hecates and 8,000-10,000 in Orions. In the event you can't find a copy of that thread, there's nothing to stop a new discussion about crew sizes, unless fanwanking is forbidden on HLP.
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I remember that thread; it had some very useful information, but if necessary, I think we can build up the list again here. I need to go now but I will post the information I have collected in a little bit (the original post I made on that other thread) and we can then start editing that.
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Originally posted by Kazashi
I don't have a copy here, but there are a couple of people who say they have archived the VBB - it might come up in a search since it was mentioned in here. I wasn't able to find anything at archive.org either, their saved records only go up to mid-2001. But you could look there if you could think of ways to refine the search.
I can vaguely remember some non-canon values, such as 125 in Charybdis and 250 in Fenris (don't take my word for it) and a few are mentioned in the games themselves e.g 10,000 in Hecates and 8,000-10,000 in Orions. In the event you can't find a copy of that thread, there's nothing to stop a new discussion about crew sizes, unless fanwanking is forbidden on HLP.
I went to that archive.org
I found thishttp://web.archive.org/web/20011006033522/vbb.volition-inc.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=FreeSpace+2+(and+Freespace)&number=1&DaysPrune=10&LastLogin= (http://)
Your right only to the early months of 2001.
Never thought I see the old BB again. Not like I miss it or anything, well I miss the Fred forum.
I guess we can rebuild the list. This time we have some different people that can contribute.
I'll start with this, (opens Fred)
Fenris: 250
Leviathon: 250
Orion: 8,000
Arcadia:?
Eylsium:?
Argo:?
Colossus: 30,000 *not sure on this one. Haven't played the main campagin in ages*
Hecate: 10,000
Diemos: 800
Aeolus:?
Triton:?
Charybdis:?
Hippocrates:?
Zephyrus:?
Posiden:?
Ganymede:?
Aten:?
Mentu:?
Typhon:?
Hatshepsut: 8,000
Setekh:?
Isis:?
Anuket:?
Satis:?
*forgot the rest of the Vasudan freighters. I think theres 2-3 more*
Those are the ones I sorta remember. If anyone see's something they dont feel is right, tell us.
I want to have it go the same way as it did on the VBB (for those who remember)
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Orion = 10,000 (SM1-10 - "Don't be absurd Koth! You are sacrificing 10 thousand lives for nothing")
;)
IIRc, the Colossus holds 30,000..... I can't remeber where it's mentioned (if so), though.
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When they all die. Petrach says that 30,000 died on the colossus. I think it's mentioned in other places too.
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In the debriefing for the 4th mission in the main campaign, it says 6000 were killed aboard the GVCv Dahshor if it is destroyed. I'd assume there'd be a similar crew compliment on the Deimos-class.
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I don't anyone has archived the whole VBB, so I guess list must be rebuilt... :)
Originally posted by karajorma
When they all die. Petrach says that 30,000 died on the colossus. I think it's mentioned in other places too.
In the Colossus cutscene, I think, and could be in tech room too, though I don't think so.
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The Colossus had a crew complement of 30,000 as mentioned by the Admiral, and in a couple of other places. So you can consider that figure canonical.
In the case of the Orion complement, the Repulse is mentioned as having a crew of 10,000. However I seem to remember somewhere else a figure of 8,000 being mentioned - whether it was in FS1 or FS2 and exactly where, I have no idea as yet. But I'll keep my eyes open. But even in this case, I don't see anything stopping an Orion from carrying 2,000 extra people, especially if it were a flagship, and especially it were carrying rescued crews from previously destroyed NTF ships. Just a thought or two to throw around :)
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Some estimates: (updated list)
GTT Elysium: 60
GVT Isis: 30
GTT Argo: 550
GTFr Poseidon: 20
GTFr Triton: 40
GVFr Ma'at: 40
GVFr Bes: 30
GVFr Satis: 80
GTG Zephyrus: 60
GVG Anuket: 60
GTM Hippocrates: 1500
GTA Charybdis: 120
GVA Setekh: 120
GTC Fenris: 250
GTC Leviathan: 250
GTC Aeolus: 200
GVC Aten: 200
GVC Mentu: 300
GTCv Deimos: 2000
GVCv Sobek: 2000
GTD Orion: 10000
GTD Hecate: 10000
GVD Typhon: 10000
GVD Hatshepsut: 10000
GTI Arcadia: 30000
GTI Ganymede: 5000
GTVA Colossus: 30000
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Personally I think some of those are very high....50 for a Posiedon? Outside maybe two pilots, a gunner, and maybe an engineering crew.....you wouldnt need that many crew members.
The capital ships I can see having thousands, but things like freighters and transports wouldn't need that many crew members. Those men could be much better used as pilots and such. My opinion anyways
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In sci-fi frieghters are generally run with small crews (I can`t think of many with a crew of more than 20). In the case of the elysium and the argo the figures are even more silly. Those crew members could be replaced with marines making it even easier to take over enemy ships so why have so many people on board?
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in loop1-2, if the Sumpters pilot is "one of us", and there is more than 2 gunners and 3-4 crew, is there any chance that the gunners and crew couldn't re-take-command of the argo? the gunners could simply shoot the sumpter... so thre has to be a small amount...
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I'm just estimating the maximum possible capacity (not standard capacity) based on the proportional volume to the destroyers. (which is known)
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For the transports, be sure to include passenger space as well as crew space. In the list I think we should have something like this:
ex.
Argo: C20 P85
C=Crew total
P=Maxium passenger capascity.
On some of those other warships (Diemos, Sobek Levi, Hecate ,Typhon) you have to take in account the
equipment
compter\AI systems
living quarters
power systems
cargo\supplies
hallways
fighterbay
All these things take up alot of space on a warship.
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You know what else'd take up a hell of a lot of space? Water. Even with purifying systems, they'd need at least supplies for a day or two while the rest of the water was being purified. Now how much does a human need to drink per day? Plus washing, cooking, bathing - times 10 000 on a destoryer? That's a lot of water.
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Originally posted by CP5670
Some estimates:
Fenris: 250
Leviathan: 250
Orion: 10000
Arcadia: 30000
Elysium: 100
Argo: 1200
Colossus: 30000
Hecate: 10000
Deimos: 2000 (see Sobek)
Aeolus: 250
Triton: 150
Charybdis: 150
Hippocrates: 1500 (can serve "thousands of patients," plus crew)
Zephyrus: 150 (most of the space would be delegated to deuterium tanks)
Poseidon: 50
Ganymede: 5000
Aten: 150
Mentu: 250
Sobek: 2000 (one of the debriefings say it is 6000 but that is quite inconsistent with the Sobek's size compared to that of the destroyers, so I am just going to disregard that)
Typhon: 10000
Hatshepsut: 10000
Setekh: 150
Isis: 30
Anuket: 150
Satis: 200 (this one would probably have a bit more than the other freighters due to the fact that it is sometimes used as a light cruiser)
Ma'at: 100
Bes: 50
Eylsium and Argo are way too high.
Posiden is a little high.
Aten I think should be 200 given its size.
Setekh is a little high
Ma'at is a little high
Aeolus, Charybdis and Triton are too high
Everything else seems right to me.
Could we get the Crew\Passenger thing on there too?
"For the transports, be sure to include passenger space as well as crew space. In the list I think we should have something like this:
ex.
Argo: C20 P85
C=Crew total
P=Maxium passenger capascity."
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In relation to the quoted figure of 6,000 for the corvettes, I could see the Deimos having a maximum capacity in that vicinity. When you compare the Deimos to the Orion you'll notice that the Deimos has a blockier overall shape - if you scale up the Deimos 2.8x so the overall length is equal, you might find it would have a substantually greater volume. The Orion also has to accomodate a fighterbay and room for fighters, plus extra equipment that a fleet flagship would be carrying e.g extra communications equpiment, planetary survey stuff etc. When you consider the modern aircraft carrier and how 5000 sardines are packed onto a 330m ship, again it lends credence that it's certianly not out of reach.
I don't think that the Sobek would have that sort of crew though. It is a smaller vessel in terms of volume, plus Vasudans are physically much bigger than Terrans. I guess one of these days I'll have a play around with incorporating internal decks into a 3D mesh and see just what sort of conditions can be expected.
Something else I thought of, concerning cargo vessels. As karajorma mentoined, in sci-fi (and even IRL) crews of these vessels are small. Why is that the case? Because the more people you have, the more living space and more life support equipment you need. This means less space for cargo - maintaining a high ratio of cargo/overall mass would be quite an important consideration. Otherwise you'd need bigger/more ships. Plus it'd be a waste of personel having dozens of people sitting around doing nothing but watching monitors and playing cards all day.
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Thanks for the suggestions everyone; I will try to address all the issues.
You know what else'd take up a hell of a lot of space? Water. Even with purifying systems, they'd need at least supplies for a day or two while the rest of the water was being purified. Now how much does a human need to drink per day? Plus washing, cooking, bathing - times 10 000 on a destoryer? That's a lot of water.
Water would indeed be a space-intensive component, but much more so than that would be the deuterium used to power the ship's reactors. In modern-day space shuttles, fuel accounts for over 95% of the total mass. Also, there are probably some sort of water purifying systems for recycling some of the water, and it is likely that water is used much more sparingly onboard one of these ships than it is on a planet.
Eylsium and Argo are way too high.
Posiden is a little high.
Aten I think should be 200 given its size.
Setekh is a little high
Ma'at is a little high
Aeolus, Charybdis and Triton are too high
Everything else seems right to me.
Could we get the Crew\Passenger thing on there too?
"For the transports, be sure to include passenger space as well as crew space. In the list I think we should have something like this:
ex.
Argo: C20 P85
C=Crew total
P=Maxium passenger capascity."
The Elysium and Argo are indeed too high. I put the Elysium's number at 50, since it is more of a commercial civilian transport than a military vessel and thus has much shorter active periods. (reducing the required supply storage) However, if you put an Argo next to an Orion and compare their proportionate average volumes, combined with the fact that most of the free space in the Argo is used for crew compartments and life support, I think 500 or 600 sounds reasonable.
The Aten's number makes sense, so I will change that one. You are right that the Aeolus is slightly smaller than the other two Terran cruisers, so that has been toned down to 200. Also, I noticed the Mentu is significantly larger than the other GTVA cruisers; I will raise that to 300 or so.
The AWACS ships are essentially the eye of the fleet, tracking enemy ship movements down on radar and sending the information to GTVI. This would probably require lots of personnel to monitor all the sectors and everything. Comparing this with the other ship sizes, I think that while the old numbers were a bit on the high side, 120 or so sounds reasonable.
I halved many of the freighter and gas miner numbers as well. (see below)
In relation to the quoted figure of 6,000 for the corvettes, I could see the Deimos having a maximum capacity in that vicinity. When you compare the Deimos to the Orion you'll notice that the Deimos has a blockier overall shape - if you scale up the Deimos 2.8x so the overall length is equal, you might find it would have a substantually greater volume. The Orion also has to accomodate a fighterbay and room for fighters, plus extra equipment that a fleet flagship would be carrying e.g extra communications equpiment, planetary survey stuff etc. When you consider the modern aircraft carrier and how 5000 sardines are packed onto a 330m ship, again it lends credence that it's certianly not out of reach.
I tried putting up the Deimos next to the Orion, and all things considered, it looks like at least five or six Deimos corvettes could fit inside the Orion's hull. Add that to the fact that the Deimos is designed as a front-line warship rather than an all-purpose command vessel (therefore having big weapon reactors taking up lots of space), I think the original 2000 sounds about right. The main thing with sea-based ships is that they do not need to carry thousands of tons of rocket fuel as space vessels do, thereby freeing up lots of space, but it does indeed serve to show how many men can be packed into a given space. ;)
Something else I thought of, concerning cargo vessels. As karajorma mentoined, in sci-fi (and even IRL) crews of these vessels are small. Why is that the case? Because the more people you have, the more living space and more life support equipment you need. This means less space for cargo - maintaining a high ratio of cargo/overall mass would be quite an important consideration. Otherwise you'd need bigger/more ships. Plus it'd be a waste of personel having dozens of people sitting around doing nothing but watching monitors and playing cards all day.
This certainly makes sense, and I have reduced many of the freighters' numbers accordingly. Same goes for the gas miners, since almost all of the space would be used for storing the collected hydrogen. The one exception might be the Satis, which as I said earlier, is often used as a light escort cruiser or a heavy freighter for transporting sensitive materials, so that would have more. (note how it does not have a cargo dock point; the stuff is probably stored inside) Also, while the Triton is by far the largest of the freighters, it is not really intended for battle and is more for moving around very heavy cargo as stated in the tech room.
All these changes have been made to the above list. Regarding the standard/maximum capacity, I have to go at the moment but I will add those in a bit later. If you have any further comments or suggestions, please post them.
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You didnt put in the, for the transports only, the C and P thing that I suggjested. The reason is I'm making a mission were something like the whole crew of an argo is dead or very badly injured and a passenger has to fly it or something. He would give how many passengers are still alive and how many crew are...there etc. And then the mission would get into some more interesting stuff etc.
The point is I need to distingish the crew size from the passenger size.
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Originally posted by CP5670
Water would indeed be a space-intensive component, but much more so than that would be the deuterium used to power the ship's reactors. In modern-day space shuttles, fuel accounts for over 95% of the total mass. Also, there are probably some sort of water purifying systems for recycling some of the water, and it is likely that water is used much more sparingly onboard one of these ships than it is on a planet.
[Snip]
I think the original 2000 sounds about right. The main thing with sea-based ships is that they do not need to carry thousands of tons of rocket fuel as space vessels do, thereby freeing up lots of space, but it does indeed serve to show how many men can be packed into a given space. ;)
Freespace ships run on fusion power which is incredibly efficient. Here's a chance to use my science background and do some quick back of the envelope calculations. [Geek Mode] Scribbles away furiously on a piece of paper and types stuff into a calculator[/Geek mode]
Okay conversion of 1kg of Deuterium into helium gives out the same amount of energy as the space shuttle requires for it's entire launch. The only time a FS2 ship would ever need anywhere near that kind of energy would be in battle (since they don`t need to escape a planets gravity).
In other words if you could run a destroyer off a single car petrol tank's worth of liquid deuterium.
I think the best ship to model FS ships on is the nuclear submarine. Like an FS2 ship it doesn`t need to carry much fuel but does need to carry water, food and oxygen for the people on board.
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just a thought, but if the argo can supposedly hold 500 total, and it was docked to a leviathon, that held 250, and they went through the knosos, and snipes got only 17 on the argo, what happened to the other 233 people on the leviathon? theres more than enough room onboard, and more than 17 people were near the docking point, so i still think that theres room for 25-30 people MAX on the argo, because they also carried cargo internaly, and supposedly, from loop1-3, an escape pod...
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I don`t buy it. The Argo is a troop transport. What's the point in a troop transport that only carries 20-30 people? Do they all have state rooms or something? :)
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Thats right a troop transport. Which means that there will be very limited space for anything besides the troops.
Just a thought but couldnt the Argo be used as a Drop Ship for a ground assault? The Argo is a TROOP transport after all.
In the FS2 intro you see some dead terran soldeirs in sand. How did they get there?
Answer: Some type of Drop Ship
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Originally posted by quadinhonic_II
In the FS2 intro you see some dead terran soldeirs in sand. How did they get there?
Answer: Some type of Drop Ship
theres also a hades in the deneb system crashed on the planet... and from what i know, jotenheim wasn't in deneb, so the people might just be there for effect...
oh, and troops would be in the cargo storage, so they can board ships faster, otherwise you'll get an in mission messege: "Alpha 1, hold off the shivans untill we can wake up the boarding party and give them brunch with tea, ETC; 45 minutes."
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Originally posted by Hippo
just a thought, but if the argo can supposedly hold 500 total, and it was docked to a leviathon, that held 250, and they went through the knosos, and snipes got only 17 on the argo, what happened to the other 233 people on the leviathon? theres more than enough room onboard, and more than 17 people were near the docking point, so i still think that theres room for 25-30 people MAX on the argo, because they also carried cargo internaly, and supposedly, from loop1-3, an escape pod...
Actually I had another look at that mission and you can`t use it for working out the maximum complement of the argo. The 17 who transfered were the survivors of the shivan attack on the NTC Alexandria. It's quite possible that the 17 on the argo were all the people left on the Alexandria (or at least those close to the docking point).
Furthermore Snipes was a GTI agent and wouldn`t have bothered rescuing NTF crew members. Considering that the NTF were all Earth-Pride Nazi scum anyway do you really think in an emergency that they would wait for the rest of the crew? :)
I think 500 is a reasonable number for the maximum number of people on board (including marines). The damn ship is more than half the size of a fenris anyway and doesn`t need huge reactors to power it's weapons.
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Originally posted by Hippo
oh, and troops would be in the cargo storage, so they can board ships faster
Troops in the cargo storage of the argo or another ship? Cause an argo doesnt have cargo storage. Does it?
Argo=troop transport
What else is going to be entering an atmosphere (and landing on the planet) full of marines?
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If the Argo's set up as a troop transport then these marines are going to have rather spartan barracks, all piled in on top of each other. Also, troop transports aren't necessarily for long distance travel, so comfort can be further compromised. It's possible to have 500 troops set up inside something of that size. However, if you're sending troops onto a planet, or to board another vessel, then you're not going to rely soley on troops. For starters you need to keep the guns somewhere - they don't magically appear out of thin air, so you'll need a bit of storage space for those. If you're landing on a planet then you'd include things such as ground vehicles, rovers, tanks, mechs. Depending on the situation space inside the Argo can be modified to include extra seats, or maintenance bays, empty space for cargo such as food drops, construction equipment etc
However (again), it might be entirely possible that the GTVA uses an as yet unseen vehicle specifically for landing troops, and the Argo's little more than a ship-ship/installation transport labelled a troop transport because marines are the only things capable of surviving the flight (like comparing flying as a passenger in a Falcon900 to flying in a C-130). When you actually look at it, it doesn't look terribly aerodynamic....
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what i mean to say is, that the argo might have 20-30 people as crew, but the troops could be kept in barraks near the dockpoints...but their not part of the crew, and this thread was about crew sises, they could well hold 500 troops, we just don't know... all we really know about troops, is that an eleysyum can hold atleast 5 people... (from the fs1 movie)
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Then in that way of looking at it the crew of the Argo could be even less. A few crew to fly it, maintain it, keep the cargo/seating area clean, command those workers. Then when it's all trooped up add a few extras, who could possibly even be in transit with the platoons as caretakers.
How is it all done in the modern military?
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Ok do we have a final list that we can all agree on?
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Just to muddy the waters a little what are the figures for mazimum occupancy? I have a mission set during the fall of Capella where command uses a decomissioned Orion to evacuate refugees. Considering the fact that the people were only going to be on board for a few hours at most and that the ship had already been decomissioned and was therefore largely empty I put the maximum number of people it could carry at 30,000. Anyone here think that's too large or too small?
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Interesting question. The limiting factors for maximum occupancy would be living space and available resources i.e. could an Orion move enough oxygen and supply enough water and food for 30,000 people. Looking at the Orion, it seems that 10,000 people could live in relative comfort so long as not too much of the internal volume were taken up by uninhabitable space. I think that it might be possible to fit in 30,000 by cramming people into cargo bays and corridors if necessary. For example...
*looks around for any sign of ZylonBane...*
The USS Enterprise (1701-D) has a normal crew compilment of just over 1000. However, in times of emergency it can carry 7,500 people by filling all available quarters (bear in mind that it can fit 4,500 people in living quarters alone) and cargo/shuttlebays. Because there are actual deck layouts that have been drawn up, it shows just how much internal volume is used in everyday practice, and how much is just empty space. Given that an Orion is several times the volume of the Enterprise (and going further back to the aircraft carrier and submarine comparisons - probably closer to a carrier for a flagship-class vessel), it's certainly possible that there is a lot of empty space, even if they take the form of cargo bays during regular practice.
My final answer if that spiel was too much to handle - yes, it could fit 30,000 people at a crunch
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Um.... argo dimensions; 102 / 72 / 171
(whl)
Leviathan / Fenris - 138 / 182 / 235
Aeolus - 70 / 82 / 272
Pretty close.... look at it in FREd2 as well.
Take away the weapons systems for the Fenris' extra turrets, and I'm pretty sure an Argo could take a similar amount of people on board - at leats for the short term. Remeber an Argo could be used primarily as ship-to-ship transport, so less space is required for food, etc.
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EXACTLY! This is what i have been trying to say. Argos don't have large crews, cause they'd need more food, and they are docking to capships all the time, so they could exchange air and food. If they are carring troops, the troops would bring their own supplies, cause they could be told to change ships at any moment...
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Think about it, some of these journeys these vessels take are just a few hours or a day or two.
In all these missions would command be making such a big deal about the deaths of 30 civilians when there are 6k people on a Corvette?
Im sure they can cram these people in like sardines in transports.
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An Argo has a crew of about 20-50 and a passenger capacity of 500. Case closed. A Poseidon can be piloted by just 2 people, but can hold up to 20 people. Look at the size of the Deimos, I'd be surprised if it could hold more than 1000 people, let alone 6000. I would estimate about 850 for the Deimos. I can't remember what I've put now.
My crew/passenger sizes webpage will be available soon... I just have to get the Internet at home (won't be too long).
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Argo:
2 pilots,
2 navigation specialists,
2 comm specialists,
4 gunners,
10 repair crew,
2 janitors
If one days shift is 12 hours, than you need 1 pilot, 1 nav specialist, 1 comm specialist, 2 gunners, 5 repair crew, and 1 janitor, then the next shift would be identical, so you double the crew for one shift, and you get a total of 22. Even if the shift tme is different, you have to remember that a ship doesn't just go to sleep when the crew is tired, but no matter what the local time is, or how long the local day is, there is still a ships-night, so they need a day crew and a night crew.
[edit] I for got to put a ... at the end...[/edit]...
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Originally posted by Pegasus V
My crew/passenger sizes webpage will be available soon... I just have to get the Internet at home (won't be too long).
Yeah, too bad that almost nothing of that is confirmed by Volition. :doubt:
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Originally posted by Redfang
Yeah, too bad that almost nothing of that is confirmed by Volition. :doubt:
You make it sound so evil and illegal. There's nothing to stop someone from creating such a list. There's also nothing stopping people from not using it, creating their own, or a future official Freespace spinoff determining otherwise. Though it would probably be better to have a larger thinktank to create anything that the community at large could potentially see as a form of reference.