Re: So How Big is a Starship?

Michael Blair wrote in a week-old post:

> So How Big is a Starship?

[snip]

> What is a MASS?
> The Fleet Book gives us some hard numbers to work with. 1 Mass 
> represents a displacement of 10 tonnes.
> Now displacement in wet navies and Traveller [1] is a measure of
volume

> worth 1 and 14 cubic metres respectively. The first for the amount of 
> water displaced and the latter for liquid hydrogen. These give us two 
> possible values for one mass, 10 or 140 cubic metres. 

[snip]

The Mass ratings are, according to Jon T., just that - mass, not volume.
This does disrupt your arguments a little :-/

The short answer to your question is, of course, "1 MASS is just as
large
as you like"... and depends entirely on your background. I strongly
suspect that 1 MASS in a B5 scenario is a *lot* less than 1 MASS in a
Star Wars scenario, for example (unless you like Mass 600 Star
Destroyers
<g>).

> Transporting People
> According to the Fleet Book one MASS gives one passenger space. Does 
> this mean that one passenger occupies one MASS? 

Not at all. There is NO ratio given in the FB between the amount of Mass
allocated to passenger/cargo transport and how much cargo/how many
passengers these spaces can carry. According to the FB, one MASS of
passenger space gives one MASS of passenger space, not space for one
passenger...

> Cost
> The Fleet Book does not charge anything for cargo or passenger spaces.

> Though in principle I do not agree with the cost of passenger space 
> would be so low (one point is worth 10 million!) as to be not worth 
> bothering about, so assume that the hull cost pays for it.

Two reasons:

1. The FB ship costs are a scenario points system. Passenger and cargo
spaces aren't worth anything in a fight (except as victory conditions),
so shouldn't cost anything to buy. (Why pay to give the enemy more
defenceless targets...?)

2. Compared to the same Mass of, say, starship engines, impervium armour
or neutron megablasters, passenger areas are virtually free...

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@nacka.mail.telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry