What seems a better floor structure for a ship to work out height?

[Senko]

My research indicates a building works with floor, room, services with the total being able to be roughly estimated as 200mm floor, X room, 1m ceiling/services giving you say 4.2m for a 10' high room. Now that gives a nice easy comparison to starship decks. You have your deck and in the ceiling/walls you have access tubes to get to areas.

What I'm debating over is if the bottom of the ship should have services as well. That is should you have . . .

Deck 1: 4.2
Deck 2: 4.2

Ship Height = 8.4m

or should you include some more services/access areas in the bottom of the ship below the lowest deck e.g.

Deck 1: 4.2
Deck 2: 4.2
Lower area: 1m (or X)

Ship Height = 9.4 or 8.4 + X?

What do people think would the lower hull of a ship be the floor of the lowest deck or would there be access areas/services between the lower hull and the bottom deck?

[Revanantwraith]

Senko wrote:

My research indicates a building works with floor, room, services with the total being able to be roughly estimated as 200mm floor, X room, 1m ceiling/services giving you say 4.2m for a 10' high room. Now that gives a nice easy comparison to starship decks. You have your deck and in the ceiling/walls you have access tubes to get to areas.

What I'm debating over is if the bottom of the ship should have services as well. That is should you have . . .

Deck 1: 4.2
Deck 2: 4.2

Ship Height = 8.4m

or should you include some more services/access areas in the bottom of the ship below the lowest deck e.g.

Deck 1: 4.2
Deck 2: 4.2
Lower area: 1m (or X)

Ship Height = 9.4 or 8.4 + X?

What do people think would the lower hull of a ship be the floor of the lowest deck or would there be access areas/services between the lower hull and the bottom deck?

So depending on how your ship is built we actually may use the access hatches raceways etc. around a habitat module as a kind of spaced (as in distance) armor. If something pierced outer shell, would you rather loose your non-critical system or have a chance of explosive decompression. Look at hardspace: ship breaker on steam for some ship design ideas...

[Claxon]

Honestly, I feel like it's not going to be consistent across ship sizes, so working out a single number probably doesn't really work.

To what end are you really concerned about this? All starships end up filling a single hex, I'm just having a hard time conceptual why this matters except as a point of interest.

[Perpdepog]

Not to mention that some ships are organic, and won't have the same sorts of concerns as traditionally mechanical ships.

Or the ship was manufactured by sapient machines and controls all its hatch-bound systems autonomously.

Or the ship is a massive lump of arcanely-infused rock.

Or the ship is a frame of necromantically-mutated bone covered in negatively-charged, rusted hull plates.

[Senko]

Claxon wrote:

Honestly, I feel like it's not going to be consistent across ship sizes, so working out a single number probably doesn't really work.

To what end are you really concerned about this? All starships end up filling a single hex, I'm just having a hard time conceptual why this matters except as a point of interest.

Its of interest to me and I have fun working out these details. If you board a ship I like to be able to describe it and spring little surprises like a fleet of VizAll's still buzzing around the crawlspaces that if you run into them trigger a number of Town Guard security robots to secure the stowaway that still make sense in relation to the ship boarded. I can describe every bit of my apartment and the areas of the building its in so I like to be able to do with my characters homes in game (castle, cart, travelling tent or starship whether they're a PC or NPC). It makes the worlds more realistic and lived in for me.

[avr]

Civilian ships have extra space for convenience, military ships try to squeeze something into every corner. I'd think a civilian ship more likely to have that extra space underneath.

[Peg'giz]

I would take a look at modern large military ships which are designed to stay on sea for month (e.g. Nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers) and maybe add 15% more due to life support systems.

Take for example the typhoon class submarine - 12 Meters height, three decks (two plus tower) - makes 4 Meter for each deck

[Senko]

Peg'giz wrote:

I would take a look at modern large military ships which are designed to stay on sea for month (e.g. Nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers) and maybe add 15% more due to life support systems.

Take for example the typhoon class submarine - 12 Meters height, three decks (two plus tower) - makes 4 Meter for each deck

That's roughly what I went with in the end handy and thanks for the information.