Subject:
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Displacement Tonnage for Spaceships?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Sun, 29 Dec 2002 18:47:58 GMT
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Viewed:
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369 times
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A long long time a go, in a thread far away.... actually, I think it was
buried somewhere in this thread here:
http://news.lugnet.com/space/?n=16923
And again here:
http://news.lugnet.com/space/?n=18668
Some of us had discussed ways of indicating a spaceship's size, perhaps
measuring it in hundreds of studs with Roman numerals, etc. Well, I have a
few friends who play the RPG Traveller, and the new edition of the game has
rules explaining how to describe fictional spaceships. I thought it might
be something we could consider here.
In sea-vessels, size is often measured by how much water is displaced by the
ship. In Traveller, spaceships use a convention of how much hydrogen might
be displaced by the ship. (Presumably, the authors concluded that simple
hydrogen is about as close to empty space as you can get and still have
measurable mass. Also presumably, hydrogen is less dense than water, and
thus a 1000 ton spaceship is actually larger than a 1000 ton seaship.)
I don't have the exact text to quote, but my friends explain it as follows:
Each cubic space of 1.5 meters X 3 meters X 3 meters (roughly 5 feet X 10
feet X 10 feet) equals 1 ton of liquid hydrogen displacement.
Sooo, to translate this for our use, let's compare this to minifig scale.
This is the tough part since everyone's opinion on minifig scale is somewhat
different. Some might say one stud equals one foot. Others might say that
with minimal-dollhouse-effect that each stud is two feet, or 1.6238 feet, or
whatever. When I play D&D with figs, I give them a 4x4 plate as a base and
call that five feet.
Let's just say for this argument that we settle on this last measurement
wherein minifig scale is 1 stud equals about 1.25 feet (a 4x4 plate is about
5 feet X 5 feet). Also, for simplicity (if there can be such a thing with
this topic), let's say that 1 brick in height equals 1 foot. This this
makes a standard Moonbase corridor rather short, at only 5 feet, but stick
with me here, just for the sake of the displacement formula. Again, the
formula uses (for feet) the measurement of 5x10x10.
Now let's assume just for simplicity that most minifig space models use the
Moonbase corridor height as a standard. That would mean, based on these
numbers, that any area measured as 8 studs long by 8 studs wide would equal
1 ton of hydrogen. Bingo! ...Lost? Let me put it another way...
If 1 stud = 1.25 ft,
then an 8x8 stud area = 10x10 feet (because 8*1.25=10).
And if 1 brick = 5 ft,
and if most space walls are 5 bricks,
then 1 wall = 5 ft.
Ergo, a space MOC room or corridor of 8x8x5 ABS = 10x10x5 feet,
which equals 1 ton of hydrogen displacement.
So lets look at an example:
My Terrorformer model here: http://www.valyance.com/home/lego/space/terror/
The cockpit can be rounded up to about 2 tons, the troop lander can be
rounded down to about 2 tons, and then we allow for some estimated
variables: Some parts have rounded walls; The engine section and the weapons
section are each about the size of the Troop area, but are shorter than 5
bricks; There are wings and things, etc. So, based on the formula, and
without actually taking the time to measure the model precisely, I would
estimate the Terrorformer has an H-Displacement of about 12 tons. (Seems
small, but this is a small ship compared to some, and remember we are
talking hydrogen not water.)
Soooooo, now that I have typed all this out, what do we all think about
this? Would it be worth using as a convention with space MOCs? Should it
be modified in any way to make it simpler? More realistic? Should I make a
flawed poll?
...Honestly, I am just looking for a cool statistic to add to my webpages
when I post new ships. I don't expect this to be used for anything all that
important, rather it is one of those trivial details that exist for the fun.
Let me know what you think,
-Hendo
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Displacement Tonnage for Spaceships?
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| Soudns inneresting, but waaaaay too complicated. Counting the length of my ships is bad enough, let alone calcuating anything. I prefer to call my stuff big, really big, insanely big, and ludicris big. But I think Jon's SHIP term is good enough for (...) (22 years ago, 29-Dec-02, to lugnet.space)
| | | Re: Displacement Tonnage for Spaceships?
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| Sounds cool. Of course, the 5-foot high wall thing is a bit off, but for the sake of simplicity we can say that 8x8x5 studs equals ton. Sounds like a cool idea! I wonder if the actual measurements taken in the game RPG Traveller is true, though. (...) (22 years ago, 29-Dec-02, to lugnet.space)
| | | Re: Displacement Tonnage for Spaceships?
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| In Traveller, spaceships use a convention of how much hydrogen might (...) Whomever created "Traveller" obviously didn't think things through. Nor did (s)he know much about physics or space. Mass is a MUCH better way of comparing the sizes of space (...) (22 years ago, 30-Dec-02, to lugnet.space)
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