Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Y is for Yacht (Star Morphs A to Z Challenge)

The Penultimate!
The Captain's Yacht (or gig or personal shuttle) is found on larger starships as a personal conveyance of the commanding officer, VIPs and whatever else the plot may require. To make this a real yacht, I would add a second deck with the fancy guest quarters and amenities, while having this one just be for the crew.  But that would require another map...maybe if your good, I'll post one on my Patreon account.

1. Cockpit:  There are four stations here for the moving of the thing.

2. Escape Pod: A total of seven single-crew pods provide enough rescue vehicles for the ship's compliment to get out of dodge.

3. Ship's Locker:  Guns, Ammo, and other restricted supplies will be located in this locked closet in the cockpit.

4. Crew Quarters:  These double rooms are luxurious compared to the cramped cabins even officers endure.  You could give them bunk beds, but then there would be an escape pod deficit...

5. Fresher: There are two of them.  Their function should be self-explanatory.

6. Passenger Cabin:  These are single rooms that are otherwise identical to area 4.  The skipper of the yacht will use one, the Captain or other guest will use the other.  In the event the Captain and a VIP are aboard, the Skipper is out of luck and will bunk with the crew.

7. Galley:  It's limited service, but sufficient for the crew and passengers.  You know, there's coffee.

8. Lift:  This lift can only hold a couple of people at a time.  In a pinch, it will serve as an emergency life pod.

9. Fuel Silo:  This is one of four reactant tanks carrying the super-condensed reactants that the engines eat.  They are evenly distributed to provide load balance.

10. Lounge:  It's not much, but it has a dining area and couch. And Internet.

11. Engineering:  There are two stations here in the after sections of the yacht, as well as two dedicated drones to service the engines.  There is also ladder access to the other decks.
 
12. Ion Engine:  When Ion Engines became the SF standard, we didn't know that they would be so slow.  I see two options to rectify this:   The name could be either be a corruption of tachyon engine, which blasts out faster-than-light particles to get decent acceleration, or the fact that anti-gravity can negate the mass of the spacecraft makes even low-thrust drives like ion drive practical.  Take your pick.

13. FTL: These little beauties are what get our spaceship across the void in a scene change.  There are two of them, because if it fails you are stranded forever in the trackless wastes of space. 

14. Airlock:  This is the umbilical that links our yacht to the rest of the starship.  There are lockers on the yacht-side of the 'lock with EVA gear.

Tomorrow is the last A to Z Challenge post.  I don't know how to feel about that.

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