Sturn's Shipyard
AUTOREALM TUTORIAL
Under Construction, some sections incomplete and graphics need corrected
Some basic steps for creating classic-looking Traveller deck plans using AutoREALM.
STEP 1: List the Displacement Tons
For whatever craft you are making plans for, you of course need a list of it's displacement tons (hereafter dtons). This gives you a break down of how much space you need to commit to each section. For example, your ship may have 4 Staterooms, for a total of 16 dtons worth of living space.
What do this mean for the plans? Must all of the stateroom dtons be divided between just the cabins themselves? No, an important consideration when making plans are passageways. Staterooms do not just include the cabins, but passages to get to them, a galley for the passengers to eat in, freshers, etc.
Below are my current "working" guidelines for various sections of a ship. Note that these are just general guidelines; there is no need to follow these exactly! I don't.
Staterooms: Approximately 50% of the dtons are for the cabins, the rest may be used for hallways, commons, galley, airlocks, a common fresher, and life support, to name a few. Cabins are thus typically 2 dtons in size, but you may wish to add spacious 3 dtons cabins which still have lots of room even with their own fresher.
Bridge: The actual bridge itself has only been about 1/3 of the dtons in my plans. Other things included as part of the bridge are the ship's locker, airlocks near the bridge, a bridge office, and landing gear. Why landing gear? Since it needs to be placed in the plans for them to make sense, but Classic Traveller, Mongoose Traveller, and T5 (that I know of) do not account for them. Also, depending on the version of Traveller you are using, the ship's computer may be part of the bridge dtons (a.i. Mongoose, but not Classic).
Cargo: All the dtons are for the cargo bay itself. I have placed cargo "offices" in my plans, but have noted that the office is also used for storage of small, valuable cargos. This prevents the cargo space from actually being smaller then what the ship says it can carry.
Fire Control / Gunnery Stations: These are typically 1 dton. I put half of the space into the actual fire control equipment itself, the other half for the gunner's workstation/chair.
Hangars: It depends on the version of Traveller you are using. Some plans, exspecially those for small ships with small craft included, only give an amount of dtons equal to the craft itself. This works fine if the craft is externally attached (a.i. the Subsidized Merchant). But if the plans place the craft inside the ship, no room is left in the hangar to walk around the craft. You could use stateroom space to make it larger, or just cheat a little drawing your air/raft or what not slightly smaller on the plans. You may also just line up the door of the smaller craft to the door of the hangar (a.i. you open the door to the hangar and immediately walk into the door of the carried craft). Some versions of Traveller include extra space for the carried craft, allowing you to place a true hangar.
Engineering:
STEP 2: Pencil Sketch
So you have a list of dtons for your ship, and have an idea what they mean. Now it's time to get some graph paper.
The Graph Paper: Each square on your graph paper normally represents a square 1.5 meters on a side. But, the square is 3 meters tall. Imagine two such squares, one stacked atop the other, on your graph paper. In Traveller, this represents approximately 1/2 dton of space. Two squares on your graph paper thus represent 1 dton. There of course can be exceptions in your plans. For example, a ship with sloped ceilings (such as a wedge shaped Scout) might have squares with half the height (1 dton per 4 squares). Or, a cargo bay could be twice as high (6 meters), so each square represents a full dton. The default on simple plans though, is 1 dton per 2 squares.
Allocate Section Tonnage: Sketch out a section. Your jump drive totals 4 dtons? That's 8 squares. Draw a 2 x 4 area for engineering perhaps. Staterooms total 16 dtons? Sketch out an area of 32 squares. Continue until all of your dtons are on the paper.
Fill in the Details: The 4 dtons of jump drive should include some sort of walkspace to get to it, perhaps an engineering workstation. Look at your stateroom area and divide it into cabins, hallways to get to them, and a commons (lounge/galley).
Using Fuel Space: Any Traveller craft has a ton of space dedicated to dtons (pun intended). Most planners tend to place the fuel around the outside of the other sections. Fuel fills in the nooks and crannies and can be used to give your ship the shape you want. It's the filler, the playdough, of your ship. And this makes sense, engineers would probably want explosive hydrogen outside, of a ship, not in the center where, if ignited, the entire ship blows.
Get a Big Eraser: Things won't fit. Redraw it, making sure you keep the same dtons. You may have to move sections around to make a more sensible layout. The crew needs to have a way to get to engineering and the bridge. Passengers, perhaps, should be seperated from these critical areas of the ship. You may wish to move sections around because you want a certain outside ship for your ship. I redraw my sketches over and over until I get a plan that makes sense and has the right size.
You Don't Have to be Exact!: Things will not always fit nicely in place. Unless your ship is a large square, stuff may not fit exactly how you want them to. This is exspecially true if you are making deck plans for a ship that already has an external view and thus shape you must fit it in. Classic Traveller reported deck plans should fall within a 10-20% error range. Your deck plans for your 200 ton ship turn out to cover 220 dtons of squares? That's ok by Traveller standards. Strive to make it exact, it won't happen, but you will easily fall within the 10%-off range. Many Classic Traveller plans don't fall within their own stated range of error, the Far Trader is almost double the size it should be! Most in the Traveller community seem to accept deck plans that are only 10% under/over the stated dtons of the ship.
Avoiding Partial Squares: Sometimes you will end up with passages or walls at an angle. This leads to partial squares. These can be fine if you are not going to use the plans for miniature play. But, often you may wish to use the same plans blown up to 1" squares as a play surface. If this is the case, avoid partial squares in areas people can go. This will prevent arguments between a referee and player on where you can place your miniature. These partial squares are fine in places you can't go anyway, such as fuel tankage. But in areas the passengers can walk into, try to keep the squares large enough for a miniature.
STEP 3: Drawing in AutoREALM
You have completed your graph sketch. Everything makes sense and the dtons add up right. First, download the program: AutoREALM.
Why AutoREALM?: It is a simple CAD program, CAD meaning "computer assisted drawing". It is not a "paint" program. A CAD program draws everything with lines (but it can still fill stuff in-between those lines). A CAD program does not paint objects with a computer brush, like Microsoft Paint does. This is a benefit to drawing deck plans, as you will see when you make your first craft. A square room can be plopped down quickly by selecting a drawing box, then adjusting it's external land thickness and fill color. Objects created in your deck plan also can be scaled without any loss of quality. Zooming in or zooming out does not pixellate or smudge things like some paint programs.
Why not CC?: Campaign Cartographer is also a CAD program, and more powerful then AutoREALM. But, I myself own it, have used it, and prefer AutoREALM over it for Traveller deck plans. First, it's free. CC will cost you. Second, it's simpler. I have learned CC, then stopped using it for a year or two, just to have to relearn it again. AutoREALM is more intuitive in my opinion. CC is more powerful, but I have not missed any of its options when using AutoREALM to make deck plans; it has everything I need. If you are already an owner and master of CC, then by all means keep using it. If not, start with AutoREALM.
A. Setup AutoREALM
not finished - graphics need re-exported to correct poor quality
Ok it's installed. Go ahead and launch the program. You will be greeted with a screen of "graph paper" with all of your tools surrounding it:
Let's take a look at your tools. Starting in the upper left corner and going clock-wise is the main drop-down menu. Everything in here is pretty much also on the screen as a directly clickable icon......not finished
B. Draw the Hull
Lay down the hull of your ship first. Pick a tool to draw your hull. Normally this will be the Polyline tool. If your ship happens to be a square, oval, circle, or some other basic shape, there are simpler possibilities. I choose a black line color and make it thick. For fill I use green and a lined pattern. Why? Because this represents fuel on my maps, which are often in the left over places. Once the tool is ready, start drawing the hull to the outer shape of your pencil sketch. There are many tools to help with this. First, have .....(not finished)
When your line meets the other side, right-click to "Create Closed Figure". This makes your line into a filled symbol, instead of just a line:
Your completed hull with the selected line, fill, and pattern:
Note the colored squares at the top of your AutoREALM screen. These represent (from left) a black line, the color of the fill (light green), and a fill pattern (diagonal lines). Ignore the other three boxes, I hardly ever use them. Below the boxes are your line pickers. The largest box is used to pick how long your line is. The other two are simply for creating varying endpoints (such as an arrowhead). I rarely used them.
C. Draw Rooms
not finished
D. Add Symbols
In AutoREALM, anything can be made into a symbol. Already made an office chair? Make it into a symbol, then it will always be on hand, no need to copy and paste from old plans into new ones Symbols don't have to be small items. You could design a top-down view of an air/raft and make it a symbol. I use symbols for furniture, doorway symbols, vehicles, drives, power plants, and many other things. You can easily create your own, but feel free to start with my symbols:
Download this file then add it to your 'AutoREALM > Library' folder.
At the bottom of your AutoREALM screen are the symbols for your current group. Use the green book-looking symbols near the bottom left of your screen to play with symbols. The single book can be used to add new items to a symbol group. The stack of books symbols opens up the library to look at all of your groups of symbols and organize them (rename, delete, etc). needs picture
Instructions not finished
E. Other Decks and External Views
Using your first deck to create a duplicate hull or external views. not finished
F. Exporting your Finished Plans
not finished