Peerless, the Ship, Reboot

[Roger]

Alright, so we've got this thread to talk about characters and stuff. Let's talk about the ship itself here.

So, in short, the Peerless itself is going to undergo a few changes. The floor plan is going to be altered a bit and we're also going to have weapon systems installed. So, now is your chance to chime in with what you'd like to see. What rooms did you like on the old ship? What didn't you like? What would you like modified? Would you like a room moved to a different area of a ship? Would you like two rooms combined? Would you like a smaller room increased in size? Are there new rooms you'd like added?

Also, what type of ship weapons would you like us to have? How many? Where would you like them located on the ship? Etc.

Finally, what additional crew jobs do you think should be added? E.g. gunner for this badass new canon or custodian because no one feels like cleaning up their own shit. Are there crew members we had before that you think should be dropped?

Give me your thoughts to any of the above prompts or even things I didn't think of. I want your input before I get to work.

[Aven]

I reiterate my idea about the minigun grenade launcher for space combat. Mine you, these will be big grenades. Big enough to cause decompression issues on spaceships.

More serious though, I had suggested last time for something along the lines of a coil gun, or for you Halo fans, a MAC gun.

As far as rooms go, stick one near the Armory and the Range for Desmond to sleep in. I liked the crew we had last time, so I have no objections to keeping them around.

Also, I always figured we just has Lewis sweeping up for the most part.

[Deleted]

Ha! Agreed on lewis!

So guns, I'd like a torpedo system for in space, or even in atmosphere firing. I like to keep them separate. To me, it adds a touch to realism that no one rocket/torpedo can do it all. Also, you have to manually change out the payload, and if my idea is liked, even manually load each one, which gives us those kickass submarine moments from WW2. Also, you have to buy each load individually, and we would only have so many. No two hundred missiles hiding away in the wing somewhere ala Ace Combat. Makes each time we have to use it more meaningful when you got Roger and ... Sam... setting up firing solutions, while Desmond and Vitale are a deck below putting one in the tube. How many would we use? Two? One? I vote for two, cause you get a whole lot more kickass with two, and it would be cool to see in action. Also, I always enjoyed those torpedo scenes from U571 and ... Down Periscope...

For the bullets, I'd like what I had on the Athena(God rest her soul), with some type of autocannon/minigun/turreted-damn-weapon-system controlled from a console on the deck. It would be way more fun to do it Memphis Belle/Aluminum Falcon style, where you had to go sit behind an actual weapon, load and fire it. I'll give my reasons now.

Remember the movie Memphis belle? How exciting the fight was, because each guy manned an actual gun? Or even Star Wars, when Luke and Desm..Han were slinging around, blasting away? Or even the last starfighter. Hell, you know what I mean. When you have your hands on a gun, it feels more gritty. Then take the Matrix, that battle couldn't have felt more distant, because they were sitting at a console, rather than right behind their weapons, feeling the heat, the recoil, and watching the ever present mussel flashes. I just think it would feel more gritty if we kept it old school... but that I leave to the owner. If we do use the consoles, then I still vote for a roller ball, with thumb tab fire buttons, allowing you to use many of the guns at one time, meaning one good gunner could handle quite a bit of firepower. In this way, at least we could still dress up the difficulty of downing an enemy bird/ship.

As far as the layout goes, obviously we can't exclude a torpedo room with my recommendation, and preferably near the front, perhaps above the bridge, to add some extra "not normal" to the mix. Seeing the exhaust trail from above the bridge, rather than below. As far as the rest of the layout goes, I liked what we had, but perhaps a more solid brig this go around, and less rooms. It's not like we'll be takin on many passengers this time.

Anywho, that's my two cents.

[Roger]

The plan was for just such a torpedo situation with the last Peerless... once we got torpedoes. And I inmagined it at people physically loading them and unloading them too. If we do that then there is no reason we can't also have one type for atmo and one for space. Two separate sets of launchers might be a bit much, but I don't think you're asking for that. And yes, I'm also of the opinion that hitting someone with a torpedo should fuck them up big time so we would only have a few instead of like 500.

We could also do a coil gun, MAC, gauss cannon, etc. but then we need to put that someplace. Now, the most logical place for the torpedo room is where I had it before, just under the bridge. However, that is also the only place I can think of for a coil gun. So maybe we could put the torpedo room up and the cannon down. Together they would be our primary armament. Other than that we'd just have lighter guns giving 360 coverage.

Now, when it comes to those guns we have our problem. I agree that it is cool as shit to have people at actual guns all the more so if they're actually sucking in belts of ammo and spitting out spent casings all over the place while recoiling like crazy. It's cool and probably fun to RP. That being said, we have serious logistical problems with that.
1) Access to the guns - Where would we put them? They'd be around the perimeter, right? That would end up having some of them in odd places. This isn't a WWII bomber that has nothing going on inside and can have guns everywhere. We live here and there are vital components all over. They might be hard to get to let alone hard to just fit into a space when it comes to installation and everyday stuff (or it might be cool if you open your closet door and it's a fucking gun station... alright this is a minor point).
2) How many would we need? These guns are supposed to give us full protection. Peerless is a big ship and we've got a lot of stuff going on (i.e. huge engines sticking out) that interrupt fields of fire. If we want some good coverage we'll need a good number of these babies.
3) The main point, how are we going to man these things? You have to do some serious math with the crew. When we're in a situation where we need these guns, we also need people flying the ship, people working the primary armament, and maybe some DC teams as well.

Bridge crew: 3 bare minimum in a combat scenario. I'd like at least 5, but 7 would be great and 11 is the max.
Main armament: At least 2 on the torpedos. I don't know if the MAC needs people actively working it.
Damage control/engineering: 1 on call bare minimum. I think two to four would be what we'd want.
Perimeter guns: ?? I'm thinking we'd need at least four of them. I'd like eight or even more.

That means minimum we'd need 10 guys to man the ship. Ideally we'd have about twice that number manning stations. And let's pray to God that the shuttle isn't busy with a half dozen guys aboard it because then we're really short handed. The problem is that Vitale can't do all his console stuff, fire the MAC, load torpedos, and fire streams of bullets at enemy fighters all at the same time.

If the math can work out then I'm okay with it, but I don't want us to go into a fight where numerous important stations are not manned. Maybe that means cutting down on the number of guns we'd have or perhaps adding a few more NPC shooters since we are now full merc. Whatever, but we need that decision before we can make this decision.


Re: the rest of the ship
I was planning to turn the brig into a line of cells like the SWRP draft had near where the shuttle is. You get brought aboard and immediately tossed in there instead of being marched around the ship. It's also near the infirmary for when we beat you to a bloody pulp.

That would deal with the passenger dorms, but then our actual crew needs rooms too, and if we're increasing the size of the crew then that needs to be factored in.

Of the old stuff, I'm thinking of tossing the gym and maybe even the range (hear me out). We have a huge cargo bay that we use for jack and shit. There are like two vehicles sitting in there and that's it. Why not turn the cargobay into a makeshit shooting range/gym. Then, if we ever need to ferry cargo then the range is temporarily closed because there are crates in the way. Makes our range much longer and frees up room for other shit. The armory could still have a tiny little range area so you can test fire guns and stuff but you're not going to be zeroing your sights there or firing off a thousand rounds for fun.

[Yautja]

I do like the design ideas at the end immensely. Run with that!

As for the crew, it's a PMC, so there's noooo reason not to increase the size of the crew. Also, I was talking to Hannii about this earlier with possibilities for Harper, but we'd need more guys on simple things like the Pilot and Co-pilot. Ideally four, two on one shift, two on the other. During combat, you'r main two pilots are in the chairs, the other two are manning guns. You got three engineering, so there's your DC teams, and it wouldn't be a firefly site if Someone didn't create a mechanic. Perhaps I'm just being nostalgic. The point is, those two are handled one way or another, with bodies to spare. Then, you got the red shirts that we intend to kill off eventually ala our theme for good ol' whats-his-face from Swurp. That was a good idea, and we should use it here and now. So some extra red shirts are not a bad thing. Then, any position on the bridge not manned by a pc, will be npc'd until we replace them. So again, bodies filled. For Vitale specifically, I'd either like him to man the torpedo room, or be on a gun(With the thinking that we have guns, and not little consoles, if we go consoles, then he's a torpedo man). So I don't really care about him bein on the bridge during a fight. Back in the old adventures of the Peerless? Sure, bridge is where the action(Actual RP) was, so that's where I put him. I had always planned to move him to grunt work when we got ship-born weapon systems, we just never made it that far.

So yeah, my vote is always to increase it all. Increase the ship size, the crew size, the amount of guns. More is simply more. Maybe some folks have a hard time comprehending larger quantities of personnel and materials, but this has never been a problem for me. Maybe some folks are worried about NPC's stealing the limelight, but I disagree, as we are the main characters of the story of the Peerless, and as such, the heroes, and as such, will always be in the limelight. Maybe some folks are worried that our badass merc ship will blow their little half baked merc ship out of the water... well... it hasn't happened yet?

If the crew(writers) hates the idea of increasing, then I'll yield, but if no preference is offered here in the discussions, then at least my vote is cast.

Also, people being short handed out of the blue and having to double time it from one end of the ship to the other to replace a gunner that suddenly is hurt, or has to jump on a dropship to go groundside are problems that we actually want. From a writer's prospective, I fight to create problems like this, so that my characters are in a situation that demands a solution be presented, therefor, encouraging rp. E.G. getting caught with our pants down and barely pulling through is better in an action thread than dominating all adversaries and never ever worrying that we might actually lose.

[Roger]

Well there is a difference between a surprise attack where people are running from their bunks, the shower, the mess, etc. to their battle stations or someone running to replace someone else who got hit or deal with some issue and us simply not having enough people to start with when there are no issues.

Oh, the enemy ship just flew past us? Vitale better run from the forward gun to the aft gun to shoot them. Oh, darn, they flew back around the front before he even got back there? Better run back up front and hope you get some shots off or just stay in the front and pray they don't do too much damage to the aft.

I agree that issues arising and people running around is good action and RP, but we want it all to be within reason just like we need mechanics and pilots doing their jobs instead of running around (and thus reducing them from the gunner count).

What do you think about the actual uh... quality (?) of guns in the ship? I mean, should they be little segregated stations like in the Falcon where you go specifically to the gun and that's it? Or should they be more like a B17 where you run down the hall and there is just a gun right there chilling out? Your battle station is Keller's room because that just happens to be where the gun is hidden under a mound of personal shit which will get filled with empty shell casings by the time you're done. Or maybe you run back into the shuttle equipment storage room to fire out the aft. Alternatively you run down the hall, open a little hatch and step into a bubble sort of thing which is just this little gun station.

[Aven]

As far as the MAC gun was concerned, I had figured stick it on the bottom of the ship and then it could be loaded automatically. I say we have a five gun placements like the Falcon's, we go there just for that reason, so it's not hiding in anyone's closet. Cause, I don't wanna know what we'd find in Gunn's closet.

[Roger]

Well, define "bottom". The Peerless has a sort of neck that sticks out like the Serenity. It also has engines and cargobay and shit that need to land so that's a definite bottom. My idea is for the MAC to run underneath the bridge, not manned but accessible via the deck 3 hallway. It would thus be on the "bottom" of the bridge neck.

[Aven]

Works for me. Maybe stick the ammo and loader for it under the bridge, this way if Dez needs to jump down there and fix something, he doesn't need a space suit

[Roger]

Yeah, the gun is not going to be like right there in the open nor is it going to need to be physically manned, but you can quickly get right to it, kick open a panel, and jump in there if there is a problem.

[Roger Davis]

Okay, so I've been reworking the ship layout and somehow I managed to do a LOT by moving things around. We now have 23 rooms for crew members with 4 extra brig cells... which should be enough for now lol. However, I still have a HUGE block of empty space on deck 3. I don't feel like just making it more personal rooms and I liked the idea of tossing the gym and range into deck 4 so I have no clue what to put here. If you look at the old layout pics, this empty area is TWICE the size of the galley and kitchen area from deck 2. We could like put a ship movie theater in there or something.

The only idea I have is to take the common room from deck two, move it here, and really expand it to be a GIANT common room. There would be a bar area, several monitors (to surf the cortex or watch Super Bowl DCXVI), a pool table, darts, couches and shit, a little library section, etc. Does that sound like something we'd like to have or is that a bit too ridiculous?

[Deleted]

Work hard, play hard?

I say go for it, we're a merc ship and all, but we need to relax too yo.

Side's, Dez has 300 plat riding on Super Bowl DCXVI

[Yautja]

I'm actually very cool with it, gives it this chance to buy something larger than your room, and somewhere to put and use it, like, a pool table for example. Say Dez bought one with his paycheck, we LIVE on this ship, what the hell would he do with it? Put that bitch on deck three, and Lose money to Vitale thats what! Doo et!

[Roger Davis]

Alright, updated here. The images are a little smaller than I'd like but they work for now. I attached images to the end which can be clicked on and enlarged to full size for closer inspection.

As always, get to claiming your rooms so I can insert some names instead of just "3"s everywhere.

[Abigail Gunn]

1: Common room : hell yeah!

2: the room question: deck 2 across from Lavatory