Posted by Rear Admiral Sarah Hemenway (Engineering Director) in USCM - Where were at

Posted by Kirt Gartner in USCM - Where were at

Posted by Brigadier General Matthew Bernardin (Assistant Engineering Director) in USCM - Where were at
So nothing more has been introduced nor have i answered any questions for a very good reason.

Very few people know this, mostly Sarah and rest of tech. But on the 26th of last month i was hospitalised with a serious life threatening infection that i almost died from in hospital. As I write this from my hospital bed, I have about three more weeks in hospital as I rehab back to being on my feet. So this is the only post im going to be doing about this as while you deserve an answer I deserve not to have to deal with club stuff while im still on the mend.

First of all.

The USCM isnt about reinventing the wheel. It makes one real system change mechanically. That being to convert from basing ship size and capability off of crew compliment to mass and volume.

Chapter one is unsurprisingly just the first step in the process of the new method and its about outlining a specs capabilities. Ita supposed to be framework level not final detail level. Its about taking an idea and knowing what you have to work with as you make further design choices.

There is no desire or intent to remove detail and nuance from specs or to make them cookie cutter. The USCM is more about making the process logical and straight forward to do, so that its entry level is low but its mastery level is high.

Always remember too before you decide to blast off on a angry tirade. Every step has been marked wip or work in progress. No one is attempting to ram through anything.

Thankyou for your comments i look forward to continuing this discussion after i get out of hospital.

Matt Bernardin

Matt I do want to apologize for coming off the way I did at first I was taken quite by surprise on this and dealing with the stressful summer i had Loosing both my grandfathers loosing my job and having a hard time finding a new one Why if I may ask not just stick with the old Length Width Height and deck number to determine the size after all that is the most basic way of understanding the size of a ship and that is actually how it currently works The crew count is actually determined by the size of the ship not the other way around or at least thats how i understand the system as it currently works

Kirt G

Matt – please take care of yourself and we will be here when you’re ready to come back.

Kirt – I’m going to leave your question here for Matt when he’s back, as he’s better equipped to answer it.

Sarah, EDir

I’m not Matt but I can answer this question.

Why if I may ask not just stick with the old Length Width Height and deck number to determine the size after all that is the most basic way of understanding the size of a ship and that is actually how it currently works The crew count is actually determined by the size of the ship not the other way around or at least thats how i understand the system as it currently works

That’s not the way things actually work. That would make more sense than what we do now. Right now, vessel size is determined by crew compliment. You can read the relevant rules here: https://www.star-fleet.com/library/bookshelf/tm/classification.html#idp140293041567760

Basically, if your ship has 175 or fewer people on it, it is Small. But if it has 176 people on it, it’s Medium. If you have 599 people, your ship is still Medium, but if you have 600 people, it becomes large. Whether or not your ship is Small, Medium, or Large is important under MNP because it determines what capabilities your ship is capable of having, under the theory that smaller ships are inherently less capable than larger ships.

This assumption is bonkers; the canonical Intrepid, Defiant, and Prometheus classes are all smaller in terms of crew compliment than the Galaxy class, yet because they have less than 600 people, equivalent specifications with similar crew compliments are forced to be less capable than ships that were designed 30 years beforehand. Coupled with the limits imposed in MNP, it becomes impossible to make specs that are equivalent to these canonical not-Large ships. Which, I find to be a pretty serious problem because a lot of people in this club like Voyager and DS9 and would like to play on ships like the ones featured in those shows.

Even though there is absolutely no canonical or real world situation where the marginal addition of a single person would suddenly allow you access to a whole host of new capabilities and equipment that you would other wise not have access to. The only way to fix that is to change how ship size is determined to something other than crew compliment, or to scrap the idea of size limiting capability. Doing either requires changes to both the Milwaukee Plan and the Modern Navy Plan, e.g. a complete re-write of all of the rules that govern specifications.

Does that make sense, Kirt?

Joe