THE SHIPS

First, 'Hail Cheapnis!'

The scenario for this game is based around entering and clearing a spaceship of aliens.

The gaming area is the interior of the spaceship. This is represented on tiles which have the layout of the spaceship depicted on them.

There are a couple of questions to answer in relation to this.

1) Does the whole area of the tile have to be ship or can I do some wild and wacky shapes to get away from the basic square? Earth ships are too easy, can we not try for a more baroque style?

2) Does it look like a ship? What about corridors and sleek lines?

Apart from the control deck in the globe - what on earth was the internal layout of Blake's ship ?

 Calm down ! You will use too much oxyegen!...

1) You can make the tile any shape you want. You can build a spaceship any shape you want.

But! Why do that?  The tiles give you flexibility. All fit with all.  And, if you want to depict empty space go right ahead but a game is about gaming space. The tabletop outside the tile is empty space.
Use all of the tile and gain 100% utilisation of your gaming surface. Why go for less?

In The Cloverfield Paradox they knew how to make the most of all spaces in the ship

 2) The gaming area need not be imagined to include every last part of a spaceship. Some parts are not enclosed or are inaccessible. In fact, spaceships with vast unused spaces are silly. The cost of building them will always be vast. Empty space must be heated, filled with air and does not earn money or repay costs. Buses try not to travel empty. Spaceships have the same incentive one million fold.
If you see a corridor on aspaceship it tells you the scene is either silly or so far in the future normal economicss no longer apply.

Our modular ships have interlinked holds or units divided by bulkheads. This makes them easier and cheaper to build and nicely represented by the tile system. Ha ha!

The aesthetics of a gridded set of squares being used to represent a shiny spaceship pale when compared to the advantages of the system.

• It is the most practical solution.
• Cheapnis.
• Flexibility and imagination are still allowed. Decorate the tile as much as you want. You can even go 3d if you want and mush your brain. Steady supports are necessary but it is possible to consider with square tiles as opposed to being an unfeasible nice idea with an irregular plan.
• It works.

WHAT DO SHIPS LOOK LIKE?

For the tabletop game our ships will be a specific pattern of tiles relating to a specific design of ship.
Small ship, few tiles, Large ship, more tiles.

It now becomes possible to conceive, design and map any ship within this system.

We will defina a basic set of functions for each tile type. Maybe certain ratios must be kept to with respect to engines and cargo and living space. Maybe 7:9. Or, even 7 of 9 should be cargo on a cargo ship. (Sorry about that, but we were discussing bulk carriers?).

On paper the ships will be a simple plan with enough details indicated to allow the specific type to be laid out on the table with tiles and any necessary furniture placed onto them.

SHIP TYPES

There are various classes of ship.

• BULK CARRIERS : These are mostly cargo modules. They carry lots of stuff . Not fancy.
• MIXED SUPPLY VESSELS : More varied trips with more varied freight. Varied size.
• PATROL SHIP : Little cargo, more crew facilities.
• SURVEY AND EXPLORATION : Large complex ships for  longer expeditions. 
• SPACE STATIONS : Large or small, these are resupply, monitoring  or staging posts used to demarcate borders, watch over planetary operations or act as early warning stations.

Here you can see that after loosely defining just 5 types of ship you can start to have a load of scenarios forming in youir head of how to use them in a game. A cargo gets infested with Harpies ? Station goes quiet, because ? Link several ships together by booarding tunnels to get a complex gaming area? OOh I'm getting dizzy turn up the O2 content..