Topic: SFC Technical Manual

[Bernard Guignard]

   A question on the starship modeler forum  has got me thinking. The individuals question was what are the dimensions
of a Mirak DD.  I went into the various SFC Manuals that I have on hand and realized most of the ships materal have no
basic technical specifications for modeling purposes.
  Perhaps we as a community could correct this matter by creating a tech manual sectionto the dynaverse.
 If I imported the Mirak DD model into g-max are there tools that I could use to determine its length width and height.  I don't use g-max too often
so I'm pretty clueless to its abilities. 
I remember back when I was a Heavy SFB Player I tried to create a system to calculate ship mass by  counting the number of  boxes on an
ssd and assigning specific mass numbers to specific systems. It worked to a point but you had to fudge the numbers at time to make some
of it make sense.  I think that I still have some of the basic premises that I worked with on paper some where.

[Starfox1701]

Well modern tech manuals discribe the Miranda as weighing 655,000 tons with 25% of that being the warp necelles. D7 K'T'inga masses 760,000 tons, the B'rel class BOP masses 236,000 tons, and Excelsior masses 2,350,000 tons the necelles tacking 35% of that. Thats 4 well known and documented TMP era ships. Could be a great base for exstrapalating other tonage estamates.

[Bonk]

I am interested in this idea. Makes me think physics engines... Not sure I could actually use it, nor would it be traditional SFC (re:existing turn-modes), but maybe someday. Regardless, that level of detail is perfect for SFC grognards however it might be presented.

[762_XC]

That is way off from the Franz Josef tech manual, which SFB is based heavily off of. That has a Constitution class at 195,000 MT IIRC.

[FoaS_XC]

Franz Joseph has it at 190,000 MT - close enough. *Keeps a copy right next to his desk ^_^*

Back when I tried making my own version of SFB-lite (which turned out to be not so lite), I had used SFB ships as a basis. I had tried calculating some important values from what we knew about SFB ships. Values like mass, Maximimum angular acceleration and speed, things like that. I might still have the excel file somewhere.

[Bernard Guignard]

With the Federation ships there is not much of a problem we have enough examples that we have a good base
line to develop overall system masses. its when you deal with  Gorn and Kzin who are larger than typical humanoid
and races Like andromedan who we have no idea what they look like come issues with ship masses and sizes
though for Gorn and Kzin I'd say an over all increase of 5% should cover it they are not much larger than typical
Humanoid.
             

[762_XC]

The overall mass should be roughly similar for similarly classed ships. Hydrans are about half the size of Gorns, but their heavy cruisers are not half sized.

Counting boxes on the SSD will probably give you as good an approximation of relative mass as anything else.

[FoaS_XC]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm........

[Starfox1701]

I like the newer numbers better cause the work better with the Galaxies stated mass of 4,500,000 tons and the Venture refit's 5,100,000 tons

[762_XC]

Like them or not, SFB's source material is Franz Josef.

[Terradyhne]

i think the size of a ship depends on the average deck height and the size of all the equipment aboard. A Gorn ship must not be bigger than a Federation one, only because a Gorn is bigger, look at the Enterprise Mirror episode where the Gorn Slaar is not even filling a whole "Human" floors height and in the SFC manual is stated that the Gorn males are at a average height of 2m and the females at a average of 2,5m. Why depending so much on SFB stats, SFC is not a overall copy of SFB it uses settings and those weapons and systems stats but not the complete design characteristics.

[Bernard Guignard]

I'm glad that theres some discussion going.    I searched for the paper work  that I put my premises down but only found some
draft material regarding the mass calculations for some klingon Vessels the B1 battleship and N6 based on primitive SSDs that
I did up    I'll have to go through some other items to see If I kept any of that material. 

[Klingon Fanatic]

This is a good topic.

I never understood why ships using identical warp, impulse and (weapon) systems varied so wildly in Trek.

I think FASA learned from this with its Trek game and actually applied those lessons to Battletech.

I like the idea of having a standard yardstick for all these Trek ships...

[Bernard Guignard]

Well the whole idea in the Starfleet universe is that  while the Klingons  Romulans Kzinti etc are using Different Technologies
for Beam weapons. The Damage effects and Transmission are similar known federation weapons technologies IE Phasers.
hence they use the different Phaser classifications for all beam weapons.  Heavy weapons seem to take a different tact.

By the way I pulled the Mirak ZDD into gmax and read the Little measuring grid below its telling me that the ship
is either 420 Meters or ft long    with comes in at approx 150 meters or ft    I tried applying the Mod size
class of 5.34 to the model but its not making any sense to me.  I'm going to need some help.  perhaps I should pull out
the Kzinti SFB Technical manual  materail based on the Starline 2200 miniatures that I have and work off of that for some
of these ships

 Thanks

[FoaS_XC]

Like them or not, SFB's source material is Franz Josef.

Doesn't mean we should throw out everything else - Gotta take it all in, assign weights to certain points of data, and see what fits best.

[Bernard Guignard]

I found the sheet that I used for calculating  ship mass    One thing I noted was lack of warp engine masses but I think what I did for that was use
FASA's warp engine chart's and find the Nearest Equivalant warp engine with similar power output to get a mass reading
I'll have to recreate the sheet in some form.  Here's what I was using for weapons  all numbers in Metric tons  note that there are no
X-ships weapons  I didn't get that far in refining the process
Weapons:
Phas 1 (old)       450         Photon Torp   160 / bank of 2         Disrupter  -22      600 per bank of 1    DIS/DEV     550
Phas 1 (New)     300         Plasma   R      750                         Stasis Field Gen   190                        Hanger      500
Phas 2               180                      S      350                         OPT-Wea-MT      10                          P.P.D         650
Phas 3               150                      G      400                         Hellbore              500
Phas 4               1000                    F      225                          Fusion beam       450
Phas G               170                     D      10                            EXSPHGEN          200
Phas M****       600        Disrupter +22  800 /bank of one      TRAC/REP           250

**** Mega phaser of my own making

I even found the sheets that I did calculations for ship Mass on various ships Like the Hydran DN, Ranger, Horseman, Lancer and Hunter
this stuff was worked on back in the Late 1980's   

Too much time has gone over the bridge

[Starfox1701]

Nice a good start

[FoaS_XC]

Here's the problem I had, maybe you can have fun with it.

First a couple of assumptions:
1) SFC propulsion is not Warp, but rather with Impulse engines that the Warp Core powers (which is represented by Warp boxes).
2) The Franz Joseph number for mass of the enterprise is correct: 190,000 metric tons
3) According to SFB: 1 hex is 10,000 km
4) IIRC SFB says: 1 turn is 1 minute
5) ships in SFB have an acceleration of 10 hexes per turn.
 - meaning that the ship can increase its speed by 10 hexes per turn per turn.
6) An impulse drive is essentially an efficient Ion Engine

walk through the math with me here.

FCA can get up to top speed (30 hexes per turn; dropping the last 1 for ease of math for now; or 300,000 km/t or 5,000 km/s) in 3 turns, or 180 seconds.

Acceleration = ( desired Velocity - Initial velocity ) / time
Acceleration = 5,000 km/s / 180 seconds.
Acceleration = 27,778 m/s/s (or 27.8 km/s/s)

So...

Thrust  = Mass * Acceleration
Thrust = 190,000,000 kg * 27,778 m/s/s
Thrust = 5,277,820,000,000 N (or 5,277,820 Meganewtons)

That's really damn high.
Let's put this into real-world terms.
A hypothetical fusion reactor puts out about 1000 MW (using theoretical numbers from ITER)
VASIMR, a real-world plasma drive, puts out 1N of thrust for every 100 kw it gets. I'll even assume that Impulse drives are 10 times as efficient as VASIMR and put out 1N for every 10 kw it gets.

Assuming that the Thrust to Input curve of the VASIMR (and by extension our theoretical Impulse drive) is linear, if we put it one Fusion Reactors worth of power, we get about 100 KN worth of thrust.

Since one "point" of power from an Impulse reactor is the same amount as one "point" from the warp reactor, we can assume that each Warp Box produces a similar amount of energy (the increased number of boxes represents both higher output and how resilient it is to damage).
So lets dump all 36 "points" of power the F-CA produces into the impulse engine - an amount coming out to about 36,000 Megawatts (30 warp boxes, 4 impulse boxes and 2 AWR boxes; this even ignores the SFB rule that only Warp power can be used for movement).

with all 36,000 MW thrown into our theoretical impulse drive we get a thrust of 3,600 MN - only about 0.0006821% of what we established as the required impulse engine output as.

and thats when I said "enough of trying to figure this out today" >.<

Perhaps Tus, who is an actual rocket surgeon, can come in and see if I've screwed the pooch in my math.

EDIT: Even if we technobabble handwave stuff by using some sort of sub-warp coil to reduce apparent mass in the impulse deck, I don't like the numbers that it would have to tweak the mass by, we're talking having to multiply the mass by 0.00001 or so for it to start to work

[Strat]

I read that and was in awe of all the thought you put into that.

And then my head hurt..

[FoaS_XC]

Welcome to my brain....

[Tus-XC]

looks fine.  This is the fundamental problem with any form action reaction propulstion - you must expel x amount of mass in order to accelerate at certain rate.  in order to sustain that acceleration you must have enough propellant (say, H2).  You then have to take into account the mass of that fuel, which will affect your accleration, which inturn will require more mass... (you can see the problem).  We also run into an effeciency problem.  The more thrust we create, the less effecient our engine is.  This similar to stomping on the gas at the stop light versus a gradual accleration.  So we need that high thrust to acclerate, but now we are consuming our fuel at increasingly faster rate with less net results.  This problem is further compounded when you take into account relativistic effects where not only are you increasing your KE but you are now also increasing your mass - big problem there. 

So for Trek ships to work at impulse we must cheat and assume that there is some device that reduces mass (say the inertial dampeners) in order to allow the impulse engines to work and be highly effecient.  Now that is the fun part

[FoaS_XC]

Sadly, the that sub-warp coil in the impulse deck can sometimes screw with the rest of the calculations down the line - just feels awkward to me. I'm gonna take another bash at messing with the numbers, but not tonight. ><

[FoaS_XC]

I'm just gonna leave this here.....

[Bernard Guignard]

I'm just gonna leave this here.....

Nice I like it 

[Bernard Guignard]

This morning I put together a primitive spread sheet in calc  showing how I used the starfleet SSDs and here are a couple of JPGs
showing how its done. The calc spread sheet is in xls format if people are interested in it.  I have Scribus for desk top publishing Ill Create some
draft technical manual templates so that we can put schematics and notes together for the various races.

[Bernard Guignard]

Here's a draft of the Starfleet Ship specification page.   I figure the same format could be used just change the colors and Command logo.
Rather than use a schematic, I'd prefer using a schematic view of the model but as I said this is a draft. I'd like  your opinions and comments.
and make this a community effort 
 

[The Northern Star]

Nice!

[marstone]

In all the time I have watched Star Trek, I have never seen a 22 person (FASA thingie) transporter.

[FoaS_XC]

Eh, call it a large cargo transporter.

Care for some C&C on that page layout, bernard?

[marstone]

but FASA also lists cargo transporters too.  But will drop off this topic, just i have always had problems with how FASA did things (comes from being a SFB player).

[FoaS_XC]

but FASA also lists cargo transporters too.  But will drop off this topic, just i have always had problems with how FASA did things (comes from being a SFB player).

*shrug* you're right, FASA doesn't fit in a lot of cases, but yes, let's keep on topic here.

Bernard: you're using Scribus you said? *googles* I've been using InDesign for all my PDF efforts. Again: Norsehound has a much better eye for print than I do.

EDIT 1:

Okay, here's a couple points of C&C: Things need to be tightened up. There's a lot of wasted space, it seems. I'd use a quarter-inch space between each "block" I also wouldn't worry about trying to keep each entry to a single page. I'd make a couple block-layouts where you can have just a page of pure text, a page of a single side-view cross section and the rest is text, etc etc.

I'd try to stay away from Trek-like fonts for everything except headings and subheadings. Legibility is a big thing with body text and trek fonts aren't always so easy to make out at such small sizes (12pt or whatever the case may be). I like Trebuchet a lot for my body text, myself.

Edit 2: added examples of different layouts.

[FA Frey XC]

I had a post all done and f*cking IE decided to eat it.

*sigh*

Regards,

[FoaS_XC]

I had a post all done and f*cking IE decided to eat it.

*sigh*

need to start using notepad to set up your posts, bossman.

[Bernard Guignard]

but FASA also lists cargo transporters too.  But will drop off this topic, just i have always had problems with how FASA did things (comes from being a SFB player).

*shrug* you're right, FASA doesn't fit in a lot of cases, but yes, let's keep on topic here.

Bernard: you're using Scribus you said? *googles* I've been using InDesign for all my PDF efforts. Again: Norsehound has a much better eye for print than I do.

EDIT 1:

Okay, here's a couple points of C&C: Things need to be tightened up. There's a lot of wasted space, it seems. I'd use a quarter-inch space between each "block" I also wouldn't worry about trying to keep each entry to a single page. I'd make a couple block-layouts where you can have just a page of pure text, a page of a single side-view cross section and the rest is text, etc etc.

I'd try to stay away from Trek-like fonts for everything except headings and subheadings. Legibility is a big thing with body text and trek fonts aren't always so easy to make out at such small sizes (12pt or whatever the case may be). I like Trebuchet a lot for my body text, myself.

Edit 2: added examples of different layouts.

Alot to respond to 

The 22 person emergency transporter is from the  grandaddy of Star trek Technical Design  Franz Joseph   

  After Looking at my first effort  I proceeded to create a second example, but I Like what I'm seeing here  with the small race logo on top and  one thing we do need to leave at the bottom is a page indicator    Yes I agree that the my first example has a lot of wasted space and I need to tighten it up 
how do you enjoy using In design is it  open source ?  Intutive to use?  This is actually the most that I've done with Scribus, except for creating some Cover pages to Illustrate  Anatomy of a Starship Series   





Back to  the topic at hand  I'm thinking that going to a 2 page format  would be the better route to go. The  first page  ship graphic and  Specifications  Second page   Ship registry  and  Notes on  this would  Maximise the space for the graphic but still keep it interesting with specifications it also leaves more room for those Longer specifications when the ships start adding  extra weapons such as phaser 3's, phaser G's,  drone racks and other systems.
    

Also the font that I currently work with is Ariel, I find it easy to read but I understand that other people do have difficulty with it do we have any suggestions as to what I should be using. 

We are going to need to have someone coordinate this Project. Its going to be a very big job.    Luc aka Firesoul had mentioned how many ships that there are in His modded ship list,  there are quite a few 

Some basic rules will have to be decided on, IE how we divide up the different era ships and what the Design Lineage (aka Look of the ships) 
I've always looked at this as being  Early era  =  TOS Design Lineage     Middle era = TMP Design   Advanced era =  X-Ship.

Volunteers will be needed. Here is how I imagine how the members of this community can help out. 
Project Manager this individual will have the final say in case of disputes.
For lack of a better title Advanced Starship Design Comittee  This group of individuals
will look at ship models and decide which artists models make it into the book based
on certain  critera. Critera to be decided.
Graphic guys to help in putting together the schematic views of the models.
Writers - to write up Specs Registrys and notes for those ships that we don't have any.
Researchers to dig up data and material to help the writers do thier job
Editors and proofreaders

Whoa the scope of this is making my head spin   
 

[Bernard Guignard]

Revised draft pages how does this look ?  I might have to save each page as an individual template file. Then insert them into a master document down the road. I tried creating master pages but they are a pain to edit and I'm not sure if you edit one master page then the edits take on all the master pages also you lose any text information when you create master pages its a very strange set up.  but then again I'm still in learning mode with this soft ware.  FOAS I noticed that InDesign is part of the Adobe family very nice but I can't afford that software.  Scribus is free to all to download. 
 

[The Northern Star]

Even better! I like the increased size of the graphic. I'd be hopeful; however, that the dimensions, specifications and the registry would be made to fill the width of the page. Or perhaps the dims could be included as a graphic element in the ortho.

[Bernard Guignard]

Hi Northern Star
Thank you  these are still drafts at the moment . The Specification box and registry box currently are manual fill ins.   I'm going to see
if we can import Excel or calc spread sheets into those boxes.  What would be nice is an ortho of a federation class dreadnought model for
this draft copy.     We need to come up with common fomat so that all we would have to do is punch in numbers  and paste the data in the boxes.   Would you guys want to see volumes by race  ie  Volume 1= Federation  Volume 2= Klingon  Volume 3 =
Romulan  etc  or would you rather have Vol 1  FED, Klingon Rom  Vol 2 Hydran, Pirates, Mirak  etc.

[Starfox1701]

you might be able to do the words in open office and combine them in photoshop

[Bernard Guignard]

calc is the spread sheet function of open office  we could also do the pages up in writer.  the word processing ap of
open office 

[Bernard Guignard]

I tried to enter the specifications and registry as Text or Spreasheet files and its no go 
I had to create a table inside of scribus and fill in the information manually this means we have to create
the base information on a template then add the information into a master document . 
On the good side Here's what I have in mind for the Klingon Layout  " Please Disregard The Specs !!!!! "
I haven't had time to put in the proper ones for the D7.  I like the D7 ortho the way its laid out
and wouldn't mind using that lay out, replacining it with sfc models for all the ships.
I'm not fussy about the 2 divider lines at the bottom of the page if any one can think of
something better. Please let me know.

[Starfox1701]

Looking good though I hope ther will be a bit more info

[Bernard Guignard]

Looking good though I hope ther will be a bit more info

Hi Starfox 
This project is very early in its infancy. What kind of information would you be looking for?
I'm going to need volunteers to do ship write ups.
I'm not going to do all this myself  but feed back and discussion is greatly appreciated,
in order to know what you all would expect in the manual. 
We Also need to work out table of contents and a credit page for all the modelers and individuals who will be working on this Project. 

I see this project in a series of steps
Step One: Come up with a format that is usable and set ground rules for material inclusion.
Speaking of specifications  does anyone know if you can get a text file out of the Vessel Library?
also do the extra ships that Firesoul added to his 4.1 mod show up in the Vessel Library ?

Here's a question should we just list Variants  IE CA CAD  CAE Etc or create  ships and orthos to represent the different ship types ie  for Klingon Drone Cruiser. Could be as simple as texturing on drone Launch tubes on the front of the secondary hull 

So many Questions and ideas so little time     

[FoaS_XC]

Commentary by expert pilots might be a good idea. "Here's a decent way to use the F-CLC" for example. Also a decent way to bring in veteran players onto the project instead of just us art-heads.

[TAnimaL]

I was thinking  the same thing Starfox said when I saw the nice mock-ups. Personally, I'd like to see "real SFC" data added into size/mass specs -i.e.; "warp," "impulse," and "aux" units add up to that ship's power, or phasers are listed as what types - "10 Phaser Mk 1, 4 Phaser Mk 3."

(As an aside, I still remember getting the FJ Tech Manual when it came out, how excited I was when I was 12, and then how I became disappointed in it by 13. The ships had a full page of names for each but next to no tech info on the ships, which was mostly the same "WF cruising, WF Emergency," etc. One of the things that drew me to SFB in '79 was tech stuff, even if it was game stuff like "turn mode" and "breakdown rating.")

Commentary on each ship sounds interesting too. Could be tactical, could be historical, could be anecdotal - "Flying the DNH against 3 Klink F5s once , and brole down on a HET early on! Got a few dents in my hull, but still took 'em all out. One tough motha."

And I'd love to help out however I can. Not sure this helps any, but I prepared this PDF for some additional ships I was adding for a campaign; it has the listings you might find on the ship in the Library section of the game, kinda what I was referring to above, FWIW.

[Bernard Guignard]

I was thinking  the same thing Starfox said when I saw the nice mock-ups. Personally, I'd like to see "real SFC" data added into size/mass specs -i.e.; "warp," "impulse," and "aux" units add up to that ship's power, or phasers are listed as what types - "10 Phaser Mk 1, 4 Phaser Mk 3."

(As an aside, I still remember getting the FJ Tech Manual when it came out, how excited I was when I was 12, and then how I became disappointed in it by 13. The ships had a full page of names for each but next to no tech info on the ships, which was mostly the same "WF cruising, WF Emergency," etc. One of the things that drew me to SFB in '79 was tech stuff, even if it was game stuff like "turn mode" and "breakdown rating.")

Commentary on each ship sounds interesting too. Could be tactical, could be historical, could be anecdotal - "Flying the DNH against 3 Klink F5s once , and brole down on a HET early on! Got a few dents in my hull, but still took 'em all out. One tough motha."

And I'd love to help out however I can. Not sure this helps any, but I prepared this PDF for some additional ships I was adding for a campaign; it has the listings you might find on the ship in the Library section of the game, kinda what I was referring to above, FWIW.

TAnimal 
I like the idea of using SFC stats in conjunction with the other information that we can derive. IE ship length and mass number of warp engines.   FOAS I also like the idea of adding commentary on each ships tactical strengths and weakness for the notes section  we just have to reformat that Specification section to to make it all fit or move things or add another page.   

[Starfox1701]

Looking good though I hope ther will be a bit more info

Hi Starfox 
This project is very early in its infancy. What kind of information would you be looking for?
I'm going to need volunteers to do ship write ups.
I'm not going to do all this myself  but feed back and discussion is greatly appreciated,
in order to know what you all would expect in the manual. 
We Also need to work out table of contents and a credit page for all the modelers and individuals who will be working on this Project. 

I see this project in a series of steps
Step One: Come up with a format that is usable and set ground rules for material inclusion.
Speaking of specifications  does anyone know if you can get a text file out of the Vessel Library?
also do the extra ships that Firesoul added to his 4.1 mod show up in the Vessel Library ?

Here's a question should we just list Variants  IE CA CAD  CAE Etc or create  ships and orthos to represent the different ship types ie  for Klingon Drone Cruiser. Could be as simple as texturing on drone Launch tubes on the front of the secondary hull 

So many Questions and ideas so little time 

I personly like story driven stuff like "historical info" that drove the design and production, or after action reports and service histories for a given class. The real world Janes Manuals are a good example. I wouldn't mind doing some writing as long as someone else is folding it into the spec sheets. right now I'm working from my wifes PC till I get mine fixed.

I have no ID on the Library or Firesouls ships.

On veriants I would do visuals to show differences you can see. Limiting the space any one artical takes up will only really shortchange better known ships like Constitution and the D7

[Bernard Guignard]

After some serious reading.  Here's the latest on the draft pages for the Technical manual. Reading the scribus documentation has shown me
how to add page numbers.    I also read up how to add tables from open office Calc spread sheets and I'll be trrying that in the next iteration

I'm proposing we work with a 4 page lay out:  1 page consisting of ship graphic  & ship registry.
The next page is specifications, after that comes ship history and finally any notes (we might want to find a better title)
this section would be where the Tactical commentary can be made.  I still want to refine the header and footer graphics
we will need something that will be high res for printing purposes  Looking at the footer graphic I'm finding it too blurry.

Regarding Specifications:  what other weapons does the Federation use? I'd like to see a Generic Federation specification
spreadsheet with all weapons and systems that the Federation uses, we can then just fill in what the ship has and Paste
the information into the proper page

[FoaS_XC]

300 DPI is the resolution you want. You can get away with 150 but just to be safe.

The ellipse at the top is buggin me a bit, but that's the designer in me having fun. I wouldn't label each box with a title, I would let the layout go a bit more liquid. Let the section titles reside inside the text boxes so that each section takes up as much room as it needs and the next section starts. Otherwise you're going to have a lot of empty page space if a section only takes up half a box.

[Bernard Guignard]

300 DPI is the resolution you want. You can get away with 150 but just to be safe.

The ellipse at the top is buggin me a bit, but that's the designer in me having fun. I wouldn't label each box with a title, I would let the layout go a bit more liquid. Let the section titles reside inside the text boxes so that each section takes up as much room as it needs and the next section starts. Otherwise you're going to have a lot of empty page space if a section only takes up half a box.

Not a problem we will put section headings inside the box    What do you suggest for the header should we just keep the Logo and be rid of the Ellipse ?  would a thin blue line be better up there ?  Any idea about the footer lines. ? 
 

[FoaS_XC]

You're using Scribus, hmm?
Let me download it and see what it can do, graphically speaking.

My first inclination is to do everything layout-wise with vector, not bitmaps - (A) to get the print resolution you need, guaranteed. (B) lower on the filesize at that resolution.

[Bernard Guignard]

This past week I've been back at work playing catch up, so I haven't had much time to delve into the technical manual project  too much 
Before I went back to work I created a spread sheet of the OP 4.1 ship list.    I want to break it down into sections and put it into a project management gantt chart,  if I can find a free one that works with open office and is easy to use.  To start tracking the work that needs to be done on each entry tasks with sub sections, would look like this as an example. If any of you can think of any orther tasks that should be done on the ship entry
Please pass it along to me so I can set up some sort of template to speed things along.

 FED DN 
  task 1  -  Ship model orthographics creation
  task 2  -  Ship mass calculation
  task 3  -  Ship Specification Write up
  task 4  -  Ship Registry write up
  task 5  -  Ship History write up
  task 6  -  Ship Tactical notes write up
  task 7  -  Draft ship page compilation
  task 8  -  Entry review
  task 9  -  Revised ship compilation
  task 10 - Final Entry review

Thank you in advance

[Bernard Guignard]

My searching on the internet found a what I hope to be a free gantt Chart program.
Here's what I've managed to lay down so far.   

[atheorhaven]

My searching on the internet found a what I hope to be a free gantt Chart program.
Here's what I've managed to lay down so far. 

Gant TT is free..

Have another one kicking around as well similarly named, I'll try and find it then post its name as well.  (Does similar work)..

(edit: The other one I found was Gantt PV).

[Bernard Guignard]

You're using Scribus, hmm?
Let me download it and see what it can do, graphically speaking.

My first inclination is to do everything layout-wise with vector, not bitmaps - (A) to get the print resolution you need, guaranteed. (B) lower on the filesize at that resolution.

Sorry Foas
I wasn't ignoring you just wanted to get some ideas out there after vacation was over.  I think it would be great if you could take a look at scribus  it can handle SVG files and a host of others.  The bringing in of a spreadsheet is a pain though have to convert it to an image in order to bring it in to the program.  Its own table creator is not much fun to use I found it very finicky and trying to get proper column widths was difficult. well got to keep that in mind 
wondering if it would be better to be working in open office write instead?

[FoaS_XC]

Well, I'm pretty handy with illustrator - as is Norsehound (hell, he's better than I am at it) - and that can export SVG files.

[Tus-XC]

My searching on the internet found a what I hope to be a free gantt Chart program.
Here's what I've managed to lay down so far.   

AAAHHH!!! a gantt chart!!! get it away, get it away! (i see a gantt chart everyday for work )

[Bernard Guignard]

My searching on the internet found a what I hope to be a free gantt Chart program.
Here's what I've managed to lay down so far.   

AAAHHH!!! a gantt chart!!! get it away, get it away! (i see a gantt chart everyday for work )

Hi Tus
I guess I can't fault you for that  I suppose if people started to create Starfleet Solicitation requests or Starfleet engineering change requests
and Engineering Change notices.  I'd feel the same way 

To that end Do we have any good Spreadsheeters or Programers  to design an application to do Ship Mass calculations  I figure we should
try to automate the process as much as possible due to the number of entrys in the SFC Ship List 

[FoaS_XC]

I'm just gonna leave this here...

[Starfox1701]

That sir kicks ass

[Bernard Guignard]

I'm just gonna leave this here...

FOAS
I like the layout and look of it    Only suggestion is add Command to the title.
since Franz Joseph Pulblished the Star fleet Technical Manual.

What is it done in ? 

Real Life has been crazy and I've really not had the time to allocat to this. I've taken the shiplist spreasheet and am
breaking it down to the individual races one race for each tab  I can then hopefully create a secondary spreadsheet
with the various ship entry tasks and combine it to create gantts for each ship entry.

[Bernard Guignard]

Haven't forgotten  Still working on  the 1 section of the spead sheet the Federation ships  there are 587 units on the
federation tab this counts everthing in the Federation section of the shiplist.  Ships, planets, boxes, pods
Might have to break this up in a Series of booklets in order to get the work done.