Spanial Tour

Overview

Spanial is a small freighter and most of her volume is engines and cargo hold.  The Habitat Deck is one level only, and consists of an inner ring of about three-quarters of a circle with rooms around the outside.  The Common Room is at one end of the ring and the Sick Bay at the other with the Control room at the apex of the arc.  Between them are the cabins, three between the Common Room and the Control Room and five between Control Room and Sick Bay.  Doors of the end of the corridor lead to port and starboard airlocks and the Hanger, which sits in the missing quarter of the circle.  A door opposite the Control Room leads to a lift and a ladder well that can be used to access the Engineering space and the Cargo Hold above (with respect to gravity) at the front of the ship.  When it’s travelling in normal space a standing person’s feet point to the Spanial’s tail and their head to the bow.

Deckplans

Habitat Deck

Spanial, Habitat Deck

Common Room

Like all rooms in the Habitat Deck, the Common Room is in an arc shape, about 3m wide from the inner curve to the outer curve with a ceiling 2.2m high.  It is about 7m long.

The Common Room walls are a light tan colour, with padding on some sections.  The floor is smooth and pale grey with a little give – like some hospitals. 

Lighting is from an illuminated strip running around the intersection of ceiling and walls, the ceiling is a creme colour.  

At one end is a Galley with food stores and preparation equipment, near the middle a fold-able dining/meeting table surrounded by four acceleration chairs (and sometimes less ornate folding seats), and at the end is a view screen, folding couch, and portable recreation and gym equipment.

Most of the furnishings are various brown hues, complimenting the walls.  It has a cosy and warm feel, if a little cluttered, even though the space is used very efficiently.

Ring Corridor

The corridor is painted in a pale grey colour, with many access panels around the inner walls and recessed hand-holds on both sides.

Passenger Cabin (example)

The cabins are about 2m wide at the narrow end and 2.8m at the wide end, 3m long with a 2.2m ceiling.  Cabin 1 (usually assigned to the Captain) is a little larger.

The cabin is done in a mix of dark brown furnishings and very pale pink walls.  The floor is a hard-wearing dark carpet matching the furnishings. 

On the immediate left is a combination shower/toilet cubicle (sometimes referred to as a ‘fresher’).  The toilet bowl and seat folds down from the wall for use and then retracts so the space can be used as a shower.  Above that, a basin and mirror folds down as well.  The shower has automated temperature control, several spray pattern settings and also a built in blow dryer.  Whatever the grey cubicle interior is coated with, water doesn’t adhere to it; within seconds of shutting off the water and a blast of the dryer, the interior is dry.  It’s very cosy, but quite space efficient.

Next to the fresher cubicle on the left wall is the bunk.  The sleeping part is 1.5m off the floor with recessed hand and foot holds to facilitate access.  Underneath is clothes and luggage storage space, protected with sliding (and lockable) doors.  Storage space is approximately 1m x 2m x 1.5m.  On the right wall near the wide end is a video screen/comm centre, below which is a fold-out desk top in three sections, which allows the desk to be oriented facing the back wall, the side wall and video screen or an L-shape for both.  A reasonably comfortable folding chair clips to a wall.  

Two lighting strips run the length of the cabin at the intersection of the ceiling and wall on the right, and the edge of the bunk on the left; intensity of light may be varied.  The fresher cubicle has two lighting strips running down the rear wall intersections.  The video screen can be configured as a mirror and there is a mirror over the fresher cubicle fold-out basin.

Captain’s Cabin

Karmen’s Cabin is a smidgen larger than the other cabins, but not by much. She has a return on her desk set up facing the door and she sits behind it facing the door and him. Her wall has two decorations: A framed hardcopy of her Merchant Captain Certificate and an image of Spanial taken against a backdrop of stars.

Sickbay

The Sick Bay is at the opposite end of the Ring Corridor to the Common Room.

The door has a simple privacy setting but as a Sick Bay its not really lockable.

In shape and size it appears to be identical to the other cabins – shaped like a section of doughnut, about 2m wide at the narrow end and 2.8m at the wide end, 3m long with a 2.2m ceiling.

The floor and walls of the Sick Bay are painted a pale green, with the ceiling in a stark white. All surfaces are the slightly rubberised durable material common to spaceships and stations, except that the intersections of walls and floor and ceiling have been filled in so they are rounded rather than square.  There is a sealable drain outlet in the floor.

On the immediate left is a combination shower/toilet cubicle (sometimes referred to as a ‘fresher’). The toilet bowl and seat folds down from the wall for use and then retracts so the space can be used as a shower. Above that, a basin and mirror folds down as well. The shower has automated temperature control, several spray pattern settings and also a built in blow dryer. Whatever the grey cubicle interior is coated with, water doesn’t adhere to it; within seconds of shutting off the water and a blast of the dryer, the interior is dry. It’s very cosy, but quite space efficient.

Unlike the other cabins, there’s an extra extendable shower head on a hose that can pull out into the cabin.

Next to the fresher cubicle on the left wall is a wheeled bed, able to be pulled out and moved around and narrow enough to fit through the door. It has Gecko grip brakes allowing it to be secured to the floor as it currently is. It also has an extensible set of bars that not only prevent a patient falling out, but can also meet over the top of the bed to act as a roll cage in the event of Zero-G.

On the right wall near the wide end is a workstation, below which is a fold-out desk top in three sections, which allows the desk to be oriented facing the back wall, the side wall and video screen or an L-shape for both. A comfortable folding chair clips to a wall and is acceleration rated when placed in slots in the floor. The video screen can be configured as a mirror and there is a mirror over the fresher cubicle fold-out basin.

Many of the remaining walls are covered with cupboards for medical equipment. Oliver can find one that appears to be empty for a patient’s gear to use for himself, which is lockable. Several of the cupboards are locked, and one seems intended to be quite secure.

Lighting strips run up each wall corner and along the roof. They are all dimmable, but on experimenting he may discover that on full intensity it’s quite bright in here.

Cross Corridor

The Cross Corridor is opposite the Control Room off the ring corridor and leads to the Hangar and accesses to the other levels. 

The Cross Corridor contains secure storage – ‘the ship’s locker’.  This includes an unlabelled and secure locker for weapons storage, within which will be found an unusually wide variety of weapons for a small freighter.

There is a ladder well off to the left and further down, an elevator on the right.  Both lead upwards to Engineering and the Cargo Hold above/forward.

Control

The door to the Control Room is typically configured to emit a tone when the access button is pressed, and can then be opened from inside.

The Control Room of the Spanial is a narrow, functional space with three acceleration couches and work stations facing away from the door.   The decor is a functional palette of grey.  There are actual viewports opening onto a vista of stars in front of the work stations, but they tend to be partially blocked by video screens.  

In the rear corner of the room a small table and two bench seats can fold down from the rear wall to be used as a conference, break or work area away from the control stations.

Usually the left workstation is assigned as HELM/NAV, the right as COMM/SCAN and the centre as CONN, and usually they are referred to that way (or just as Helm, Scan and Conn.) However any workstation can run any function.

Engineering Levels

The engineering space is a narrow, cramped, multi-layered area full of machinery, a compact workshop area and parts storage lockers.  The elevator can stop at one of three platforms in this area. 

Cargo Hold Levels

Cargo Hold

The elevator stops aft of the Cargo Hold, which is usually unpressurised.  The elevator ends in an internal airlock designed for access.  It is possible to pressurise the Cargo Hold, but the life support systems are not designed to sustain the volume and the air will slowly go bad over time.  Under thrust, increasing concentrations of CO2 may pool near the floor.

Usually the Cargo Hold itself is lit with only dim, red running lights, but white lights are available.  The Hold itself is a vast, empty cylinder about 20m high and 10m in diameter, illuminated by dim red light. At the far end are a pair of large doors, currently closed. Near the doors, a robot cargo arm is in its storage bay. Secured against one wall is a small open-cockpit space utility vehicle.

A second purpose-built snug airlock connects the Hold to the Hangar and is exactly large enough for one standard container to pass through (it even has little sprung rollers on the walls to help containers go through.) 

Cargo Operations

There is an observation window in the airlock.  The hold is a cavernous cylindrical space, with large doors forward.  

Below/aft of the hold is a workstation for the Cargo Officer, from which the hold controls can be operated.  This includes lighting, power outlets, cargo doors, pressurisation controls, and the extension arm which is used to move cargo about that everyone calls a crane (it’s not actually a crane, because cranes require gravity to operate and that’s not guaranteed to exist in the hold).  There is a viewing window here too, situated above the workstation, but most of the time it has it’s protective shutter over it because there is cargo stacked against it and there’s nothing to see.  The Cargo Officer is more likely to use the video monitors on the workstation.   

The Cargo Console has a large view screen on it, there are a settings for various views: External doors, Interior Top Down, Robot POV etc. There are a controls for operating the robot arm, the various doors, hold environmental controls and lights, cargo locks and releases and an interface to the ship’s computer. The grav plate around the workstation can be independently controlled, and the chair swung so the Cargo Operator can comfortably look out into the Hold instead of up.

Hangar

This is where the Spanial’s shuttle, Hio, is kept.  The space can be pressurised or depressurised.  Selected areas of the Hangar have grav plates, however movement in the hangar while the ship is under thrust should be done carefully.

The shuttle’s wings are folded while it’s in the hangar.

The Hangar can be a slightly disorienting space. When they first enter the impression is of the vehicle standing on its tail, towering above them, and there are a series of narrow gantries and walkways surrounding it. However, it’s possible to step on one of the bright green wall sections where the Grav Plates are oriented perpendicularly to the rest of the ship, and suddenly perspective shifts: Now the shuttle is a long vehicle on its belly beside or just above them, close enough that a tall person would have to duck their head (or even crouch in some places) to avoid hitting it on the vehicle’s hull.

The shuttle enters and leaves the Hangar via a pair of long double-folding doors that open almost the full length of the bay to space.

Shuttle

Interior Layout

The shuttle’s interior spaces comprise the cockpit (as Control on an aerospace vehicle is traditionally referred to, though no-one knows why), a six-seat passenger area, and associated luggage storage, a tiny but surprisingly well-equipped galley, general fresher, and a sleeper cabin with ensuite fresher.

The passenger compartment of the shuttle has six seats – two rows of three seats in club-style, split by an aisle in 2+1 configuration.  There is a kitchenette behind one row of seats and luggage storage behind the other. 

There is also a cargo hold big enough to hold a single standard size container or equivalent loose cargo.