On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 3:28 PM, Freelance Traveller
<editor@freelancetraveller.com> wrote:
> (Side note: I suspect that something got jammed up at the Freelance
> Traveller mail server; the 'missing' messages came back to me in one
> swell foop. Only it wasn't so swell that they didn't come in "on time".
> Seems to be OK now, though.)
>
> In "classical" Traveller (i.e., the Third Imperium and 'compatible'
> settings), ships are allocated engineering space, and on deck plans the
> various 'drives' are roughed in as very irregular shapes.

Largely that depends on who did the plans in CT, I always like the
Games Workshop plans as seen in Levithan and Various articles in White
Dwarf, in which the engineering spaces where obviously access spaces
and workstations with the bulk of the machinery hidden in the hull
outline.

> However, with
> the sort of miniaturization of electronic components that we can do even
> today, about the only thing that causes irregular shape is _mechanical_
> connection or interfacing. If controls are electronic, they can be
> managed by a touch-screen arrangement, much like on /Star Trek: The Next
> Generation/ or /Deep Space Nine/ or /Voyager/.

Yes. Note that a lot of modern industrial machinery has only the parts
that need to be accessed for control/adjustment exposed the rest is
hidden away under covers and the like only opened when that part needs
to be looked at.

>
> So, if I walk in to Engineering on e.g., an Empress Marava or a Beowulf,
> what am I going to see? Will I see grey, blue, white, purple, etc.,
> boxes with consoles attached? Or will I see something that looks like
> steampunk updated to the 1970s? Or will I see something like Engineering
> on one or another of the Star Trek franchises?

YES! all of them depending on who made and maintained said ship.

>
> (Ulterior motive: At some point, I want to build a Traveller starship
> interior using The Sims 2, and then do a "photo tour" for Freelance
> Traveller. I can fake up a bridge easily enough (there are Star Trek
> consoles of all sorts downloadable as add-ons), and living areas are
> essentially trivial, but Engineering is a potential problem.)

Trek Away! Or go back and look through the DGP stuff, they treked out
Traveller like nobodies business.

--
Evyn