How do you calculate mass / tonnage from the ship's volume?
- Thread starter Sgt_G
- Start date
I think Masao
www.starfleet-museum.org
—had a write up in the GEC Quarterly that had some helpful information on that—-I can’t find it…rats
The Starfleet Museum - A Report by Masao Okazaki
www.starfleet-museum.org
I think you might want to read up on Displacement (ship).
To put it 'unsimply' - you have to know what the average density of that object would be... That would require knowing what materials are used and their properties and exactly how much of those materials are used etc......
So.....yeah.
So.....yeah.
Well hello there . . . welcome to my wheelhouse.
In the case of Star Trek starships, we have two canonical datapoints (at least pre-2009/2017). The first was Scotty's reference in "Mudd's Women" to the Enterprise being nearly a million gross tons. The second is Voyager's mass, stated twice, of 700,000 metric tonnes.
Thanks to the talented folks who have made 3-D starship models for free, plus the geniuses who've made volume estimation plugins and tools for 3-D modeling programs, it becomes possible to get volumes for both Enterprise 1701 and Voyager 74656, at which point you have vessel densities, densities applicable to other vessels.
The plugin I use basically just makes a ton of slices through the model, making numerous surfaces that have an area and an equal height between each. The beautiful part is that it shows you the results so you can confirm that all of those surfaces actually got made . . . models with holes, gaps, and certain other problems can thus be confirmed not to be underreported, and of course you can twist and turn the model to re-run it for verification. In the below, you're seeing a New Orleans with a ton of slices (and the tops and bottoms of the surfaces colored differently) in an area where it looked pretty good. There's also an upright Galaxy image and you can see where the nacelle pylon connections to the nacelles had some gaps, leading to failed slices and low reading.
Is my technique valid? Well, it seems to work pretty well. My Intrepid-based Galaxy mass is 6.5 million tonnes, but after my work came out I think five million might be visible on a TNG-R display . . . but then volume coefficient and volume by surface area and just plain size all also matter, along with other technical details. My estimates don't currently take all of that into account since it would be another layer (or layers) of wild-ass guessing . . . but one I'm considering given the TNG-R thing.
In any case, the wild-ass guessing works well enough that my Imperial Star Destroyer mass estimate from an older 2010 blog post is, as far as I know, still Star Wars canon.
So just going by Voyager and the Delta Flyer's apparent densities, I'd presume your ship ought to come in around 61,000 tonnes, give or take. There could be differences off this estimate . . . for instance, is it a boxy thing like a Raven-type or some sort of marvelously svelte and graceful bird? Is it a cargo hauler, or an armored small frigate, or some sort of speed queen? These give plenty of room to move up or down . . . oh, and design age, too.
In the case of Star Trek starships, we have two canonical datapoints (at least pre-2009/2017). The first was Scotty's reference in "Mudd's Women" to the Enterprise being nearly a million gross tons. The second is Voyager's mass, stated twice, of 700,000 metric tonnes.
Thanks to the talented folks who have made 3-D starship models for free, plus the geniuses who've made volume estimation plugins and tools for 3-D modeling programs, it becomes possible to get volumes for both Enterprise 1701 and Voyager 74656, at which point you have vessel densities, densities applicable to other vessels.
The plugin I use basically just makes a ton of slices through the model, making numerous surfaces that have an area and an equal height between each. The beautiful part is that it shows you the results so you can confirm that all of those surfaces actually got made . . . models with holes, gaps, and certain other problems can thus be confirmed not to be underreported, and of course you can twist and turn the model to re-run it for verification. In the below, you're seeing a New Orleans with a ton of slices (and the tops and bottoms of the surfaces colored differently) in an area where it looked pretty good. There's also an upright Galaxy image and you can see where the nacelle pylon connections to the nacelles had some gaps, leading to failed slices and low reading.
Is my technique valid? Well, it seems to work pretty well. My Intrepid-based Galaxy mass is 6.5 million tonnes, but after my work came out I think five million might be visible on a TNG-R display . . . but then volume coefficient and volume by surface area and just plain size all also matter, along with other technical details. My estimates don't currently take all of that into account since it would be another layer (or layers) of wild-ass guessing . . . but one I'm considering given the TNG-R thing.
In any case, the wild-ass guessing works well enough that my Imperial Star Destroyer mass estimate from an older 2010 blog post is, as far as I know, still Star Wars canon.
So just going by Voyager and the Delta Flyer's apparent densities, I'd presume your ship ought to come in around 61,000 tonnes, give or take. There could be differences off this estimate . . . for instance, is it a boxy thing like a Raven-type or some sort of marvelously svelte and graceful bird? Is it a cargo hauler, or an armored small frigate, or some sort of speed queen? These give plenty of room to move up or down . . . oh, and design age, too.
This is the ship in question:
Note: Artwork is mine, but the design is based off SFB, so this is a Derivative Copyright by ADB.
When I asked the AI bots if a ratio of 1:1 tonnes per meter-cubed was right, they gave me about six different answers ranging from 0.1 tonne / m^3 base of the ISS to "0.9 - 1.2" t/m^3, with a lengthy explanation about ocean ships measured with the Panama Canal standard of one ton (not tonne) per 100 cubic feet (2.83 cubic meters), which works out to 0.32 tonne / m^3. It went downhill when I asked about how it's calculated in most game systems (e.g., Traveler). At that point, I gave up and came here to ask if there's a "Trek" answer.
Note: Artwork is mine, but the design is based off SFB, so this is a Derivative Copyright by ADB.
When I asked the AI bots if a ratio of 1:1 tonnes per meter-cubed was right, they gave me about six different answers ranging from 0.1 tonne / m^3 base of the ISS to "0.9 - 1.2" t/m^3, with a lengthy explanation about ocean ships measured with the Panama Canal standard of one ton (not tonne) per 100 cubic feet (2.83 cubic meters), which works out to 0.32 tonne / m^3. It went downhill when I asked about how it's calculated in most game systems (e.g., Traveler). At that point, I gave up and came here to ask if there's a "Trek" answer.
