Sleeping Quarters for Families

If you choose to have families on your ship, (whether it’s a colonization ship, a cruise ship, or just an exploration ship like the Enterprise in Star Trek: Next Generation) you need to think of adding a few more rooms to your ship. In addition to more storage space and a bigger ship store, if you decided not to have a replicator, you need to think of different things when considering sleeping quarters. For quarters with one or two individuals sleeping in it all you need to think about are things like where the beds are, how the bathroom is organized, what colors everything is, and which storage area belongs to whom. When you have quarters assigned to accommodate families, you need to think about a separate sleeping area for the parents than where the kids sleep, even if you decide to create the separation by cloth hung up or moving walls that could turn a single room by day into a number of small sleeping areas by night. Most quarters assigned to families have a bedroom for the parents, a bedroom for each child, a living room area with a couch and chairs for guests and a slightly disconnected area for the kitchen. When you have a replicator you don’t need a place to store and prepare food or do the dishes, you just need to make sure your crew knows how they stand with rations so that everyone gets the same amount of nutrients. A good way to do that would be to have a counter near the replicator saying what has been used for that month and what has been returned so it can be reused.

How to Create a Basic Space Ship

Well, that brings us to the end of the rooms you need to at least consider when planning out your fictional space ship. Let's review the departments:

Engineering Department makes the ship move and keeps it in one piece through a variety of mechanic and repair shops as well as an engine and power plant of your choosing.

Operations Department keeps the ship on the correct course and manages the weapons on ship.

The smaller departments may seem easy to overlook, but each has its use. The Air Department would maintain and run any small craft or fighter crafts used by the main ship. Deck Department is the one that gets all the painting, preservation, and docking jobs so the other departments can afford to be specailized and focus on thier job. The Administration Department keeps up the crews' records and makes sure they get all the awards they're entitled to.

The last set of departments on ship are also important. The Health Department keeps everyone healthy and out of pain while the Communications Department keeps the ship connected to the outside world and keeps communications running smoothly inside the ship. The Supply Department keeps everyone fed and makes sure they have all the repair parts and supplies they need for however long the ship is away from its homeport.

The last set of posts on what the crew needs on a ship may not fit in any department but moral lifters are a huge part of ship life and should not be overlooked if your crew is to be happy, or at least content, on ship.

The Fun Rooms on Ship

Law Enforcement on Ship

Exercise on Ship

Library, Useful to Some and Useless to Others

Continued Education on Ship

Religion on Ship

Recreation and Relaxation on Ship

R and R on the Messdecks

Recreation Rooms

Fresh Air and Relaxation on Ship

Fresh Air and Relaxation on Ship

Many ships in television, movies, and books have an observation room of some sort. The idea is that it is a large room for people who need a break from work to sit and stare out at space for whatever reason. If the room is just an empty space with movable chairs or benches it could be used for ceremonies like reenlistments, changes of command, or government ceremonies at different planets. However, most observation rooms shown have at least some sort of garden in it. The garden not only helps with purifying the oxygen on ship, or creating it in many circumstances, but it also creates a place for people to relax away from the unrelenting gray of metal with softer greens and lovely flowers as well as cleaner oxygen than anywhere else on ship.
Having a garden on ship can provide extra food to the messdecks that is fresh daily or weekly. Fresh fruit or vegetables provide nutrients that may not be easily reproduced by replicators or whatever food your ship serves. One problem that having your vegetable and fruit garden in a public location like the observation room is that some people will always be picking it early or moving plants into their quarters to get better food and many in the crew will never get fresh produce. A good idea may be to create a room somewhere that is a hydroponics garden. The room would be secured so only a few people could take care of the garden. If the hydroponics garden is some distance away from the flower garden in the observation room, then the ventilation system wouldn’t have to work so hard to purify the air.

Recreation Rooms

While you’re thinking about amusements for those on your ship you should consider something similar to Star Trek’s halodeck room. There is science in use and currently in the works that could eventually create a nearly believable halogram to make a halodeck real, especially if it had television screens for walls and the ceiling combined with some sort of moving floor. The realism of halograms on the television show may be impossible in the future but virtual reality is growing more and more possible with videogame graphics getting as good as they are. A special room that interacts with a virtual reality headset could work just as well to seemingly transport the wearer light years away for a while. Otherwise you may want to think about would be an arts and crafts room as a release from the tension of the day. Art has the ability to let the creator block out the universe for a while so it’s just the worker and the work, which is just what some people need to deal with the problems in close quarters and distance from family members.

R and R on the Messdecks

Most people spend all day at work looking forward to getting off work and relaxing: going to see a movie, going on a date, playing videogames, or whatever they do to forget the rigors or brainlessness of their job. While out to sea there really isn’t much to look forward to. Constantly moving, with people on watch posts twenty-four hours a day while underway, the ship literally never sleeps and that constant movement and activity make it hard for some people to relax. If they can’t relax in their off hours the tension of the day will transfer on to the next day and continue on until the tension gets to be too much and people snap in various ways harmful to themselves and possibly others as well. In an effort to avoid the snapping, volunteers from every department and division get together to plan something for each night the ship is underway, or at least a few nights a week. Often they’ll set up a Guitar Hero or Halo tournament or dominoes or a popular movie on a projector or karaoke and ice cream for everyone after work hours. Usually the moral event is held on the messdecks but may be moved to a conference room with a bigger screen. I’ve noticed that some of the television shows comment in passing that they have weekly crew movies, they make little comments such as meeting at the movie or needing to miss the movie for work. Depending on the type of ship you are creating you should decide what amusements your crew will look forward to at the end of the day.

Recreation and Relaxation on Ship

Something to think about when creating your fictional space ship is where do the people on ship gather to relax after work? On a modern naval vessel the larger berthings have a small lounge attached with a large television for movies, videogames, and just general watching the basic channels. The military has a few networks of their own that pay to show popular television shows, such as CSI and ER, as well as a news channel and a cartoon channel that gets shows from both the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. They also show movies on the main channel and when underway someone on ship can play requested movies on a separate channel.
As well as relaxing in their lounge they can sit and relax with people from other berthings on the messdecks, in the library, or sit and chat with their coworkers in their work spaces. Officers don’t have lounges in their stateroom but there is a medium sized lounge connected to the wardroom where they sit and chat or make decisions on ship board issues. Having someplace to relax and unwind from the workday, whatever part of the day it ends, is a major moral booster that brings a refreshed person back to work and able to deal with the same people day after day.