I have a campaign idea centering around an eccentric Trillionaire who commissions a giant airship zeppelin and uses it as his home and base of operations.

Given that my idea will require extended use of the zeppelin both as a setting and as a vehicle I'm going to need to know some rough figures for this thing in game terms.

Its load and cargo space is going to be greater than that of the Hindenburg. Though with SR SOTA it may come out to be quite smaller in over-all volume.

Basically what I want is to figure Load, Cargo Factor, Handling Class, Signature, etc for this thing.

Also a rough cost for the character to brandy about as this thing is most defiantly a status icon.

Is the person going to be named Richard Branson the VI?

...I would make a shameless plug for one of my own corps that actually makes large passenger carrying hybrid lifting body/LTAs. (I actually have figures written up for a couple of these)

Or is this guy so eccentric he actually wants a Hindenburg/Graf styled zeppelin?

...oh and in what edition?

I propose calling it Castle Wulfenbach!

Or is the owner John Lumic and he's looking to upgrade all of humanity...?

Just a side note: SOTA will, at best, double the load of the Hindenburg. Gas displacement provides the lift and that volume of gasbag provided ~242 tons of lift. The Hindeburg airship weighed 130 tons, leaving 112 tons of usable lift. Even if your frame and drive systems weight nothing, you're still limited to the 242 tons of total lift.

I do want you to think about what the Hindenburg was capable of. An M1 Abrams weights 61.4 tons. Assuming you emptied it of ammo, fuel, external and coaxial weapons, the Hindenburg could carry two of them.

That is just a crapload of lift.

i built one such character once . . he was a rigger/mage/adept bastard somehow, basically doing the SHIELD Heli-Carrier-Thingie for all kinds of flying Drones . . named him Halcyon Renard . . he left the Airship by means of paragliding or parachute and got up with an levitation spell . .

without GM Fiat Airships become pretty much unplayable . . 'cause . . no matter what you do, they are freaking large targets . . and much too expansive and with way too high availability to be purchased easyly . . but yep, airships are cool, only reason why my GM let that char design fly *pun intended*
a slightly less abitious design hot swapped the airship for a hover-craft transporter for the drone carrier *g*

Nope lifting body is fine. He wants big and SOTA. Though he is hiring the company that is directly descended from the original Zepplin.

3rd ed [/QUOTE]
The large target theory has one hole in it.

You do realize that there are in-fact a lot of peaceful areas in SR and that not every airship is going to be shot at.

Once you have a peaceful police-controlled country to fly over the main concern becomes being able to take some light fire. The ship can be made with bullet-proof fabrics and inflated with Helium or Helium outer shell over Hydrogen lifting bodies. (The Hindenburg was originally designed this way but the US cut off the world's Helium supply.)

Add in Magic wards and such and you can have a very safe platform even for a rich playboy.

...I'll try to post one tonight. Need to get to a hotspot though as a Yugo with Lucas® Electrics is more reliable than our city wide "free" WiFi is.

The concept as I mention is a hybrid in that uses buoyant gas primarily for offsetting the load carried and a system of regulated cells that capture heat off the second compressor stage to adjust and trim altitude (similar to a fish's air bladder). The lifting body also of course creates lift as well as adding stability and has control surfaces. For descending the air feed the trim cells is cycled to the forward compressor stage and instead of venting expensive buoyant gas off into the atmosphere, it is compressed into spherical filament wound cells (thus losing it's buoyant capability). No water ballast is needed. The skin itself is also made of a semi rigid composite material. Propulsion is achieved by ducted fans buried in the lower portion of lifting body and four sets of external counter rotating electric UDFs that also provide attitude control.

In effect, it is a true "Sky Ship".

This is based on various LTA concepts that have been proposed in RL, I just wrapped a couple of them up into one single package.

Why does it have to be bigger than the Hindenberg. On it's own the Hindenberg was about the size of the freaking empire state building and could carry lots of people in first class comfort.

Even if it is mainly gas bags that means you have one really rich man taking up space formally held by 50-60 really rich people 9the only ones who could afford first class travel in the 1930's.)Add to it the fact this would have improved tech . I mean even 2007 tech levels with microchips etc would mean a massive improvement in luxury in the Hindenberg with a massive reduction in mass needed for those things.

I mean an I-pod in place of what they used for music in 1934? Even if it was a victrola then, an i-pod is smaller. A rich man living alone, even if he has room for guests, does not need all the big restaurant or kitchen facilities of the ship which had to cater to a lot of guests, I mean what would he doing in the dining room? Sit at a different table each night just to be psychotic?

...well, dug up the specs - they were in hardcopy form as this was actually from an old campaign. The bad news, the Marathon Voyager™ class does not conform to the standard design rules for LTAs. I was a firm believer that an LTA should be able lift far more than the maximum design rules allowed, so I basically created another class of vehicle, the NBLW (Neutral Buoyancy Lifting Wing). The load was more in line with a medium size airliner and CF (including passenger space) as for a small cruise vessel (similar to the kind that ply the Columbia River out where I live).

The Voyager™ Series is basically an airborne cruise ship (no where near as big as the seagoing kind mind you, but still pretty impressive) It had the max speed of a fixed wing prop-turbine (usual cruise speed of about 2/3rds that). It could carry a passenger load of 160 in mixed configuration that included Sleeper Seats, Standard (roomettes) and a few Luxury (staterooms) living amenities for those with the nuyen to pay. It also had a separate dining area, and entertainment lounge.

...so in a sense it was a bit of a "rule breaker"

I vote multiple Hindenburg-style gas bags. No matter how big you make it, it won't make the conceptual transition from big ship to flying base until there are multiple gas bags.

Well I do have someone in my game essentially setting up a massive aerial casino/brothel/sodom&gormorah in my game. However that is mostly as a tangent, and for flavor.

Complete with RU-BY RAUUUUD!

...I agree...airships are cool.

Maybe I'll transcribe the Voyager™ & post it anyway just for s

Well Ruby is going to be there now.

...but J-B E. Zorg isn't invited.

...of course Leeloo is always welcome