First, thanks to everyone who has had comments about my new FL build (the Mallard class). They have been very useful and the conversations about the ship have been very fruitful. As always, you guys rock.

After working on the graphic mods for the Upper Deck this weekend (no, I'm not _really_ OCDing over this build, not really), which has the 5' stairwells going down with a door in front, at the beginning of the hallway, I came to the the realization that a door wouldn't fit there. Well, not w/out work I was unwilling to do. Because the doorway actually extends over its square into the adjacent squares, making a doorway like that at the end of the hall isn't practical. I did make a doorway that fit inside a 5' square, but the door was so narrow; I just didn't like. And these stair wells require a door, so....

So, I modified the plans, and now all the stairs are 10' wide. Actually, this isn't the true; in the Cargo Bay, the two stairs leading up are the railed stairs, and so are 7.5' wide. But all the stairs that aren't freestanding are now 10' wide, which shuffled things around slightly (just slightly). While I was at it, I extended the Fwd Observatory and the Lounge out as well.

No other major details have changed. Here is the slightly revised plan:




One thing you'll notice is that all of the stairs from the Upper Deck going to the Mid Deck are overlapping, while all the stairs going from the Mid Deck to the Lower Deck are L-shaped. This is on purpose; the Upper Deck and Mid Deck are about the same height, while the Lower Deck is twice the height - so the stairs have travel twice the distance. I'm still pondering how I'm going to do the stairs down.

At the moment, I'm favoring a plan of just putting a stairs flat (like some of the earlier sets have) where they go, and leaving it at that. I've also considered leaving out where the stairs down should go (including cutting through the cardstock), and then using the flat when the levels are seperate, but removing it when the levels are stacked, so you can actually see through one level to the next. I'm not sure if the added V-word is worth the effort for this, though.


Edit: Oops, looking at it, there is another change. Because of the extra inch from the wider stairs, I changed the Storage into another Crew cabin. The Captain's cabin stays 4"x6", the other two port cabins are 4"x5", and the 4 starboard cabins are all 3"x5". (For those interested, like the Lower Deck Lounge and Hall, they are the Orange rooms, while the Passenger Dorms are the Red rooms.)

Robby,
How are you making the curved window lounge and observation rooms?
in case I missed it in an earlier thread or post

I think those are bridge pieces, widened or otherwise altered a bit. I can't wait to see this whole thing done and together.

Will the decks ever truly stack together, or will these be separate game levels that connect or conceptually "stack" via the stairs?