Freelance Traveller

Neptune Station: Undersea Research Facility, University, and Community

created by Michael Tumey

This was the featured article in the June 2015 issue. In order to keep page loading time and memory requirements reasonable, the article has been broken up into several pages. Even so, viewing these pages is not recommended on download links with speeds less than 1Mbps, and true broadband capability is strongly recommended.

Ancillary Domes: South Connection

Moon Pool

The Moon Pool serves as the station’s port for both the maintenance crabs and the manta-shaped submersibles that provide all transport and logistics for Neptune Station. A full service boat maintenance shop sits to the north side of the moon pool. Submersibles rise into the moon pool from below with a slip for each boat.

Observation Platform

The Observation Platform serves as public facility for many activities including non-denominational religious services, marriages, funerals, celebrations, special classrooms, and public events. In many ways this dome serves as a park. Public restrooms sit on the north side of the dome.

• Main Dome: Community and University Levels
• Main Dome: Warehouse/Maintenance Level
• Main Dome: Habitat Levels
• Main Dome: Industrial Operations Level
• Ancillary Domes: Moon Pool and Observation Platform
• Ancillary Domes: Hydroponics Dome
• Ancillary Domes: Marine Laboratory

Editor’s Note: Neptune Station has been released commercially by the author as a set of maps for Virtual Tabletop systems such as Roll20, at $3.99 from DrivethruRPG. The commercial products are at higher resolution than the maps presented here.

Author’s Note: if you ignore the undersea aspects in the areas surrounding the main map, as well as finding an alternative to the moon pool, and oceanography dome, this facility could easily work as a planetary space station on an airless or exotic atmosphere environment, so it’s doesn’t solely have to serve as an undersea facility. This map can be more versatile than that.

The commercial versions of the mapped station are currently scaled at 1 inch = 10 feet. The large, main map measures 72×72 inches, so from edge to edge the area shown depicts 720 feet making the station an entire, compact undersea town and really quite extensive. This means rescaling it to 1 inch = 5 feet would rescale the dimensions to be 144×144 inches, meaning you would have to divide this map into 4 quarters to display on platforms like Roll20. At the 1 inch = 5 feet scale, even the sublevels and the main habitat level would be larger than 72×72, so a single full level couldn’t be displayed in its entirety on a Roll20 screen.

Ancillary Domes: Southeast Connection

To the southeast of the main habitat dome lie two smaller dome structures, both containing sublevels beneath the domes.

Hydroponics Laboratory Dome

Serving as the primary food source, the hydroponics labs contain farms for all fruits and vegetables. The top level inside the dome is an arboretum, also serving as a kind of woodland park for station inhabitants. The first level beneath the arboretum is the agricultural science research laboratory. The second level beneath is a nursery for seedlings grown in preparation to be moved to the next level down when ready. The third level houses the main grow room for hydroponics produce. Each contained area is on a different growing schedules to provide a continuous source of food, with “seasonal” fruits and vegetables varying throughout the year. The level beneath this one serves as a laboratory for undersea agricultural science studying various plant diseases and nutrient supplements.

Oceanography/Marine Biology Lab Dome

The southeastern small domed structure contains the oceanographic/marine biologic laboratories with the main lab and fish tank exhibits on the top floor within the dome. The first level beneath holds the Oceanographic Sciences level with the structures restrooms as well as systems for undersea cartography, seismic studies, current research, thermoclines, salinoclines and other oceanographic fields of study. The second level beneath houses cetacean/dolphin studies with both training and tagging facilities. The third level serves as a marine biologic hospital facility studying diseases and behavior sciences. The lowest level of this laboratory houses a high pressure, high water temperature tank for the study of deep sea, hot water “smokers” found in the deepest water to study the unique ecologies in such alien environments.

Editor’s Note: Neptune Station has been released commercially by the author as both a PDF product and a set of maps for Virtual Tabletop systems such as Roll20, at $3.99 each. The commercial products are at higher resolution than the maps presented here, and the PDF sections may be printed at sizes suitable for use with miniatures

Author’s Note: if you ignore the undersea aspects in the areas surrounding the main map, as well as finding an alternative to the moon pool, and oceanography dome, this facility could easily work as a planetary space station on an airless or exotic atmosphere environment, so it’s doesn’t solely have to serve as an undersea facility. This map can be more versatile than that.

The commercial versions of the mapped station are currently scaled at 1 inch = 10 feet. The large, main map measures 72×72 inches, so from edge to edge the area shown depicts 720 feet making the station an entire, compact undersea town and really quite extensive. This means rescaling it to 1 inch = 5 feet would rescale the dimensions to be 144×144 inches, meaning you would have to divide this map into 4 quarters to display on platforms like Roll20. At the 1 inch = 5 feet scale, even the sublevels and the main habitat level would be larger than 72×72, so a single full level couldn’t be displayed in its entirety on a Roll20 screen.