Props and settings for round 3

Just starting a thread to keep track of this:

Things requested for session 3:

Lighting improvements - while the blue and low lighting kept things feeling ship like, it's agreed that we need better task lighting in some areas for better visibility. To this end, I'm thinking some modern looking "desk" lamps in the meeting room on the table (for eating and reading and writing), and some set on the bridge console and by the seating. I'd also like to add some nightlights to plugs in the hallsways to increase "track" lighting for pathways and in the crew quarters at night.

Wall behind the control panels n the bridge - needs panels and "control" units. The white wall was distracting.

Posters and signs to go over existsing pictures and posters - I want to post a series of ship protocols, schematics, GAF and Isley pictures, etc over the existing house artwork. Easy to do and easy to remove while still altering the lovely museum pieces that Haley and andrew have to be more spacey. I'd really like to see if we can get most of the crew together in their jackets for a crew "publicity" photo

Copies of "world news" - just came up with this but it would be neat for people to come in (particularly with Denton around) to find one of the tabloid rags and read some culture and world updates via that. It's something we could possibly do using Jake's computer as a news prompter or actually do some sort of print copy and make it look futury.

Crew quarters - since my regular air mattress kicked the bucket and I need to replace it, I want to get some twin air mattresses to replace it. I'd like to see the crew quarters done in twin air mattresses - they'd fit better. Brit already said she'd buy one so that's three between the two of us. While everyone appreciated the room of larger air mattresses, it's hard to fit them all in and I noticed people crashing in the bridge this weekend. We can move and relocate twins easily as well if needed- but it will also make the crew quarters seem more like barracks. We want to do signs and billets for each bunk as well so everyone has a sort of "spot"
Some options I'm considering: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4694687

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3620498 (I like this one because I can also use it as a larger bed in my house for guests but it gives us two twins as well)

We need to fit four to five people in those quarters to get everyone in the house reasonably comfortably - assuming that we get one person on the med bay cot, me and jake in the computer room, brit in Bailey's room, Haley in Kyle's room, and then one person either crashing out on the bridge seats or in the meeting room. I think with twins we can do that. Thoughts?

and let me try this in a separate post as the last one mysteriously locked up.

Med bay - I was really happy with this area. It felt real enough to me and still fairly gritty and easy to set up.

Front room - also pretty happy (see lighting notes). The bookcase was neat. I might layer more mesh on it to make it a little more opaque but in the light level it was hard to see through and worked well to make it less book case like. The piano still stymies me. I'm contemplating adding some "panels" to the front to make it into some sort of machine but I don't know what. Maybe a "knowledge storage" device or some sort of electronic library since it seemed to be where we ended up putting the music docking station for the ipods. It makes sense that we "build" that in as we can guarantee any ship refits are going to take crew morale into account. (thanks Sadie)

Windows - one or two of these I want to double layer next time - mostly in that front room. Since we managed to salvage all of the bags this time it should be much faster to do the window blacking next time.

Projector and displays in the bridge - awesome. Just awesome.

Airlock - was also much happier with this with the addition of LED lights.

Galley - I think I'd like to do something in the kitchen but I'm not sure what yet. Nothing huge as the kitchen needs to remain functional. Some things I thought of:
Get mesh metal baskets or something similar to store the snacks in the bar area so we're not digging in boxes.
Convince brit to wrap the food again - and apply GAF stickers. I loved that touch even though I'm sure it took her a while. Alternatively for snack bars we can just apply stickers to them without rewrapping - t would make it more uniform and easier than all that foil.
Pull the labels off the water again.
Clear the fridge - alternatively since we'll be a few years in the future on the next one it's possible that some of the crew might have kids. I thought of an interesting thing we can have bailey help with in terms of getting art and notes from the oubliette kids to put on the fridge as morale boosters. (okay okay so Josh's writing of Ursa reminded me of Bailey.) Obviously I don't want to wipe out all of Haley's house so we'll put everything back after as I love the kid collage on the fridge but I want to make it just a little more space-like or at least a little more thematic in there. It's one of the spots I didn't have time to think about this time.

Head - nothing much to do here. One - seriously if oyu can't maintain character in the bathroom for five minutes, big whoop. I love the Isely signs in there - they make me laugh every time.
I will likely bring my shower curtain and rod for the second bath just to offer more shower options when we've got a full ten folks.

Costuming - Gogas is going to design us a fleet emblem that I'll add to the jackets. This excites me greatly. I have some alterations to make on some of the jackets as well.
If you enlist and need to change from gray to black - let me know if you're altering jackets (for example I think that Haley was going to give her jacket to Kyle or something and then get a new one that fit her better?) or if I need to just slap another patch on there. I'd prefer people not have to rebuy jackets just because we ask for a lot of donation on this as it is.

Colors of costumes - I think it was suggested at some point that we might want to lock down some shirt colors for people given that we're going to get all fleet like. I have no opinion on this as frankly I break the uniform pattern anyway. I know Jake likes Hazard's sort of "come as you will" style but I believe the idea was that with the current mission status we may have to ..er.. spruce up a bit. Thoughts?

Dog Tags - the enlisted (and at this point probably civies as well) are getting gifts from Jake and I. I love the ones for Hazard and Crane. If they have a different tag holder color then we can do a different color for civiies and black for the enlisted. I just really love the dog tags.

Other things? Anyone? Bueller? What do folks want to see? If you had no limits what would you want? Seriously please challenge me as I love problem solving and I might get some neat ideas from it.

A few more things (I should go to beeeed).

I'd like to do arrival CD's again even for those of us helping set up or who've done it before. With enough warning Haley is that going to be possible? I listened to my other one again this time and it helped a lot. I think with all the time shift changes it'll help a lot to get people IC and doesn't even need to necessarily be specific to each person.

Space-walk suits: if we're going to be doing those again, I'd like to at least try and do a mask - or reuse the masks we used this weekend (I actually rather figured those would be fairly standard GAF designs despite making them creepy. I tend to find the idea of walking in space a bit creepy anyway in terms of danger level). I can come up with one or two small things that someone could add on to do a space walk if needed so that there's some "costume shift" for those engaging in that.

I really want Gull to have an engineering board. I have no idea how I want to do this yet but he hikes around all those tools and I want him to have something he can interact with too. I might do this with the static cling elements on the mirror.

Probes - I'm going to make something to use as a probe. We've been fudging it - the cooler makes me giggle and totally has worked but I want to like make it silver. Maybe I'll use a styrofoam cooler for this, paint it, add a few lights, badda bing.

I will totally spring to buy one of those two-in-one air matresses that you linked up there. If we both get one that's 4 twin mattresses, which should make the crew quarters much more sleepable. Simple posters to 'name' bunks for people should add to a barracks type feel.

hum.. panels on the piano, some led's... if we could stack some simple cubes to 'dock' the speakers in, and maybe set up a laptop for 'vids'
(news or entertainment or both) then the entire piano area can be an 'entertainment' built-in unit.

Medbay was spectacular. I'd add some static cling to the mirror so he can use it as a sort of 'x-ray' diagnostic viewer.

I like the low lighting overall and I think it's important to create the 'otherworldly' feel, but we do need task lighting. And I'd prefer tasklighting to be built into the overall lighting scheme so that we don't need to turn on the overhead florescents to be able to see.

do we actually need a 'brig' full-time? I'd think the laundry room would make a better engineering bay. The washer/dryer could be easily modified to be engine units of some sort, and with the addition of lots of leds and other blinky lights it could be very awesomely interactive for Gogas. it's also withing shouting distance from the bridge, or we could use walky-talkies for communications between the bridge and engineering for those awsome space battles we're all anticipating.

I love love love the bridge, but I would like to see something done with that wall behind the consoles. That could probably be easily done with a large sheet of plastic sheeting painted with some LEDs poked through. would be easy to put up and easy to take down and fold up for storage. I'd also like to see the navigators station to be a little bit more interactive as well, but i'm not sure how without maybe setting up another computer/laptop so there's actually a nav or math program.

The com station is awsome, but it'd be nice if it actually had a scrensaver or program that actually looked like com or scan stuff as opposed to schematics of the enterprise =P (I'll actually see if i can't find a program like that)

um...totally willing to re-wrap snacks and food for space-like feel...

um... I'm sure there's more to be brainstormed later.

heeeee...dogtags.... where do I go to order me a set?

The things with the colors. If we're all going to be enlisted and/or actual fleet military now, it might be a cool idea to standardize basic colors for different branches of the military. I'm thinking something simple like, shirt colors. For example, Sadie would be in black pants, jacket, ext. but I'd wear a t-shit of the right color for diplomatic corps, and a black tank over so the color is there and distinct, but there is still the gritty military feel without it being tooo 'star trek' uniformy.

Basic ideas for that:

colors would mostly apply to those of officer rank. there can be a catch-all color for basic enlisted. or we can just make it simple and leave it black and white.

Command- my instinct is red despite the star trek stigma agianst red-shirts.. mostly because red is almost universally a status, luck, or power color in earth cultures. This would be Avery and Jackson

Diplomatic corps- Blue

Technical/Egineering- gold/yellow/kacky- This way the boys can get away with continuing to wear their kacky cargo pants. This would include the piolt, navigator, and mechanic

Medical- green? I don't think this necessarily needs to be detailed as I'm fairly sure Cotton's not enlisting.

just ideas

<< will totally spring to buy one of those two-in-one air matresses that you linked up there. If we both get one that's 4 twin mattresses, which should make the crew quarters much more sleepable. Simple posters to 'name' bunks for people should add to a barracks type feel.>> That'll give us four plus haley's mattress in there - which is tight but doable and makes it so five to six can sleep in there. Brit if you get one twin set, I'll get a second.

<<hum.. panels on the piano, some led's... if we could stack some simple cubes to 'dock' the speakers in, and maybe set up a laptop for 'vids'
(news or entertainment or both) then the entire piano area can be an 'entertainment' built-in unit. >> I like this. An entertainment/library area.

<<Medbay was spectacular. I'd add some static cling to the mirror so he can use it as a sort of 'x-ray' diagnostic viewer. >>
I'm going to use some static cling stained glass designs. I'll see what I can do to get x-ray like print outs for him.

<<do we actually need a 'brig' full-time? I'd think the laundry room would make a better engineering bay. The washer/dryer could be easily modified to be engine units of some sort, and with the addition of lots of leds and other blinky lights it could be very awesomely interactive for Gogas. it's also withing shouting distance from the bridge, or we could use walky-talkies for communications between the bridge and engineering for those awsome space battles we're all anticipating.>>

Interestng question. Do we need the brig ocly? We use it icly a bit but we can always have the brig be "off screen" and just use a back room if needed to run scenes with it.

<<I love love love the bridge, but I would like to see something done with that wall behind the consoles. That could probably be easily done with a large sheet of plastic sheeting painted with some LEDs poked through. would be easy to put up and easy to take down and fold up for storage. I'd also like to see the navigators station to be a little bit more interactive as well, but i'm not sure how without maybe setting up another computer/laptop so there's actually a nav or math program.>>

Well we have Jake's laptop too. If someone can find a neat program or has a suggestion we can set up a second laptop there for them to use.

<<The com station is awsome, but it'd be nice if it actually had a scrensaver or program that actually looked like com or scan stuff as opposed to schematics of the enterprise =P (I'll actually see if i can't find a program like that)>>

I can do the same thing I did for the med bay and do a com powerpoint. You won't technically be able to move around it much but it'll look better.

<<um...totally willing to re-wrap snacks and food for space-like feel... >>

yay!

Space probe =)

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10884282

Just and update that I bought six small desk lamps today to provide task lighting and four of the LED nightlights.

See above for things we need to do really.

I'm looking for like two other people to get one of the air mattress sets I posted in the start thread. It would give us a bunch of twins to use in the quarters (and be easier to thus deal with) They're not expensive and useful for your homes as well. I'll be getting one set of air mattresses myself (so that's two twins). The idea is that we're going to try and use them in the crew quarters this time as an easier way to fit everyone in (and they're mobile if someone needs to hit the bridge due to snoring)

I'll get a set.

Also, what do you guys think about getting cafeteria-style/mess hall plastic trays for meals? It'd mean a little extra clean up, but they'd be a nice atomosphere enhancer.

sweet. I love the tray idea