The Normandy is a sexy sexy spaceship, but the interior we see is defined by game play: corridors are extremely wide so Shepard doesn't get stuck on the scenery, the crew is sparse because animating crew members takes resources and NPCs are also obstacles Shepard could get stuck on, you need larger spaces for camera angles, etc.
I wanted to see if I could redesign the space to fit a crew of 70–90... ...and I got carried away.
This post covers the rules I set myself and the basic process. Each deck will get a separate post (check back for links):
Intro
Loft
Command deck
Crew deck
Engineering deck
Hangar deck
Design rules
Keep major elements in basically the same places. This is the Normandy as she exists in my fic Sunset & Evening Star, and readers shouldn't have to study a floorplan!
Use only space that's 'available' in the game. If we can access it as the player, it's fair game. If it's a mysterious void in-game, I assume it's full of Important Spaceship Parts and the only access is for ship maintenance.
The elevator shaft is vertical. No Willy Wonka/ST turbo lift shit.
*There are inertial dampeners; if there weren't none of this would work. But as an author I like to imagine that any system can be overloaded.
Step one: Align & scale the deck maps
I aligned the deck maps around the elevator, the only element that shows up on every one. Each is shown at a different scale, so I eyeballed their relationship based on furniture, which is the only thing required to have a relatively consistent size. This is a big assumption; game designers resize whatever they need to! Shepard's bed, for instance, has pillows about a meter square. Presumably they needed room to made the pixel dolls have sex. Shepard's bed can therefore not be trusted, and to a lesser extent neither can anything else.
(There are also floor panels that look a lot like standard 4'x8' construction sheet stock, but A) developers can re-size those as needed without the player noticing, and B) If we're still using imperial units to construct spaceships in 2184 I hope the reapers eat us.**)
**...that said, I used a scale of 1px:2ft to draw this. I'm so sorry. I'm American and I've done construction, it's easy for me to visualize. (The scale was two inches to the pixel, if you're curious.)
Step two: Redesign over the existing space
This is where I saw how much I could fit in the space the game design allowed (given my guesses on scale). Y'know, the fun bit that I thought I'd be spending most of my time doing!
(I was so wrong).
Redesign goals
The Alliance refitted the Normandy for an Admiral. Admirals don't captain their own ships, so I needed to account for an Admiral and their staff as well as the captain and crew.
Align bunks fore-aft, so that the most common major inertial vectors* will hit sleeping crew in the least dangerous direction.
Plumbing should be stacked when possible. (I don't know spaceships but I know about plumbing columns. Glamorous!)
Step three: Adjust to the hull
One modeler figured the ship had to be ~370 meters long to fit the decks as-is, which would leave them using only ~20% of the length. One dev is quoted as saying she's 170m. Fan estimates comparing it with other ships suggest somewhere from 210–230 meters.
The hangar deck is the one*** place the interior aligns with the exterior for certain. The hangar needs to fit two kodiaks in the space between the bay door and the elevator, and each kodiak needs to fit 12 people plus the pilot. Additionally, as the lowest deck the hanger is limited in width by the inward curve of the hull (and that limit changes based on how low you go, which is why the drawing above includes a front elevation).
***Yes, we also see Joker piloting right up in the nose. This is impossible to achieve and also stupid, so I've elected to ignore it.
Sizing it to the smallest reasonable hangar — and after drawing a rather stubbier kodiak — I managed a 194 meter hull; ~217 if you include thrusters. At this size the liveable area takes up just over a third of the hull length. It's still an awful lot of nose, but that nose means 136 meters for the main gun, which for my purposes is still a rail gun (so size matters). Sadly it can't be a hull-length gun; it would run into first the elevator, and then the eezo core.
I did NOT pretend to figure out where the Make Spaceship Go parts are, or the Keep People Alive parts. There's a LOT of 'wasted' space; assume it's all in use and accessible through engineering access-ways, though how comfortable or safe they are is questionable.
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Thanks to @swaps55 for the amazing high-res screenshots of the game maps, and to @faejilly and @sheepishwolfy for the long-ago talks about crew size that started all this!
