Big Ship vs Little Ship

[stofsk]

I'm planning for a campaign and this question came up: basically, whether I was going to run a big ship or little ship universe.

I initially said 'big ship!' but then pointed out how the characters would be crew on a 1000-plus dton scout ship.

I wonder: how big is BIG in YTU? How small is small?

 

[veltyen]

IMTU (TL16, epic scoped)

Big is big. Jump capable 2MdTon industrial platforms and mining vessels. 20 MdTon defense installations. 500kdTon dreadnaughts. The navy laughs at anything that doesn't have at minimum bay weaponry and considers turret weaponry to be the equivalent of, in the modern day, a 50 cal mounted on the prow of a patrol boat.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Both. It is a matter of what you are and where you are. IRL we have 90000BRT "big juicy targets" (aks Aircraft carrier) and 1900BRT "mean little killers" (K130 Corvettes) both existing in first world navies.

Same when it comes to cargo craft, there are the extremly huge oil tankers and container ships and on the other end you have the 1350BRT "Europakahn" that is the final waterborn element of the distribution networks

So there is a big navy and huge cargo ships. But those frequent the big ports and high-tech/high pop systems that produce enough cargo and taxes. They can only operate on the high-volume trade routes, they can only operate where the supply infrastructure allows it (You won't see LASH - Lighter on Ship - crafts wilderness refuel, nor will a BatRon do that)

Characters on the other pseudopod are the equivalent to channel ships and a brownwater/littoral navy. They spread out from the large trading hubs, distributing parts of the cargo. Maybe to a secondary hub, where it is again split up, maybe the final steps. When the crew a warship it is part of a subsector (colonial) fleet or an anti-piracy unit.

Think "Master and Commander" or the early "Hornblowers" (and remember, those US Raider Frigates are tough!) or the early Honor Harrington (Basilisk Station, Honor of the Queen). Not Lord Nelson or Honor in "At all Costs"

Scouts are the most problematic. The 100dt scout is not really useful for long range exploration. The Scoutship from the QLI adventure, the Donosev(sp?) or the 3000dt Scout Cruiser from G:T First In are better choices there. So if "to boldly go where no one has gone before" (White paint and Counselors optional) is your idea, you'll have to fill the ship with NPC. The benefit is that you can either use Redshirts or kill off a character and still keep the player in.

Officer: So Mrs. Dax, you are responsible for the mental health of the DS-9 crew
Ezri: Question or accusition Sir?

 

[stofsk]

May I ask what the details are for the 3000dt Scout Cruiser from G:T First In?

 

[jfetters]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:

Scouts are the most problematic. The 100dt scout is not really useful for long range exploration. The Scoutship from the QLI adventure, the Donosev(sp?) or the 3000dt Scout Cruiser from G:T First In are better choices there. So if "to boldly go where no one has gone before" (White paint and Counselors optional) is your idea, you'll have to fill the ship with NPC. The benefit is that you can either use Redshirts or kill off a character and still keep the player in.

I completely agree with Michael here - if you want to do some SERIOUS exploration in a small ship, it needs to have a better range than a Type S, jump-wise. But the smaller ship probably gives everyone in the party "something to do."

On a larger ship, as Michael points out, the PCs are probably "in the background" when it comes to ship operations, but can be the critical surveyors/contact personnel on the ground (or at the adventure site, wherever that is). That way, the Ref can control "the ship" to a large degree and you don't have to worry about the possibility of flying your ship without a navigator.

 

[mbrinkhues]

I'll try to look it up tonight. From memory a 3000dt Hull, more than 50 crew, also used as a spyship during wars.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Jim Fetters:
If you want to do some SERIOUS exploration in a small ship, it needs to have a better range than a Type S, jump-wise. But the smaller ship probably gives everyone in the party "something to do."

On a larger ship, as Michael points out, the PCs are probably "in the background" when it comes to ship operations, but can be the critical surveyors/contact personnel on the ground (or at the adventure site, wherever that is). That way, the Ref can control "the ship" to a large degree and you don't have to worry about the possibility of flying your ship without a navigator.

One possibility is the Scout Cruiser. A big jump-3 ship that carries several 100T Scouts. It jumps to the middle of the subsector it has been assigned to survey and the small scouts are sent out to cover other systems. The PCs could be the crew of one of the small ships.

Another possibility is the drop-off. The PCs are a Scout survey crew that is dropped off on a world by a ship that will be back in three months. Meanwhile they're on their own.

A third possibility is troupe play. The players play three or four characters each: An officer, a PO, a security type ('marine' ), and maybe a civilian scientist. Mix and match characters to suit the plot of the day. The captain takes his officers along to a diplomatic function leaving an NPC officer behind to man the bridge (always include an NPC like that). The gunnery officer leads a security team in a raid to free a captured survey team. Etc.


Hans

 

[jfetters]

Yep - or you could run a scout-oriented "Arrival Vengeance" - as I recall the Scout Service has at least one Lightning Class Cruiser.

In AV, the players are encouraged to have multiple characters - at least one for the command crew, at least one for marine/combat scenarios, and at least one for others (general ship ops & grunt work for other scenarios).

 

[jrients]

Great ideas for scouting operations.

Getting back to my original question, I am looking at a hybrid approach for my next campaign. Most vessels are Book 2 size craft, with some designs going up to around 10 or 12 thousands tons (the upper limit for Ken Pick's expanded designs). Larger vessels exist, but are rare. Freighters over 12,000 are only seen on well-established routes with enough trade to interest a megacorp. Military ships above 10K or so are politically the equivalent of WMDs: the major powers reserve their use to themselves only. Smaller polities are actively discouraged from building large warships, using both a carrot (subsidizing smaller military vessels) and a stick (economic sanctions, for example). Because these policies have led to the public perception that large military ships are evil incarnate, in peacetime the major powers generally limit their own usage of these big ships.

Thus most ships encountered by the PCs will be small stuff. And the players will know that if they see a big Imperial ship outside Imperial space it means something important is going on.

 

[Bob Weaver]

In my Traveller universe, I've worked out a sort of compromise. There are several multi-world states that have the budgets for large, TCS-style fleets, and there are smaller independents that can afford only a few Type-T patrol ships. The bigger ships are mostly found in the central regions of known space, the further towards the fringes you go, the less often you see big ships. So it would depend on what kind of campaign you want to run whether big ships are involved or not. Of equal importance to ship size is operating TL of those ships. One group of PC's have a 600 ton merchant liner, but it's a TL-15 design operating on the fringes of known space, where the average TL is 8-10. It gives them definite advantages, until things break down or are damaged in combat.
Michael Brinkhues has got it right; a 'small' ship like what your PCs will have is not going to get chased by a 50Ktn cruiser or battleship. That's not what they're designed and tasked to do. The Battle Group will task one of their 1000 tn destroyers or sloops to chase after you instead. So whether 'big ships' exist IYTU or not, the PCs can easily avoid them. Unless you want them fleeing/chasing/boarding a battleship.

Best Regards,

Bob

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by jrients:
Thus most ships encountered by the PCs will be small stuff. And the players will know that if they see a big Imperial ship outside Imperial space it means something important is going on.

You know, the problem isn't really big ships vs. small ships. It's big fleets vs. small fleets. A big fleet can cover a 2D Traveller subsector like a coat of paint, something that obviates the need for sturdy adventurers to Save The Day. And we all agree that we don't want that, right? But in that context big ships are actually a Good Thing. If a government only has six or eight Really Big Ships, they can't be in 30 star systems at the same time. Restrict the government to small ships without reducing the budget and it will have six or eight hundred ships to cover the same 30 star systems. See the problem?

Contrariwise, if you reduce the budget, you don't need to artificially limit ship size.


Hans

 

[mbrinkhues]

Given the details of the Traveller universe that are:

+ No FTL so speed of ship == speed of news
+ Slow Interstellar drive
+ Large crafts can go (almost) as fast as small ones

we have a situation very much like in the Napoleonic Age and the US-British war of 1805.

+ Contrary to some statements in G:T Starships the Navy can not parcel out it's BatRons in ship sized packages. An enemy would likely be able to achive local superiority and defeat them in detail

+ Key systems need a heavy mobile defence. Fixed fortresses help but on their own they are vulnerable. Again, this must be a large force since the enemy can concentrate

+ The Empire is vulnerable to Raiders. This is similar to GB when Decantur decided to send the US Navy raiding instead of fighting. In an open fight the USN would have been dead by sundown. Raiding they was a nuisance till war's end. The raider is strong enough to kill patrol craft (i.e. the US Frigate in Master and Commander, a real big ship compared to the Brit. frigate) and maybe fast enough to outrun a ship of the line


So you can actually have a rather large navy. But the big boys and their supply/escort craft stay in the equivalent of Scapa Flow, SchlickTown and Pearl Harbor, sending small task-forces out to show the flag.

The policing is, as others have stated, left to local forces and the numerous destroyers, backed by the occasional light cruiser.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
+ Contrary to some statements in G:T Starships the Navy can not parcel out it's BatRons in ship sized packages. An enemy would likely be able to achive local superiority and defeat them in detail.

Sadly, we have a canonical statement to the effect that this is exactly what the IN does with its Tigress BatRons in peacetime (split them up and station them in separate systems). However, generally speaking I agree that it makes better sense that IN BatRons stay concentrated in a few spots..

+ The Empire is vulnerable to Raiders. This is similar to GB when Decantur decided to send the US Navy raiding instead of fighting. In an open fight the USN would have been dead by sundown. Raiding they was a nuisance till war's end. The raider is strong enough to kill patrol craft (i.e. the US Frigate in Master and Commander, a real big ship compared to the Brit. frigate) and maybe fast enough to outrun a ship of the line

The problem is that surface travel during the Age of Sail is not a good analogy for interstellar travel in the TU. Think about how successful raiders would have been if merchant ships could teleport from tree miles outside one harbor to three miles ouside another harbor. Very few privateers made a habit of capturing prizes within range of shore batteries...

Incidentally, by the end of the war, most US raiders were penned up in their harbors and except for a few sloops, all USN ships had been taken or burned, or were blockaded.

The policing is, as others have stated, left to local forces and the numerous destroyers, backed by the occasional light cruiser.

Well, a system navy patrol ship is just as much of a killjoy as an IN patrol ship.


Hans

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by rancke:
Sadly, we have a canonical statement to the effect that this is exactly what the IN does with its Tigress BatRons in peacetime (split them up and station them in separate systems).

Sad only to those who limit themselves to observing every scrap of canon as if it were a papal bull - for those of us who simply like to play the game, it's readily ignored.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Most of the civilian ships IMTU are in the 100-5000 dton range - megacorp bulk carriers in the 20k-50k range might number only a handful a sector, and serve one or two specific routes.

Military ships may be run up into the 10^5 dtons range, but the largest warships exist to provide a strategic deterrence against aggression - no Imperial admiral sends a Tigress to hunt pirates.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by rancke:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
+ Contrary to some statements in G:T Starships the Navy can not parcel out it's BatRons in ship sized packages. An enemy would likely be able to achive local superiority and defeat them in detail.

Sadly, we have a canonical statement to the effect that this is exactly what the IN does with its Tigress BatRons in peacetime (split them up and station them in separate systems). However, generally speaking I agree that it makes better sense that IN BatRons stay concentrated in a few spots..

</font>[/QUOTE]If canon makes no sense, it's time to use a cannon and blow it away. So: "Canon target, Alpha +15 -10, batallion ToT, mix HE and FASCAM"

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />+ The Empire is vulnerable to Raiders. This is similar to GB when Decantur decided to send the US Navy raiding instead of fighting. In an open fight the USN would have been dead by sundown. Raiding they was a nuisance till war's end. The raider is strong enough to kill patrol craft (i.e. the US Frigate in Master and Commander, a real big ship compared to the Brit. frigate) and maybe fast enough to outrun a ship of the line

The problem is that surface travel during the Age of Sail is not a good analogy for interstellar travel in the TU. Think about how successful raiders would have been if merchant ships could teleport from tree miles outside one harbor to three miles ouside another harbor. Very few privateers made a habit of capturing prizes within range of shore batteries...

</font>[/QUOTE]This depends on your view of a Traveller system, jump-shadows, jump egress points and all.

IMTU there is quite a bit more infrastructure in a TL8+ system that is interesting to traders. And most unsettled systems along the bigger trade routes have a fuel station. Those should be patrolled. Should be...

Add in that even 100 diameters is outside planetary defence range and a raider can play "german submarine" and destroy targets close in. Unlike a pirat a raider wins if he destroys an enemy frighter. Prizes are optional.

Incidentally, by the end of the war, most US raiders were penned up in their harbors and except for a few sloops, all USN ships had been taken or burned, or were blockaded.

Jup. But it took the RN quite some effort to do that. Far out of proportion to the size and experience (or lack thereof) of the USN

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />The policing is, as others have stated, left to local forces and the numerous destroyers, backed by the occasional light cruiser.

Well, a system navy patrol ship is just as much of a killjoy as an IN patrol ship.


Hans </font>[/QUOTE]Yes but imagin sitting in your Veterans home on Zhodane or Gram. What sounds better: "My ship was destroyed by a Starburst class cruiser" or "My ship was destroyed by ten Gazelle class escorts". One has to plan ahead for the bragging rights.

 

[daltoncalford]

I my traveller universe, I use the world around me as an example.

Everyday I see thousands of cars. For every 50 cars I see, a tractor-trailer is seen, which is an order of magnitude larger than the smaller vans/cars.

I view the 200 ton merchant in the same manner that I view the tractor trailer. Some are independant, some work as part of a larger group.

Then there are the trains, ships, etc., going up to the very rare super-tankers that I have never seen.

My Traveller universe has alot of small ships and the adventurers will rarely be on anything larger, but, they may take a holiday on a 50,000 dton high-class passenger cruiser.

Combat vessels are in the same boat. They come in all sizes. I do not see the traveller universe as a small or big ship universe, I see it as both.

best regards

Dalton

 

[Hemdian]

Originally posted by Jim Fetters:
Yep - or you could run a scout-oriented "Arrival Vengeance" - as I recall the Scout Service has at least one Lightning Class Cruiser.

Actually they have 5! See here. (The story of the Luray Explorer sounds like it could be interesting.) IMTU I usually run IN campaigns: currently I'm running a group of 5 PCs and several NPCs who wake up as part of the frozen watch on the Bard Refuge AHL cruiser. The ship is largely empty and has misjumped to the galactic core.

If you want a smaller ship how about a Leviathan class? Either in its original configuration or one of the 2 IISS ships. (Albeit the IISS use it for internal mapping rather than deep space exploration.)

Regards PLST

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
Scouts are the most problematic. The 100dt scout is not really useful for long range exploration.

In defense of the humble Type S, no where has anyone ever said the Type S was used for long range exploration. Actually, I don't ever remember it being used for any exploration, except as subcraft for much larger ships.

The role of the Type S is for non-priority courier duties, for military type scouting (not 'exploration' scouting), and for general utility.

So, no, the Type S is not good at exploration. But it wasn't designed to be.

(Yes, I know that the real purpose of the Type S is to provide small player groups with cheap transportation, but I am trying to stay in-game. )

 

[mike wightman]

I agree. The clue is in the name scout/courier - it is a courier for the scout service.

Its mission is to fill in the gaps in the X-boat network (i.e. take messages from the x-boat route to the adjacent worlds), to transfer personel from base to base, and to return data about known Imperial worlds for regular updates.

A scout/explorer would be a completely different animal...