CT Corsair (High Guard 2/Citizens) Deck Plans wanted

[Frankymole]

Does anyone know where I can find (1.5m grid) scale deckplans for the Classic Traveller pirate corsair (the one you get as a benefit from mustering out as a pirate)? I want it to fit the well-known silhouette (with the clamshell doors), i.e. not the High Passage abomination! Is it one of the Adventures - I can't seem to lay my hands on it? Thanks in advance!

 

[kaladorn]

http://www.seemann.ms/corsair.htm

http://www.sff.net/people/kitsune/traveller/images/fatcorsair.png

http://home.earthlink.net/~jps64/supplements/supplements.html

http://www.ace-dog.com/deckplans/deckplan.htm

http://members.aol.com/gypsycomet/planlist.html

http://members.aol.com/gypsycomet/BirdTNE.html

 

[GypsyComet]

All of the available deckplans will lack one detail of the CT Corsair, in that they cannot take a 100-ton ship *internally*. Designing such a critter in only 400 tons would require that the ship's designer know exactly which 100-ton hull he wants to grab and design the hull for that purpose. As this would make the resulting ship look A) ridiculous, and B) obviously suspicious, most of the deckplans folks ignored that particular detail. As mine was built in TNE, I made use of the External Grapple to accomplish such snatch missions, but it still isn't all that practical. The Bird of Paradise, the "corsair" my game flew around infor a while, carried a landing/refueling craft in the grapple.

The picture of the Corsair with the clamshell doors is late CT, and into MT, and appeared in the issue of Traveller's Digest that the (rather crude) DGP deckplans are in. That hull was also shown in silhouette in the Starship Operator's Manual by DGP. That silhouette and the various illustrations led to the Rose Class (of which the Bird of Paradise is a modified example).

 

[robject]

Grapples are an excellent solution. Assuming the grapples are a bit like clawed grippers, the effect can look very predatory.

Nevertheless, who can forget that James Bond flick where the Bad Guys use their spaceship to gobble up other spaceships? It's very ... carnivorous, I guess.

Besides, "everybody knows" that the Type S is just about the most common 100 ton hull out there... and the XBoat is too hot to handle...

 

[kaladorn]

You are a pirate. You're going to want to hit 200 ton free traders, fat traders, and 300 ton subsidized merchants. They won't fit inside, but you can probably grapple for long enough to get a prize crew aboard. Or use a pinnace or the like. The "100 ton bay" really would be mostly useful for carrying additional 'assault craft' - gigs and pinnaces armed and ready to deploy troopers to the target.

But that's treading dangerously into the whole philosophy of piracy. But I don't think picking off detached duty scouts or belters is necessarily going to be a cash cow.

 

[mike wightman]

Is there a corsair deck plan anywhere in GT stuff?

I like the way in GT:Starships the corsair is based off a legitimate class of ship - a salvage vessel no less

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
But that's treading dangerously into the whole philosophy of piracy. But I don't think picking off detached duty scouts or belters is necessarily going to be a cash cow.

How much are second hand type A drives worth on the black market

 

[robject]

Walt Smith has a couple of well-thought-out web pages talking about the economics of piracy in Traveller.

 

[GypsyComet]

Originally posted by robject:
Besides, "everybody knows" that the Type S is just about the most common 100 ton hull out there... and the XBoat is too hot to handle...

Sure the Sullie is dirt-common, but is it worth picking on? And do you want to be flying a ship that looks like it swallowed a banana sideways?

Bill Hopper's Barge, on the other hand, I would expect to be extremely common as well, and doesn't have an important tactical advantage over the corsair; unlike the Sullie, the Barge (in it's "civilized core world" variants anyway) can't dive into an atmosphere to get away, as it's unstreamlined like the Corsair. And at 54% cargo, it's worth knocking over far more often.

Of course, piracy is still most viable in the out--system (be that closer to or further from the star than the mainworld) where folks are using Cutters and Shuttles to get around. Picking on a jump-capable target will normally be a mistake for a Pirate.

 

[robject]

Good point about the Barge! They're so unobtrusive and forgettable, I forgot about it...

 

[Blue Ghost]

I just read the write up on the Corsair in Sup 4 (COTI), and my question is this; for what purpose was the ship originally intended? I can't see someone walking into a contractor's office at a starport and slapping down deckplans for a "commerce raider."

And on that note I always had a hard time with the Maraduer Class Commerce Raider in one of the FASA ship packets. That thing was sick.

Anyone got any idears for the backstories to these monsters? Originally yachts, free-traders (tramp-steamers)?

 

[mike wightman]

As I posted earlier, GT has the CT Corsair rebuilt from a common salvager.

I think that the Fat Trader based design is also a good idea - you need your Corsairs to appear like commonly encountered ships for it to be able to go about its trade.

As to where the yards are that carry out the conversions...

 

[Blue Ghost]

Ah, I see it now. I guess I must've missed that. Thanks for the clarification.

I imagine the yards are probably on fringe worlds, in Vargr spce, and perhaps in disputed parts of the Solomani sphere... and probably just in the boondocks of space

 

[mike wightman]

<tongue in cheek>
Or in secret Megacorporation berths - nothing like a wave of piracy to:

weaken the competition;

persuade planetary navies they need to invest in new ships to fight the piracy problem;

persuade the Imperial Navy of the same.</tongue in cheek>

I really should do something about my conspiracy theories habit

 

[GypsyComet]

My take on the Corsair was as a "loosing" competitive design to the Type R, being a Solomani-style hull instead of the quintiscentially Vilani hull of the standard Fat Trader. As an unstreamlined base hull it would have seen a great deal more casual modification, and been the "Corellian Light Freighter" of its area of origin. Ubiquity with slight variation is the perfect breeding ground for the eventual "variable external features" of the Corsair. The hull is still built in jump and in-system variations all over Human Space, allowing the violent minority to take advantage of plentiful camouflage.

 

[kaladorn]

Originally posted by Blue Ghost:
I just read the write up on the Corsair in Sup 4 (COTI), and my question is this; for what purpose was the ship originally intended? I can't see someone walking into a contractor's office at a starport and slapping down deckplans for a "commerce raider."

I have some options for you:
1) Q-ship. If it looks like (has the same type of hull) as a common merchant class, it could be a Q-ship design. Note that I think it is something like 400 or 440 tons, which probably does not conform to a canonical merchant hull, though merchants of all sizes may be presumed.
2) Outlaw shipyard - or one outside of Imperial space that will build for whoever has the MegaCredits.
3) Privateer. Not all piracy is unsanctioned. Privateering is a way to get private individuals to help pay for your war effort. More likely in small polities than the Imperium, but during 5FW, I'm sure they issues a few Letters of Marque and Reprisal.
4) Someone else pointed out the megacorp angle.

 

[Frankymole]

Originally posted by Blue Ghost:
I just read the write up on the Corsair in Sup 4 (COTI), and my question is this; for what purpose was the ship originally intended? I can't see someone walking into a contractor's office at a starport and slapping down deckplans for a "commerce raider."

Well they might in wartime with a Letter of Marque. There may also be some "dodgy" shipbuilders in non-aligned systems around the frontiers.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I'll buy that.

Did the Corsair's deckplans ever appear in any of the CT material? I remember seeing it referenced a number of times, but I can't seem to track it down in my LBBs.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I always thought they looked like some sort of tender. Like a less practical x-boat tender. Maybe a smallcraft repair ship? Could these ships have been made as some sort of regional tender, found unsuitable compared to the newer tenders, and sold as scrap and surplus to backwaters? Thousands could have been made overambitious contractors and sold to anyone just to get rid of them.

There needs to be a bit more elaboration about all this "retractable fins and variable configurations" business that is described in Supp 4.

There is an aft-view drawing of a Corsair on page 85 of the Megatraveller Imperial Encyclopedia. Looks a little too badass to support my tender supposition.

 

[GypsyComet]

That hind-end picture with the big clam-shell doors dates from CT, but there were no deckplans of that version until late MT. FASA had a totally different version in an early magazine, but it suffered from, shall we say, a 'lack of vision". Their next attempt was the Chameleon, at twice the tonnage and half the rules-compliance.

DGP did a "back-of-the-envelope" deckplan of the clamshell model in their magazine for MT; the same issue had another picture, IIRC. They also did the starboard silhouette in SOpM.

TNE didn't address the corsair at all, that I recall, and certainly didn't do a deckplan.

T4 re-imagined the Corsair, as they did all the rest. As with most of the "deckplans" that appeared in T4-Starships, the Corsair was shockingly forgettable.

I don't recall G:T covering the Corsair, but they may have. No deckplans that I recall, though.

T20 hasn't gotten that far yet.