How/Where did you get your first Ship?

[ChalkLine]

The Annic Nova

We flew her for a while, and were offered another ship so the vessel could be studied by the IISS. We were in transit to hand her over for a free trader when we were jumped by the Nimrod, a 440t* Corsair. After a particularly bitter fight that involved many group members having an emergency kip in cold sleep, we were brought in by the IISS and decided to upgrade the battered Nimrod with IISS credit rather than take up the offer for the free trader. That ship kept us going for the rest of the campaign until our PCs perished to a sophont fighting to distract a raider force while a scout base evacuated.

As you can probably tell, 65% of the PCs were scouts. No, we never got a Sulieman!

(*MegaTraveller)

 

[savage]

300t Gazelle

My early adventures:
One character had a 200t yacht that was supper wimpy... a few of us took a cruise ship (5kt) on one of our lengths that was attacked by a pirate. After saving the ship the navy and royalty asked if we'd take a Gazelle on anti-pirate patrols. The Gryphon was refitted 3 times to repair all of the damage done to her.. My favorite new features... auto-start program and auto return fire.

 

[Faldialwadi]

Issued a Suliman on detached duty. It got a cabin and bridge destroyed by a booby trapped babe. Now in a design phase for new ship!

 

[Droyne668]

My group was taking a passage on a Free Trader and was attacked by a pirate Far Trader. The Far Trader damaged the drives and punctured the fuel tanks so it could not escape. When the pirates boarded, the group went out the far side airlock and boarded the Far Trader. We hit the airlock destroying the boarding tube and hit the bridge at the same time. Almost all of the pirates were on the Free Trader except for a guy in the engine room and the guy on the bridge...

We did something similar 20-odd years ago when I first played Traveller. The pirates in our case were flying a modified rust bucket Gazelle Close Escort. It thoroughly pummeled the equally rusty Subsidized Trader the Merchant in our group was trying to keep afloat in sea of debt payments and repossession notices.

The result was also similar for us. We stormed the Gazelle in vacc suits while the pirates were looting the Trader. And we won. The captain of the Trader tried too hard to save his ship and went down fighting in a blaze of gory glory. Rather than take a chance on the 3I confiscating the Gazelle and the owners repossessing the Trader, we headed out to the Fringes with both ships and ended up on Tarsus (thank Yaskoydray we had two pilots).

We stripped the Trader to repair the Gazelle, then sold the Trader to some unsavory types who were probably pirates themselves. Sold the hold contents of both ships. Made some nice cash (well, nice for a bunch of persons of questionable prospects in the back of beyond in 1105).

Some money changed hands, a lot of time was spent trying to modify the lines of the Gazelle to make it look more like anything else but what it was. A new transponder was eventually obtained, and the crew of the Galloping Tree Kraken took to the stars...

Best,
Will

 

[savage]

Gryphon

In my case, my re-commissioned character had made considerable money quickly and was in the process of building an 800 ton merc. The merc was lost in one of our first battles but the gazelle Gryphon carried on... our experience with her resulted in the creation of our own small shipyard with a few side businesses.

Traveller is about the ships.

 

[Cryton]

Hehe, as a long time player of Scouts, mine came from detached duty assighnments, a Type S Scout/Courier ,it was called the "Coracle".

 

[spank]

First ship

All my favorite ships where salvaged in some form or another, A converted system defense boat for example, with the missle mags cut out and jump drives put in, or sometimes two halves of differnt ships put together like the drive section from a gunboat with a seeker grafted to the front. As a DM I liked this approach as well, it gave me a drain for PC wealth, in the form of monthly payment for the work at shipyards, and their wishlist for future up grades.

 

[JAFARR]

150 TN "Gambler class"

The "Gambler class" was a gamble by some shipyard that did not pay off. They planned a run of 20, but only made 5 or 6 before it became obvious that as a merchant this turkey was dead meat. Anyway, we won her in a poker game. She was named the "Inside Straight" which convinced the previous owner to bet on one. The rest of us pooled our funds to back the holder of a bob tailed straight. (For you non-poker players: a straight is 5 cards in numerical sequence. An inside straight is 4 cards missing one of the interior cards to complete the full 5 needed to make a complete hand. There are 4 cards that can complete the hand. A bob tailed straight is 4 cards in sequence, but it can be completed by drawing a card that matches either end and so can be completed by any of 8 cards.) He bet his ship against our money (all 5000 credits of it) and lost it.

It gets better! We then bought some 10 tons of spec cargo. The invoice said it was blank forms of various types. We bought it to take to a neighboring low tech world. In jump, I discovered we were low on some standard forms and decided see if there were any of that kind in the cargo.
Turned out that we had 10 tons of paper currency. To make the story short, someone had tried to be sneaky while shipping it and it had gotten lost (about 300 megacredits worth of old bills). After reporting the discovery to the authorities, each of us ended up with about 60 MCR each. Due to one player's paranoia, we split the party. 2 of us bought the old Inside Straight and went to Darian where we proceeded to pay cash for a new custom design TL16 merchant and placed enough on deposit for the interest to pay the annual overhaul costs. Don't remember the details, but I think it was a 400 ton J2, M2 merchant.

 

[mjc]

My first character was created using the MT system, as a Navy officer. He made Captain by age 34 or 38, I think (Attache is a good deal). I was stoked, but the GM didn't want to have me play the character commanding a cruiser, so before long the thing got thrashed in a fight. Imperium said, resign or face a court-martial, so that Navy career was over. The character was hired by a shady merchant line with maybe a dozen lightly-armed free trader type ships. I'm assigned to command one running medicine and guns to one side of a planetary civil war. With some complications (we ended up using some of the guns and medicine ourselves), I complete the drop. When I get back (late), I find the Imperium found out what the company was doing and shut it down, but my trader was listed as lost. I forget how I got the registration laundered, but in the end I got to keep it.

 

[DonaldH]

The group I was in were hired as crew for a SDB well 1st scramble we took out the pirates and decided to take their place:devil:.Welll between the loot and our pay from the plantary gov't we were able to buy another SDB when our contract ended....gee so did the pirate threat...I wonder why:rofl:

 

[ThunderChilde]

Poor, poor pirates

We were hired by Naval Int to cruise through a priate infested region with an upgunned A2. We were to gather Intel on the ships and message traffic in the region, laying quiet and listen stuff. Boring as all hell, 4 months with replenishment stops.

We caught a distress call ala Beowulf, took the bait and came in to give whatfor to the pirates...... Who had taken a couple ugly hits themselves from the armed colony ship they were trying to jump. We crippled them and took some hits in return, renedered aid to the colony ship, and managed to patch up the A4. We had to take on 20 of the low berth colonists who had to be decanted because of damage on the Colony Ship.

As we were in approach to the GG to refuel, a 440T Corsair comes climbing up from fueling and opens friendly channels to our captured A4. So we agreed to match orbit and dock up to trade parts and salvage, and take on a "prisoner to take back to base". The corsair wasn't in good shape either. They tried to strong arm a known Pirate crew of 8 with 2 ships and found 28 instead, they were down to 12 all told and all the emergency lows filled from the last action it had been in.
It had jumped a 200 ton armed anti-piracy Q ship and almost not survived the error. The prisoner was a Noble IMOJ agent. We retrned, just barely, with three ships, 2 prizes and a rescued noble Imperial Agent. Almost all of us were injured to varying degrees.

We got the 440T from the Admirality Board, with a weapons refit, comp update and fully stocked in exchange for continued NavInt services, the A4 and the gratitude of the Agent. It went down hill from there, :rofl:

 

[BlackBat242]

Here's your sign...

You are now an official Thread Necromancer!!!



That sounds like it was a fun game... too bad they all end the same way (creditors & repairs leaving the crew broke and stranded on a TL7 refuse heap)!

 

[Vargas]

Scored a Type J mining ship as a mustering out benefit.

 

[DaveChase]

Out of 30 some characters

only 1 (one) every owned a ship.

Had a Navy Capt retire from service. An Admiral was going to give him a Traveller's Aid Membership when it was discovered that he already had one since he was 18. It turns out his father had bought him one when he joined the service, but his dad died before he could be told about the membership.

So many terms later upon retirement, it turns out that he had quite a bit of money with which he bought a custom made 10 ton repair pod and started his own business of doing ship repair.

Years later after several interesting contracts with (static, ytant8934 **^#%$#&) and being considered lost during Ling survey/scouting mission, he resurfaced with lots of captial backing and purchased his own custom made 100 ton repair ship (Non Jump), a custom made 800 ton repair ship (Jump capable). While awaiting for these ships to be completed he traveled to Hiver space to learn more about Robitics.

3 years later, he returns and is now President and CEO of BTE (Ben Table Enterprises) which only builds custom starships and robots.

NOTE:Started the character as 14yr Belter, then enlisted in the Navy. Upon exiting the Belter rolled up the TAS membership. Jokingly with the GM, I said I bet Dad bought it for me. We continued to roll up the rest of the terms. This GM also did extra work/background on characters and it turned up that my dad died after I reached legal age and I only had an werid distant uncle (all other family was dead). Along with some other interesting skills that I rolled from terms the GM dropped the suprise on me when upon retiring from the Navy, I rolled TAS membership again. He rolled played out the denial letter explainin why the could not grant me 2 memberships. Further research into the situtation showed that my werid uncle placed the membership in a trust fund that was designed to sell off the tickets and put the money into a very stable and profitable savings company.

I did not have enough money to outright buy the 10 ton repair pod/ship but between my contacts in the Navy, my skills, roleplaying and some lucky to survive adventures I had it paid off during my first year of retirement. Then things got very interesting.

Dave Chase

 

[beowulf2044]

As a Ref, I loved that old, upgraded Free Trader in the 'Foodrunner' scenario. You should have seen the way the groups' eyes lit up when they heard they could get a Starship as a payment. Better yet when I described how the engines were upgraded to twice the performance.

And how those expressions of glee came to a halt when they got shoved out the airlock of the shuttle craft and got a first hand look at the rusting hulk in a rapidly decaying orbit.

Oh, the times I had as I lovingly described the system failuers, mysterious leaking fluids and the cranky Vacc-U-Flush unit in the head.

Good times.

 

[ThunderChilde]

Dunno the Foodrunner scenario, where is it from?

 

[beowulf2044]

It's from JTAS #5. The reward in the sceanario is a 200 ton Free Trader "frankly a poor excuse for a starship" with J-2 and M-2 drives and 80 tons fuel with 2 single pulse laser turrets, which leaves cargo at 20 tons. Every shipboard system (except the computer) is in disrepair (throw 8+ on 2d6 for any system to break down).

Great fun.

 

[tim_manley]

I tended to GM, probably 99.9% of the time... so the "who" got the ship was the players. And I had a variety of methods to get them a ship:
+TypeS on muster out
+they steal it... (probably most common)
+salvage
+inheritance

One game I ran I had a player who was a noble for 2 terms then a doctor for 2 terms inherit a ship from his grandfather. He just had to go get it. So he hired a group of mercs and borrowed the yacht from a friend of his father's and stole it... then got his ship and used both of them to turn to piracy....

 

[gcbright]

First Ship

In the first game I played in, our characters travelled aboard a far trader as passengers while it worked it's long winding route. We travelled with several regular NPCs, one a planatery princess from a world between the Imperium and Zhodani borders.

Each week our characters worked to make sure they had enough money to pay for everyone to make the next passage. Sometimes the Princess was our patron. She and her siblings were spread out across space, each questing to return to home with the most spectacular tale of adventure so they would become Queen.

As fate would have it, the Far Trader finally misjumped spectacularly. (I mean part of the hull was outside the warp bubble.) Our characters, several passengers and the few surviving crew members were stuck aboard the dying hulk of the ship.

Across an astroid field, we managed to spot a very large vessel (and quite a feat to reach it without drives). It of course was out of gas, the computer core was blown up with charges, etc. I think it took like three gaming sessions to get the ship (A Colonial Cruiser) jumped to the nearest port.

While hanging out on the planet waiting for a reward check for salvaging the ship (after all, no one expected the Imperium to let us declare salvage on a Warship). The princess shows up and hires us and the surviving crew of the ship to help her get her salvaged Warship home.

When our most streetwise character asked around, he found out that the Imperium was allowing her to salvage the ship since returning it to her home would assure her becoming queen of the planet. (Which was considered in the best interests of the Imperium, since her siblings were all pro Zhodani).

So for the next year of sessions, we wound our way back to her home planet where the refitted colonial cruiser became the pride of her system fleet. Needless to say, her siblings couldn't top her tale of salvage, nor the reward to the realm that the vessel would bring in terms of planetary pride.

For our troubles, the surviving PC characters of the original group and the surviving crew of the Far Trader, got an 800 ton Trader for their reward (minus one PC who elected to remain on the planet with the princess to become her prince consort.)

Thanks

 

[DaveChase]

Wonderful stories

I really liked this topic and enjoyed reading all the different ways that ships were aquired.

Maybe some other similar topic could be started.


Dave Chase