Proposed Ship mission codes

[robject]

So I've finally logged some time on the wiki, wrestling with the ship entries there.

I see Thomas' point of view and requirements -- a single wiki page for each class of ship, under which we can list the variant ship classes and individual examples. When a variant entry has considerable variant data, then that's when we create another wiki page. But as much as reasonable, it's best to subsume entries to a single page. This seems like an Ease of Use situation.

So it is useful to have fewer primal mission codes, but not too few. Of course, categorization always has a certain degree of arbitrariness, and so Thomas simply states the policy/structure/format/whatever and the ship designs then figure out how to fit themselves into it.

I still take my actual letter codes from Traveller5, but the wiki doesn't have to. I think that the only other viable strategy is a modified High Guard system that replaces many of its codes with CT Book 2 / T5 codes. There might be a way to do this that minimizes pain.

This is an uninspired list, since I essentially am just using CT Book 2 with a subset of Traveller 5 and a dash of Fifth Frontier War.

Code	Designation	Examples
A	Trader	Beowulf, Marava, Maru
BB	Battleship	Kokirrak, Tigress
C	Cruiser; Carrier (CV)	Broadsword, Lightning, Atlantic
E	Escort; Corvette	Gazelle
F	Freighter (Commercial Transport)	World-class Transport
G	Frigate	Lurushaar Kilaalum
J	Prospector	Seeker
K	Safari; Expedition; Touring	Animal
L	Science (Lab)	Kugashin class Lab Ship
M	Liner; Packet	Stellar class Liners
N	Medical	Kurgulash
P	Corsair	anything can be a corsair...
R	Merchant	Shaarin Challenger
S	Survey	Sulieman, Murphy, Sering, Beagle
T	Transport (Military Transport) / Tanker	Lurenti
V	Destroyer	Chrystanthemum, Fer-de-Lance
W	Barge	Stations, Orrimot
X	Express	X-Boat
Y	Yacht	Lady of Shallot; Vanderbilt

 

[robject]

But what this is really all about is how to sensibly partition and group the ships in the wiki.

To that end, I want to go at it with words describing a type (rather than codes, and perhaps the codes are secondary), and that these words have meanings, even if those meanings are a bit fuzzy and overlappy.

I note that Packets are simply unscheduled Liners.

The estimated performance numbers are 1105-centric.

"CR" is a cargo ratio, in tons per passenger, where it makes sense. Note that due to how traffic is calculated in Classic Traveller and T5, the cargo ratio also has secondary implications to the ship size. To wit: ships with a CR below 30 are more likely to be smaller than 1000 tons.

Type	Function	Scheduled	Emphasis	CR	1105
Y - Yacht	Private	Chartered	Passenger	1	Yachts
K - Expedition	Commercial	Chartered	Passenger	3	Animal
M - Liner	Commercial (includes Picket)	Sched/Un	Passenger	5	Stellar; Long Liner
A - Trader	Commercial	Unscheduled	Speculation	10	Beowulf; Marava
R - Merchant	Commercial	Scheduled	Speculation	25	400t subbie; Maru
T - Transport	Military Transport; Carrier; Tanker				Lurenti
F - Freighter	Commercial	Scheduled/Un	Freight	30+	Tukera AT; Akerut Hercules; Al Morai Worlds
J - Prospector	Resource Extraction	-	Mining		Seeker
L - Researcher	Science N - Medical?	-	Research	7	Kugashin; Kurgulash
BC - Battle Cruiser	Primary military				Kinunir; Tigress
C - Cruiser	ACS Primary / BCS Secondary				Broadsword; Atlantic
G/V - Destroyer	Specialized military; incl Frigate				Hoshisame
D - Defender	System Defense				Monitors; SDBs
E - Escort	Auxiliary military Incl Patrol, Picket (P)?				Gazelle; Patrol Frigate
P - Corsair	Corsair
S - Scout	Survey, Recon				Suleiman; Donosev
U - Utility	Tugs; Barges; Search and Rescue
Z - Catch-All	Includes stations: Ports/Docks; Colony/Prison; Agri; Hospital

 

[Spinward Flow]

V = Destroyer ... um ... no?

D = Destroyer ... not V.

---

L = Science
M = Liner
N = Medical

Uh ... whut?

I know that S = Scout, but seriously ... why isn't S also used for Science? Aren't Scouts a subset of scientific work?

I don't know about anyone else, but it's kind of ridiculous that A (merchant), F (freighter), M (liner), R (merchant) and U (packet) basically all wind up being merchant codes for a different mix of contents ... and then you get T (transport) and W (barge) on top of that as yet more "hauler" types in the primary mission codes.

Also, how different is a Safari ship from a Yacht ... really?
Why can't the K codes get rolled into Y codes for yachts?

---

If you want a "clean sheet" approach to primary codes, paring down what is found in LBB5.80, p26 ... here is what I would do:

1. A = Auxiliary, Small Craft
2. B = Battle
3. C = Carrier, Cruiser
4. D = Destroyer
5. E = Escort
6. F = Frigate
7. J = Prospector, Extraction, Refinery
8. M = Merchant
9. P = Patrol, Picket, Policing, System Defense
10. R = Raider, Corsair
11. S = Scout, Station, Lab, Medical, Science
12. T = Tanker, Barge
13. X = Express
14. Y = Yacht, Safari, Touring

With respect to qualifier codes, here is how I would pare down what is found in LBB5.80, p26 as well:

1. A = Armored
2. B = Battle, Boat
3. C = Cruiser
4. D = Destroyer
5. E = Escort
6. F = Fast, Fleet
7. H = Heavy
8. L = Light
9. M = Merchant
10. P = Passenger, Liner
11. Q = Decoy
12. R = Raider, Strike
13. S = Subsidized, Provincial
14. T = Tender, Transport, Troop
15. V = Vehicle
16. X = Courier
17. Z = Experimental

So if you want a "mixed" merchant (passengers+cargo) then you have a MM (merchant/merchant).
If you want a passenger liner merchant then you have a MP (merchant/passenger).
If you want a cargo merchant you have a MT (merchant/transport).
If you want a subsidized merchant you have a MS (merchant/subsidized).
If you want an armored merchant you have MA (merchant/armored).

Scout/Courier = SX
Express Boat = XX
Express Tender = XT
Yacht = YP
Safari = YM
Seeker = JL
System Defense Boat = PB
System Defense Starship = PS
Close Escort = PE
Destroyer Escort = DE
Escort Destroyer = ED
Mercenary Transport = RT
Pirate Corsair = RQ
Armored Fighter = AA
Light Fighter = AL
Heavy Fighter = AH
Vehicle = AV
Passenger Shuttle = AP
Cargo Shuttle = AT
Mixed Shuttle = AM
Annic Nova = MZ
Battleship = BB
Cruiser = CC
Destroyer = DD
Frigate = FF
Colonial Cruiser = PC
Light Cruiser = CL
Heavy Cruiser = CH
Frontier Cruiser = CR

... and so on and so forth ...


That's how I would go about reorganizing the codes (primary/qualifier) into something more coherent.
Yes, it would muck up some legacy ship codes from the CT era (for one thing, pirates wouldn't be P anymore! ) but the need for better consistency (and ease of memorization!) trumps the need to be backwards compatible to the stone age computer punch card age of when CT was first being written.

Or to put it another way ... if you're going to do an overhaul, do it RIGHT.

 

[robject]

Or to put it another way ... if you're going to do an overhaul, do it RIGHT.

...for some value of Right, of course!

Honestly, High Guard confused the commercial codes in a useless way. Their military codes are fine, and if we split military codes from non-military then maybe we have enough room for everything.

But if we're smushing them together, then we really have only one way to do it:

(1) keep the codes that make the most sense
(2) but use Huffman coding to push the edge cases into what's left

Hence my table.

 

[whulorigan]

V = Destroyer ... um ... no?

D = Destroyer ... not V.

Because in T5:

V = Destroyer
D = Defender

 

[robject]

V is a hard sell, because there's no precedent, so everyone thinks "Carrier" (to be fair, V in T5 is a Modifier code for Carrier).

D I understand from System Defense Boat.

I also understand "D" as Destroyer, but it seems to me that Destroyer can be safely subsumed into Escort if need be.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Destroyer can be safely subsumed into Escort if need be.

There's a difference between the hunter/killer and the defensive screener.
Granted, in modern naval practice those two roles tend to be combined, but they are the difference between offense and defense orientation.

 

[whulorigan]

Because in T5:

V = Destroyer
D = Defender

V is a hard sell, because there's no precedent, so everyone thinks "Carrier" (to be fair, V in T5 is a Modifier code for Carrier).

D I understand from System Defense Boat.

I also understand "D" as Destroyer, but it seems to me that Destroyer can be safely subsumed into Escort if need be.

My T5 Comment above not withstanding, I tend to agree with you.

For Offensive Combatants:

• For "V" my mind goes to Carrier first as well.
• For a "Destroyer", we would really need to decide what distinguishes it from a T5 Frigate or Corvette (both of which are "Offensive", so what is a Destroyer designed to "Destroy" in the Hunter/Killer role that is distinct from the Offensive missions of the Frigate and Corvette)? Historically Destroyers killed Torpedo Boats and Submarines; so what is the T5 equivalent, and how is it specially equipped to do so?

For Defensive Combatants, my guess would be:

• Monitor would be a heavy non-Jump, well-armed/well-armored asset with low acceleration as it stays close to its intended defensive position.
• Defender would be a non-Jump, well-armed but lighter armored and more agile/fast attack hunter-killer designed to go about and engage an approaching enemy and soften them up prior to contact with the Monitors.
• SDBs would be primarily hidden assets designed as small/fast sneak attack non-Jump hunter-killers, or as support craft for the Monitors & Defenders.

 

[robject]

A versus M versus R: Why Bother?

"Huffman encoding" is, for our purposes here, where more commonplace ships give priority to less common ones. More or less. It's not just a numbers game -- it can also be recognition based. So there's no "right answer", but there are wrong answers.

The fact that the Merchant is not a Trader is a near-universal fact. Even High Guard fans "know" this, even though HG refuses to admit it. HG is demonstrably bad with commercial ships, but defending that requires definitions, and that's where T5 comes in.

CT already had the sense of speculation versus freight versus passenger, and scheduled versus unscheduled, but it was fuzzy, and HG of course completely papered over it --- and can we agree that HG's main purpose is fighting ships? Anyway.

The neat matrix of speculation and scheduling creates six commercial categories, into which some of Traveller's most iconic ships and types sort nicely:

	Speculative Cargo is Primary	Freight Cargo is Primary	Passengers are Primary
Scheduled	Type R Merchant	(Freighter)	Type M Liner
Unscheduled	Type A Trader	(Transport)	(Packet)

Hence we can say exactly why CT Book 2 separated the Trader from the Merchant.

Then here's what Marc did in 1977: he created the single most iconic ship:

1. Free Trader

Being the first ship ever, it got "A". Then a short time later, he created the second most iconic ship for Traveller:

2. Scout

At that moment he realized the mnemonic "S" would suit the Scout nicely.
After that he started making a list in alphabetical order:

1. Cruiser
2. Lab
3. Liner
4. Merchant
5. Pirate
6. Yacht

Cruiser => C, easy. Next Lab. He had "L" open, so Lab got "L". Since "L" was then taken, he picked the next letter (M) for Liner. Next is the Merchant, but Merchant couldn't take "M", but the "R" was available. Next was the Pirate (P) and Yacht (Y).

Later came the Patrol Cruiser. P was taken, so T.

Even later came the Safari Ship. He didn't want to use the F or H and couldn't use R or P, so he (randomly?) picked K.

Now, Huffman coding would say that the Liner should be a Type L, because Lab ships are rarer. Then the Merchant could be a Type M. But I guess Marc didn't know that in 1977.

 

[robject]

• For a "Destroyer", we would really need to decide what distinguishes it from a T5 Frigate or Corvette (both of which are "Offensive", so what is a Destroyer designed to "Destroy" in the Hunter/Killer role that is distinct from the Offensive missions of the Frigate and Corvette)? Historically Destroyers killed Torpedo Boats and Submarines; so what is the T5 equivalent?

Good point. I think the Shivva is a "Frigate", kind of. I think we have no Big Ship examples of a Frigate. But Destroyers we know -- Chrysanthemums and Fer de Lances. I remember Marc used to say that a Frigate had "more guns than armor", so like a kind of Cruiser that's gun heavy... but if so, then isn't it just a kind of Cruiser?

I also remember that Corvette used to have the code V -- before T5 came out I guess -- which made sense to me. Perhaps V could be Corvette/Destroyer??

 

[robject]

• For a "Destroyer", we would really need to decide what distinguishes it from a T5 Frigate or Corvette ...

Note that we're discussing three ship types which don't show up much at all in Traveller. I know of two named destroyers, neither of which show up in the adventures I've read. AND... both of them are arguably types of Escorts. I'm sure a destroyer is mentioned somewhere beyond S09 and the wargames, but... well...

So I'm all for conflating these into a single category.

 

[robject]

Also, how different is a Safari ship from a Yacht ... really?
Why can't the K codes get rolled into Y codes for yachts?

You could do all sorts of things like this.

For example, all of the military ships can start with "B" for Battle. Thus you've effectively doubled your namespaces for both commercial and military craft.

• BA "Armageddon-class"
• BB "Battleship"
• BC "Cruiser"
• BD "Destroyer"
• BE "Escort"
• BF "Fighter"
• and so on

The fact is, Traveller has long recognized the Type K and the Type Y. And they can be shown to be on a spectrum. The fact that GDW partitioned them that way from the beginning, and the difference between Pleasure Ship and Chartered Expedition is a useful one.

"Type K... ok, this one will have things for expeditions, like capture tanks."
"Type Y... ok, I don't expect to use this for anything except extreme luxury."

 

[whulorigan]

Good point. I think the Shivva is a "Frigate", kind of. I think we have no Big Ship examples of a Frigate.

Correct. The ship scale of CT seemed to be:

BCS:
Battleship/Dreadnought (100+ kton) --> Cruiser (20+ kton) --> Fleet-Escort (~ 5000 ton) --> Destroyer (~ 3000 ton) -->

ACS:
Frigate/Destroyer-Escort (600-1000 ton) --> Corvette (400-800 ton) --> Gunboat (100-600 ton).


EDIT: Also note that there were ACS "Cruisers" that spanned the 800-2000 ton range (i.e. Mercenary/Exploration-Survey, Colonial/Vanguard, etc. such as the Broadsword (800 ton) , Kinunir (1200 ton), Sydkai (2000 ton), Vlezhdatl (2000 ton), and numerous "generic" 1000-ton Cruisers, esp. in Alien Modules).

But Destroyers we know -- Chrysanthemums and Fer de Lances. I remember Marc used to say that a Frigate had "more guns than armor", so like a kind of Cruiser that's gun heavy... but if so, then isn't it just a kind of Cruiser?

I also remember that Corvette used to have the code V -- before T5 came out I guess -- which made sense to me. Perhaps V could be Corvette/Destroyer??

There is a technical distinction here. The Chrysanthemum and Fer-de-Lance are "Destroyer Escorts" (1000 ton), and were distinct from Destroyers (i.e. Fleet Destroyers @ 3000+ tons). The term Destroyer Escort was used in WWII for a class of cheap, slower, and lest robust vessel fulfilling the defensive-destroyer role for Merchant Convoys which did not need the speed required to keep up with a battle fleet.

I believe CT: High Guard was making the same distinction between "DD" vs. "DE".

 

[robject]

^ Thank you for that. I remember the DD, DE, CA, CL, BB, and would like BCS to follow that sort of nomenclature.


So then, regardless of my preferences towards T5, I think most of our haggling will be over codes for wartime vessels, and codes for rare/marginal ACS. The most common ACS, I think, have strong cases for most of the codes used for them in Starter Traveller et al, namely:

• A, C, E, J, K, L, M, P, R, S, T, X, Y.

It's hard to unseat them -- and yet Marc does give one the boot.
On the other hand, some of the new codes aren't much fought over -- the Type U assigned to Packet.

Frigate versus Freighter

But "F" can be fought over -- HG uses that for Frigate. Marc had to choose between Frigate and Freighter, and I know this time he used hindsight: there are more freighters in GDW Traveller than frigates, so Freighter gets F, and Frigate gets G.

Transport versus Patrol

"Transport" is not uncommon (TTA and Traders & Gunboats), so "T" seems a shoo-in, but it boots out the Patrol Cruiser. The Patrol Cruiser has a very strong presence in Traveller, because Book 2. So it's gutsy to demote it to "Cruiser" or "Frigate".

 

[AnotherDilbert]

"Type K... ok, this one will have things for expeditions, like capture tanks."
"Type Y... ok, I don't expect to use this for anything except extreme luxury."

The LBB2 Type Y is not a generic term for a yacht, it's a specific design, the Y class if you want.


Any classification system that does not conform to the well-known CV, BB, CA, CL, DD, etc are doomed to irrelevance by being forgotten.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The classification should be about the hardware, not what this particular ship is used for. Don't use too many classifications, i.e. I don't care about scheduled vs unscheduled. T5 classifications are a complete system, but I have never really seen anyone using it here, probably because it's too complicated and uses letters at random.

P.S. F is already taken by Frigate.

 

[robject]

I don't care about scheduled vs unscheduled.

And High Guard in general doesn't care, nor the wargames.
Traveller, however, cares.

The LBB2 Type Y is not a generic term for a yacht, it's a specific design, the Y class if you want.

That was true -- the letters denoted the nine standard ships. You could make the case that High Guard first generalized the mission codes. In hindsight, it seems like a natural step. Judges Guild certainly thought they were generic in 1979. And Traders & Gunboats makes this plain:

Variants: A wide variety of system defense boats exist, ranging in tonnage from 100 to 1000 tons, and in tech level from 8 to 15 and above. The ship illustrated here is only one of many different types.
-- p38, Taders & Gunboats (1980).

Any classification system that does not conform to the well-known CV, BB, CA, CL, DD, etc are doomed to irrelevance by being forgotten.

Agree.

 

[whulorigan]

Transport versus Patrol

"Transport" is not uncommon (TTA and Traders & Gunboats), so "T" seems a shoo-in, but it boots out the Patrol Cruiser. The Patrol Cruiser has a very strong presence in Traveller, because Book 2. So it's gutsy to demote it to "Cruiser" or "Frigate".

Yes, but this is somewhat understandable, as the Patrol Vessel is not really a "Cruiser" in any normal naval sense of the term (other than perhaps as an allusion to a "Police Cruiser"). Its Naval role definitely fits Corvette (or Frigate) better, depending on size range.

 

[whulorigan]

I remember Marc used to say that a Frigate had "more guns than armor", so like a kind of Cruiser that's gun heavy... but if so, then isn't it just a kind of Cruiser?

I would guess (if we are using historical definitions as a guide), that a Cruiser has good armament and decent armor, while still being able to independently cruise long-range with good speed.

A Frigate would be smaller than a Cruiser, and "up-gunned" relative to its smaller size-category (maybe approaching cruiser-level armament) while perhaps sacrificing some armor to maintain good speed and agility.

I also remember that Corvette used to have the code V -- before T5 came out I guess -- which made sense to me. Perhaps V could be Corvette/Destroyer??

I could work with that.

(After all, who doesn't want to be at the conn of a 'Vette? )

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships definition and designation are pretty much specific navy dependent, usually tinged with political correctness.

Commercial shipping probably insurance industry nomenclature and standards.