Scout vessels

[Murph]

Ok, we have the 100 ton Type S, which is a courier vessel, not really set up for survey missions, but for messenger duty.
Then there is the 400 ton Donosev survey ship which is for internal survey duties, ok, I can see that.

But what about the bigger survey ships? What would they look like? I see a need for a high jump, moderate g ship, at least 1,000 tons at the small end. I can see bigger ships in the 100 kton size holding a number of type S, and Donosevs as riders. Then even larger 1 Mton ships for long haul astrographic and planetological surveys.

2000 ton Survey ship

computer 9 fib 26 tons (stats from High Guard)
Jump 4 y 120 tons
Maneuver 3 X 115 tons
power plant y 120 tons
fuel 840 tons
bridge 40 tons
Survey Bridge: 60 tons
crew 4 pilot
4 navigator
8 engineers
4 medics
20 gunners
8 small craft crew
20 Survey Crew
Crew Quarters 272 tons (single occupancy)
137 tons of cargo space.

4 Air rafts
one cutter w/ two modules (ATV/Fuel Skimmer)
two ships boats
two pinnace
250 tons

20 turrets (20 tons) 10 triple laster, 4 sandcaster, 6 triple missile



What does the forum suggest?

 

[kafka47]

Stat it for me...pls.... (http://images.trollandtoad.com/products/pictures/156507.jpg)

 

[far-trader]

Stat it for me...pls...

I vaguely recall a thread about that ship years back. Off on a quick search...

 

[Murph]

Can't get to the website. And I did a 2,000 tonner, albeit with my very rusty skills in Classic Traveller ship design.

 

[far-trader]

...the discussion I found might be the one, and you kicked it off there Kafka

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?p=327655

Not a lot of discussion mind you, just that it looks like the Nostromo. I might be thinking of another thread but if so I can't find it.

 

[far-trader]

For what it's worth to your plans Murph, CT Supplement 9 - Fighting Ships notes:

"The Scout Service controls a wide variety of craft up to cruiser class, but scouts proper are vessels up to 200 tons designed for exploration, survey, and courier work."

Cruiser class is later defined as:

"... Sizes range from 20,000 to 100,000 tons."

I suppose "up to cruiser class" might be excluding cruiser class, so limited to escort class perhaps?

"Escorts are small ships of up to 5,000 tons."

 

[Murph]

200000 ton survey vessel

Jump Drive: 6 (tons= 14000)
Maneuver Drive: 3 (tons= 16000)
Power Plant: 6 (tons= 4000)
Fuel (tons= 132,000)
Bridge (tons= 4000)
Computers 9 fib x3 (tons=78)
Fuel Purification Tons= 8800
Weapons:

Spinal Mount J (tons= 1,000)
Missile bay 50 tons 10 (tons= 500)
P/A bay 100 tons 10 (tons =1000)
Beam Laser turrets 100 triple (tons= 300)
Nuclear Damper 9x2 (Tons= 40)
Meson Screen 9 x2 (tons=80)

Small Craft:

2,000 ton Survey ships x4 (Tons= 8000)
Donosev 400 ton survey ships x4 (tons= 1,600)
Type S Scout/Courier x 12 (Tons= 1,200)
Ships Boats x 10 (tons= 300)
Cutters x10 (tons=1100)

Crew Quarters: Tons= 4320 tons (single occupancy)
Command Crew= 100
Engineering Section= 340
Gunnery Section= 60
Flight Section= 60
Ships Troops= 120
Service Crew= 100 (incl. Medical staff)

ATV x20 Tons= 200
Air/Raft x20 Tons= 80

Cargo 1372 tons

Rusty High Guard design for a long range, long haul survey ship that can make J-6 if need be, and has the ships on board to check most systems within J-4 of the mothership. Not super heavily armed, but able to defend itself.

 

[Murph]

True, but I see the need for some really big ships for surveys away from the Imperium proper.

For what it's worth to your plans Murph, CT Supplement 9 - Fighting Ships notes:

"The Scout Service controls a wide variety of craft up to cruiser class, but scouts proper are vessels up to 200 tons designed for exploration, survey, and courier work."

Cruiser class is later defined as:

"... Sizes range from 20,000 to 100,000 tons."

I suppose "up to cruiser class" might be excluding cruiser class, so limited to escort class perhaps?

"Escorts are small ships of up to 5,000 tons."

 

[far-trader]

True, but I see the need for some really big ships for surveys away from the Imperium proper.

I agree, I just wonder (believe from the notes), perhaps those surveys are being conducted exclusively by and under Imperial Navy control. Perhaps with the smaller Scout (proper) ships (Scout/Couriers and Donosevs) and crew carried aboard.

Still, there must be some Scout ships up to 5,000 tons, perhaps even 10,000 to 20,000 tons. Though I'd think not many and would wonder what their purpose would be? Certainly nothing within the Imperium would require it. The Scout/Couriers and Donosevs can handle that easily. And being essentially hemmed in on all sides I wonder about there being any extra-territorial Scout missions...

...not that it should stop you from coming up with such stuff

 

[Murph]

More a matter of intellectual curiosity than practicality. Now the Solomani on the other hand, have some massive scout vessels. But they have all that unexplored space on the other side of the Confederation....

 

[rancke]

I agree, I just wonder (believe from the notes), perhaps those surveys are being conducted exclusively by and under Imperial Navy control. Perhaps with the smaller Scout (proper) ships (Scout/Couriers and Donosevs) and crew carried aboard.

So Donosevs are not scouts proper, huh? I never would have guessed.

Anyway, we specifically know of some cruisers that are under Scout control, so it would seem that the statement does include cruisers.

Still, there must be some Scout ships up to 5,000 tons, perhaps even 10,000 to 20,000 tons.

Ah, but they're not scouts proper!

Though I'd think not many and would wonder what their purpose would be?

The notes in LCC and the scenarios in AHL (and of course I can't find my copy of AHL right now ) provide some examples: long range exploration and regular transport duty (for the stuff you REALLY don't want pirates to steal. )

I think most Scout ship are 100 and 200T ships (with 'most' being a fairly high percentage (what is the lowest percentage that would still support the word 'most'? )). The rest (including the Donosevs!) will be mostly in the 300 to 5,000T range (with lower tonnages being more common than higher) and a few (as in 'few enough to actually make a list' (not that I would do any such thing)) will be rare cruiser-sized ships, mostly (or exclusively) IN cast-offs. It's quite possible that the five Azhantis are the biggest and that anything else in the cruiser range are 20-30,000T and not many of those.

[Ingredients of this post: 10% fact and 90% speculation.]


Hans

 

[Otto Harkaman]

Hmm I wonder what they do have, looking at some of the counters for FFW there is one whole squadron that is J-4, another J-3 and they have some of the highest bombardment rates in the game. Double some of the Battleship and Battle-rider squadrons. Maybe they have some heavy moving equipment to nudge asteroids for planetary bombardment?

That also makes me think, why would scouts have only a Model 1bis computer? Maybe they strip out the good stuff at muster. Seems a survey ship would have a pretty good computer to process intel.

 

[Murph]

I agree, I think that most scouts should have a 5+ computer on board.

That also makes me think, why would scouts have only a Model 1bis computer? Maybe they strip out the good stuff at muster. Seems a survey ship would have a pretty good computer to process intel.

 

[far-trader]

...why would scouts have only a Model 1bis computer? Maybe they strip out the good stuff at muster. Seems a survey ship would have a pretty good computer to process intel.

Quite! I also agree, and have long made it just so, even in B2. See for example (a B5 version):

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Gallery/index.php?n=1293

I think a model/4 is sufficient for the Scout/Courier. A larger model (perhaps a 200ton version) might go bigger (I forget offhand what the Donosev has - checked, model/5, that's plenty ). The Type S though only has the power to operate a model/4 in CT/HG.

Oh yeah, and I love the idea of peacetime Scout ships with asteroid patrol duty going massive orbital bombardment with the same in wartime :devil:

Consider that nicked!

 

[rancke]

I'd forgotten about the scout squadrons in FFW. Jump-3 and Jump-4 with big bombardment factors. Yikes! That's really a HUGE elephant in the room. Not only do the Scouts have high jump performance ships with planetary bombardment capability, they have enough of them in a sector to match navy squadrons. That's some serious tonnage right there.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

So Donosevs are not scouts proper, huh? I never would have guessed.

It's true. Nobody loves the poor Donnys

I think most Scout ship are 100 and 200T ships (with 'most' being a fairly high percentage (what is the lowest percentage that would still support the word 'most'? )). The rest (including the Donosevs!) will be mostly in the 300 to 5,000T range (with lower tonnages being more common than higher) and a few (as in 'few enough to actually make a list' (not that I would do any such thing)) will be rare cruiser-sized ships, mostly (or exclusively) IN cast-offs. It's quite possible that the five Azhantis are the biggest and that anything else in the cruiser range are 20-30,000T and not many of those.

Agreed. Well put.

[Ingredients of this post: 10% fact and 90% speculation.]


Hans

:rofl:

...so, OTU safe then right!

 

[far-trader]

I'd forgotten about the scout squadrons in FFW. Jump-3 and Jump-4 with big bombardment factors. Yikes! That's really a HUGE elephant in the room. Not only do the Scouts have high jump performance ships with planetary bombardment capability, they have enough of them in a sector to match navy squadrons. That's some serious tonnage right there.


Hans

Has me thinking now it's a "letter of the law" treaty dodge for more firepower.

IN Lawyer "Ambassador... the Imperial Navy is well within the limitations of the STT-3 treaty. Those ships are clearly IISS vessels built for peaceful survey missions."

:devil:

 

[Otto Harkaman]

There is a 3,000 ton Pytheas class Exploratory Cruiser mentioned in Gurps "First In". One of the largest ship classes in the Scout Fleet, the Pytheas class is used for long-range expeditions outside Imperial space.

Interesting they also have the scouts use the 400t Fleet Courier mentioned in Supplement 9 Fighting ships.

 

[rancke]

Interesting they also have the scouts use the 400t Fleet Courier mentioned in Supplement 9 Fighting ships.

No, they use a "nearly identical" jump-6 courier called a Fast Courier. Interestingly enough, "many private organizations have experimented with similar designs", so the Imperium has not been keeping jump-6 drives a secret for more than a century.


Hans

 

[aramis]

In order to get the speeds needed to meet the Civil news dates, the IISS needs a daily X-Boat on each link. Which means they run on a probably 9 day cycle... tho' it might be 8 days, given the nature of the turn-around time... 168+10%=185 is 7d 17h, so 8 days is just barely doable long term, but every so often a boat will be late enough and off by enough to put it overdue on the next leg by a few hours...

So let's look at the numbers. Each link is 2-way, so that's 16 Xboats per link Just in the marches alone...

Links -minimum count, (parenthesizied is could be replaced with Type-S at no loss))
B 6 (5)
C 6 (4)
D 1 (1)
F 3 (1)
G 8-9 (6-7)
H 8 (2)
J 3+the chains in Darrian Space...
K 11 (3)
L 6-8 (4-5)
M 6-7(1-2)
N 1-2 (1)
O 9 (6)
P 11 (5)

75 to 80 links, with several that could have an additional long-link, call it 75-85 links. That's not counting the darrian run, which I don't want to calculate, because it's ugly, with LOTS of overlapping J3/J4 and J1/J2 runs... and extra-imperial, and not directly connecting imperial worlds in dist 268 to the imperium... 28-31 of those links might be Type S's, instead

At 16 ships per link minimum, (counting a tender), that's 1200-1360 boats on route...
some 120,000KTd of X-Boat network, of which 448-496 boats might be Type S's... And gives daily 2-way X-mail service on the routes alone.
adding 1/25th to allow for annual maintenance, that's 1248-1415, of which 466-516 might be Types S.

75-80 systems will are serviced (there are 5 points where it could be 2J(1-2) or 1J(2-4).. but I think we need 2 per end per link... so 4x(75-85) 300-340 tenders. Plus 1/25 for maintenance adds 12-14, for 312-340... that's another 312-354KTd of ship hulls.

That's for the daily X-mail service; the statement that it's seldom more than an hour in S7:T&G implies 24x these rates. It can only refill 3 X-boats or 4 type-s... and will take a day to refuel, so hourly service is no less than 8 , probably 12, per link per end, instead of 2, so 6x the tenders.
That would be 29952-33960 X-boat route ships (of which 11184-12384 might be type S) and 1872-2040 Tenders Roughly 3.2MTd of ships on the XBoat net in the marches alone, and not counting the intra-sword worlds run.

(hourly departures: MCr1,621,558.8 to MCr2,399,274 in XBoats if no Type-S)
(Hourly departures: MCr1,325,959.2 to MCr1,524,344.4 in Xboats, and MCr309,013.92 to MCr342,169.92 in Type S's, for MCr1634973.12 to MCr1866514.32 combined)
(Hourly departures: MCr514,369.43 to MCr560,530.8 in tenders...)
(there's around 800 Billion imperials in the marches. If we assume Cr1 per person per year to the IISS, that's MCr800,000 or so per year... plenty to meat 10% of that total value in op cost..., and have another MCr5,000,000 in ships)