Small ship universe

[Old_Dr_Skull]

I've been reading a lot of the early CT adventures and am getting interested in the idea of a Small ShiIp universe. I suppose the book 2 universe had an upper limit of 5000 dtons. That would make calling the small warships like the Merc Cruiser, Patrol Cruiser and Close Escort useable in a "real" battle. The Kinunir could be called a "Colonial Cruiser" without embarassment etc.

I can't say that I ever played a Traveller game using a real Battleship or Heavy Cruiser, like from Fighting Ships. I know people enjoy fighting out huge space battles with that sort of things, but I don't have any direct experience with the large ships. Does having the large ships add something to a regular campaign that's really worth having?

I would think that having the "big battle ships" being 2000-3000dtons would allow PC owned ships to actually participate when the big boys were around, and would make for better game play.

Do people play campaigns where PC's run a huge battleship or carrier?

 

[77topaz]

I've been reading a lot of the early CT adventures and am getting interested in the idea of a Small ShiIp universe. I suppose the book 2 universe had an upper limit of 5000 dtons. That would make calling the small warships like the Merc Cruiser, Patrol Cruiser and Close Escort useable in a "real" battle. The Kinunir could be called a "Colonial Cruiser" without embarassment etc.

I can't say that I ever played a Traveller game using a real Battleship or Heavy Cruiser, like from Fighting Ships. I know people enjoy fighting out huge space battles with that sort of things, but I don't have any direct experience with the large ships. Does having the large ships add something to a regular campaign that's really worth having?

I would think that having the "big battle ships" being 2000-3000dtons would allow PC owned ships to actually participate when the big boys were around, and would make for better game play.

Do people play campaigns where PC's run a huge battleship or carrier?

They would have to have high SOC for that...

 

[BytePro]

I once ran an 'adventure' with a couple PCs in charge of a megaton ship (non-OTU). PC skill sets were very focused (4 to 6) for each position and the 'adventure' was very much a sort of fleet action (carried ships) and combat was off the cuff. [I recall foolishly trying to hand make deckplans for the thing... on several rolls of mylar! o:]

Normally I can't see a need for player level ships taking on large military vessels - that would be akin to a PT boat taking on a destroyer or air craft carrier (though missiles and TL can offset this). However, there is room for the Millennium Falcon out foxing / outrunning the Star Destroyer notion, or a small ship acting in a larger conflict to take out specific targets (like a launch bay, bridge, etc).

The rules, of course, don't support this well - but they don't really support roleplayed combat well anyway. Just make adjustments.

 

[Gray Pennell]

I to think it would have been better if HG was to a max tonnage of 10,000 but people like their battle wagons. When I play I use them for backdrop and jeez wiz factor. You can get a player out of a system fast when a 35K ton ship passes through and big scares the crap out of them.

My players see a lot of them sense they are on the spy trawler watching fleet movements in the 5 Sisters/Sword World subsectors.

 

[Omnivore]

Striker and High Guard are the two parts of Traveller to cause me to have to say that I both play and 'play with' Traveller. I've spent far more time with both designing and testing than playing.

Not that playing with isn't fun too

 

[Dragoner]

Big ships make for a great dungeon crawl, and now with andrew's HGS, are easy to stat out.

I have an adventure centered around a crashed Zho battleship (pic in the gallery) and the whole ship is at a 7 degree list.

 

[Burocrate]

Do people play campaigns where PC's run a huge battleship or carrier?

They do if the game is specifically set for it. This link should take you to a game we played with a ~9K ship deployed to assist another government; very Un-officical and very fun game.

http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=46498

 

[BlackBat242]

I kinda fall in the middle... I don't like a 5k/10k limit, nor do I like the 200k-500k dreadnoughts, etc.

Personally I tend to make closer parallels to WW2 ships, and I also limit size by the tech level at which the hull was built (materials tech improves too).

This makes sense to me in terms of both mass and structural terms.


The largest battleship ever made were Yamato & Musashi... these Japanese monsters (of course) were 65,027 metric sons "standard" displacement, and 72,809 metric tons full load.

The largest WW2 carriers were the Midway, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Coral Sea... these American giants were 45,7200 metric tons std. and 60,858 metric tons full load.


The absolute upper limit for Dtons (I play CT) is 72,000 Dtons, the TL limits are as follows:

TL15 = 72kt
TL14 = 60kt
TL13 = 48kt
TL12 = 36kt
TL11 = 24kt
TL10 = 12kt
TL9 = 3.5kt
TL8 = 500t (with imported Jdrives and other systems)
TL7 and below cannot build starship hulls, even with imported materials and systems.

 

[rancke]

I've been reading a lot of the early CT adventures and am getting interested in the idea of a Small ShiIp universe. I suppose the book 2 universe had an upper limit of 5000 dtons. That would make calling the small warships like the Merc Cruiser, Patrol Cruiser and Close Escort useable in a "real" battle. The Kinunir could be called a "Colonial Cruiser" without embarassment etc.

And worlds that would "only" have 10 battleships in a Large Ship universe will have 1000 battleships in a Small Ship universe. Instead of running into one 50,000T ship our PC ship will run into a dozen 4,000T ships and be hopelessly outclassed anyway.

As I've pointed out many times before, any problem people think are inherent to a Large Ship universe are actually inherent to Large Population settings and will be exacerbated in a Small Ship universe.


Hans

 

[jshiggin]

And worlds that would "only" have 10 battleships in a Large Ship universe will have 1000 battleships in a Small Ship universe. Instead of running into one 50,000T ship our PC ship will run into a dozen 4,000T ships and be hopelessly outclassed anyway.

As I've pointed out many times before, any problem people think are inherent to a Large Ship universe are actually inherent to Large Population settings and will be exacerbated in a Small Ship universe.


Hans

Exactly.

The problem isn't the size of the ships, it's the size of the Navy's budget. And it's hard to justify shrinking the Navy's budget too much when you have (in some places) tens of billions of taxpayers to pay the bill.

And never forget that the Imperium as a whole has trillions of taxpayers footing the bill for the Imperial Navy. Imagine, if you will, a military with 50,000 times the budget of the US Military....

 

[far-trader]

Imagine, if you will, a military with 50,000 times the budget of the US Military....

And a domestic theatre of operations 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000* times the area of the US to oversee :smirk:

* just a wag, I got tired of typing zeros

 

[jshiggin]

Do people play campaigns where PC's run a huge battleship or carrier?

I did this once, many years ago. One of the PC's rolled out as a Navy Admiral on retirement, and was recalled a year later when the FFW began.

He, and the rest of the PC's as his flunkies, commanded an Imperial Reserve Battle Squadron against the Sword Worlds.

Lot of fun, if everyone has a sense of humor....

 

[jshiggin]

And a domestic theatre of operations 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000* times the area of the US to oversee :smirk:

* just a wag, I got tired of typing zeros

Meaningless. The only areas you care much about are the border systems and the ~2000 pop-8+ worlds.

Think of it this way - you can park four battle squadrons in EVERY system in the Third Imperium.

And that's just the Imperial Navy. Trin, Mora, and Rhylanor (by themselves) can afford (out of their system squadron budgets) another hundred or so battle squadrons.

 

[Gray Pennell]

Then make military ships regardless of size more costly. Weapons, screens, armor etc but keep the basics power thrust and jump the same cost. This absorbs budgets while keeping the civilian ships cheap.

Also the Core Imperuim should be sucking up money via welfare, grant funding etc to keep the core allied with the government. 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000* worth of space of civilan needs to be met even in the most hands off imperuim. They arent pulling trillions of credits and millions of soliders off these worlds to serve in the marches or rim territory without giving something back. If they took these resources without giving something back there would be rebellions everywhere. The Imperuim would look like a 3rd world banana republic.

 

[far-trader]

Then make military ships regardless of size more costly. Weapons, screens, armor etc but keep the basics power thrust and jump the same cost. This absorbs budgets while keeping the civilian ships cheap.

Also the Core Imperuim should be sucking up money via welfare, grant funding etc to keep the core allied with the government. 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000* worth of space of civilan needs to be met even in the most hands off imperuim.

Yep, and yep, imo too at least.

They arent pulling trillions of credits and millions of soliders off these worlds to serve in the marches or rim territory without giving something back. If they took these resources without giving something back there would be rebellions everywhere. The Imperuim would look like a 3rd world banana republic.

Who says it isn't...

Think of it this way - you can park four battle squadrons in EVERY system in the Third Imperium.

 

[Gray Pennell]

I see the core the being a big fan of NIMBY when it comes to the fleet. That adds another image of the fleet being made up of criminals and neer-do-wells. AKA The British Army/Navy in the 19th century. "Hey Navy we got our recruitment allotment for you." And to the world government "And our prisons gets empty" PC background for enlisted option criminal instead of college.

 

[jshiggin]

Then make military ships regardless of size more costly. Weapons, screens, armor etc but keep the basics power thrust and jump the same cost. This absorbs budgets while keeping the civilian ships cheap.

Yes, your players will really love to find that a missile battery for their ship costs more than the rest of the ship. Especially when the pirates they might want to fight off just steal theirs.

Also the Core Imperuim should be sucking up money via welfare, grant funding etc to keep the core allied with the government. 50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000* worth of space of civilan needs to be met even in the most hands off imperuim. They arent pulling trillions of credits and millions of soliders off these worlds to serve in the marches or rim territory without giving something back. If they took these resources without giving something back there would be rebellions everywhere. The Imperuim would look like a 3rd world banana republic.

Two things:

1) welfare, etc are the province of the individual worlds. Imperial taxes to support the military are a separate issue. Far as I can tell, the Imperium maintains the military, the X-boat system, the Imperial Research Stations, and the Customs Offices at each Starport.
And nothing else.

Note that if the Imperium were a modern welfare state, we would not expect to see worlds with TL below maybe 13 anywhere in the Imperium...

2) the core worlds may be paying for the military (actually, the high pop worlds are doing the paying, wherever they are), but the "millions of soldiers" (a VERY TINY fraction of the Imperial military, really) are almost certainly recruited on the frontiers where the Navy spends its time.
A four year enlistment can be mostly used up just moving a new recruit from the core to the frontier and back at the end of his enlistment....

 

[Whipsnade]

I see the core the being a big fan of NIMBY when it comes to the fleet.

Which, of course, is why the various factions in the Core had huge fleets to throw at each other when the Rebellion kicked off.

That adds another image of the fleet being made up of criminals and neer-do-wells.

Which, of course, is why Naval careers in both basic and extended chargen for both enlisted ad officers use DMs for SOC and provide SOC benefits more than any other either than Nobles.

AKA The British Army/Navy in the 19th century.

The mind boggles.

 

[Jame]

I have a thought for military ships in a small ship setting, which is as follows:

The order in which ship types progress should be:
Fighter (50 tons or less)
Cutter (51 tons to 550 tons)
Corvette (600 tons to 900 tons)
Frigate (1000 tons)
Cruiser (10000 tons)
Dreadnought (50000 tons)

This is inspired by the Star Wars Saga game; regular Star Destroyers and the Executor qualify as Dreadnoughts.

Civilian ships qualify as small craft, traders, freighters, medium freighters, heavy freighters and superfreighters, with similar sizes as military ships.

*Snip of WW2 comparisons, done solely for space*

The absolute upper limit for Dtons (I play CT) is 72,000 Dtons, the TL limits are as follows:

TL15 = 72kt
TL14 = 60kt
TL13 = 48kt
L12 = 36kt
TL11 = 24kt
TL10 = 12kt
TL9 = 3.5kt
TL8 = 500t (with imported Jdrives and other systems)
TL7 and below cannot build starship hulls, even with imported materials and systems.

I think I like this as a limit. Though I would up TL 9 to 4k or 5ktons for roundness, and so that anyone could use the CT Bk2 books to design any ship there at any TL. (With suitable handwaiving necessary for the personal campaign, of course.)

EDIT: And personally, I don't think that any core system should be less than TL 10-11, and I would see very few frontier systems being much below TL8-9. TL 7 systems would be trying desperately to increase their TLs.

 

[Omnivore]

I think I like this as a limit. Though I would up TL 9 to 4k or 5ktons for roundness, and so that anyone could use the CT Bk2 books to design any ship there at any TL. (With suitable handwaiving necessary for the personal campaign, of course.)

If you design ships with FF&S and then calculate the moment of inertia, the insane torque levels required for large ships (especially long slim needle-like hulls) would make them automatically Agility 0... assuming of course you disregarded any wonky gravitics/inertial handwavium. This would reduce their effectiveness as warships at least.