OTU Only: What Kind of Ships Does Traveller Need More of?

[Whipsnade]

*Scribbles notes*

Bloviating further because I'm an old blowhard in love with the sound of his own keyboard...

Regarding the smaller lab ship and keeping variants in mind, a design which is "mission configurable" would fit a larger number of uses. Yes, while the original lab ship has big honking lab spaces the referee could say was full of this, that, and whatever, it would be nice to have had a few "mix & match" deck plans of various lab spaces or ship missions.

For example, while the labs in Death Ship would have been "boring" chemical and animal handling/experimentation types, what about a ship operating ROVs investigating a gas giant and it's moons? Might the floor access plate in the main lab be replaced with a drone deployment port and part of that lab dedicated to drone handling, repair, and storage?

Riffing on CT's "Suleiman's in service carry varied equipment" and TNE's "cans & sockets" examples, a small lab ship with a 30dTon cutter module bay would be a way to present a deck plan with a myriad of uses. A lab ship meant to investigate this, that, or whatever would carry a this, that, or whatever cutter module as necessary.

Using cutter modules means the deck plan could use previously published modules too. GT even has an entire book devoted to them. The ability to carry module means that surplus or second hand vessels of this type might not be working as lab ships at all. Such ships might not be perfect or even efficient traders, freighters, or liners but sometimes any ship is better than no ship at all.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The above is not my idea. I am not creative. I steal and modify instead. My "thinking" about this was entirely informed by Walt Smith's superb Jump Pod design.

Finally, regarding the Leviathan, I neglected to mention that MANS, the Marches Naval Auxiliary Service, operates variants of that design too. Do the IN, subsector, or duchy fleets use them? What roles do they fill? What changes were needed?

 

[flykiller]

The bigger the ship, the more likely the ship becomes a location instead of "Our ship". Past a certain size, a ship becomes little more than an impersonal office building, mall, or base.

that would depend on the players and the game. "our base" sounds good to me.

I'll bet there's dozens of those [Jump 6 couriers] right now. probably one of the first things that anyone who draws up ships attempts.

Guilty.

capable.

 

[mike wightman]

Dale - which ship building rules do you plan to use? MgT HG2e or T5, or one of the legacy rule sets?
I ask because there is all sorts of mischief you can get away with if you go back to the original

200t J6 courier - LBB2 77 design
b......20t
j6.....35t (F)
m1.....1t (A)
pp1....4t (A)
fuel.130t
c2......2t
srx2...8t (do - p,e,e,m)
If each crew member could double up on skills then you could get away with only 2 crew, or how about a drone version that does away with the staterooms and replaces the crew with robots? You would gain 8t of space that could be used for an upgraded computer, low berths for transporting the usual thugs in cold sleep etc.

more useful 400t j6 courier - LBB2 77 design
b......20t
j6.....65t (M)
m1.....5t (C)
pp1...10t (C)
fuel.250t
c5......5t
srx6..24t (p,n,e,e,e,m)
21t left over
A government, megacorporation or very rich noble could make use of this design.

 

[Whipsnade]

that would depend on the players and the game. "our base" sounds good to me.

Over a certain size, diagrams are more useful than hex/graph paper. Over a certain size, you spend more time paging through a "map pack" than playing. Over a certain size, you only need to know Area A is connected to Area B by Corridor C and not the number of carpet tacks per square meter.

As you wisely note, however, just what the threshold for "over a certain size" is will depend on the players and game.

capable.

Like the others, my smallish jump6 courier designs were 600dTon too. True to form, the one I used the most was a "conceptual" rip-off of the packet boat in the IISS Ships Files. It was a relatively small and cramped central spine surrounded by several big honking fuel cylinders.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Dale - which ship building rules do you plan to use? MgT HG2e or T5, or one of the legacy rule sets?

MGT 2e. I'm most familiar with that rules set (well, ok, I'm more familiar with MGT 1e, but I like the power rules in 2e better). I haven't read T5 yet (let alone played a game in it).

 

[Whipsnade]

Dragging the thread further afield, I shoveled this out of my slush pile:

USP
EX-6461661-000000-00000-0 MCr 393.400 600 Tons
Bat Bear Crew: 6
Bat TL: 15

Cargo: 40.000 Frozen Watch (x2) Fuel: 396.000 EP: 36.000 Agility: 1

TONNAGE
600.000 tons standard, 8,400.000 cubic meters, Close Structure Configeration

CREW
Pilot, Navigator, 3 Engineers, Medic

ENGINEERING
Jump-6, 1G Manuever, Power plant-6, 36.000 EP, Agility 1

AVIONICS
Bridge, Model/6 Computer

HARDPOINTS
3 Hardpoints

ARMARMENT
3 None Empty Turret

DEFENCES
None

CRAFT
None

FUEL
366.000 Tons Fuel (6 parsecs jump and 30 days endurance)
No Fuel Scoops, No Fuel Purification Plant

MISCELLANEOUS
10.0 Staterooms, 8 Low Berths, 40.000 Tons Cargo

The "thinking" behind the design was to produce a "bare bones" jump6 courier using HG81. These are the ships the governments, the nobility, the military, the megacorps, and other "movers & shakers" use to get news before the rest of us. I thought such couriers would depend on existing infrastructure in the systems they connected. Not as much as the "legless" jump4 x-boats, but they couldn't land, would need interface craft, etc. I didn't give them six gee m-drives to save space and MCr figuring they'd "deliver" their "cargo" in normal space by radio/maser/laser.

ISTR that the additional staterooms were not for passenger capacity but to give the crew more elbow room. Passengers would more likely be carried "cold" through multiple jumps and. because the courier normally linked systems with the necessary operational supporting infrastructure, any passengers would be frozen and thawed by experts.

I do remember that the 40dTon cargo space would be most likely used for comm/data banks and very little "physical" freight.

Finally, an incredibly lousy diagram which was meant to get the basic "idea" of the courier as a "flying thumbtack" to my players. If an actual picture is worth a thousand words, this snapshot is maybe worth one and a half.

(The m-drive is at the bottom so the courier is flying "up" and thrust in perpendicular to the decks. Blue is fuel, red is drives and power plant, green is everything else.)

 

[mike wightman]

Ok, a 600t LBB2 77 version of a jump 6 courier:

b......20t
j6.....95t (T)
m1.....7t (D)
pp1...13t (D)
fuel.370t
c5......5t
srx7..28t (p,n,e,e,e,e,m)
62t left over

 

[flykiller]

62t left over

that's enough to house a noble diplomat team or a fleet command section.

 

[flykiller]

Over a certain size, you spend more time paging through a "map pack" than playing. Over a certain size, you only need to know Area A is connected to Area B by Corridor C and not the number of carpet tacks per square meter.

could take a vignette approach.

 

[warwizard]

I've done several designs in various rule sets based on the idea of what is the "rock" bottom priced design that can be produced. (competition for std A1 trader)

Parameters are that it needs to have near parity with the A1's base cargo capacity, without the passenger spaces, and designed to be operated by a crew of 1 person.
TL 8 asteroid hull with an imported TL 9 jump drive, oversized to jump with 200 tons, and a 100 dton de-mountable cargo module

Bridge 10 tons (10% of 100 tons)
Hull 20 tons (20% of 100 ton)
J1-drive 4 tons for 1 J1 at 200 dtons TL9
J fuel 20 tons for 1 J1 at 200 D-tons
1/2 stateroom 2 tons
M-1 drive 6 tons for 200 ton final config
P-1 plant if using T4...20 tons Fission
fission power plant, so PP fuel is actually avoided and it
is refueled once a year as part of the refit
bk 2 would be the standard P1 for 4 tons at 200 tons
with 20 Dt of PP fuel
Computer mod 1 1 ton
air lock 1 ton
100 tons or so with bk 2 and 96 tons with T4 with an internal 2 DT cargo bay with small cargo hatch and 2 Dt of maneuver
fuel

Cargo module 100 tons (buy used cargo module on the market and have the starport mount it)
hull and large cargo doors 2 tons
usable cargo volume 98 tons

Crewing calculations, T4 with the fission plant loses here due to needing more engineering space, may need to remove the internal cargo and add a 2nd stateroom

but with the hull and maneuver and power at B-8 you get discounts converting your impCr to the local, of course you can't make planet side deliveries unless the world is vacuum or asteroid.

Crew: 1 has pilot 3, navigation 3, engineering 3 (all at effective skill of 1 due to handling all the jobs)

Balance sheet based on two trips a month
Owner aboard no cost, hired crew (Cr 7,800)
Life support (Cr 4,000)
Jump fuel (Cr 20,000)
Starport docking fees and other expenses (CR 1,500)
cargo pay 98,000 X 2 Cr 196,000

Estimated ship's cost is 20 million IMP Cr so (Cr 40,000) for a payment...

net perhaps Cr 133,000 not calculating the annual refit, it becomes apparent that this ship can be quite the money maker even on less good routes

 

[McPerth]

So I'm planning future releases and sooner or later I am going to be doing a ship book. What do you want to see more of in a ship book?

I guess the answer to this question comes from the answer to another one: what kind of use do you make of Traveller rules?

For those who moslty use for RPG, I guess ships over 1000 tons are only background (unless they are the setting), while players' ships use to be under 400.

For those playing a more strategical game (let's say a TCS campign like the Islands one), larger ships are needed.

As in the latter case, part of the fun of the game is designing your own ships and fleets, my guess is that published ones should focus on smaller tonnages, those called adventure class (moslty under 400 tons, some may be up to 1000), as those are the ships likely to be used by them.

Larger ships would be assumed to be, either as background or, in the case of the Navy, as a threat to remember them that if law and order is maintained is because someone cares about it (and better not to confront them). In neither case you need them in detail (if your free trader or Gazelle confronts a Cruiser, just begin chargen again).

The main exception, as told above, would be if the campaign in focussed on a large ship as setting, with most of the adventures occurring inside of it. Of course, in this case it sould be designed and mapped in detail (á la AHL).

 

[Whipsnade]

... asteroid hull...

I loved planetoid hulls and designed a bunch of them back in the day for all kinds of uses.

Sadly, what we know about planetoids now as opposed to 1979 means planetoid hulls can't be as cheap or as strong as HG2 makes them out to be.

While this was discussed as T5 was being fashioned, I don't recall what changes were made.

All that being said, it's a great design with some nice "out of the box" thinking behind it.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I guess the answer to this question comes from the answer to another one: what kind of use do you make of Traveller rules?

Personally, I use them for roleplaying, just to give the players a place to point to to say, "I'm here." We don't do minis so they just point to the room and not the square.

But that's me. I never assume my experience is the same as anyone else's. Which is why I am asking.

 

[Limburger59]

[*] We need a survey companion to the Suleiman and Donosev. There are already a few 1000+ dTon designs. What's needed is a "bridge" between those and the Donosev.

Agree. Only ship I ever designed in detail (back in 1981) was a Super-S class Scout.

 

[Whipsnade]

Agree. Only ship I ever designed in detail (back in 1981) was a Super-S class Scout.

Do you remember anything about the design? No need for detailed deck plans or even a USP, general stuff like size or performance would still be interesting.

 

[warwizard]

I posted the single player ship as an example that it only needs two people to play traveller. Single player ships without NPC's are very very rare in the traveller lexicon. As we age out it becomes harder to get 5 people together, so that's my input: Ships that can be run by a single player and that can make their loan payments on perhaps 1 jump a month.

 

[Whipsnade]

I posted the single player ship as an example that it only needs two people to play traveller. Single player ships without NPC's are very very rare in the traveller lexicon. As we age out it becomes harder to get 5 people together, so that's my input: Ships that can be run by a single player and that can make their loan payments on perhaps 1 jump a month.

Indeed. That's why I wrote that it's a great design with some nice "out of the box" thinking behind it.

 

[flykiller]

Single player ships without NPC's are very very rare in the traveller lexicon.

? s-class scout ships have always been held to be one-man operable, and they're ubiquitous. and by the same token the agzlu-class cargo boat (link below) is also one-man operable, if one requires a one-man cargo boat.

in any case there's always robots and automation.

 

[mike wightman]

With T5/AotI wafers you don't even need the robots, just a wafer interface and the relevant skill programs.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Dale, I chose Other and LOTS of detail. Things I specifically would like to see:

Grain Ships of the Imperium - "The Spice...er...The Grain Must Flow" :rofl:
Just what are the bulk commerce cruisers that make the Imperium go? Are they 2,000,000,000 200,000 or 20,000 dtons? Are they "riders" with cargo modules? What are the surface interface ships like?

Speaking of modular ships...ressurrect the Brilliant Gem Class ships or a the King Richard some other cruiser line. With deck plans... I still have mine, but I may buy a new one.

Solomani Naval ships: CT talks of Fixed Mounts, MgT talks of small overburdened ships and hulking battlewagons with few in-between tonnages. And the Project Phoenix asteroid cruisers with frozen crews in the Terra system....

Aslan Ships: Standard Clan Navy ships vs ihatei ships? With the gender assigned roles, are Aslan ships arranged different? Are female areas lean and austere and male areas hand crafted and full of grafitti ?

Things like that.