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

[dmccoy1693]

So it would seem that "Huge Civilian Ships (Tankers, Massive Cargo Ships, Giant Cruise Ships, Flying Cities)" is a solid #3 answer at this point. How are you interested in these? Do you want them as an adventure that takes place on one? Or would you rather have it as a set piece with lots of NPCs detailed so you can set your own adventures there? Or what?

 

[Condottiere]

How much is the return on investment of the time spent fleshing them out?

Mongoose First did an impressive job trying to make that work; Mongoose Second came to a different conclusion.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

My responses are for new ships that players will interact with or ships for unusual player groups because no one has done them before.

My personal feeling is that there are too many PC ships out. In-universe there would be gazillions of designs out, but ultimately each has gaming details that are identical except for deckplans. IRL more ships for PCs takes away from Players or referees handcrafting the one ship they will be using most of the time.

Pirates? What do they raid? Thus the need for bulk carriers. Few have detailed them before. New pirates will go after them until pickings become slimmer, megacorps get wise and move assets out and patrol craft move in...

Specifically, Aslan have cultural issues that I think impact design. Besides gender, there was a previous post indicating that ihatei ships are outdated ships. Finally Aslan Max TL is 14 so i think that ships will have different characteristics.

Solomani similarly have historical and cultural issues that impact design. Having fixed mounts implies ships have to have higher manueverability (Higher G/Thrust or Agility depending on system) or they cannot point weapons as properly. The tonnage spread disparity implies smaller ships in the 600-5000 range have to be more Swiss Army knife ships perhaps.

What about Zhodani ships? There was mention of psionic switches. How about a Zhodani psionic boarding craft that makes it easier for psions to mess with Imperials.

Also design constraints could be a challenge for a creative guy like you Dave

 

[Condottiere]

Solomani design aesthetics seems to be Star Wars.

Zhodani perhaps Star Trek.

 

[flykiller]

So it would seem that "Huge Civilian Ships (Tankers, Massive Cargo Ships, Giant Cruise Ships, Flying Cities)" is a solid #3 answer at this point. How are you interested in these?

betcha it's mostly the "giant cruise ships" and "flying cities" part.

Do you want them as an adventure that takes place on one? Or would you rather have it as a set piece with lots of NPCs detailed so you can set your own adventures there? Or what?

design it with several full adventures and several hinted adventures. this will cover all customer bases AND aid you in designing it.

 

[lego zhodani]

For the giant ships it would be cruise ships and maybe a generic hauler ship.

For the smaller stuff 400-1000, lots of options I'd like. Hospital/aid ships. Passenger ships. A good size players passenger/cargo ship for that step up to running a whole business. New lab ship.

Also I REALLY like to see some ships from the Federation. Hiver Federation that is. Plenty of races lurking within the Fed, and maybe a different approach to ships and trade.

 

[Whipsnade]

So it would seem that "Huge Civilian Ships (Tankers, Massive Cargo Ships, Giant Cruise Ships, Flying Cities)" is a solid #3 answer at this point. How are you interested in these? Do you want them as an adventure that takes place on one? Or would you rather have it as a set piece with lots of NPCs detailed so you can set your own adventures there? Or what?

Something along the lines of FASA's King Richard? If so, we've firmly crossed the line between "ship" and "location". The question now becomes how much of such a product's content should be dedicated to pages of deck plan grids and how much should dedicated to NPCs, situations, adventure seeds, descriptions, depictions, and the like.

IMHO, the more the product resembles a repetitive "map pack" the less likely it will useful to most people.

Modular deck plans can limit this "map pack" tendency. AHL uses 15(?) deckplans to detail the 80+(?) story AHL "skyscraper". Using MT's 20K dTon common Imperial transport as an example, that vessel could be presented using a few deck plans detailing the forward dome and engineering sections on their outriggers along with a single repeated deck plan for the huge cylindrical cargo section.

Similarly, a product featuring the King Richard 2 luxury liner would have deck plans for bridge, engineering control room, various kinds of staterooms, dining rooms, casinos, and so forth along with a diagram showing where all those example are located. There's no need to detail each of the 500 staterooms on each of the 25 Lido Decks when all you need do is show a block of 4 or so along with a simple diagram of the decks and their locations within the ship.

Modular style deckplans can also be use for other purposes. In an earlier post, Mike wisely pointed out how AHL's/i] modular nature allowed him to re-skin deckplans for various uses. I know I did the same, I'm certain others did too, and there's an MT era adventure in Challenge which used an AHL re-skin.

 

[flykiller]

Modular deck plans

vignettes

 

[flykiller]

well here's a good one.

 

[Whipsnade]

I love Rigel's work. It's chocked full of crunchy detailed bits.

Sadly, none of his deck plans used any of Traveller's ship construction systems.

 

[flykiller]

Sadly, none of his deck plans used any of Traveller's ship construction systems.

how many traveller players would notice?

 

[Whipsnade]

Mine would. They were always interested in "pimping their ride".

Then again, that was the type of game we played.

 

[Timerover51]

What I am working on is some smaller ships with more than the Jump-2 capability of the Scout or Far Trader.

 

[flykiller]

What I am working on is some smaller ships with more than the Jump-2 capability of the Scout or Far Trader.

are they going someplace?

 

[warwizard]

I've done a 200 Dton ship that has drop tanks and can be grappled by various sized cargo modules. The jump drive is way oversized and can J-6 the base 200 ton hull.

14 tons of Jump drive, at 2% means it can have a 500 dton cargo module with perhaps 475 Dtons of cargo at J-1

3% gives 266 Dton cargo module with perhaps 240 Dt of cargo at J-2

4% gives 150 Dton cargo module with perhaps 125 Dton of cargo * at J-3 * Note at this point and below it is more efficient to have the grapples on the ship in any case de mountable cargo , saves 20 Dtons for the grapples, but you lose the advantage of just unclamping from the cargo , add a drop tank and a new cargo module and go.

5% gives you just a 80 ton module with 55 or so cargo space at J-4

6% gives a tiny 33 Dton cargo module with perhaps 10 Dtons of cargo at J-5

Jump fuel use is never more than 120 Dt of the 200 ton at J-6 at all configurations.

This ship is used with local trade offices that preposition tugs and outbound cargo module and drop tanks, that meet with the ship and service the ship with consumables and swap off the cargo modules and drop tank, backs off and watches you jump, if the drop tank survives it to is collected and refurbished.

This ship is more of a background type of detail, it gets in perhaps 3 jumps a month, making more money with that expensive jump drive, and can dead head back to the start of the run at J-6. Allowing you to use a 6 world main that is profitable only in one direction. The last world accumulates 500 Dton cargo modules, so you may see local infrastructure built out of the cargo modules that end up there.

 

[flykiller]

a <j>6 world main

... are there any of those? a deep-space refueling station set up one parsec off of palique will support a double j6 between mora and trin, but that's not really a "main", and there doesn't seem to be any significant call for j6 routes anywhere else.

 

[Whipsnade]

I think warwizard was suggesting a six worlds in a row. The ship would jump one parsec from A to B, B to C, C to D, and so on with 500 dT modules. Once it reached F, it would jump six parsecs back to A basically empty to begin the route again.

What I don't understand is why such a route would work or even exist.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Speaking of ships that have no reason to exist

Here's one that's just silly:
Use the LBB2 design rules, and HG'81 drop tank rules, and you get this rift-jumping gem:

Start with a 400Td, J5/1G ship. Add 1430Td of drop tanks, as 830Td, 400Td, and 200Td respectively. Note that with the drop tanks installed, the ship cannot maneuver. Also note that the 830Td tank has only 810T of fuel capacity, as it also includes 20T of additional control systems (this is half of the 2% "bridge" requirement needed for a "2000"Td ship -- the other half is the 20T bridge of the 400Td ship).

Here's how it goes:
- Do 3x J1 in the 1830Td configuration. (Cumulative distance: 3 parsecs)
- Drop 830Td tank/controls during J2. (Cumulative distance: 5 parsecs)
- Do another J2 in the 1000Td configuration. (Cumulative distance: 7 parsecs)
- Drop 400Td tank during J3. (Cumulative distance: 10 parsecs)
- Drop 200Td tank during J5. (Cumulative distance: 15 parsecs)
- Do one last J5 from the ship's own tanks. After the jump, the ship has burned its entire jump fuel allocation and 32.5T of the 50T fuel reserved for the power plant.
(Cumulative distance: 20 parsecs; elapsed time, 8 weeks.)

Impressive, isn't it?
It's averaged Jump 2.5, and cost Cr644,000 for the discarded drop tanks and auxiliary controls alone,on a one-way, one-shot run.

Here's why it's silly: Why would anyone do it this way rather than using a pre-positioned fuel cache? Put a filled 200Td drop tank and a 225Td cache tank to refill the ship at the halfway point, and you get the same trip in 4 weeks.


Notes:
*J1 for "2000"Td is 200T fuel. Pn=1 in this configuration, and 1 week at Pn-1 takes 2.5T fuel, x3 for three consecutive 1-week Jumps. (3/4 of the 10T required for 1 month at Pn-1)
** Pn=2 in this configuration, 1 wk @ Pn-2 takes 5T fuel. (1/4 of the 20T required for 1 month at Pn-2)
*** Pn=3 in this configuration (and so on).

Using HG and starting with a 331Td, J6 ship (TL 15), I got 19 parsecs in 6 weeks (1158Td all-up, with tanks of 463T, 163T, 203T (463Td includes the extra "bridge" allocation and a carried tug to be left behind before the first jump) in sequential drop order. Jumps were 2J1, 1J2 (while dropping 463Td tank/controls/tug bay), 1J3 (while dropping 163Td tank), 1J6 (while dropping 203Td tank), 1J6 (ship's own fuel).

 

[warwizard]

... are there any of those? a deep-space refueling station set up one parsec off of palique will support a double j6 between mora and trin, but that's not really a "main", and there doesn't seem to be any significant call for j6 routes anywhere else.

Actually following the main into district 268 the worlds get pretty poor, but as long as you are moving from higher tech to lower tech each step you can make a living, but that works only in one direction (using megatraveller trade rules in the computer game I found this one way effect was quite pronounced)
and Whipsnade is quite correct, visit several worlds along a route that is 6 parsecs long then jump back to the start is intended, not all the trading jumps have to be J1 though. Consider the route Glisten J1 to Overnale, J2 to Egypt, J2 to Binges, J2 to Tarkine, J2 to FORINE and J6 back to Glisten. you travel 9 parsecs outbound and 6 back

Additionally the modules do not need to be containerized goods, they could be passenger modules , bulk liquids, bulk powders (think grain), ferry module for other ships... and the list goes on.

 

[nobby-w]

Mostly I do 'small ship' universes precisely because large ships are not much use for an actual party unless you really feel like running a gaggle of NPCs for the crew. Here are some examples of 'small ships' suitable for a RPG-focussed universe that I've done in the past.

• A300 trader - J2, M2 or M3 trader, essentially a 'stretched' free trader. This has two hard points, no auxiliaries except an air/raft and various configurations of cargo and passenger space, depending on the variant. Also, a milspec variant of same for use as a tactical transport. This might have upgraded electronics, perhaps a larger power plant to drive a couple of triple laser turrets or some other enhancements. Occasionally they might fall into the hands of pirates, adventurers or other riffraff.
• R400, R600, R800 - J2/M2 or J3/M2 streamlined merchants with a small auxiliary. Like the type-R but more range. 600 and 800-ton hulls also have Jump-3 variants.
• Ilthari tailstanding merchant (600 or 800 tons). This is a TL10-11 J2 ship that lands on its manoeuvre drives. It was designed for a lower tech fall-of-second-imperium setting.
• 260t J3, 4G or 5G (depending on tech level) lightweight patrol cruiser. This is widely used by poorer worlds in less developed areas and occasionally finds its way into the hands of pirates. It has reasonable armament - 2x triple turrets, or 2t laser barbettes if you want to use variant rules that support this sort of thing, but no auxiliaries.
• 'Family cruiser' - A modular 2,000-8000 ton family of un-streamlined merchant ships. Mine were TL11 (because of the setting) but you could use other tech levels. If you use the CT High guard rules, you can get J2, M2, P2, bridge, PP fuel, crew accommodations, auxiliary craft and other sundry items into 20% of the hull. The ships are then built up with 200t-400t modules containing fuel, cargo, passengers or other payload. In this case, jump fuel needed to be carried in a module and you can flex the range by carrying additional fuel modules. Called 'Family cruisers' because the design was widely used by minor noble families in the Ziru Sirka (IMTU) and the design persisted through the second imperium.
• M3/M4 scout - The stock type-S is more of an accident of the Book 2 design system than something that anyone might actually build. This is essentially a type-S built with High Guard. It's got M-3 or M-4 and a more useful cargo capacity, depending on the variant. Essentially it takes the type-S and turns it into something that can carry more payload than just a party of adventurers.
• Hypershuttles - 100-150t civilian jump capable craft used for executive transport or other small payloads.
• Logistics freighter - 1,000-2,000t merchants that carry payload in the form of cutter modules, plus 2-3 cutters to land the modules.
• 1,500-2,000t variants on the mercenary cruiser. These have the payload to carry a company sized unit, plus 3-4 cutters to land them. In addition, they have a 50t missile bay (or a mass driver, or maybe a meson gun at really high tech levels) to provide orbital artillery support.
• Between two and half a dozen various streamlined merchant types in widespread use, sitting in the 250-750t range.
• Half a dozen 'export' grade variants of light naval patrol craft in the 400-1,000t range. For a 3I setting these should sit around TL12-13 but have mediocre electronics. Same with 40-80t heavy fighters and system defense boats in the 200-700t range. IMTU I house-ruled that a single 50t bay could take up 5 slots on a sub-1,000t ship so you could make a 700t SDB with a 50t bay and some secondary armament.
• 2-3 common corvette or frigate designs in the 1,500-3,000t range. These are really just to park somewhere that you want your party to think twice about getting up to shenanigans, or for actual naval campaigns.
• Heavy lift shuttles in the 200-400t range, for cargo transfer on worlds that don't have a high port.
• Other unstreamlined freighters in the 1,000-3,000t range, plus a handful of larger designs for background or as a setting for an adventure.
• A 50t, 4g pinnace.
• Armed 30t-50t close patrol boats or customs cutters. These would be a staple of small space navies.
• 15t 'Lighter' - a small passenger transfer shuttle with about 3g-4g of manouevre.
• Took the single missile bay 1,000-ish ton, J3/6G interceptor (staple of TCS fleets) and turned it into a more rounded out interceptor at 1,250t with two secondary laser turrets. Interesting because you could encounter it in situations where the captain doesn't have authority to fire off MCR10's worth of missiles at random neer-do-wells and has to use their secondary armament only. Downside is that you can't run away as it's pretty much the fastest thing in known space. Where are you going to hide?