Hammer Class 100 ton Merchant
- Thread starter Beerfume
- Start date
Don't forget that those canonical deck plans are for the stripped down detached duty version.
There's a ~8 dTon space aft port outboard of the engineering space of which S:7 explicitly states: serves many purposes; on scouts, it carries laboratory and senors equipment; on couriers, it carries communications equipment and data banks; on detached duty ships, it is cleared out and becomes a lounge for the crew.
There's the ~12 dTon storage section of the upper galley too.
IMTU both space are used to "pimp" in-service Suleiman-class for particular missions, much like much how Flower was 'customized" in Recovery Mission.
S:7 also uses the scout/courier's (in)famous air system to give us a suggestion regarding the trade-off involved in "pimping". The air system aboard becomes obnoxious within 3 to 6 weeks. Temporary fixes like flushing the systems or replacing the air aboard require parts and a "... plentiful supply of breathable air'. A real fix, one that extends the air system's and thus the ship's endurance requires money, time, and the loss of 1 dTon cargo space.
It's always a case of TANSTAAFL and canny referees should use the players' desire for increased endurance for their ship as a hook.
I could see a game based off actual exploration. Enough cargo space to make it profitable and if you had a med bay you'd be set for either a good will effort or those crazy ickies that strange planets come with.
atopllard, I can see this down by Steel or past Sacnoth or Gram.
No, I've given up on produced modules. The old ones I've read lately are so heavy on pushing the PCs to have made bad decisions to get shafted that I can't see why anyone would play Traveller after playing a module or two.
I'm more the "An expedition is funded to head that way and gather detailed current data. See you in a couple months."
I can too. In fact, I've run one.
What I cannot see is an exploration game which directly pays the mortgage. Note, the word directly.
"Day to day" profitable, enough to buy food, supplies, samples, and whatnot. Enough to grease palms in needed. Maybe enough to offset salaries. Not enough to pay the mortgage though.
Exploration is speculation. For every Golden Hind - which was more of a corsair mission than an exploration one - there were dozens and dozens of voyages which failed financially or otherwise.
An exploration could come back with a Big Score; dTons of unobtanium, Ancient artifacts, lost military payrolls, fat free cocktail weenies, stuff that can be turned into immediate cash. Most often however, exploration is going to bring back information which can be turned into the Big or Steady Score.
We're looking at the Keith's Scotian Huntress here. She and her crew 'boldly go" while the company back home pays the mortgage.
Both very good reasons. Good will can also turn into good trade. You cure a couple of people every time you visit and suddenly you've got an unofficial trade monopoly with the villages that produce the ivory, furs, ambergris, or whatever you can sell at insane profits.
AT's focus on Proto means this can work almost anywhere. Only certain worlds will have scheduled ship traffic. All the rest are "off the grid" and not too well known.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
That describes CT Adventure 4 Leviathan almost perfectly.
Here is an unexplored subsector right next to the Spinward Marches, go explore and find trade routes that will make your company rich.
Agreed. That was in my head but the head cold prevented it from getting to the keyboard. Like you also mentioned, information would be the primary product, followed by contacts.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I could think of one way those ships could pay for themselves- if the Scouts are not a government service but are private explorers that are renumerated through platting new worlds and selling rights accrued.
You don't get the platting and effectively owning the real estate by just orbiting the planet with survey cams/sats- instead you must thoroughly survey and recon it, including biome opportunities and threats. SO that means a small crew is only going to IMO plat city sized lands every week or so.
It will go at frontier land prices, but the ship's company can make bank, and possibly hold onto a few blocks for long-term speculation.
You don't get the platting and effectively owning the real estate by just orbiting the planet with survey cams/sats- instead you must thoroughly survey and recon it, including biome opportunities and threats. SO that means a small crew is only going to IMO plat city sized lands every week or so.
It will go at frontier land prices, but the ship's company can make bank, and possibly hold onto a few blocks for long-term speculation.
I appreciate that Traveller ships are ultimately just puddle jumpers, not Constitution-class explorers, but still. Will that do if your engineer sucks a lungful of leaking coolant, or someone falls down a ladder and breaks a leg, or one of your passengers (you know, the one who is very well connected) has a heart attack...?
Popsicle time. Or Fast Drug. In the case of the Heart Attack, possibly both...
Seriously.
Having a sickbay exposes you to a KCr12.5 per month loss, plus it requires a better trained medic to make full use of it... So, add another KCr1 to KCr4 per month there.
And a crafty GM is going to hold the ship liable for the standard of care based upon expected level of care for the facilities present. No Medbay, just a medic? Popsicle is fine for anything past BCLS . Sickbay? minimum ACLS and minor surgery... and all the liability that a corner care clinic has... and still, if he dies on the table, you STILL freeze him, just in case.
Keep in mind: Time spent in low berth doesn't count for the "Magic Hour" for saving a 000xxx character, either. If you can unfreeze him at a major medical center, he's likely to survive (surgeon is going to be Medical 4+, Dex 9+). If you treat him in the bay, you don't have the major medical center, so it's the medic and a clinic... for about half the mods IIRC. (The time taken to freeze them does count, tho', as does the thaw time...)
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
Which is why merchies that travel at least moderate pop and TL delivery routes won't want one. On the other hand, out on the bleeding edge of the frontier, where major medical facilities aren't available at every stop (or even every 3rd stop), having a "circuit rider" doctor with med bay can be at least a public service, and likely to be highly profitable, even if the profit is in partially worked claims and small land grants.
Good discussion as always everyone. I feel the need to jump in and while not exactly defend my design, at least give you all an understanding of my design process. Unfortunately I'm about to head out the door and will be out for a week or so, so that will have to wait.
I think it's interesting that everyone is making valid points, even when there is disagreement. With regards to the whole issue of a med bay on a small merchant ship, it seems the strongest arguments have to do with the cost - primarily of paying a medic, and less to do with the space occupied. One or two low berths - at least the way I represent them on a deck plan - would take up the same volume.
From a gaming standpoint, I tend to agree with alveric on this issue. The games I've been a part of almost always involved gunfire. A general rule we had was that if a character went to the hospital with weapon wounds they had to roll local law level or greater to avoid getting the police involved. Since we did a lot of shady stuff in those days, our ships tended to have some medical facility.
So what are everyone's thoughts about having and autodoc in place of a paid medic? I don't have any cost or volume stats in front of me, but I recall in my earliest gaming days we often had an autodoc. I'm guessing even that could be given up in lieu of a ship's locker well stocked with Fast Drug. Any thoughts?
Have a good week everyone!
I think it's interesting that everyone is making valid points, even when there is disagreement. With regards to the whole issue of a med bay on a small merchant ship, it seems the strongest arguments have to do with the cost - primarily of paying a medic, and less to do with the space occupied. One or two low berths - at least the way I represent them on a deck plan - would take up the same volume.
From a gaming standpoint, I tend to agree with alveric on this issue. The games I've been a part of almost always involved gunfire. A general rule we had was that if a character went to the hospital with weapon wounds they had to roll local law level or greater to avoid getting the police involved. Since we did a lot of shady stuff in those days, our ships tended to have some medical facility.
So what are everyone's thoughts about having and autodoc in place of a paid medic? I don't have any cost or volume stats in front of me, but I recall in my earliest gaming days we often had an autodoc. I'm guessing even that could be given up in lieu of a ship's locker well stocked with Fast Drug. Any thoughts?
Have a good week everyone!
From a gaming standpoint I do also. However...
... I don't believe every group operating a Hammer-class is routinely or even occasionally involved in gunfire. Furthermore...
... I don't believe every group operating a Hammer-class is routinely or even occasionally involved in shady stuff either.
I've always held that one of Traveller's unique concepts is that PCs and NPCs are fundamentally alike. Apart from T20, there are no levels, feats, or any of the D&D and D&D-inspired stuff that treats NPCs as lesser beings whom the PCs can easily butcher in boatloads without getting a hangnail.
In Traveller, what set's the PCs apart is their attitudes and actions. They don't behave or perceive risks in the same manner as Eneri Q. Polloi. That means their ship is going to have a medic and/or sickbay while the standard design does not have one.
Whenever I see a deck plan, I treat it as a standard (or "pre-pimped") layout of the ship design in question. A Beowulf can have a sickbay, but the PCs are the ones who had it retrofitted and the PCs are the ones paying for it.
IMTU outside of military/paramilitary designs which already have them, medbays are a piece of customization which the PCs either looked for before purchasing the ship or had done after they customized the ship.
I've never seen good rules for an autodoc, including my own. Thanks to reading Niven, I was using autodocs about 0.062 seconds after we finally began using Traveller as an RPG.
My chief complaint regarding autodocs is the usual one: TANSTAAFL. Let me digress a bit to explain.
One of MgT's few accomplishments has to do with stewards. Despite the benefits and requirements involved, I could never get my players to take the position seriously. They'd always hire one as soon as possible or buy a steward robot and then ignore both until I pressed the point. MgT introduced an option which obviated the need for a steward by letting PCs purchasing vaguely described "equipment" or "automation".
While that's a great idea, MgT naturally failed to implement it correctly because it's one time fee. After a certain period, paying a steward is going to be more expensive than buying the equipment. That's when the equipment becomes essentially "free". TANSTAAFL.
Autodocs are pretty much the same; a one time purchase that eventually is cheaper than keeping a medic on the payroll. There might be a "cost" in the form of dedicated volume, but autodocs are small-scale Santa Claus machines in that they "earn" the PCs money.
IMTU, autodocs require specialized supplies in regular intervals - whether the 'doc has been used or not. IMTU, autodocs require specialized maintenance and overhauls at regular intervals. IMTU, autodocs are going to cost you about the same as having a medic on the payroll. TANSTAAFL.
Getting back to your superb deckplans, I would have added an aside stating something like "The crew of the "Concussive Maintenance" has fitted out the fourth stateroom as a med bay."
Of course, whether I would have added that or not is of no consequence.
Both excellent points. One of the problems I've had while cleaning up my old deck plans is all the variants that come to mind. It's impractical to draw them all up and post each one. I'll take this approach in the future. Thanks!
I agree with everything you said regarding autodocs. Like any equipment it requires regular maintenance and resupply relative to its usage (or maybe not even relative to its usage - drugs have a shelf life after all). No freebies.
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Ships in the Imperial core do not have to worry about pirates, random gunplay and the other stuff that make life so much fun on the frontier.
In a frontier sector like the Spinward Marches, where you may end up jumping to out of the way systems far from standard trade route/x-boat links then precautions such as fitting out that hardpoint with a turret and converting a stateroom to a medbay + autodoc may well be very sensible decisions.
Whipsnade's suggestion is spot on IMHO.
In a frontier sector like the Spinward Marches, where you may end up jumping to out of the way systems far from standard trade route/x-boat links then precautions such as fitting out that hardpoint with a turret and converting a stateroom to a medbay + autodoc may well be very sensible decisions.
Whipsnade's suggestion is spot on IMHO.
can bring a medic out into the field with you. can't bring an autodoc.
actions and location seem more relevant than perception. few heading to AF Upag on business or holiday are going to think of bringing a medic or autodoc. most heading to 00 875-496 for exploration are going to think about bringing a medic and/or autodoc.
yep.
Then what is the benefit, if any, of the autodoc? As others have mentioned, a medic can go in to the field. Which means the medic can drag your sorry butt home from the bar after a night of carousing.
What levels of autodocs do you have? The "take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning"? The "It's strep, or an ear infection -- here's an anti-biotic" version? A "trauma doc", flop the unconscious, bleeding form on the bed, and press the button while the doc starts cutting off clothes, clamping, suturing, warming, defibrillating until the patient is stable?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
How about the 'grow new clone body and download last personality copy into it' model.
Should be standard issue in T5 (along with Hop Drive)
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