Cepheus Engine Only 10 Ton Jump ship

[Marcatlas]

So I decided to make a TU where Jump drives could work with <100 ton hulls. I extrapolated the Drive size by applying the same ratio used for the M drive size difference between 100 DT and above ships and small craft for a given performance value (Small craft JD size chart attached).

I then designed a TL 12 10 ton jump ship. Basically it would end up being like a large RV with all the living amenities. I'm attaching the design sheet and a quick deck plan.

 

[casquilho]

Hum, J1 x-boat?

 

[Marcatlas]

Hum, J1 x-boat?

?

 

[Condottiere]

More like torpedo.

If Cepheus is based on Mongoose First, there should be minimum tonnages.

And I'm a little dubious whether a cockpit has jump drive controls.

 

[Marcatlas]

More like torpedo.

If Cepheus is based on Mongoose First, there should be minimum tonnages.

reread my post.

 

[casquilho]

?

The 100 ton jump six ship used like a SciFi pony express?

I was thinking they were similar in that they were mostly fuel and engine with very little room for the pilot. Jump with that and you spend a week in a soda can kind of effect. I am not saying this as a negative, just a similar feeling and thus I was thinking how it might be used. What role would it play?

 

[Marcatlas]

The 100 ton jump six ship used like a SciFi pony express?

I was thinking they were similar in that they were mostly fuel and engine with very little room for the pilot. Jump with that and you spend a week in a soda can kind of effect. I am not saying this as a negative, just a similar feeling and thus I was thinking how it might be used. What role would it play?

Oh! Yes, you're right. It would be a very similar experience for the pilot. The place it would sit in the market would be as a jump capable yacht for the lowest strata of millionaires or upper end of the middle class. Otherwise, one must be VERY much wealthier to own a jump capable ship.

Another use would be for less expensive electronic communications between star systems. This ship costs about 20% of what a comparable (J1) 100 ton starship costs. Thus a gov't could operate 5 times more frequent "mail" runs between systems 1 parsec away for about the same cost. Another is corporate transport. A lot more companies could afford their own ships for executive business travel than with only having 100 ton+ ships available

 

[Marcatlas]

And I'm a little dubious whether a cockpit has jump drive controls.

20% of the tonnage is in the Bridge (cockpit) on this craft as opposed to 10% for a 100 ton ship. Ya, it has enough bridge allocation. Add to that the Model 1 Comp. needed for J1.

 

[atpollard]

20% of the tonnage is in the Bridge (cockpit) on this craft as opposed to 10% for a 100 ton ship. Ya, it has enough bridge allocation. Add to that the Model 1 Comp. needed for J1.

For most people’s IMTU “worldview”, there are more minimums to a Jump capable ship than just the 100 dTon hull and your bridge would probably raise eyebrows (most adopt the 10dT or 20dT starship bridge of the rules system as a minimum). There is also common disagreement over 1dT minimum for MD/PP/JD as absolute minimums - or TL minimums per the specific rules version.

That said (there will ALWAYS be naysayers), CE is by its nature a bit of an edition/houserule Chimera and THIS SHIP is 100% in character for ANY UNIVERSE where the OTU Jump Torpedo still exists (shattering all objections). I would not want to spend a week locked in the back of a U-Haul … but that’s just me.

 

[Marcatlas]

For most people’s IMTU “worldview”, there are more minimums to a Jump capable ship than just the 100 dTon hull and your bridge would probably raise eyebrows (most adopt the 10dT or 20dT starship bridge of the rules system as a minimum).

Well, a 20 ton bridge on a 20 ton ship wouldn't work, would it?

 

[infojunky]

For most people’s IMTU “worldview”, there are more minimums to a Jump capable ship than just the 100 dTon hull and your bridge would probably raise eyebrows (most adopt the 10dT or 20dT starship bridge of the rules system as a minimum). There is also common disagreement over 1dT minimum for MD/PP/JD as absolute minimums - or TL minimums per the specific rules version.

That said (there will ALWAYS be naysayers), CE is by its nature a bit of an edition/houserule Chimera and THIS SHIP is 100% in character for ANY UNIVERSE where the OTU Jump Torpedo still exists (shattering all objections). I would not want to spend a week locked in the back of a U-Haul … but that’s just me.

Ok, I abandoned the 100 minimum sooo many years ago. Well in the TNE period for sure.

But this is Trav....I mean CE... What you do in your game is cool, tell us how it works out...

 

[Rupert]

Ok, I abandoned the 100 minimum sooo many years ago. Well in the TNE period for sure.

But this is Trav....I mean CE... What you do in your game is cool, tell us how it works out...

Well TNE just said that the drive must be no smaller than 2 cubic metres, so using the RAW in TNE/FF&S a ship might be as small as 28.6 m^3 in volume at TL15 (just over 2 DTons).

 

[Grav_Moped]

20% of the tonnage is in the Bridge (cockpit) on this craft as opposed to 10% for a 100 ton ship. Ya, it has enough bridge allocation. Add to that the Model 1 Comp. needed for J1.

My way around this (for the The Littlest Starship discussion, derived from a 10-12Td Jump Torpedo in the context of LBB5'81) was to extend the LBB5 "Computer as Small Craft Bridge, downrated by 1 Mod/#" rule to Starship Bridges if the computer was downrated two Mod/#s. That was just to make the concept possible at all (if you're going to allow j-torps at all, that's how you do them in CT rules other than '77.)

Then, for The Littlest Starship Goes A-Trading, (same general idea but 100Td and variant LBB2'81) allowing a 4Td small craft bridge (at starship bridge cost) and a downrated computer (by only 1 Mod/#) to substitute for the standard 20Td/2% starship bridge. The premise for that is that there's part of the bridge that can be miniaturized at a cost (down to the 4Td minimum SC bridge size) and a part than can only be miniaturized further at ludicrous cost (two extra computer mod #s).

 

[Marcatlas]

My way around this (for the The Littlest Starship discussion, derived from a 10-12Td Jump Torpedo in the context of LBB5'81) was to extend the LBB5 "Computer as Small Craft Bridge, downrated by 1 Mod/#" rule to Starship Bridges if the computer was downrated two Mod/#s. That was just to make the concept possible at all (if you're going to allow j-torps at all, that's how you do them in CT rules other than '77.)

Then, for The Littlest Starship Goes A-Trading, (same general idea but 100Td and variant LBB2'81) allowing a 4Td small craft bridge (at starship bridge cost) and a downrated computer (by only 1 Mod/#) to substitute for the standard 20Td/2% starship bridge. The premise for that is that there's part of the bridge that can be miniaturized at a cost (down to the 4Td minimum SC bridge size) and a part than can only be miniaturized further at ludicrous cost (two extra computer mod #s).

I understand rules wise but it makes it all but impossible at 40% of hull being bridge

 

[atpollard]

Ok, I abandoned the 100 minimum sooo many years ago. Well in the TNE period for sure.

But this is Trav....I mean CE... What you do in your game is cool, tell us how it works out...

For ME (and in MY Universe), the bugbear is always the stupid STARSHIP BRIDGE.

I have an issue in CT with the 20dT minimum BRIDGE in a 100 dT Scout or 200 dT Free Trader. Try taking a set of deckplans and a highlighter and coloring in the squares that denote “20 dT of Bridge”. Does that really look like a “Bridge” to you? For a SCOUT, the BRIDGE needs 20 dT with ONE pilot seat surrounded by (presumably) 19 dTons of “equipment”. For a 1000 dT warship, the BRIDGE needs 20 dT with 10 crew seats surrounded by (presumably) 10 dTons of ‘equipment’. So I can understand why a bigger ship needs more PEOPLE to operate it, but not why the larger the ship, the less control equipment it needs. The fixed “20 dTons” just doesn’t work. I would have preferred something like 1% of the ship for basic “controls/equipment” plus 10 dT for Jump “controls/equipment” (irrespective of the ship size). That places the bridge on a 100 dTon scout at 11 dT, 200 dT trader at 12 dT, 400 dT Merchant at 14 dT and a 1000 dT warship at 20 dT.

We all know that the DECKPLANS cheat the BRIDGE tonnage by stealing it for other uses (crew commons, corridors, engineering space, storage areas) … so why not just acknowledge the reality of a bridge size that “looks right” and adjust the required volume to reflect the plans. If all ships REALLY needed 20dT of crew/controls/BRIDGE … there would be a standard 20 dT BRIDGE design that all ships would have to fit all the required equipment.

I have no problem with abandoning the arbitrary 100 dT minimum since ships that otherwise meet all rules but are less than 100 dt are of minimal usefulness. They tend to become academic exercises in building a ship just to prove that it can be built. Sort of like what happens if you build a Small Craft less than 10 dT … you get a really small (but expensive) craft that cannot be used for much.

 

[Marcatlas]

For ME (and in MY Universe), the bugbear is always the stupid STARSHIP BRIDGE.

I have an issue in CT with the 20dT minimum BRIDGE in a 100 dT Scout or 200 dT Free Trader. Try taking a set of deckplans and a highlighter and coloring in the squares that denote “20 dT of Bridge”. Does that really look like a “Bridge” to you? For a SCOUT, the BRIDGE needs 20 dT with ONE pilot seat surrounded by (presumably) 19 dTons of “equipment”. For a 1000 dT warship, the BRIDGE needs 20 dT with 10 crew seats surrounded by (presumably) 10 dTons of ‘equipment’. So I can understand why a bigger ship needs more PEOPLE to operate it, but not why the larger the ship, the less control equipment it needs. The fixed “20 dTons” just doesn’t work. I would have preferred something like 1% of the ship for basic “controls/equipment” plus 10 dT for Jump “controls/equipment” (irrespective of the ship size). That places the bridge on a 100 dTon scout at 11 dT, 200 dT trader at 12 dT, 400 dT Merchant at 14 dT and a 1000 dT warship at 20 dT.

Cepheus bridge is 2% of hull 10 tons minimum. None of these bridge rules are well thought out at all. You have JD required size based on tonnage, computer/electronic required size based on Jn. No reason for an arbitrary bridge tonnage beyond that needed for required crew positions. I should just come up with a logical house rule for all tonnages of jump capable ships.

 

[mike wightman]

LBB2 77
The Bridge: All starships must allocate 20 tons displacement for basic controls,
which include guidance radars, drive and power plant controls, communications
equipment, and other devices required for proper control of the ship.
LBB2 81
The Bridge: All ships must allocate 2% of their tonnage (minimum 20 tons)
to basic controls, communications equipment, avionics, scanners, detectors, sensors,
and other equipment for proper operation of the ship.
HG80
The Bridge: Every ship requires a bridge for control of the drives and electronics
and for navigation.
The bridge contains all necessary equipment for the control of the ship with the
exception of the computer.

So a bridge includes:
basic controls - cockpit workstations, space to walk around
guidance radars, scanners, detectors, sensors - show me on the deckplan where this lot are, the phased array transmitters and receivers, the ladar etc
avionics - control electronics
drive controls - m-drive and j-drive controls
power plant controls
communications equipment - again the transmitters and recievers
other devices required for proper control of the ship - grav plates and intertial compenstaion?

 

[kilemall]

I understand rules wise but it makes it all but impossible at 40% of hull being bridge

I always looked at the higher then 2% bridge on the smaller ships as a minimum of functionality and a LOT of automation which is why they don’t require a large crew.

 

[Marcatlas]

So a bridge includes:
basic controls - cockpit workstations, space to walk around
guidance radars, scanners, detectors, sensors - show me on the deckplan where this lot are, the phased array transmitters and receivers, the ladar etc
avionics - control electronics
drive controls - m-drive and j-drive controls
power plant controls
communications equipment

Except this is Cepheus and the electronics and sensors are covered under the computer entry model and that alone determines sensor and comm ability. Not the Bridge. Also, the drive controls at the bridge which is just a human interface and some chips that are connected by some fiber optic lines to the drives would not even take up 1 ton of total space. Now in Cepheus a 100 ton J ship requires 5 extra tons of allocation under bridge. So that could be for a special sensor for jump space and jump grid in the hull. Because for larger ships it's a % of the hull. So for Jump ships we have some type of extra sensor and jump grid allocation. Given the % increase I'd say 1 ton for the J sensor and 1.9% of the hull for J grid. Nothing else in Cepheus would make sense.

All in all, a rewrite of that part of the rules is in order

 

[Marcatlas]

I always looked at the higher then 2% bridge on the smaller ships as a minimum of functionality and a LOT of automation which is why they don’t require a large crew.

The crew requirements for smaller ships is about what it would be for a present day ocean going ship. Maybe or two more people because present day engines are all moving parts as opposed to an M drive on a trav ship