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200 ton Armed Merchant - deckplans and image

not bad at all. And from eh forward view you can't tell it has no exhaust vents...and you could probably install a pressure hatch in the floor of the cargo bay without needing to redesign the deck plan or model.

if it is armed you might want to show the weapons a bit more clearly. but that's not a biggie.
 
kilemall said:
What are your underlying economics system that pays for the relatively smaller hold and no passengers?
Click to expand...

just off the top of my head I would think it's not a general purpose cargo transport... would think of it as a space going armored truck.

High priority, high-value cargo, would be a good market. having an armed merchant vessel that can defend itself would be a big plus in an area where such things as precious metals, radioactives, and other high value per ton cargoes needed to be shipped...
 
Sharptooth Class economics

Kilemall - Depends what it's relative to. With its Jump 2 capability, the Sharptooth has greater range than the Beowulf Class (200 ton, J-1, 82 tons cargo) opening it up to markets the Beowulf can't touch. The Sharptooth is more comparable to the Empress Marava Class (200 ton, J-2, 46 tons cargo). Like the Marava, the Sharptooth's crew could be minimized by doubling up the pilot/navigator and medic/steward positions and operating in regions of space less likely to involve armed conflict. The three port staterooms could then be used for mid-passengers, should the ship owner decide to go that route.

My thought for this design was for shipping smaller, valuable cargoes through the more dangerous regions of frontier space. As a GM, I'd allow higher revenue per cargo ton for that risk. Keeping each crew member with only one job eliminates the -1 skill modifier.

Part of the beauty of Traveller starships is the ease at which variants can be made. The Sharptooth's entire cargo deck can be replaced with high-passage suites if the primary goal is higher revenue.

This is a Classic Traveller, Book 2 design, BTW.

Wbyrd - You beat me to the punch. I've got to learn to type faster! :)
 
Beerfume said:
Sharptooth Class Armed Merchant
Does it bother anyone else that the jump drive has exhaust ports and that the ship has no "formal" airlock?
Click to expand...

Yeah, you are definitely going to be wanting a proper airlock somewhere. I would consider losing the bridge-adjacent fresher in favor of per-stateroom hideaway facilities for hygiene and replace it with a ~2dt airlock mounting a "planar" outside hatch (one that can mate with a hatch lying flush in a proverbial infinite plane, allowing any vessel with such a hatch to dock with any other vessel that has one regardless of their respective other configuration details). If not there, an alternate location might be topside near the as-yet-unmapped missile turret and reload stowage area. Probably want to avoid putting it inside the bridge proper, though (Anti-Hijack, et cetera).

As to the exhaust ports, I reckon that it is power plants that need them more than Jump drives, but that is a simple fix to what you have so far if you even think it necessary.

The ventral turret is a bold choice, as it prohibits a belly landing and therefore requires functioning landing gear and articulated loading ramps; note that the access hatch to the turret is mislabeled as "dorsal" on the lower deck plan.

As to payload, what rules version did you design her under? Even under CT B2 and its onerous power plant fuel requirements, providing only 6 crew staterooms but ending up with only 50dtons left over for cargo seems to me somehow a little light -- unless you are using gigantic fuel purifiers (which is not what is suggested by these plans) and/or have set aside a massive amount of dtonnage for missile stowage. I was expecting something more in the neighborhood of 60dtons for payload.

Nice layout overall; any alternative to the tired old Empress Marava is always welcome as far as I am concerned, and this one has a much less crowded feel to it.
 
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enhanced-26770-1428939599-45.jpg
 
boomslang said:
Nice layout overall; any alternative to the tired old Empress Marava is always welcome as far as I am concerned, and this one has a much less crowded feel to it.
Click to expand...

There is one thing I don't believe people will get tired of..New plans and illustrations for the 200-400 ton range.

The number of times I have used a Free/Far Trader, or a Subsidized Merchant....lets say at one point I could, from memory alone, verbally walk through the deck plans from bow to aft.
 
Thanks for all your comments. I've made a few modifications and re-uploaded the files. The shape of the foreward hull doesn't really lend itself to an airlock, but I've added a floor hatch in the Cargo Bay floor per Wbyrd's suggestion.

Boomslang - This was not a typical ship design for me in that I started with a 3D model "shell", scaled it volumetrically to 200 tons and then laid out the deck plans. My early Traveller days involving deck plans were spent playing Snapshot, so I tend to look for interesting gameplay opportunities rather than economics. If I were playing a game more focused on trading in the abstract, I might try to maximize cargo capacity and worry less about how the plan laid out. I could have made the galley and air/raft hangar smaller, I could have designed a single "spinal" corridor to eliminate redundant circulation, I could have eliminated the missile storage. All that tonnage adds up. That's my concern about starships designed by spreadsheet: they look good as stats, but you don't really get a feel for what it would be like to travel in them. Also, I rarely if ever take advantage of the tonnage leeway rules in Book 2. Technically I could add another 40 tons and it would still be acceptable by the rules.

A couple things regarding the belly turret:
1. I hope I don't lose my Traveller street cred by saying this, but the Millennium Falcon is my gold standard for small freighters. If a belly turret is good enough for the Falcon, it's good enough for me. :)
2. If I had to make a belly landing in this ship without functioning landing gear, I'd blow a nice turret-sized crater in the tarmac and settle in easy as you please. Remember: there's no problem that can't be solved by the application of ridiculous amounts of firepower. Paying starport fines and patching the tarmac has got to be cheaper than replacing a million credit turret.

Wbyrd - I agree about never getting tired of seeing new plans. 30+ years of this and I don't think I've ever gamed in anything larger than 1,000 tons. 100-400 tons is perfect for the average sized gaming group.
 
Okay now I feel like a rank armature. Nice work on the extra illustrations.

And that little cargo bot looks like a spiffy thing to have around.
 
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