Alternatives to the Xboat design in Traveller...

[RossWinn]

So we all know the classic Xboat. J4 and no manuever. We had a rousing discussion OVER HERE about it, but there's more.
What would you design to replace the Xboat network as presented in Classic Traveller?

Would it be slightly larger J4 ships with maneuver? Would it be the same size but built differently? I'd like to hear everyone's opinion.

 

[GLΩAMING]

I think one could reasonably do away with the entire civilian X-Boat network entirely. In places like the Marches its routes are woefully outdated and anachronistic, serving worlds that were important centuries ago and bypassing worlds that actually need rapid communication.

I've toyed with the idea of the Imperium having only an elite network of J-6 naval/political couriers that carry only vital data and personnel. This would mean that major corporations and worlds organise their own, more local information networks that are more efficient due to not being managed by some far off stuffy bureaucrat in Deneb, but an equally stuffy but closer to home bureaucrat on, say, Glisten.

This would also give rise to more opportunities for independent "postmen" in mainstream markets. They might be chartered for six months by a prominent world to bring mail to a colony, or by a corporation whose own network of couriers is coming under strain.

Specialised mail companies and consortiums might arise, possibly leading to political issues as these corporations, with a stranglehold on local news, blackmail governments or rivals to barter for less regulation or tax breaks or whatever. Lots of intrigue and adventuring opportunities...

 

[Spinward Flow]

The primary beauty of the LBB2.77 100 ton standard hull J4XBoat design is that it's both CHEAP and TL=10, yet still gets the job done.
The Express Tender is (in my opinion) "too big" at 1000 tons displacement and ought to have been built as an 800 ton starship (also @ TL=10).

It's hard to overstate just how "unfairly useful" it is to have such high performance starships at such low tech levels when it comes to industrial sources capable of supplying the necessary construction, maintenance, parts and spares from a logistics standpoint. By keeping the tech level "low" for starships (merely "Average Imperial"), this allows the IISS to contract MUCH more widely and have far more secure supply lines able to keep the Express Network operational.

Pretty much ALL options to "upgrade the network" are going to require a tech level bump in some form or fashion in order to make any improvements. Although, it is theoretically possible to create a LBB2.77 custom hull J6XBoat design that is almost as cheap but requires TL=12 for a model/6 computer and L-Hyd Drop Tanks (LBB5.79), that's about as far as you can push things with LBB2 (which honestly, is pretty darn far!).

The reason to install maneuver drives into XBoats would be to reduce their dependency upon Tenders for recovery, refueling, refurbish/replenish and relaunch operations. Personally speaking, I'm thinking that doing this would be a First Principles Mistake™ ... mainly because the role of launch/recovery AND mobile turret is better done through use of small craft capable of docking with and "towing" XBoats through normal space to/from Tenders. Having rapid reaction fighters that use the Tender as a mothership and coordinate with the Tender for recovery and relaunch of XBoats, in addition to providing mobile screening and Combat Space Patrol defensive perimeter protection would be the better way to go.

You'll still want to have Scout/Couriers interfacing with the Tenders as "runabouts" for fuel, delivery of consumables supplies and personnel rotations, etc. in addition to their courier dispatch duties (when a Type-S breaks out of jump, it rotates into "runabout" duty while the current "runabout" assignment gets updated with current courier data and dispatched to jump, allowing Type-S crews to rotate through Tender servicing ops to get their flight hours in and keep their normal space skills practiced).



Ideally speaking, I'd want to do a top to bottom "refactoring" review of Express Network craft design and operations ... but I'm just weird that way.

 

[Talifon]

Is it possible for a sector or subsector government to finance their own X-Boat routes to facilitate communication between systems underserved by the IISS? I'm thinking about transit authorities in major metropolitan areas: The buses and trains might serve the central city very well and connect the city with the suburbs, but the suburban counties or municipalities might supplement those routes with local transit that serves their own needs.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Is it possible for a sector or subsector government to finance their own X-Boat routes to facilitate communication between systems underserved by the IISS?

Sure.
That'll be one subsidized starship requisition.
Have your business plan presentation ready for the committee meeting ...

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on their need for information and/or speed thereof.

And then leveraged for political, military, and/or commercial advantages.

 

[McPerth]

The primary beauty of the LBB2.77 100 ton standard hull J4XBoat design is that it's both CHEAP and TL=10, yet still gets the job done.

For reasons already discussed to boredom in other threads, I don't believe they are TL10...

After all, the X-Boat network was built (according MT:IE) between 624 and 718, and according MT;RC, the Imperium had well developed TL 13 in 624, and reached TL 14 by 700, while it was being built.

 

[Spinward Flow]

After all, the X-Boat network was built (according MT:IE) between 624 and 718, and according MT;RC, the Imperium had well developed TL 13 in 624, and reached TL 14 by 700, while it was being built.

If your point is that the "maximum available tech level" between 624-718 was in excess of TL=10 ... that is not in dispute.
If you're trying to claim that between 624-718 that TL=13-14 was so ubiquitous as to be "everywhere" ... I think we're going to have a pretty serious fight.

Quote: "I'm sure that in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drug store, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by!"

The whole point of using TL=10 even when TL=12 is available is because it's not bleeding edge tech that can only be obtained in precious few locations in each sector (or the next sector over). By going low tech (as opposed to high tech, in this context) you BROADEN the supply chain base that can support your operations, in addition to making your acquisitions and procurement processes easier and simpler.

And then there's the fact that the "older tech that still works" might be old (but still works!) and therefore isn't some kind of cutting edge military secret that needs to be kept under lock and key.

My point being that from a GAMER perspective, it feels like TL=10 is a self-own/self-gimp in capabilities ... but from a government procurement and sustainment perspective, TL=10 is an incredible sweet spot that prevents the IISS from getting "extorted" by corporate interests gatekeeping the highest tech available (because TL=10 is so accessible and widespread around the map). Likewise, the technology isn't "too valuable to lose" in actual network operations (if an XBoat goes missing, you haven't compromised the security and technological superiority of the Third Imperium into the bargain).

Being a "couple tech levels behind the curve" then means that the IISS isn't "competing" with the IN for high(est) tech resources to meet the basic needs of the Communications Office.

TL=10 designs when you've got TL=12+ available to you effectively amounts to "civilian spec" rather than "military spec" as far as these things go. The IISS needs the Express Network to "just work" all the time, and TL=10 once again lands in that "sweet spot" for industrial supply contracting and supply lines to scout bases. TL=10 "isn't special enough" to raise a fuss or be valuable enough to be an industrial espionage/sabotage target.

 

[Condottiere]

I've been gettin' jiggy wit' the Confederation Navy, and technological levelling up is a serious issue.

You're stuck with jump factor four only being available at technological level thirteen, and in the rather sparser rimward subsectors, that becomes a necessity to keep the network in tact.

Anything not connected with the jump drive could be manufactured at technological level ten, though I'm coming to the conclusion that technological level twelve seems more likely, for an interstellar polity.

 

[McPerth]

If your point is that the "maximum available tech level" between 624-718 was in excess of TL=10 ... that is not in dispute.
If you're trying to claim that between 624-718 that TL=13-14 was so ubiquitous as to be "everywhere" ... I think we're going to have a pretty serious fight.

Quote: "I'm sure that in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drug store, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by!"

For the very reason you would not consider the Imperium TL15, as the average is quite lower (there's not a single TL15 world in Regina subsector, just to give an example).

When one talks about a political entity TL, one means that is common enough as to be so considered. I'd say common enough as to equip its Armed Forces at this TL, but that assumption may be argueable..

I'm quite sure there were some TL 13 before year 300 (the one given in MT:RC timeline), but not enough to consider the Imperium to be TL 13. I guess the same happened with TL14 in 624, but it was not common enough as to be considered the whole Imperium as TL 14 until 700 (and probably the expansion of the X-Boat helped to it, BTW).

But if X-Boats could be built so earlier (the Imperium began at TL 12), I guess the network would have been established before.

 

[Spinward Flow]

But if X-Boats could be built so earlier (the Imperium began at TL 12), I guess the network would have been established before.

There's a chicken vs egg problem going on there.

The Express Network "happened" by order of Regent Arbellatra (she was Regent from 622-629 didn't become Empress until 629) and basically needed the "viewpoint of an outsider from the frontier" (in this case, an Admiral of the Flag from the Spinward Marches!) to actually swing the big hammer and Make It Happen™ in a way that could overcome bureaucratic inertia back at Capital/Core.

Without the Express Network, the Third Imperium would have collapsed under its own weight prior to the Third Frontier War (979-986) and splintered into a patchwork of domains.

So it wasn't really a "technical challenge" getting in the way of establishing the Express Network ... it was a question of political will and a determination to invest in a solution to a problem that hadn't been widely recognized as actually being (enough of) a problem up until that point for anyone to actually DO anything about it. So there was also a question of needing A Visionary Leader with sufficient political power and capital to set things in motion and stand up what would eventually become the Communications Office of the IISS.

Centuries later (1105+) ... we (fellow) Travellers just take it for granted.
But when the Express Network was launched in 624 ... it was the biggest public works project in the history of humanti, up to that point ... and by 1105, it probably still is/was. It basically took "the summit" of imperial power and authority to make it happen, using what would have been essentially (for its day) Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) technologies that would have been readily and widely available, and therefore easily supportable as the network built out across the entirety of the Third Imperium.

Empress Arbellatra died in 666 ... decades before her visionary gift to the Third Imperium could be finished.