In White Dwarf #40, Andy Slack detailed a TL14 Explorer-class Scoutship, 300 tons and capable of Jump-5 and 2G. I could have sworn I remember seeing a render someone did of this, but my Google searches are coming up empty. Does anybody know of a good image or render of this ship? I'd like to use it in my game.
CT Only: Andy Slack's 300-ton Explorer-class Scoutship
- Thread starter AlHazred
- Start date
Grognard_1
SOC-1
This one by Ian Stead?
That looks pretty good! Thanks! At the very least, it gives an idea.
Now I just hope @magmagmag eventually does it up, since I'm illustrating most of the ships my players encounter with their renders!
Now I just hope @magmagmag eventually does it up, since I'm illustrating most of the ships my players encounter with their renders!
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
According to my napkin math for CT ... @ 300 tons displacement, a TL=14 starship would require:
- J5 custom LBB5.80 drive = 18 tons
- 2G custom LBB5.80 drive = 15 tons
- PP5 custom LBB5.80 drive = 30 tons
- Fuel = 150+15 = 165 tons
- Fuel Purification Plant (200 tons capacity) = 4 tons
- Bridge = 20 tons
- Model/5 computer = 5 tons
300 - 257 = 43 tons for crew staterooms (and everything else)
Crew positions required:
- Pilot
- Navigator
- Engineer
- Engineer
- Medic
So call it 4 staterooms for crew ... which is 16 tons.
300 - (257+16) = 27 tons
If you arm the craft ... with 2 turrets and add a Gunnery-2 skilled member to the crew (so Gunner/Gunner who can operate both turrets with a single person) ... that will cost 6 tons for the fire control plus one stateroom.
At that point, you're down to 21 tons of payload capacity.
The starship can GO PLACES ... because J5/2G ... but there's not much it can "bring" to the places it "goes" to, because 21 tons isn't a lot of displacement to work with. However, it IS enough for a prospector (10 tons of cargo space for ore processing, minimum, as per CT Beltstrike, p3). It's also enough for 4 staterooms plus an air/raft for a team of specialists to go exploring with.
As a COURIER, such a starship would work QUITE WELL ... even if you're just talking 5 tons of x-mail transport.
As a SURVEYOR, such a starship would do quite nicely for soaking up sensor data to store in "extensive data banks" for retrieval back at base.
But for an EXPLORER, where the point and purpose is to "get outside the starship" and start handling things up close and personal with special training and subject matter expert knowledge ... it's going to need to be outfitted with the specialized "stuff" needed for the exploratory expedition team in the 21 ton cargo hold.
Aha! Your comment led me to what I remembered, but I'd misremembered parts of it. Ian Stead has a YouTube channel, and a 3D render of the Explorer-class Scout Ship can be found here, with astronaut Dave Bowman for scale. I'd remembered it against a starry background, but it appears that was me conflating renders -- I guess if you look up enough Traveller ships, the images bleed together sometimes.
White Dwarf #40 came out in April 1983. By that point, Andy Slack had done a bunch of columns in the magazine covering his house rules; I think the first "Expanded Universe" article came out in #12? It's possible he had one where he did his own modifications to High Guard, I'm not sure.According to my napkin math for CT ... @ 300 tons displacement, a TL=14 starship would require:
18+15+30+180+4+20+5=272 tons
- J5 custom LBB5.80 drive = 18 tons
- 2G custom LBB5.80 drive = 15 tons
- PP5 custom LBB5.80 drive = 30 tons
- Fuel = 150+30 = 180 tons
- Fuel Purification Plant (200 tons capacity) = 4 tons
- Bridge = 20 tons
- Model/5 computer = 5 tons
300 - 272 = 28 tons for crew staterooms (and everything else)
Crew positions required:
Get someone with Engineering-2 skill and you only need a crew of 4 (because Engineer/Engineer).
- Pilot
- Navigator
- Engineer
- Engineer
- Medic
So call it 4 staterooms for crew ... which is 16 tons.
300 - (272+16) = 12 tons
If you arm the craft ... with 2 turrets and add a Gunnery-2 skilled member to the crew (so Gunner/Gunner who can operate both turrets with a single person) ... that will cost 6 tons for the fire control plus one stateroom.
At that point, you're down to 6 tons of payload capacity.
The starship can GO PLACES ... because J5/2G ... but there's not much it can "bring" to the places it "goes" to, because 6 tons isn't a lot of displacement to work with. It's not like you can bring an exploratory expedition of specialists with you along for the ride (for example). You can't really use such a craft to "deploy a team" of people to go check something out.
As a COURIER, such a starship would work QUITE WELL ... even if you're just talking 5 tons of x-mail transport.
As a SURVEYOR, such a starship would do quite nicely for soaking up sensor data to store in "extensive data banks" for retrieval back at base.
But for an EXPLORER, where the point and purpose is to "get outside the starship" and start handling things up close and personal with special training and subject matter expert knowledge ... it leaves something to be desired.
I found these deck plans
also these
also these
Here's the Snowbird Mystery that uses the 300-ton scout. No deck plan but a description of decks A &B .
A note on "The Snowbird Mystery" and rest of Andy's White Dwarf articles, Andy had a web page (I don't know if still exists) where he post all of his articles on Traveller, True20, Space 1889, 2300AD, etc. which I downloaded.
Note on "The Snowbird Mystery" Andy's pdf has, what looks to be the original WD deckplan and the design for it.
If there is an official archive that would like them drop me a note.
Note on "The Snowbird Mystery" Andy's pdf has, what looks to be the original WD deckplan and the design for it.
If there is an official archive that would like them drop me a note.
I got those, too. That website was fantastic -- it beat the heck out of me scanning my falling-apart copies of the issues to save the good stuff.
Okay, I checked my Expanding Universe file from Andy himself. In White Dwarf #14 (1979), Andy had a bunch of starship rules, but I don't see anything modifying the Book 2 math. I'm guessing the errors are actual errors. I need to look for the original Explorer scoutship file which he'd uploaded to the previous iteration of his website for free -- I'm guessing that version could be reposted?According to my napkin math for CT ... @ 300 tons displacement, a TL=14 starship would require:
18+15+30+165+4+20+5=257 tons
- J5 custom LBB5.80 drive = 18 tons
- 2G custom LBB5.80 drive = 15 tons
- PP5 custom LBB5.80 drive = 30 tons
- Fuel = 150+15 = 165 tons
- Fuel Purification Plant (200 tons capacity) = 4 tons
- Bridge = 20 tons
- Model/5 computer = 5 tons
300 - 257 = 43 tons for crew staterooms (and everything else)
Crew positions required:
Get someone with Engineering-2 skill and you only need a crew of 4 (because Engineer/Engineer).
- Pilot
- Navigator
- Engineer
- Engineer
- Medic
So call it 4 staterooms for crew ... which is 16 tons.
300 - (257+16) = 27 tons
If you arm the craft ... with 2 turrets and add a Gunnery-2 skilled member to the crew (so Gunner/Gunner who can operate both turrets with a single person) ... that will cost 6 tons for the fire control plus one stateroom.
At that point, you're down to 21 tons of payload capacity.
The starship can GO PLACES ... because J5/2G ... but there's not much it can "bring" to the places it "goes" to, because 21 tons isn't a lot of displacement to work with. However, it IS enough for a prospector (10 tons of cargo space for ore processing, minimum, as per CT Beltstrike, p3). It's also enough for 4 staterooms plus an air/raft for a team of specialists to go exploring with.
As a COURIER, such a starship would work QUITE WELL ... even if you're just talking 5 tons of x-mail transport.
As a SURVEYOR, such a starship would do quite nicely for soaking up sensor data to store in "extensive data banks" for retrieval back at base.
But for an EXPLORER, where the point and purpose is to "get outside the starship" and start handling things up close and personal with special training and subject matter expert knowledge ... it's going to need to be outfitted with the specialized "stuff" needed for the exploratory expedition team in the 21 ton cargo hold.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
A 300 ton starship "doesn't make sense" if you're a LBB2 RAW fundamentalist who is trying to achieve a J5/2G performance (regardless of TL).
You can do it (no problem!
) using LBB5.80, where you need TL=14 to enable J5 (at all).He was doing a lot of number crunching for starship math, as he was one of the guys doing the IISS Ship Files supplement for Games Workshop. There were some really interesting weird designs in there.A 300 ton starship "doesn't make sense" if you're a LBB2 RAW fundamentalist who is trying to achieve a J5/2G performance (regardless of TL).
You can do it (no problem!
ranger2261
SOC-12
It seems to have been a HG design,A 300 ton starship "doesn't make sense" if you're a LBB2 RAW fundamentalist who is trying to achieve a J5/2G performance (regardless of TL).
You can do it (no problem!
But some things seem to be house ruled, The bridge for example, is only about 2.5 dTons much more of a cockpit than a bridge.
here is the key to go with deckplans.
It's worth noting the design has the special features.
- The bridge and the drive room are fitted with solid rocket motors, ablative shielding, and paraglider assemblies and can blast free from the ship in an emergency. These are listed as "crew escape pods".
- The lift in the cargo hold (B8) may be extended to the ‘full down’ position and locked there for use as an obser- vation platform while in flight, provided the craft’s speed does not exceed Mach 0.25 while in atmosphere.
- If there are enough crew casualties, the headsets in the bridge can be set to "Evil Eye Sight" where the turrets are slaved to the primary headset, and point to whatever the wearer is looking at. Limits the arc of fire, but makes it feasible for a single crewman to try to hold multiple positions in an emergency.
Alot of official, or semi-official design seem to be using some house rule, or home brew of some sort or another. For example the Air/Raft bays on this design each use 3 dTons, rather than the 4 Tons specified in LBB2/HG. Interestingly that matches air raft as described in the JG "Starships and Spacecraft"
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
3 tons if you're only counting the vehicle bays themselves.
4 tons if you also divide the access hallway between them and allocate that space as part of the displacement for the vehicle bays.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Most of the bridge tonnage is hidden in the deckplan as avionics bats, comms, sensors.
An air/raft has a mass of 4000kg, it's hanger is 4 displacement tons. The dimensions of the air/raft give it a deck plan footprint of 4 to 6 squares depending on the source of your air/raft dimensions.
That leaves 2 deckplan swuares for corridors, common areas, or larger hanger.
An air/raft has a mass of 4000kg, it's hanger is 4 displacement tons. The dimensions of the air/raft give it a deck plan footprint of 4 to 6 squares depending on the source of your air/raft dimensions.
That leaves 2 deckplan swuares for corridors, common areas, or larger hanger.
Andy was definitely experimenting with interesting ship design ideas from the very beginning. I used the Heyan Rose from IISS Ship Files for my previous campaign as the players' ship after the Annic Nova "was stolen" (i.e., left on its own accord when the Droyne minds in the computer determined they were close to being discovered). And I've not had a player group infiltrate an automated interdiction satellite, but I plan to use the one in IISS Ship Files if they do. I would love to see all of the ship designs he used in his home games, but he's shifted to Savage Worlds by now so I don't know if his newer ship designs will fit Classic Traveller mechanical considerations.
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