Big ship universe vs small ship universe

[Condottiere]

Size and presence of warships tends to depend on the perceived threat(s) to either empire, it's interests, and/or commercial shipping.

 

[kilemall]

My TU is mixed- there are big boats, but I am limiting to TL10 while allowing O’Neil colony builds. So small ships are quite prevalent but not exclusive.

 

[Enoki]

That has always been an issue, is the Imperial Navy BIG? Or is it small with pockets of ships such as a squadron or two in an area? Or is it a massive fleet capable of whatever it wants? Again are ships rare, scarce, common, or everywhere? I think ships are more common just for commerce purposes, think interstate trucking companies and shipping lines.

Your smaller LBB2 ships are the ones that service the class C/D/E/X starports and the big High Guard ships are the ones that service the A/B starports. Your smaller LBB2 ships are the ones that meet at the Class A/B ports, load cargo, and then move on to the smaller ports. HOWEVER: I do not see ships of under 1,000 tons as economically viable in terms of costs/prices shown in the books. Speculative Trading can only get you so far, as a couple of my players discovered. But ships in the 1,000 to 3,000 ton range CAN make a living of it, especially if they have J-2+ drives. Your Deus Ex Machina ships are the larger warships and cargo vessels, at least IMHO.

I see the Imperial Navy, or any other navy of some polity as being much like navies have historically been. That is, there are a relative handful of really large and powerful ships that are kept at a few strategic points for major wars and the like. They may move around in a small squadron (2 or 3) or singularly in peacetime to show the flag, transport some VIP or the head of state, that sort of thing. They're very expensive to build, maintain, and crew, and money even in Traveller is not unlimited.

Most naval ships are smaller ones, and the exact composition of a navy will vary depending on what the politics and geography (spaceology?) of that polity is. Thus, I'd think the most encountered Imperial Navy ship would be a small commerce cruiser that is powerful enough on its own or with a second, like, ship to pretty much take out pirates, mercenaries, or other low-level threats to merchant ships. In high-risk areas, such ships might be in a larger squadron of 4 to 8 and merchant ships are escorted in convoys between the most important starport worlds.

The small merchant ships, like in LBB 2, are a mainstay of local commerce. Not only do they deliver to low quality, low pop, low tech, etc., worlds but they also serve the function of local distribution. That is, they often don't fly into the main starport of a world but rather into secondary starports or airports to deliver their goods.
For example, if you had a world with a population of say 9 (billions), such ships might fly into a specific city on that world--not the one with the main starport--to deliver their 100-ish tons of cargo and a dozen or so passengers going there. No need to clog the starport with such traffic.

You can operate something like an Empress Marava far trader at a profit, but it often turns into a boring exercise in going between the same few worlds each trip moving cargo and passengers between them. If you (the players) try to do it as they more or less randomly move across the universe they're going to lose bigtime on money. Neither is something that really makes for an exciting or interesting game.

 

[Condottiere]

Colonial cruisers and gunboat diplomacy.

Usually, you send cheap operational costing third class cruisers to the peripheries, as well as obsolete warships, to do local presence, which worked for a century for the Royal Navy.

Once you run up against near peer competition, the quality of the warships start to improve.

 

[Enoki]

Colonial cruisers and gunboat diplomacy.

Usually, you send cheap operational costing third class cruisers to the peripheries, as well as obsolete warships, to do local presence, which worked for a century for the Royal Navy.

Once you run up against near peer competition, the quality of the warships start to improve.

That's a reasonable example for the Imperium. The needs of other polities will vary. I'd think, for example, the Vargr have very few, if any, major warships because of the tribal nature of their society. Instead, every pack / tribe / faction builds what they can with an eye first to dealing with their immediate rival factions.

One of my fav factions are the Ral Ranta. I see them as building ships for piracy, espionage, smuggling, and mercenary operations and not bothering with a "real" navy at all, knowing that it would just get defeated in a stand-up fight. Instead, they rely on guerilla warfare and intrigue to fight wars. They know full well that even a major power like the Imperium can't be everywhere with their navy...

 

[Murph]

I suspect that the Imperial Navy will be Battleships, Battlecruisers, and larger warships based in areas, with the Sector and Subsector fleets being the small ship navies. For a prime example look at the US Asiatic Fleet with the Yangtze Patrol of the 1900-1940's. Some cruisers and destroyers, but a lot of smaller ships.

 

[whartung]

The Age of Sail, which many liken CT to be, might be thought of as a "small ship" universe.

Columbus' Santa Maria was about 220 dTons and the HMS Victory, Nelsons "first rate ship of the line", was roughly 1770 dTons.

 

[Grav_Moped]

You can operate something like an Empress Marava far trader at a profit, but it often turns into a boring exercise in going between the same few worlds each trip moving cargo and passengers between them. If you (the players) try to do it as they more or less randomly move across the universe they're going to lose bigtime on money. Neither is something that really makes for an exciting or interesting game.

Something like that is almost an inevitable product of the trade rules, even if tweaked to make the A2 profitable.

Under stock LBB2, Jump-1 merchants can usually cover their costs at Cr1000/Td/jump. It takes until Size Z drives (TL-15) for Jump-2 to be profitable at that rate.
At a Cr1000/Td/parsec rate, J-2 and J-3 are profitable at TL-11 and beyond. J-4 and above are only profitable at that per-parsec rate at TL-15.

ETA: in other words, either someone's going to be willing to pay higher than Cr1000/Td/Jump, or the only real traffic at J-2 and up is going to be spec cargo. Megacorps can likely haul stuff that'll turn enough profit to make the higher Jns profitable for them, but they probably won't be giving away spare high-Jn cargo space at below cost.

Also, high-Jn ships are likely pinned to a fixed route -- even just a world-pair -- because it's so much cheaper to use anything else to haul cargo if you don't need the full jump range.

IMTU (for my 600Td J-5 Shugushaag freighter/courier, which so far hasn't actually carried any cargo in-game yet...) I assume that someone will pay that much. But the quantity of cargo is inversely proportional to the cost... Everybody is happy to pay Cr1000/ton. Some are willing to pay a lot more to get halfway across the subsector in a week, but there aren't a whole bunch of them. Works kind of like a charter in that respect -- but, again, not at standard charter rates.

 

[Drew]

I think that the best historical setting would be the late 15th through the 18th centuries as more in the genre of piracy and leaky ships. While there is a fleet of English ships or the French navy of frigates of the 1st Order or the lumbering Spanish galleons. They operated on basically uncharted space with a known set of ports. There were the smaller vessels that plied their goods and trade along the coast, they were often single ships and although there would be the opportunity to create a small fleet. Just like wolves picking off that lame deer, a ship falling behind made good prey. Trade was both speculative and mundane. A ship from the spice items was lucrative, but a ship with provisions for a colony was mundane.

 

[aramis]

Classic Traveller seemed to envision a small ship universe since those were the ships that the players could possibly afford, or be able to crew. High Guard added to that by adding the big ships which players could never afford. I mean how many players could pay for/own a 250k Battleship? So how do we address the seeming contradiction? I propose that there is no contradiction as such, but merely a affordable vs non-affordable type of ship.
Do we have "small ship" universes where the biggest ship is the 5,000 ton ship from the classic books? Absolutely! Do we have "big ship" universes from High Guard, Trillion Credit Squadron? Absolutely! For the adventuring class, they will tend to live in the small ship universe, with the big ships acting as patrons, antagonists, or enemies.

If you are bee-bopping around in your 800 ton Mercenary Cruiser that you won in a dabo game, and suddenly that Ceasar class destroyer of 6,500 tons shows up to do a "customs inspection", you might have a really bad day, or a good one. So, do you have a small ship universe, or a big ship universe, or a combination of the two?

Me, I have both

I use neither.

MTU, last few campaigns, 20K is the max tonnage.
I used a variant of the Mgt1 rules three campaigns ago; used MT with T20 HG last two times, but made changes to the size codes...
I simply kept the hull codes to 500 Td per code after code A. (making the computer needs higher).

 

[Condottiere]

Without a continual presence of warships, merchantmen tend to be armed enough to ward off casual piracy.

However, operating costs and insurance are likely to be prohibitive.

Despite this, you might get a greater influx of merchantmen, on the premise about the majority making it back.

 

[Spinward Flow]

IMTU (for my 600Td J-5 Shugushaag freighter/courier, which so far hasn't actually carried any cargo in-game yet...) I assume that someone will pay that much. But the quantity of cargo is inversely proportional to the cost... Everybody is happy to pay Cr1000/ton. Some are willing to pay a lot more to get halfway across the subsector in a week, but there aren't a whole bunch of them. Works kind of like a charter in that respect -- but, again, not at standard charter rates.

Truthfully speaking, the way the J-5 Shugushaag would be operated would be on a purely speculative tramp freighter basis. It would be all about the buy low/sell high speculation in order to make things work, rather than operating on passenger and cargo transport revenues (which it will never survive on, even under subsidy). As a speculative tramp though, that 30 tons of cargo space could be used to transport "high value cargoes" on speculation from pickup to distant locations where you are most likely to make a profit sale on a rapid turnaround.

If you look at the J5 map around Collace itself (where the ship was manufactured IYTU) ...

You can see that there are LOT of Non-Industrial, Agricultural and Rich worlds within 5 parsecs of Collace.
As a tramp freighter doing "hub and spoke" runs to and from Collace, with such a large jump capacity you basically get your "pick of next destinations" based on whatever speculative cargo is on offer wherever you're at, allowing you to "play the markets" for buy low/sell high on relatively revenue dense speculative cargoes.

Ideally speaking, you would actually want to set up a corporation with world-side offices of trade speculators and brokers who live locally and buy up speculative goods whenever they're cheap (sniping the local market) and warehousing them until the J-5 Shugushaag shows up to deliver them to another market where you'll get a much higher price for them.

The ship's profit potential isn't in the TRANSPORT revenue side of things ... it's in the ARBITRAGE of speculative goods.
Thing is, you need pretty skilled merchants in order to make that happen, but it can be done as something of a "wildcat" operation.



To be fair though, all things considered, for that particular market, you're honestly better off going with a J4 than a J5 design so as to give yourself more revenue tonnage and better profit margins as a clipper ship (as well as being able to carry larger speculative cargo loads). I mean, seriously ... what does J5 "add" to the destination range that you can't get to with J4? If you're plying the J-5 Route across the Greater Rift through Aslan territory ... okay, sure ... the J5 capability can make a difference in terms of transit speeds, but J3+3 also gets the job done if you're willing to use either collapsible fuel tanks or drop tanks (and if you use both you can even achieve J3+3+3!).

From an economics standpoint, there are going to be design configurations where you're better off with a lower jump capacity but extended range through collapsible fuel tanks and/or drop tanks in order to give yourself the flexibility as a clipper ship needed to be a wildcat speculative tramp merchant who can "beat the odds" towards achieving profitability.

Also, smaller jump drives and bigger maneuver drives makes you "more difficult prey" for any competitors who might consider a bit of piracy to be worth the risks ...

 

[ManOfGrey]

The Traveller Adventure is a small ship setting with the big stuff in the background. All the ships we "see" and can interact with are LBB2 designs, but the central mystery involves a pair of spinal meson guns...

What doesn't make sense setting wise is that there is any illegal activity in any system in the Spinward Marches. The description of the Imperium in LBB4 and 5 does not match with later developments with regards to the scale of the Imperial Navy and the number fs ships it has available for patrol.

When you ask about big ships verses little ships in Traveller, I would suggest that that answer depends somewhat on how you play Traveller. Personally I'm more of a role-playing kinda' guy, than I'm a Trillion Credit Squadron kinda' guy. And because of that, I think mike wightman hit the nail on the head from what he said above. As far as role-playing goes, I believe ships, big or little, serve as a setting for a game. Several examples have already been mentioned -- Adventure 1, The Kinunir, Adventure 4, Leviathan, and Supplement 5, Azhanti High Lightning. The list goes on.

But what these Adventures and Supplements have in common is the idea of using these ships as a place to have an adventure. In Adventure 1, The Kinunir, the players don't actually jump into a Kinunir-class Colonial Cruiser to fly around to get into space battles with. The Kinunir's deck plans are used for the player's to crawl around and explore. (And in this particular adventure, whether they want to, or not.) Which is why, IMHO, products like Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats was so much better than Supplement 9, Fighting Ships. Traders and Gunboats provided a number of settings to have adventures in.

Now, if I were playing Trillion Credit Squadron, then I could see how the Tigress-class (Pac-Man) Dreadnought would be nice to have around. But seriously, who has used the Tigress as a setting for a role-playing game? I guess the Tigress is nice to talk about to add some sort of background color to a narrative. But other than something like Trillion Credit Squadron, what good is that list of letters and numbers that make up its USP?

Especially in comparison to Supplement 5, Azhanti High Lightning, which is an awesome setting! One of the best Traveller adventures I ever ran was when our players were the command crew of the Azhanti High Lightning, a' la Star Trek.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, in my opinion, the question really isn't big ships verses little ships in Traveller. Size is irrelevant. Big ships can make great settings. And while GDW did detail a few settings like this, I believe they were far between. I am sorry that after five editions, they haven't detailed more. And I understand why. That's a lot of work! Especially for a big ship.

But I believe, in Traveller, a starship should be more than just a USP.

 

[Dragoner]

Players really connect with deck plans, they make a setting live. I did like the wargame elements a long time ago, though now I'm pretty much in the role-playing camp.

 

[Condottiere]

The reason to have a large ship universe, is so that you don't run out of redshirts.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The Kinunir's deck plans are used for the player's to crawl around and explore. (And in this particular adventure, whether they want to, or not.)

The Kinunir was part haunted house/part dungeon crawl, thanks to those deck plans.
Same with Annic Nova (after a fashion), although DA1 was more of a "haunted house" than it was a dungeon crawl.

The beauty of A1 though was that there were different "versions" of the ship that could be adventured in.
There was the scrap heap.
There was the prison ship.
And of course, there was the "lost ship" to be salvaged (if you could survive The Computer™ ... trust The Computer™).

Which is why, IMHO, products like Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats was so much better than Supplement 9, Fighting Ships. Traders and Gunboats provided a number of settings to have adventures in.

S7 gave you multiple settings (ship deck plans) to play with and visualize in your head, with the prospect of "someday, this could be MINE!"
S9 mostly gave you "other people's starships and small craft" ... stuff you were rather unlikely to own yourself, but which could be encountered in the wider TU.

In that respect, S7 was more foreground while S9 what more background set pieces.

But I believe, in Traveller, a starship should be more than just a USP.

Let's put it this way.
The most enduring and memorable ship designs out of Traveller are the ones with deck plans.
'Nuff said.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Shugs have 41Td cargo, not 30 (and payload of 53Td when you count the unused gunner staterooms and the low berths). Same idea, though.

 

[Enoki]

When you ask about big ships verses little ships in Traveller, I would suggest that that answer depends somewhat on how you play Traveller. Personally I'm more of a role-playing kinda' guy, than I'm a Trillion Credit Squadron kinda' guy. And because of that, I think mike wightman hit the nail on the head from what he said above. As far as role-playing goes, I believe ships, big or little, serve as a setting for a game. Several examples have already been mentioned -- Adventure 1, The Kinunir, Adventure 4, Leviathan, and Supplement 5, Azhanti High Lightning. The list goes on.

But what these Adventures and Supplements have in common is the idea of using these ships as a place to have an adventure. In Adventure 1, The Kinunir, the players don't actually jump into a Kinunir-class Colonial Cruiser to fly around to get into space battles with. The Kinunir's deck plans are used for the player's to crawl around and explore. (And in this particular adventure, whether they want to, or not.) Which is why, IMHO, products like Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats was so much better than Supplement 9, Fighting Ships. Traders and Gunboats provided a number of settings to have adventures in.

Now, if I were playing Trillion Credit Squadron, then I could see how the Tigress-class (Pac-Man) Dreadnought would be nice to have around. But seriously, who has used the Tigress as a setting for a role-playing game? I guess the Tigress is nice to talk about to add some sort of background color to a narrative. But other than something like Trillion Credit Squadron, what good is that list of letters and numbers that make up its USP?

Especially in comparison to Supplement 5, Azhanti High Lightning, which is an awesome setting! One of the best Traveller adventures I ever ran was when our players were the command crew of the Azhanti High Lightning, a' la Star Trek.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, in my opinion, the question really isn't big ships verses little ships in Traveller. Size is irrelevant. Big ships can make great settings. And while GDW did detail a few settings like this, I believe they were far between. I am sorry that after five editions, they haven't detailed more. And I understand why. That's a lot of work! Especially for a big ship.

But I believe, in Traveller, a starship should be more than just a USP.

If you play Traveller as a wargame, then big ships do make sense. That is, you are playing some sort of strategic / operational game using counters (or equivalent) using something like the Traveller system map. For role playing, they make a difficult setting most of the time.

 

[Tobias]

Starting over, I'd prefer a medium ship universe similar in scale to aramis's.
Capital ships limited to ~one tenth of what they canonically are, e.g. a Tigress is 50k dtons and is as uselessly large an abomination as in canon, a normal dreadnought is 20k dtons, cruisers range from 2k to 10k dtons, destroyers about 400-1k (and the "colonial cruiser" is a "let's call it a cruiser" combatant slightly larger.)

PC ships do register at that scale, a Corsair can reasonably take on a destroyer or other escort vessel, but swarms of them are not the endgame. Basically an interwar, 20s/30s model w/o submarines or aircraft, and tonnages x2.5 translating into dtons. (Tigress being an H-44 type monstrosity.)

 

[Condottiere]

Tigressii are the exception, rather than the rule, of starwarships, usually restricted to one battle squadron per sector.

The norm seems to be two hundred kilotonnes for battleships.