Favorite Traveller Ship Design?

[Supplement Four]

What's your favorite Traveller ship design? I'm not talking about stats or how viable it is for PCs to make a profit operating her.

I'm strictly talking about how the old, classic, Traveller ships look.

Which one do you look at and say to yourself, "Man, that's a cool lookin' ship?







(No sense writing up a poll as it would be long with ship types...and I'd probably forget a ship or two. Just reply with whichever ship you like the best.)

 

[Supplement Four]

How do you like that? I wrote a long post about the different types of Traveller ships....Ones I thought were ugly....Ones I thought were cool.

And, for my pick, I went with the Free Trader. The Beowulf.

Big, long post. I hit "send", and I guess I took too long, because I got the 404 error. I went back a page, and my post was gone.

Oh, well. I'm not writing it all again.

But, yes, my pick is the Beowulf.

 

[far-trader]

...Big, long post. I hit "send", and I guess I took too long, because I got the 404 error. I went back a page, and my post was gone.

I hate when that happens

I'll be brief too, though only because of time issues.

It's not an easy call but I have to go with the first ship that got the "cool ship" reaction from me. The Zhodani Zhdits class Destroyer Escort. I first saw it in The Spinward Marches Campaign module I think and it was instant interest.

 

[selunatic2397]

I like the classic scout/courier! My real fav for later designs is the rumblefish gunboat from the ISS Ursula website...my players rebuilt it back into a more-or-less scout focussing on an elint recon role.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Definitely the Scout/Courier. I'll see Jesse DeGraf's digital art or other art and that's exactly what I think: "Man, that's a cool lookin' ship".

 

[Supplement Four]

Definitely the Scout/Courier.

It is a cool looking ship. Those classic lines. It always reminded me of the capsule in the original Planet of the Apes. Bryan Gibson's re-design of the scout for T20 is no slouch either.

I also like that ship, whatever it is, on the cover of The Spinward Marches Campaign.

There are so many cool looking Traveller ships. From the realisitic practicality Broadsword Merc Cruiser or the Donosev Survey Vessel to the Buck Rodgers quality of the Patrol Cruiser to the Millennium Falcon-esque Far Trader.

Have you noticed, though, that the "cool" ships in Traveller are the adventure class vessels? With a few exceptions (the Lightning Class Cruisers come to mind), most of the large fighting ships are downright silly looking.

 

[fredofmars]

I have to go with the Fleet Courier from Supp. 9.
Perhaps I'm a bit biased though since I've done so much with it.

 

[aramis]

Serpent Class Airframe Scout Courier. Always have loved that sexy little ship!

 

[grendelttroll]

I always liked DGP's Garu-class Far Trader from The Flaming Eye.

 

[BlackBat242]

Serpent Class Airframe Scout Courier. Always have loved that sexy little ship!

Absolutely... along with the 150t Extended Scout & 200t Far Trader versions from Paranoia Press' Scouts & Assassins and Merchants & Merchandise books.


Jump-capable starships on the Space Shuttle plan-form!


I have several customized versions.

 

[pendragonman]

Personally, I like the lines of the Dragon class SDB. But that is a boat.

For Ship lines, the Far Trader is good. Especially with the art from TNE.

 

[Vargas]

Type T patrol cruiser, the original Keith design.

 

[BigBadRon]

Gotta go for the classic Type S Scout/Courier too.

 

[soloprobe]

Me ,I like the serpent class scout ship ............

 

[mbrinkhues]

600dton Subsidized Liner aka Typ-M. No matter wether Bastion or Stellar class. Decend legs, resonable small crew and the form is a classic. Good ship Lolipop.

 

[jfetters]

Type T and S for me...

Although funnily enough, I have never seen the deck layout for the Type T.

 

[Colin]

Animal-class Safari Ship. Hands-down my all-time favorite. Classic flying wing, with a boat and air/raft. That retractable porch, capture tanks, hunter's suite with the skylight. All too cool.

Never much cared for the Type S scout, though the Serpent was cool. Garu-class Far Trader was nice as well. For big ships, well, most of them are kinda dorky-looking, but the Tigress has a certain flair.

 

[Whipsnade]

Animal-class Safari Ship. Hands-down my all-time favorite. Classic flying wing, with a boat and air/raft. That retractable porch, capture tanks, hunter's suite with the skylight. All too cool.

Colin,

That's my vote. Loved it, even though it's a straight rip from Land of the Giants, an absolutely excreable Irwin Allen "sci-fi" TV show from the late 60s. Oddly enough, despite my love of the design, I rarely had PCs using it in my games!

There are some superb deckplans for it on the 'net with a nifty trader version too.

Never much cared for the Type S scout, though the Serpent was cool. Garu-class Far Trader was nice as well.

The Suleiman has a certain underdog/retro/so ugly and plain it's cool charm. The Serpent-class variant is superb as is Bryan Gibson's version.

For big ships, well, most of them are kinda dorky-looking...

Form follows function sadly. Build a ship around a huge spinal mount and you don't end up with much.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[far-trader]

Sidebar...

Re the Animal Class Safari Ship...

Colin,

Loved it, even though it's a straight rip from Land of the Giants, an absolutely excreable...

Absolutely Excreable?! o:

But... my memories of my youthful enjoyment of the show, ruined in two words

No, not really I do think you need to recall the time and audience though Perhaps you were a little older, or more mature than myself at the time but I loved that show, among others that I probably couldn't bear to watch now. Anyway, just saying, watch out for the ricochet of those rocks when they come back to trash today's cool sci-fi in 40 odd years...

 

[Ishmael]

The Lucifer class Imperial Destroyer Escort ( FASA ships )
Chatl Zhodani fleet courier ( FASA ships )