CT Only: Fleet Scout (Type SF) 199.5Td, J4/4G

[Spinward Flow]

Standard drives are better for building 200 Dt ships at low TL (i.e. standard ships), custom drives are better for building 150 Dt or hightech ships (i.e. custom ships).

In other words, standard components force you to build standard (boring?) ships. E.g. LBB2 only lets you build Scouts and Free Traders somewhat economically. 150 or 300 Dt ships are just not economically viable. 400 Dt allows some choice. Large (i.e. high TL) ships have lots of choice.

Well, as soon as you crack the drive performance tables open in a more formulaic fashion a significant portion of that "custom tonnage" limitation falls by the wayside for LBB2.81 standard drives. Not all of it, granted ... but at least you aren't being straightjacketed into an extremely limited set of options as the only "viable" set of possibilities.

We are so used to be forced into narrow viable choices by LBB2, that we hardly see the prison walls anymore...

I certainly agree with the notion that the "table data format" creates a "caged prison" context, where remarkably few people are even aware of the "walls" imposed by the granularity of the breakpoints involved in a lookup table rather than use of a mathematical formula to yield the same (but more diverse!) set of results.

can operate without misjumping every few years.

Being able to eliminate the risk of misjumping due to unrefined fuel is probably the BIGGEST investment in safety and longevity you can get when it comes to starship economics (aside from protection against piracy, but that's a different problem). Even though a 1/36 chance of a misjump is a low number per jump ... make enough jumps/keep rolling the dice and eventually it's going to happen. After 8 jumps, a 1/36 chance has a cumulative overall chance of happening at least once of slightly over 20%. After 10 jumps the cumulative odds of at least 1 misjump rise to almost 25%. After 18 jumps the cumulative odds of at least 1 misjump rise to almost 40% ... and at 25 jumps the cumulative odds of at least 1 misjump rise to over 50%.

For anyone paying attention, that's WORSE than the safety record of the NASA Space Shuttle program during its lifetime (which lost 2 orbiters with all crew aboard during 135 launches over 30 years from 1981-2011).

So it's the accumulation of risk that is the real threat over the longer term when using unrefined fuel, particularly when that risk involves the potential for COMPLETE LOSS OF CRAFT WITH ALL HANDS ABOARD.

Now, in the context of the original conception of Traveller gaming (basically "one shot" sessions with "disposable" characters), that kind of risk accumulation is going to be pretty minor, especially if the size of your map is only a single subsector (so the campaign "won't go far" before ending), so it wasn't that big of a deal.

However, from the context of a Universe Simulation and taking a longer view of things, having an up to 50% chance to misjump EVERY YEAR FOR 40 YEARS that could potentially result in the COMPLETE LOSS OF CRAFT WITH ALL HANDS ABOARD is absolutely unacceptable! If you need a 40 year time horizon to recoup your investment in a hull. Tou can't have that hull "likely go missing" within the first 5 years! That's simply no way to run a for profit business!

So yeah ... refined fuel (and the reliable sourcing thereof) is an absolutely MISSION CRITICAL resource for merchant ships (and their crews) as a preventative measure against the small but very real potential of catastrophic loss and bankruptcy (if not outright DEATH!).

As gamers we tend to underestimate the value/danger of cumulative low level risks like this, even though the outcome of those risks can be literally life changing (if not life ENDING).

The "regulatory arbitrage" diffeence at the 200Td breakpoint is significant.

It certainly is!
The problem is that craft under 200 tons are pretty severely limited in their capabilities, so you had better be finding a REALLY GOOD EDGE CASE with what you're doing when exercising this option. The biggest limitation is the difficulty in "making the shoe fit" when limited to under 200 tons.

Yes, the A2 is a silly ship in LBB2. If you want a J-2 trader in LBB2 you get a 400 Dt standard hull.

I agree.
The Far Trader would be a MUCH better designed ship if done as a 400 ton J2/2G craft. It would be more expensive ... but a lot better!

Of course, I'm also crazy enough to think that the Express Tender would be a far superior design if done as an 800 ton custom hull using H/H/H drives for J2/2G performance as well ... so as to be able to self-deploy across 4 parsec segments of the Express Network without requiring the deployment and assistance of tanker support. That way Express Tenders can be periodically rotated to Way Stations for deep maintenance and service life extension program (SLEP) work to help keep hulls in service.

Totals: 110 dTon (+440 fuel), 450 MCr. Needs 1.1 engineers

Note that HG 1000 Dt ships still use LBB2 crew requirements, so no major difference in engineers.

Because you're dealing with a 1000 ton hull, LBB2 crew requirements still apply (LBB5 crew rules take over on hulls over 1000 tons).

110/35 = 3.142857142857143 ... so depending on whether you rule that the engineering requirement is a round off or round up, you're looking at needing 3-4 engineers, not just 1.1 engineers.

I don't think its unintended, it's the high tech advantage. Bigger ships are higher tech, and more efficient.

I prefer to think of it as being the case that under LBB2 design rules, higher tech makes bigger ships POSSIBLE ... with a side effect built in that the TL=15 V-Z drives have an efficiency bias in their favor, making them the most economical (see: TL=15 is the BESTEST at EVERYTHING! discussion).

Where LBB2 standard drives "shine" the most is in the small ship/high performance regime at LOW tech levels (9-10 especially for ACS), although doing so comes at some pretty significant cost in other areas of an overall completed design. Being able to "hotrod" smaller starships at lower tech levels using standard drives rather than custom drives becomes its own mini-game in the starship design space.

 

[mike wightman]

Any jump drive at any TL is capable of jump 36 in the right wrong circumstance.
The software and computer breakthrough insight is a good one, and is how I explain the greater capacity at the lower TLs with optimised (i.e. letter) drives.

 

[McPerth]

TTB, p87.
No need to take my word for it.

Thanks. I looked for it in the SHip design section, not thinking on looking for it there...

In any case, I know I can trust your word when it coues to rules (your interpretation for them may be another matter, though )

See those computer programs required for different jump numbers?

Off course

Of course, this is broken (again) if a TL9 ship may even be J3…

Why do you think I didn't say J4+?

At TL 9 the maximum computer is 3, and so the máximum jump is also 3. Not just the software, but also hardware, as, per TTB page 57, you cannot perform jump over you computer number (bis computers counting as one number higher)

the Vilani could be building starships that would be capable of J3 if they had perfected the computer programming needed to do so ...

Nowhere in canon tells about any such computing limitation on the Vilani (as it is told about their medical ones), so, while a good tale, not supported at all by canon, as is the simple fact that at TL 11 you cannot jump higher than J2.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I agree.
The Far Trader would be a MUCH better designed ship if done as a 400 ton J2/2G craft. It would be more expensive ... but a lot better!

As I pointed out, the R2 is built into the rules, as an "Easter Egg". I suspect that had a double purpose. First, to provide a built-in upgrade path for the Type R; second, to force wasted tonnage in the Type R to bring it closer to parity with the Type A despite the bridge tonnage percentage difference (5% vs 10%).

 

[Spinward Flow]

The software and computer breakthrough insight is a good one, and is how I explain the greater capacity at the lower TLs with optimised (i.e. letter) drives.

We make every pretense of competency around here.

The point of using the "software limit" in addition to the "hardware limit" is that it means that until a polity/union is able to make the necessary breakthrough, you can "overkill" the engineering hardware as much as you want, but you aren't going to be getting the "full potential" of those jump drives until you've also solved the software problem as well. However, once the "software limit gets overcome" then all of the already constructed hulls with all of that "overkill" engineering hardware installed can just "install the software patch" and use their drives up to a higher level of potential than before.

Once the "software problems have all been solved" (so to speak) ... this means that low tech standard drives are capable of higher performance than can be obtained out of custom drives at the same tech level (potentially), but that's a side effect of having "already done it" and perfected the tech elsewhere and then backporting that knowledge and software into older/less sophisticated engineering hardware that is capable of delivering those higher performance outputs in the context of smaller hulls. Once you've finished the "pathfinder tech advancement" and perfected it, you can then "patch" the older stuff to work up to that level.

So there's still a "tech tree unlock" involved, but things can get a bit more "roundabout" regarding it when using standard drives (as opposed to custom drives).

I looked for it in the SHip design section, not thinking on looking for it there...

TTB is just LBB1-3.81 reprinted in a single book, so I knew to look for the LBB3.81 tech tree table there.
And yes, it's annoying that it isn't cross-copied into the starship design stuff in LBB2.81 (and thus not where you'd want to look for it in TTB either).

In any case, I know I can trust your word when it coues to rules (your interpretation for them may be another matter, though )

Which is fair.
Not everyone is going to interpret the same text in the exact same ways.
If they did ... we wouldn't need a legal profession or even courts to adjudicate such things ...

The one thing that I do hope I'm at least good for is citations and explaining WHY I interpret RAW the way that I do ... in a Show Your Work™ kind of way so as to open source the reasoning and rationale that gives rise to the interpretation I present. That way, it's easier to judge my logic on the merits of the logic involved, rather than needing to just take my word for things (because I said so!).

Nowhere in canon tells about any such computing limitation on the Vilani (as it is told about their medical ones), so, while a good tale, not supported at all by canon, as is the simple fact that at TL 11 you cannot jump higher than J2.

Probably because no one writing the canon for that portion of OTU history thought about it that deeply (all the way down to the "nuts and bolts" engineering and starship design questions involved). Given reactions in this thread to my postulate on this point ... it sounds like no one else considered or contemplated this idea for "why only still J2 at TL=11 when LBB2 standard drives obviously exist and can obviously do more than J2 at low tech levels in small hull starships?" until I put the pieces together and provided a (somewhat) definitive answer that could be considered plausible (given the historical evidence).

I'm not claiming that my solution to the "stuck at J2 at TL=11 with LBB2 standard drives" problem is the ONLY way to reconcile the issues that you've raised ... but it certainly disposes of the problem in a rather tidy fashion that is certainly plausible enough to be accepted.

Also, just because canon is "silent" on a particular detail ... that doesn't mean that canon "denies" all possibilities. It just simply means that canon "does not definitively confirm" a particular sequence of events and outcomes ... meaning that specific bits and pieces (such as this one) are left open to be answered in a variety of different ways (that will hopefully be consistent with how the rules of Traveller "work").

I've provided one (possible) solution.
You're free to come up with your own alternative that can be peer reviewed for likelihood and plausibility, if you want.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I prefer to think of it as being the case that under LBB2 design rules, higher tech makes bigger ships POSSIBLE ... with a side effect built in that the TL=15 V-Z drives have an efficiency bias in their favor, making them the most economical (see: TL=15 is the BESTEST at EVERYTHING! discussion).

Which provides a possible way to extend extrapolation of the "broad middle" of the drive performance table wherein almost every drive's rating matches what the formulae predict (that is, up to the TL-15 drives). TL-14 can build any drive, but the increased performance for W-Z drives is only available at TL-15.

 

[Grav_Moped]

TL-14 can build any drive, but the increased performance for W-Z drives is only available at TL-15

And then you have the option of applying TL-15 performance upgrades to drives smaller than W. Which moves you closer to T5...

 

[kilemall]

Drop it to 199Td.
Crew is then pilot, gunner. Delete the 2 now un-needed staterooms (+7Td cargo after sacrificing that 1Td to exercise regulatory arbitrage -- also, saves MCr 1, plus the Cr from the 1Td of removed hull).

Then restore both to 2G capability...



Or, to put it another way, the apples-to-apples comparison should be to 89Td payload at J2/2G.

I never allowed the 199 type business. You build 199, it’s in the 101-200 range and treated like 200. 300 tons, it’s 201-400 range and so 400 ton performance etc.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I never allowed the 199 type business. You build 199, it’s in the 101-200 range and treated like 200. 300 tons, it’s 201-400 range and so 400 ton performance etc.

I can understand that, while not entirely agreeing.

I see the crew size issue as being mostly an out-of-universe thing that's there to let the Type S be run single-handed, and to avoid mandating a navigator crew slot for the Type A.

My in-universe explanation is that the Scouts got those exemptions specifically for the Type S. but between not wanting to make it obvious that they'd done so, and commercial interests lobbying to expand it, everyone agreed to make the cut-off point 200Td (201 for navigators). In-universe, it's presented as a risk tolerance issue -- those crew positions are a good idea to have, but the smallest ships put relatively few lives at risk so it's acceptable.

For me, the dividing line is whether or not the ship has a second hardpoint (or perhaps has a turret on the second hardpoint, for maximum flexibility of interpretation?) since that's the big benefit of crossing the 200Td threshold.

For drive performance, rounding down between the breakpoints on the table is just Rules as Written.

You need to allow interpolated intermediate-sized drives to avoid that.

 

[kilemall]

I can understand that, while not entirely agreeing.

I see the crew size issue as being mostly an out-of-universe thing that's there to let the Type S be run single-handed, and to avoid mandating a navigator crew slot for the Type A.

My in-universe explanation is that the Scouts got those exemptions specifically for the Type S. but between not wanting to make it obvious that they'd done so, and commercial interests lobbying to expand it, everyone agreed to make the cut-off point 200Td (201 for navigators). In-universe, it's presented as a risk tolerance issue -- those crew positions are a good idea to have, but the smallest ships put relatively few lives at risk so it's acceptable.

For me, the dividing line is whether or not the ship has a second hardpoint (or perhaps has a turret on the second hardpoint, for maximum flexibility of interpretation?) since that's the big benefit of crossing the 200Td threshold.

For drive performance, rounding down between the breakpoints on the table is just Rules as Written.

You need to allow interpolated intermediate-sized drives to avoid that.

LBB5 is for that. Standardized drives are NASCAR or Formula 1 at best, x performance in y chassis with mass production engineering.

 

[whartung]

Standardized drives are NASCAR or Formula 1 at best

The powerplants for US Navy destroyers and frigates are off the shelf commercial items used by navies and ships all over the world. Many jet engines are used across military and civilian aircraft. Rolls Royce, GE, Pratt & Whitney, etc. are in the engine and power plant business, not the aircraft or vehicle business just like ship builders are in the ship business and use stock off the shelf products.

These machines are spectacularly complex and the support and maintenance of them is a key aspect to the operational costs of a vessel. No reason to just make this stuff up for one off applications. I don't know if other navies don't use nuclear reactors for their ships simply because of cost, or because the US Navy (which is directly involved in the development of maritime nuclear reactors) won't let the contractors that build them, sell them to someone else. In any case, they stand out as an exception to using commercially available power in military applications.

 

[Grav_Moped]

LBB5 is for that. Standardized drives are NASCAR or Formula 1 at best, x performance in y chassis with mass production engineering.

Yes and no.
Yes, because LBB5 exists.
No, because LBB5 works differently (drive tonnage and such).
Interpolated LBB2 drives would work like LBB2 drives, particularly with respect to TL.

What I'm getting at is that IMO the drive table describes what's available in the setting, the math that underpins it describes what's possible in-universe. The fractional-step drives are possible, but it's arguable that you'd need to source them directly from Industrial-coded worlds with Class A starports, and pay a premium unless you were buying them in large quantities.

(Relatedly but somewhat off the topic, I think that a Size C drive should yield a rating of 4 in a 150Td hull, not 3 as you'd get from RAW which would treat the 150Td hull as 200Td.)

 

[Grav_Moped]

And back to the original topic (but it'll get its own thread), at TL-13 the SF can be built in LBB5 and is a better ship (full 200Td, two turrets and full crew, and with 6G capability).

The LBB2 version is the Scouts' version (low tech by policy for easier sustainment, armament not critical), while the LBB5 version is the Navy version (maxed armament -- though it's mostly defensive -- and TL constraints are not a major consideration).

 

[Spinward Flow]

(Relatedly but somewhat off the topic, I think that a Size C drive should yield a rating of 4 in a 150Td hull, not 3 as you'd get from RAW which would treat the 150Td hull as 200Td.)

So do I.

And back to the original topic (but it'll get its own thread), at TL-13 the SF can be built in LBB5 and is a better ship (full 200Td, two turrets and full crew, and with 6G capability).

The LBB2 version is the Scouts' version (low tech by policy for easier sustainment, armament not critical), while the LBB5 version is the Navy version (maxed armament -- though it's mostly defensive -- and TL constraints are not a major consideration).

At that point you're just making busywork for yourself and creating logistical headaches.
Do it for the IISS OR the IN ... but don't try doing it for "both" at different tech levels. That's just more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Grav_Moped]

So do I.

At that point you're just making busywork for yourself and creating logistical headaches.
Do it for the IISS OR the IN ... but don't try doing it for "both" at different tech levels. That's just more trouble than it's worth.

I assume both exist in a both/and universe; for a LBB2-only setting, the LBB2 version is the performance edge case of the (far more common) J4/2G version.

In a both/and setting, the two high-performance versions will have separate procurement and logistics chains. Specifically, the LBB2 version can rely on civillan infrastructure, while the HG version needs military logistics.

 

[Vargr Breath]

I thought the Type S were built to the TL-9 standard so that they could be more easily worked on, and the parts would be more standardized. Sort of like an old VW Beetle.

 

[Spinward Flow]

I thought the Type S were built to the TL-9 standard so that they could be more easily worked on, and the parts would be more standardized. Sort of like an old VW Beetle.

TL=9 or 10, I reckon.
The main reason for TL=10 would be a Crystaliron hull material for bulkheads and a +1DM on sandcaster battery codes.
No need to go to TL=11 for construction when using LBB2.81 for drives.

 

[Vargr Breath]

CT Supplement 9 list the Scout Ship as TL9. I'm not sure I've seen the TL listed in any of the other books.

 

[mike wightman]

That's because the A drive is TL9...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It's a LBB2 ship, it doesn't have an intrinsic TL. It can be built at any Imperial (or similar) shipyard, of any TL (even Kinorb A663659-8).

The components of the ship are TL-9 or less (drives, computer).

LBB2'81, p12:
____Space ships are constructed and sold at shipyards throughout the galaxy. Any class A starport has a shipyard which can build any kind of ship, including a starship with jump drives; any class B starport can build a small craft and ships which do not have jump drives. The military procures vessels through these yards, corporations buy their commercial vessels from these shipyards, and private individuals can purchase ships that they have designed through them as well. The major restriction on the purchase of ships is money.

LBB5 is different:

LBB5'80:
____Technological Level: Technological level is important in the design of a ship because it governs where the ship may be produced, and how well the crew can operate and maintain it. The technological level of the building shipyard determines the technological level of the ship being constructed (a class A starport on a tech level 14 world constructs a tech level 14 ship). Equipment and components of a starship may always be equal to or less than the ship's tech level.