Imperial Type-S variants

[GypsyComet]

I think that's just a "Courier", as the Solomani don't have a separate Scout/Survey/Exploration service IIRC. I've seen a couple fan attempts at plans.

https://soltrim.blogspot.com/2006/03/solomani-courier.html

Jumpspace #6 (fanzine) has an attempt

The third looks like one of Mark Lucas' (lucasdigital on CotI) but I can't find a good online source and it isn't one of the plans he put in the CotI gallery.

It is also in the Mongoose Solomani book, and they *always* do plans, or did in 1st edition.


Chris Cox did a "Solomani Scout" in the 90s, but its a different ship entirely.

http://www.dragonspace.com/trav/solscout.htm

 

[Blue Ghost]

Very cool, thank you for this. I was curious if anybody had ever tackled it.

I guess I'm not up on my solomani lore other than "terran supremacy", SolSec and all that goes with it. Meaning that I'm curious why they don't have an exploratory service. However, that courier does seem rather larger, which probably fits in with a security oriented courier.

 

[Condottiere]

Fish aesthetic.

Not really optimized for anything, and if it were a fleet courier, it would be at a minimum a jump four craft.

 

[kilemall]

If we keep strictly to design tonnages we can get something like this:






Living areas are much more cramped...

Crawlspace sorta works, although I'd be buggered as to how you are gonna wrestle missiles into that turret.


The forward work area plays into my separate mental spaces paradigm that is important for 4-8 people stuck in a tube and functionally reminds me of that mission modular space up top in one of the Type S deckplans.



The lack of airlocks in general though is a bit concerning. The airlock is doing triple duty for exterior access, protection between engineering and the rest of the ship and lift, but is also a single failure point. Only other egress points involve voiding the atmo/exposing interior space.



Doesn't bother me so much for space, moreso for planets.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Crawlspace sorta works, although I'd be buggered as to how you are gonna wrestle missiles into that turret.

The crawlspace is only there as a nod to the original S7 deck plan. It makes the terrain a bit more tactically interesting...

There is an iris valve directly up into the turret. Even if the power fails completely I guess we can use a pulley-system to hoist missiles up there. CT missiles are not all that large or heavy.

The forward work area plays into my separate mental spaces paradigm that is important for 4-8 people stuck in a tube and functionally reminds me of that mission modular space up top in one of the Type S deckplans.

I agree that a single common room is not enough.

The forward Work Area is a representation of the rear sensor/commo area left open as a lounge in the S7 deck plan. It would similarly be emptied of equipment and usable as a lounge on detached duty Scouts.

The lack of airlocks in general though is a bit concerning. The airlock is doing triple duty for exterior access, protection between engineering and the rest of the ship and lift, but is also a single failure point. Only other egress points involve voiding the atmo/exposing interior space.

Agreed, the lift/air lock is over-worked, and also tiny. I used the rule from later editions, that one air lock is included free for each hundred Dt. It does have the advantage of being very compact, which is important in such a small ship.

I'm assuming that the Vehicle Bay can be used as an air lock, and in a pinch the Cargo Hold, since they are separated by air-tight bulkheads and iris valves.

The emergency hatch from the crawlspace can use the crawlspace as an air lock. I'm assuming the decks are bulkheads.

I might include another hatch downward, using the front landing strut as a ladder.


You are right that the lift/air lock can't be the only access to Engineering. I will add a reserve hatch.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

How about this:

 

[Blue Ghost]

Fish aesthetic.

Not really optimized for anything, and if it were a fleet courier, it would be at a minimum a jump four craft.

It just really looks wonky to me. Every now and then when I would pick up the game again I would wonder how on Earth that think would function, and the purpose of its shape. I mean Keith "paid homage" to other ships from other properties, but it's like for all of Traveller's odds and ends (like interplanetary travel rules, which I can't recall anyone using), the Soli-scout is an odd duck. Which is strange because FASA (I think it was Keith's company) came up with the Ninz, which to me is a really nifty design. We ran Snapshot scenarios on the Ninz, but never touched the Soli scout (no-deckplans not withstanding because we would have made up our own).

 

[Vargas]

I had assumed all the wedge-shaped Type-Ss were the same class ... that the differences were only because of the different rules. (But maybe that was just me.)

I subscribe to the same theory.

 

[warwizard]

My Terran scouts are T4 based with some concepts imported from T5 for experimental tech. As my interest is in the era before first contact with the Valani there is no bleed over from the CT's wedge shaped scouts. These scouts vary enormously between ships built two years apart as the Terrans kludged in new experimental devices and corrected design errors mentioned in the post voyage debriefs.

 

[warwizard]

For example the first scout, really a 2nd model of the robotic probe that did the first J-1 and back, this time with a human crew and fuel for 4X J-1 had zero capability to land on a planet or refuel out in the wild unless the crew managed to drift close to an ice asteroid and do EVA's to chip ice off and bring it in through the airlock, then kludge something to melt it while venting off the unwanted gasses, then pass some current and collect the H2 and O2. Ion drive, spin the ship for gravity, and as many sensors it can carry, along with a big folding radio transmitter to radio back to Earth what they have discovered, in case they do not make it back.

 

[warwizard]

Later scouts would be customized for the mission if possible, perhaps mounting a lunar expeditionary module type which does nothing more than land a small team on the surface then an assent vehicle with the team and a few kg of samples returns to the ship. All of course using chemical rockets. All this being done at TL 8 with an experimental jump drive.

 

[GypsyComet]

in the era before first contact with the Vilani there is no bleed over from the CT's wedge shaped scouts. These scouts vary enormously between ships

I'm not sure it's been established that the well-known arrowhead is even a Vilani design, or that the Vilani used 100 dton ships at all. I've always assumed the flat wedge seen in some of the 1100s era capital ships was a Sylean design choice. Certainly the counters for the Imperium boardgame (which is about the Nth Interstellar War) do not use that shape for either Terran or Vilani Scout ships, though it does appear in some of the larger ships.

 

[Madmax]

My Terran scouts are T4 based with some concepts imported from T5 for experimental tech. As my interest is in the era before first contact with the Valani there is no bleed over from the CT's wedge shaped scouts. These scouts vary enormously between ships built two years apart as the Terrans kludged in new experimental devices and corrected design errors mentioned in the post voyage debriefs.

Was that "post voyage debriefs" or "post voyage debris"?
IMTU it would more often be the latter.

 

[Condottiere]

I suspect you'd have to ask the creative team at time of publication.

It could be that since most were black and white line drawings, they probably wanted a variety of different designs.

I think the only consistent design philosophy I've seen so far was in Tea Twenty's Fighting Ships of the Solomani Confederation.

Which, coincidentally, does appear to favour the wedge.

 

[warwizard]

Well, I do have the interstellar range radio transmission dish mounted so I can get some data back from the voyages that resulted in debris.

These first ships are not designed to enter atmosphere, so I doubt they would have any kind of lifting body designs. Perhaps later missions might have different methods of getting to a planet surface and back, but for now, I would say that the scout missions would carry drones for the actual landing phases, some on high altitude gas envelopes, others with a small rover, or a glider. After all we might still have requirements that we not contaminate these worlds with our microbes.