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In your games what is the largest ship that can land on a planet.

Those books were genius. Take a pile of used (and thus fairly cheap to get to reuse) art and build a history and world around them. They sparked an interest in space, science, and creative fiction in so many children of the time.
 
Indeed I was one, part of the reason behind doing real star maps for traveller is that people could build their own tu's around them.
 
I can explain reason why but I always thought it was 2kdt. That said shouldn’t the starport/downport classification have a factor in the civil engineering aspect of developing the capabilities of the landing field and rating of the landing pads? Outside of the downport…the best adventure opening line is “you guys have landed and Karl you have the ship stuck and its sinking into the ground”.
 
Ahh the good old TTA books, I still have my full set.

It's hanging there just like a brick...
doesn't. (to paraphrase the great one)
I bought the first one when it came out and then totally missed the rest of them. I only found out 5-10 years back that there were 3 (?) more! They will be mine someday! :)
 
Wandering through CT/jTas, Champa down has a 400dTon limit.

One of the FASA 1000 ton liners needed a special cradle to land.

Do y'all apply limits like these?
It's never come up in my games. I'd probably rule up to 1000dT (maybe up to 5k or 10k?) without problem but above that would require a specialist cradle.
 
Neither of those is just built on some spare land. There’s a significant amount of infrastructure (foundations, pilings and the like) that stops them sinking. In the case of New York this is failing (turns out building a city in a swamp isn’t ideal).
Likewise, any starport landing pad - i.e., built with Tech Level 9 *or more* - and very likely that *or more* - could be made TO support a landing by any vessel, or set of vessels, up to a given amount of ground pressure.

Even up to 1,000,000 tons.

Regardless of whether landing that million ton vessel is a good idea or not.
 
It's never come up in my games. I'd probably rule up to 1000dT (maybe up to 5k or 10k?) without problem but above that would require a specialist cradle.
IMTU 10k to 30k tons would be about the largest vessel that should be landed on a planet.

Vessels up to 500,000 tons probably could be landed of needed, but that's like the crash landing at the beginning of Star Wars episode 3 - it's an emergency, and it takes up most of the downport to land.
 
Water worlds: Remember Luke travelling THROUGH the planet, the islands all seemed to be biological constructs ( think coral) and did not seem to have shoals or beaches around them. Now pity the fool that is denied landing rights cause his ship is too heavy for the island, and choses instead to land his >14mt/DT ship just off shore in the shallows.
Traffic control: "OMG! Traveller ABORT your landing! if you land offshore YOU WILL DIE!
Traveller: "That seems a bit harsh doesn't it?"
Traffic control: "It will not be us that kills you, the kraken will take care of that, now if you try to land on this island, we will vaporize the ship. If you cannot abort the landing, advise board a small craft and abandon ship! If you need a small craft we are scrambling one now."

Well so much for the party's ship and the fortune in metals they were going to sell.
 
Water worlds: Remember Luke travelling THROUGH the planet, the islands all seemed to be biological constructs ( think coral) and did not seem to have shoals or beaches around them. Now pity the fool that is denied landing rights cause his ship is too heavy for the island, and choses instead to land his >14mt/DT ship just off shore in the shallows.
Traffic control: "OMG! Traveller ABORT your landing! if you land offshore YOU WILL DIE!
Traveller: "That seems a bit harsh doesn't it?"
Traffic control: "It will not be us that kills you, the kraken will take care of that, now if you try to land on this island, we will vaporize the ship. If you cannot abort the landing, advise board a small craft and abandon ship! If you need a small craft we are scrambling one now."

Well so much for the party's ship and the fortune in metals they were going to sell.
Are we looking at a tsunami here if the ship does hit water?
 
Are we looking at a tsunami here if the ship does hit water?
No water worlds have thoes already. This scenario is the island has no shoals, the ship goes splash and keeps going down perhaps 10's of thousands of m before hitting something solid, that is if some lifeform does not try to see if the ship tastes good. Think that the island is a coral mat, 600m thick where it connects with other coral structures, but the mat gets thinner near the edges, a overweight ship landing poses a risk of breaking the mat and subjecting some portion of the population to play a don't feed the fish game. Hence the vaporization of ship promice.
 
Wandering through CT/jTas, Champa down has a 400dTon limit.

One of the FASA 1000 ton liners needed a special cradle to land.

Do y'all apply limits like these?
A one million dton sphere is only 300m in diameter. Any ship possible in Traveller *can* land on a planet. It’s just not always a good idea.
 
Square-cube law. (Wikipedia).
Volume (and presumably mass) increases faster by tonnage than the ship's footprint.
Large enough ships will settle into solid ground unless the landing pad is literally, cleared bedrock all the way across (and maybe even then, if it's large enough). And settling unevenly might do not-nice things to the hull.
A million dton ship is only 300m in diameter. Any ship can, but it’s not always a good idea.
 
I don't recall personally actually putting a limit on the tonnage.
Since most starports have a 'runway', that, to me infers a tacit limit on tonnage that is able to actually land. And begs the question, does the captain of a 10k ton cargo vessel want to add the danger/complexity of trying to put a ship of that size on the ground?
Even with gravs?
That's what small craft are primarily designed for.
 
Although small craft and interface vehicles may provide significant advantages to some applications, many larger craft may have specific missions that require landing.
 
I don't recall personally actually putting a limit on the tonnage.
Since most starports have a 'runway', that, to me infers a tacit limit on tonnage that is able to actually land. And begs the question, does the captain of a 10k ton cargo vessel want to add the danger/complexity of trying to put a ship of that size on the ground?
Even with gravs?
That's what small craft are primarily designed for.
how does a runway indicate a limit? And how is it dangerous to land with gravs?
 
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And how is it dangerous to land with gravs?
If the tarmac is not properly rated, you may land, but your landing gear may sink into the ground after breaking through the covering tarmac. The Portmaster coming out on a tram, yelling expletives, would be "Scene 2".
 
How about having grav plates (like the ones that are built into the floors of every starship) built into the floor of every starport? Gravity could be reduced to allow large fragile ships to land, or even assist with the landing or takeoff of ships with feeble drives unable to overcome local gravity? They could also be used to float cargo across the starport, or disabled/shut down ships into repair facilities.
 
Grav plated starports could also turn up the power to pin starships to the floor and prevent takeoff - clamping them to the ground until port fees have been paid, or to capture ships that have 'skipped'.
 
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