K'kree Ships and Vehicles

[Timerover51]

I have been looking at the K'kree in another respect, although not really a fan of intelligent herbivores, but I have gotten to thinking about how large their ships and vehicles would have to be. Garnet Wolseley's The Soldier's Pocket Book for Field Service, 1886 edition allows for 3' x 10' for a horse in rank, at least 1200 cubic feet per horse for stables, and stalls of at least 4' 5" X 9'. At 550 kilograms/1212 pounds, a K'kree would count as a draught horse, but should require a bit more room as they are also hexapodal.

Given they are the size of a large horse, their ships and vehicles are going to have to be sized accordingly. Rounding for Traveller, each K'kree should take up at least two of the standard 1.5 X 1.5 meter squares simply standing. Aside from needing probably more height, corridors should be about 3 squares wide, while staterooms, to allow for turning around and movement inside would appear to need to be about 5 or 6 squares wide and also long, so much larger than what a human needs.

As I do not have the K'ree alien module, I was wondering how much this is reflected in their vehicles and ships.
'

 

[tjoneslo]

The general rules were 6x the normal human space for staterooms, crew spaces or access space. In addition to being physically larger than humans, the K'kree are claustrophobic, though I think this is more cultural than really a mental limitation.

 

[GRNDL]

I'm not expert on the K'Kree (though I did want to run a campaign with a crazy loner K'Kree char) but I believe they don't share the same range of spacecraft that other races have, simply because of who/what they are.

They wouldn't have single-crew fighters, or even vehicles. I doubt they'd have vehicles with less than, say, 4 peeps, because of their herd mentality. Their society is constructed about the herd and those separating form the herd are crazy. I don't see why they'd expect 1 peep to go into battle, or exploring, or down to the shops, with this mentality, if they could help it.

Their cities, spacecraft, buildings and everything else would be designed with this in mind. So the equivalent of a small fighting vessel might actually be very large by human standards and actually classified as a frigate or something.

If they were building a "fighter", it might be robotic or a drone, controlled remotely.

With regards to furnishings and staterooms, they would probably share much larger rooms and not have the same attitude toward partitioning space as humans do. A single stateroom seems ridiculous for K'Kree, but a large "Stable" like room, housing ten or twenty might not be.

 

[Carlobrand]

I'm not expert on the K'Kree (though I did want to run a campaign with a crazy loner K'Kree char) but I believe they don't share the same range of spacecraft that other races have, simply because of who/what they are.

They wouldn't have single-crew fighters, or even vehicles. I doubt they'd have vehicles with less than, say, 4 peeps, because of their herd mentality. Their society is constructed about the herd and those separating form the herd are crazy. I don't see why they'd expect 1 peep to go into battle, or exploring, or down to the shops, with this mentality, if they could help it.

Their cities, spacecraft, buildings and everything else would be designed with this in mind. So the equivalent of a small fighting vessel might actually be very large by human standards and actually classified as a frigate or something.

If they were building a "fighter", it might be robotic or a drone, controlled remotely.

With regards to furnishings and staterooms, they would probably share much larger rooms and not have the same attitude toward partitioning space as humans do. A single stateroom seems ridiculous for K'Kree, but a large "Stable" like room, housing ten or twenty might not be.

You have most of that right.

CT Alien Module 2: K'Kree, notes K'Kree fighters and combat vehicles. K'Kree combat vehicle crews and fighter crews require the "enclosure" skill to be able to endure long periods in enclosed environments (including vac suits!) with so few comrades around them. K'Kree capable of living that life are valued soldiers - and considered dangerously eccentric by their peers (and often are).

"The cavalry service is regarded with a mixture of scorn and awe; vehicle crewmen are generally thought of as lunatics and permitted eccentricities of all sorts that would be grounds for censure in any other arm of the service. The same is true of fighter pilots in the Navy; both breeds are extremely rare, and therefore valued even though their mental stability is considered suspect by most."

By comparison, the more typical K'Kree minimum unit size is the 50-man "infantry" platoon - except for the specially trained eccentrics, K'Kree don't like fighting in groups smaller than that.

The K'Kree have no equivalent of the 10 dT fighter, but they do have the other types of small craft, and pilots who can fly them, althought - even with Enclosure skill - they can't handle more than a few hours in them. Alien Module 2 offers modification to ship design rules that give a glimpse into K'Kree needs: a "stateroom" is 48 dT (and private staterooms are unheard of - several staterooms join into one communal living space), a small craft stateroom is 24 dT (the smallest volume of space that an Enclosure-trained K'Kree can endure for more than 10 hours or so), and a small craft couch is 4 dT (and, "usually at least two are required").

(Why am I thinking that K'Kree interior decorating for ships would lean heavily on mirrors? )

Given that, it is remotely possible to design a 20dT fighter, but the fighter will be a short-range, short-duration fighter. Something able to patrol for long duration would probably be in the 80-95 dT range. Armored vehicles, probably the smallest is no smaller than that 20 dT fighter - which itself is twice the size of an Imperial tank - and that would be a 2-"person" scout-car design. Full-fledged tanks would run to twice that.

The smallest K'Kree ship is 1000 dT - they won't build smaller than that for interstellar travel. It's one thing to be shooting through space with only you, your bud, and 56 dT of volume to live in; it's quite another to be cut off from the universe in jump space with only the two of you and that tiny bit of space.

Per CT Book 8: Robots, K'Kree robotic tech at TL13 is primitive by Imperial standards - and Imperial standards aren't world-shaking. K'Kree robots tend to be used for menial tasks and lack the AI to handle combat roles independently. K'Kree drone fighters don't exist. They do have pretty sophisticated remote-control weapons systems but, given the distances involved in space warfare, remote control fighters are not practical. For example, K'Kree use remote control technology for some ship's boats, freeing merchants from the need to find and train K'Kree who can handle that nerve-wracking job, but per CT Alien Module 2, the boats are "clumsier than a vessel under direct control," and are piloted with a -2 penalty to skill.

 

[Sir Brad]

their ships are big open spaces with Soil & Plants topped with transparent domes that are Holoreactive so they can project artificial sky's. Bridges are just a collection of work stations in a convenient place, Battle Bridges do have damage mitigation screens. work in engineering spaces is carried out by remotes. as far as Small Craft, life boats nothing displacing under 95 tons packed with cold sleep births and run by a model/5 computer.

Ships smaller than 1KT displacement are also un-K'Kreed run by Model/5 Computers.

At least according Alien Module 2: K'Kree

Edit: each K'Kree also requires 48 Displacement tons of space (Half that if all present have the Enclosure Skill), Life support costs 3000cr for every two weeks.

 

[Timerover51]

their ships are big open spaces with Soil & Plants topped with transparent domes that are Holoreactive so they can project artificial sky's. Bridges are just a collection of work stations in a convenient place, Battle Bridges do have damage mitigation screens. work in engineering spaces is carried out by remotes. as far as Small Craft, life boats nothing displacing under 95 tons packed with cold sleep births and run by a model/5 computer.

Ships smaller than 1KT displacement are also un-K'Kreed run by Model/5 Computers.

At least according Alien Module 2: K'Kree

Edit: each K'Kree also requires 48 Displacement tons of space (Half that if all present have the Enclosure Skill), Life support costs 3000cr for every two weeks.

Hmmm, I would put that life support cost as too low. For a human stateroom the life support cost is 1,000 credits every two weeks. Given that the K'kree weigh 550 kilograms, have two hearts, and are hexapodal, I would put oxygen consumption at about 7 times that of a human, figuring a human at about 80 kilograms. Add it that the K'kree are herbivores, which means more waste to deal with, and probably are going to need somewhere between 6 to 8 gallons of water a day minimum, based on the consumption of a horse, I would put life support costs at more like 5,000 to 8,000 credits per two weeks.

Based on the comments regarding claustrophobia-like problems, armored vehicles are going to be few and far between for the K'kree as well, and the ones that the have are going to be very large.

 

[GRNDL]

I haven't really thought about it much until I read this post, but the K'Kree must eat some amazing veggies. One of the reasons why we as mammals have developed in the way we have is because we had access to high calorie/protein food that allowed our brains to grow and stimulate us mentally on how to acquire (eating predator's kills, avoiding said predators, opportunistic eating, eventually hunting, etc) coupled with getting all the nutrition we needed without a large amount of dedicated time, which gave us time to do other things. K'Kree being devout vegans, they'd need to spend a lot of time eating unless their veggies were packed with nutrients, which a lot of Terran (not sure about Vilani, etc) veggies don't. Terran herbivores spend a great deal of time collecting and eating food.

Not much of a point here, just an aside. Back to your regular programming.

 

[Sir Brad]

Hmmm, I would put that life support cost as too low. For a human stateroom the life support cost is 1,000 credits every two weeks. Given that the K'kree weigh 550 kilograms, have two hearts, and are hexapodal, I would put oxygen consumption at about 7 times that of a human, figuring a human at about 80 kilograms. Add it that the K'kree are herbivores, which means more waste to deal with, and probably are going to need somewhere between 6 to 8 gallons of water a day minimum, based on the consumption of a horse, I would put life support costs at more like 5,000 to 8,000 credits per two weeks.

Based on the comments regarding claustrophobia-like problems, armored vehicles are going to be few and far between for the K'kree as well, and the ones that the have are going to be very large.

just repeating whats in AM:2, Engineering is also under the floor when they need to do work that can't be done by remotes they pull up the floor/roof so they can get at the work that needs doing.

 

[Carlobrand]

... as far as Small Craft, life boats nothing displacing under 95 tons packed with cold sleep births and run by a model/5 computer.

Ships smaller than 1KT displacement are also un-K'Kreed run by Model/5 Computers.

At least according Alien Module 2: K'Kree
...

Didn't I just quote Alien Module 2: K'Kree talking about fighter pilots? o:
AND small craft couches??

 

[Timerover51]

If each K'kree requires a minimum of 24 Traveller displacement tons of enclosed space, assuming the Enclosure skill, then the minimum size of K'kree vehicle that I come up with is about 24 meter long, 4.5 meters wide, and 3 meters high. That is about the size of a World War 2 PT boat, and that is for ONE K'kree! That is not a small target by any means of you are talking ground vehicles. What that also means is that every K'kree vehicle is going to be expensive to produce and therefore is a high-value target for destruction.

As a corollary, the lack of ability to deal with enclosed space means that either all K'kree underground mines are handled by robots or human-sized servants, or they have a LOT of strip mining going on. The need for human or equivalent servants/slaves should make for K'kree servant or slave raids, and also extensive human-type servant breeding efforts.

As for K'kree rations, that is something I am working on, along with Vargr, Aslan, and Droyne rations.

 

[whartung]

Not like I know squat about K'kree.

But I would think open, yet personal vehicles would be workable. Basically things like a bicycle, a motorcycle, a small convertible, a Segway, "Grav Segway", adapted appropriately to their anatomy of course. With a high tech grav/flying vehicle, you could have a built in flocking behavior.

Obviously these won't work necessarily for space.

But my thinking was something like motorcycle riders on a highway. They pair up, run single file, but basically "stay together". It's a bit difficult to talk to each other, but that's what radios are for. I don't know what isolation is for K'kree. Do they just need to be close (feet, meters), or do they need to be nose-to-butt and bumping up next to each other all the time.

 

[aramis]

Not like I know squat about K'kree.

But I would think open, yet personal vehicles would be workable. Basically things like a bicycle, a motorcycle, a small convertible, a Segway, "Grav Segway", adapted appropriately to their anatomy of course. With a high tech grav/flying vehicle, you could have a built in flocking behavior.

Obviously these won't work necessarily for space.

But my thinking was something like motorcycle riders on a highway. They pair up, run single file, but basically "stay together". It's a bit difficult to talk to each other, but that's what radios are for. I don't know what isolation is for K'kree. Do they just need to be close (feet, meters), or do they need to be nose-to-butt and bumping up next to each other all the time.

they need to be smelling each other. For low speeds, independent vehicles would work, but I suspect nothing past running speed.

 

[BlackBat242]

All of this is, of course, why the K'kree have the habit of taking suitable smaller-than-K'kree bipedal species that they run across while absorbing territory (like the Girug'kagh*) and conducting a program of "re-education" for the entire species, to mould them into good obedient subservient species.

These do all the "confined-space/small-ship" jobs that sane K'kree are unable to.

Therefore, if you do find a K'kree-manufactured ship or craft under 100dt it is most likely NOT crewed by K'kree! Many of those under 1Kdt are not either.



* Described in JTAS #21; they are commonly used by the K'kree as intermediaries and translators, handling contacts with non-vegetarian individuals and species.

 

[aramis]

The smallest K'Kree vessels that don't need unusually well adjusted K'kree are 50x24= 1200 Tf of habitat space, unless one uses the fudge that the Stateroom accounts only for males... in which case, 50x8= 400Td of habitat space.

 

[Carlobrand]

If each K'kree requires a minimum of 24 Traveller displacement tons of enclosed space, assuming the Enclosure skill, then the minimum size of K'kree vehicle that I come up with is about 24 meter long, 4.5 meters wide, and 3 meters high. That is about the size of a World War 2 PT boat, and that is for ONE K'kree! That is not a small target by any means of you are talking ground vehicles. What that also means is that every K'kree vehicle is going to be expensive to produce and therefore is a high-value target for destruction.
...

Yeah, I don't think the K'Kree would fare well against an opponent of equal tech and resources who didn't have that size/claustrophobia problem. They are arguably very fortunate in their neighbors: no significant power close by other than the rather peaceful - well, if you don't mind a bit of manipulation - Hivers.

Given that they depend on rare eccentrics to man their fighters and tanks, it's not just the vehicles that're a high-value target for destruction. With that small a pool of candidates for crew, armor and fighters would be more "special-forces" elites than full-strength combat arms; it's like trying to fill a combat specialty with only manic-depressives. They wouldn't have near enough to counter an equivalent force capable of fielding armor normally - maybe not by a factor of a hundred. Their larger vehicles would suffer disproportionally, and their crew losses would be very close to irreplaceable.

The K'Kree are damn lucky.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

I wonder if the K'Kree interstellar government Dirty Tricks Department would use eccentric/insane loner K'Kree on missions to destabilize surrounding interstellar governments. As reward, they could offer them the association of a special herd and possible mating rights.

Think of it as an excuse to have a single or small group of K'Kree in their own starship wandering around your human governed interstellar government, distributing Highleaf and claiming that it should be cultivated and grown because it is harmless....

 

[Carlobrand]

I wonder if the K'Kree interstellar government Dirty Tricks Department would use eccentric/insane loner K'Kree on missions to destabilize surrounding interstellar governments. As reward, they could offer them the association of a special herd and possible mating rights.

Think of it as an excuse to have a single or small group of K'Kree in their own starship wandering around your human governed interstellar government, distributing Highleaf and claiming that it should be cultivated and grown because it is harmless....

That sounds more like Puppeteers than K'Kree. The K'Kree aren't manipulative by nature, as would be required both to bribe a fellow K'Kree and to run a "dirty tricks" department. They're intensely conservative, intensely herd-oriented, and violently aggressive to the point of utter ruthlessness in the pursuit of their worldview. They're driven by the need for security, not the hunger for territory or power. If you are a carnivore, you're a candidate for extinction, not destabilization. If you're an omnivore -well, you need to be stopped from your abhorrent behavior and taught the right way to live, if you can be taught at all, and that needs to happen now, not in some indefinite future by means of some uncertain stratagem.

If you're an herbivore, then you aren't a threat, and if you manage to find some way to become a threat, then they'll just stomp you until you learn your place - they're the most powerful empire in their region of space short of the Hivers. They and the Hivers have a non-interference agreement regarding the lesser systems between them, and the Hivers are far better manipulators, so if the K'Kree have any concerns from that quarter, they're more likely to turn to the direct approach.

Put simply, there's just nobody strong enough for the K'Kree to warrant changing from the tried-and-true direct approach - except maybe the Hivers, and you don't want to be playing manipulation games with them.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

In my own OTU, the K'Kree believe that the Imperium is one step away from being a carnivore holding and are suspect because they have the Aslan and Vargr as allies. So a destabilized neighbor is easier to make extinct and more acceptable than a strong stable one.

Then again, my OTU games have political intrigue as a driving force.

 

[GypsyComet]

Yeah, I don't think the K'Kree would fare well against an opponent of equal tech and resources who didn't have that size/claustrophobia problem.

A point made by the GT material, flippant as it is.

 

[Carlobrand]

In my own OTU, the K'Kree believe that the Imperium is one step away from being a carnivore holding and are suspect because they have the Aslan and Vargr as allies. So a destabilized neighbor is easier to make extinct and more acceptable than a strong stable one.

Then again, my OTU games have political intrigue as a driving force.

However many steps away from carnivorehood the Imperium might be - and as omnivores and shelterers of carnivores, they are unlikely to have fans among the K'Kree - they are still two sectors away, some 64 parsecs. Kirur's neighbors cannot hope to shelter beneath the wing of Imperial power, not unless you introduce some IMTU element that has the Imperium projecting fleets 4 to 8 months away from the Imperial borders, with a line of supply that traces through 4 or 5 different mini-empires to do it.

A more likely political intrigue scenario has the states closest to the K'Kree border doing their best to be both acceptable and friendly to those quadripedal fanatics, while the states closest to the Imperium work hard to court Imperial support against the distant but frighteningly genocidal K'Kree. The result that the client states close to the K'Kree border form a buffer between them and the nasty baddies elsewhere in the galaxy, and the Imperium and the K'Kree end up dueling indirectly through proxies. In that scenario, it's not the K'Kree doing the dirty tricks: they're supplying tech and financial support to proxies, likely even human proxies, who do the dirty tricks.

The K'Kree are supporting Darth Vegan and the Vegandon Empire. :devil: