Fired up a new game of MgT with some old friends last night and one of the characters managed to roll up both a lab ship (as a Scholar/Field Researcher) and a scout ship (after four terms in the Scouts, various branches). While it's not a direction I'd thought to prepare for, I'm rolling with it conceptually.
(The noble-level SS field scholar, Edu D, has levels archaeology, languages, and various other sciences. In MTU, which is a cluster that humans came to several centuries ago as refugees, went through a dark age, and not all of the original refugee colonies have been found. Alien race native to the cluster but only starfaring after human contact next door to the area I'd planned to start the game. Long time Travellers have probably already guessed where I'm going to go with this.
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What I've been pondering is the idea that this is an older or perhaps surplus Scout vessel that's been refitted as a flying lab, rather than a purpose-built research ship. I'm up in the air about it being one capable of landing; likewise about armed vs. unarmed. I do like the performance of the lab ship (J2/2G), but thinking that 400 tons might be on the large size for them. (Small polities = mostly small ship TU; max TL is 13, btw.)
Options I'm mulling are a modified version of the Donosev; a converted far trader; a converted fat trader (I have a "long trader" variant upgraded to J2 floating around somewhere); or designing something from scratch in the 200-400 ton range. Perhaps a one-off prototype vessel that didn't pan out and was sold off, perhaps originally to be scrapped. Or a previous generation survey vessel that's been retired and then acquired by a scientific research foundation.
I have looked at the 300-ton heavy exploration scout on one of the deckplan sites, but that doesn't really fit the "lab ship" motif I'm looking for.
Suggestions, recommendations, ideas, please!
(The noble-level SS field scholar, Edu D, has levels archaeology, languages, and various other sciences. In MTU, which is a cluster that humans came to several centuries ago as refugees, went through a dark age, and not all of the original refugee colonies have been found. Alien race native to the cluster but only starfaring after human contact next door to the area I'd planned to start the game. Long time Travellers have probably already guessed where I'm going to go with this.
)What I've been pondering is the idea that this is an older or perhaps surplus Scout vessel that's been refitted as a flying lab, rather than a purpose-built research ship. I'm up in the air about it being one capable of landing; likewise about armed vs. unarmed. I do like the performance of the lab ship (J2/2G), but thinking that 400 tons might be on the large size for them. (Small polities = mostly small ship TU; max TL is 13, btw.)
Options I'm mulling are a modified version of the Donosev; a converted far trader; a converted fat trader (I have a "long trader" variant upgraded to J2 floating around somewhere); or designing something from scratch in the 200-400 ton range. Perhaps a one-off prototype vessel that didn't pan out and was sold off, perhaps originally to be scrapped. Or a previous generation survey vessel that's been retired and then acquired by a scientific research foundation.
I have looked at the 300-ton heavy exploration scout on one of the deckplan sites, but that doesn't really fit the "lab ship" motif I'm looking for.
Suggestions, recommendations, ideas, please!
