CT Only: LSP Modular Pinnace

[Grav_Moped]

So, you have derived a different set of LBB5 drive percentages. But we already have LBB5. What's the point of using LBB2 to recreate LBB5?

Different design paradigm. LBB2 drive output scales linearly (specifically, for maneuver drives) and is TL-independent aside from size limits. LBB5 drive output is non-linear by Gs (doubling the drive size does not provide twice the output), and varies by TL.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You build one with potential 6 and declare it de-rated to potential 5. Frees up 10Td that would have gone to fuel, but still costs like potential-6 drives.

That would be another house rule. LBB2 says select a drive, look up the potential in the table. If it's potential 2, you get potential 2, no more, no less. Also if you use too large a drive it doesn't work at all and you get no drive potential.

In '77, you used a Size A maneuver drive and power plant, and really shorted it on fuel compared to what those drives were forced to have in a starship.

In '77 there was no system for designing smallcraft. We might speculate that the performance of some craft looked like an A drive, but that is all it is, speculation. They might just have Gygaxed it...

In '81, you used LBB5.

Because LBB5 is the design system for smallcraft.

 

[Grav_Moped]

That would be another house rule. LBB2 says select a drive, look up the potential in the table. If it's potential 2, you get potential 2, no more, no less. Also if you use too large a drive it doesn't work at all and you get no drive potential.

Type J Seeker.

In '77 there was no system for designing smallcraft. We might speculate that the performance of some craft looked like an A drive, but that is all it is, speculation. They might just have Gygaxed it...

Possible. One could presume some effort toward internal consistency, though.

Because LBB5 is the design system for smallcraft.

For LBB5 and LBB2'81 -- not '77, and in LBB2'81 they didn't use all aspects of the LBB5 system.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Different design paradigm. LBB2 drive output scales linearly (specifically, for maneuver drives) and is TL-independent aside from size limits. LBB5 drive output is non-linear by Gs (doubling the drive size does not provide twice the output), and varies by TL.

They are both non-linear, it's just the size of non-linearity that differs. In LBB2 it's a fixed tonnage, in LBB5 it's a percentage, i.e. Mn×1% - 1 Dt vs. Mn×3% - 1%.

If you want to scale it from 10-1000000 Dton, LBB5 is the reasonable method.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Type J Seeker.

S7, p27:
The ship carries its original jump drive-A, maneuver drive-A, and power plant-A, which makes it theoretically capable of jump-2 and 2-G acceleration.

Just add fuel, e.g. a Demountable tank in the cargo hold, and J-2, M-2, and P-2 is there.

Possible. One could presume some effort toward internal consistency, though.

Like with the Air/raft, GCarrier, and Speeder? I guess (without any supporting evidence) they are just Gygaxed...

For LBB5 and LBB2'81 -- not '77, ...

Agreed.

...and in LBB2'81 they didn't use all aspects of the LBB5 system.

Well, they cheated on the bridge, but I would charitably assume that is a mistake, not deliberate.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Possible. One could presume some effort toward internal consistency, though.

So, how consistent is it?

Assuming 5 Dt drive, stated capacity with 0.5 Dt per passenger and a small bridge, we get:

No matter how I look at it the Shuttle is vastly over tonnage.
I can't easily reconcile the Boat (over tonnage) with the Pinnace and Cutter (under tonnage).

I would say quite a bit of arbitrariness has crept in here...

With a 20% bridge and two passengers on the bridge, we get close for the Pinnace and Cutter, but the Boat is worse and the Shuttle is completely off:


Doesn't look good for consistency...

 

[Grav_Moped]

So, how consistent is it?

Assuming 5 Dt drive, stated capacity with 0.5 Dt per passenger and a small bridge, we get:
View attachment 3469
No matter how I look at it the Shuttle is vastly over tonnage.
I can't easily reconcile the Boat (over tonnage) with the Pinnace and Cutter (under tonnage).

I would say quite a bit of arbitrariness has crept in here...

With a 20% bridge and two passengers on the bridge, we get close for the Pinnace and Cutter, but the Boat is worse and the Shuttle is completely off:
View attachment 3470

Doesn't look good for consistency...

Snap answer redacted. Revised response to follow.

Slight misunderstanding there.
Try the Pinnace, Cutter, and Ship's Boat (round from 33.333Td) using Size A drives, and short-fuel them (far less than 1 week, possibly only days or hours) at 10kg/g-turn.

Shuttle, either cut a Size C drive in half or try it with the 5%Td per G combined value. Lifeboat? No idea. Perhaps there's a minimum drive size?

Edit to add:
Fuel quantities were arbitrary, but NOT proportional to tonnage. Remember, they used flat-rate per G consumption.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Some confusion there from the use of a comma rather than a period for the decimal point, but nevermind.

I'm not sure what is going on with the shuttle there. Cargo+Passengers total 95Td.

Doesn't matter what the drives are, or how big the fuel tank is -- it's just broken from the start.

Ship's Boat may have started at 33.3Td and been arbitrarily cropped to 30Td without checking the numbers.

EDIT TO ADD: Given the issue with the Shuttle, that wouldn't surprise me in the least.
and
Maybe they built the small craft in 1000kg tons, but sized them in 13.5m³ "tons"?

 

[Spinward Flow]

Sure you can expand the table, it's called a house rule...

LBB2 A-drives yield:

• Code: 1 @ 200 tons (Free Trader)
• Code: 2 @ 100 tons (Scout/Courier)
• Code: 3 @ 66 tons
• Code: 4 @ 50 tons (Cutter)
• Code: 5 @ 40 tons (Pinnace)
• Code: 6 @ 33 tons (Ship's Boat)

Does the TABLE say that ... explicitly?
No ... it doesn't. How could it? The LBB2 Drive Table is INCOMPLETE as it is, due to the format it is presented in ... which was designed to provide information in a maximally condensed manner to save page space for print publication (and limit variability in designs).

But such an interpretation (and interpolation) aligns "too neatly" with the small craft designs presented in LBB2 (77 and 81) to be a mere coincidence.

I can think for myself and recognize a pattern when I see one.
I can look beyond the numbers the limitations of the LBB2 table presentation to realize the broader tapestry of what the table was trying to convey, in its narrow and limited way.

 

[Grav_Moped]

But such an interpretation (and interpolation) aligns "too neatly" with the small craft designs presented in LBB2 (77 and 81) to be a mere coincidence.

It's reasonable to extrapolate drive ratings downwards off the table, because extrapolation upwards within the table is consistent (with the sole exception of Size J drives in a 2KTd hull; that is, until the TL-15 drives which are even inconsistent with themselves).

The amusing thing is that this works for all LBB2 drives, but does not work for LBB5 maneuver drives! A HG maneuver drive that yields 4G in a 50Td hull will not yield 5G in a 40Td hull.

On the other hand, "reasonable extrapolation and interpretation" that does not have an exact representation within black-letter rules as written could be literally described as "house rules". My take on this is that one can distinguish between "house rules" that adhere to the spirit of the rules as written, and those that do not. The former should be acceptable to reasonable referees and players, while the latter are open to dispute.

For example: Size C drives yielding a rating of 4 in a 150Td hull adheres to the spirit of LBB2's drive performance table, despite the literal rules forcing the performance to be calculated as though the hull was 200Td (rating 3). Inferring the possibility of "Size A.5 drives" that yield a rating of 3 in a 100Td hull (with tonnage and cost halfway between those of Size A and Size B drives) is likewise consistent with the spirit of those rules, even though the rules do not mention such a thing. Positing a 3-Td, MCr12 jump drive that yields J-2 in a 100Td hull is not consistent with those rules, despite being perfectly consistent with LBB5.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The amusing thing is that this works for all LBB2 drives, but does not work for LBB5 maneuver drives! A HG maneuver drive that yields 4G in a 50Td hull will not yield 5G in a 40Td hull.

LBB5.80 drives are ... whacktastic ... in their relationship to variations in displacement.
As proof of that statement, look at my Spinward Flex Courier that I wrote up a year and a half ago (and would do slightly differently if I were to re-design it today, but not by much).

Spinward Flex Courier   XF-1626621-030000-00002-0  MCr109.8752   194 tons
batt bearing                        1         1                    TL=13.
batteries                           1         1                   Crew=2.
Passengers=0 (1 possible). Cargo=45. Fuel=50.5. EP=11.64. Agility=6. FPP.
Jump-1, Maneuver-5 with 0.1-41.5 tons external cargo added.
Jump-1, Maneuver-4 with 41.6-97 tons external cargo added.
Jump-0, Maneuver-4 with 97.1-105.8 tons external cargo added.
Jump-0, Maneuver-3 with 105.9-218.2 tons external cargo added.
Jump-0, Maneuver-2 with 218.3-465.6 tons external cargo added.
Jump-0, Maneuver-1 with 465.7-1455 tons external cargo added.

The relationship between total displacement and acceleration is decidedly non-linear ... which is WEIRD when you think about it in Newtonian Physics F=ma terms. But hey ... that's LBB5.80 for you.

 

[Grav_Moped]

The relationship between total displacement and acceleration is decidedly non-linear ... which is WEIRD when you think about it in Newtonian Physics F=ma terms. But hey ... that's LBB5.80 for you.

The purpose of LBB5's construction rules is to make design tradeoffs between ship components meaningful within its combat rules. Actual (simulated, fictional) physics is completely abstracted away in those rules.

LBB2 has its own issues (which are what we've been yammering on about, here), but its purpose is to enable creation of props, settings, and tools for use in an RPG. Generally, players aren't in a position to custom-build ships, so the focus is on optimizing the ship owned/operated by the player characters. There isn't really an equivalent to Trillion Credit Squadron for LBB2 -- Mayday was sort-of that, but it didn't directly include players custom-building their own fleets, and LBB2 isn't intended to be all that balanced.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm not sure what is going on with the shuttle there. Cargo+Passengers total 95Td.

Doesn't matter what the drives are, or how big the fuel tank is -- it's just broken from the start.

Yes, they presumably just Gygaxed it.

Ship's Boat may have started at 33.3Td and been arbitrarily cropped to 30Td without checking the numbers.

Quite possible.

The Boat, Pinnace, and Cutter might have been 100 ton hulls simply rescaled to 30, 40, 50% respectively. And the Lifeboat and Shuttle just Gygaxed. And the costs just Gygaxed. And...

Not much of a consistent system. But LBB2 didn't pretend to be a all-encompassing system, they just presented a few toys and said, go play...

Maybe they built the small craft in 1000kg tons, but sized them in 13.5m³ "tons"?

There were no displacement tons in LBB2'77, just tonnes, I believe.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Does the TABLE say that ... explicitly?
No ... it doesn't. How could it? The LBB2 Drive Table is INCOMPLETE as it is, due to the format it is presented in ... which was designed to provide information in a maximally condensed manner to save page space for print publication (and limit variability in designs).

You may think that would be convenient, but LBB2 explicitly says not to interpolate, but to round up and use the table as is.

I can think for myself and recognize a pattern when I see one.
I can look beyond the numbers the limitations of the LBB2 table presentation to realize the broader tapestry of what the table was trying to convey, in its narrow and limited way.

Yes, you can do house rules, as can we all.

You house ruled lettered drives into smallcraft. OK, fair enough.
You house ruled an expanded performance table. OK, fair enough.
You house ruled LBB2 power plants using LBB5 fuel formula. OK, munchkin territory.

Apart from the fuel cheat, is that reasonable? Sure.
Are they still house rules, not you laying down the law of what Traveller really is? Yes.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The relationship between total displacement and acceleration is decidedly non-linear ... which is WEIRD when you think about it in Newtonian Physics F=ma terms. But hey ... that's LBB5.80 for you.

Agreed, that was a silly choice in LBB5'80, and it was even worse in LBB5'79.

But it's more productive to just use it to build ships and play the game, than redesigning the system for the Nth time, inadvertently invalidating all canon designs in the process?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

On the other hand, "reasonable extrapolation and interpretation" that does not have an exact representation within black-letter rules as written could be literally described as "house rules". My take on this is that one can distinguish between "house rules" that adhere to the spirit of the rules as written, and those that do not. The former should be acceptable to reasonable referees and players, while the latter are open to dispute.

Sure, but what's reasonable is in the eye of the beholder. It's still a house rule and should be stated as such, even if it's something most people would accept.

We would probably disagree about what's reasonable on some points. E.g. I see the LBB2 system as deliberately crippling small ships, so 100 Dt ships are supposed to be marginal at best. The TL advantage is being able to build bigger more efficient ships. If we introduced half-A drives giving potential 1 in 100 Dton hull, I would see that as unreasonable as it would yield cheap 100 Dt ships with quite good payload, in direct conflict with what I see as the spirit of the system. Many would disagree.

Why would I bother with clumsy Free Traders when I can get 40 Dton payload for MCr 15?
Sure it's slow, but toss in a Demountable or Collapsible tank, and the Scout is obsolete...
I would say it breaks the LBB2 system... You may not agree, and that's not a problem.

ML-1211111-000000-00000-0       MCr 15,3         100 Dton
bearing                                            Crew=1
batteries                                            TL=9
                          Cargo=40 Fuel=20 EP=1 Agility=1

Single Occupancy    LBB2 design                    40        17
                                     USP    #     Dton       Cost
Hull, Streamlined      100 Dt          1          100          
Configuration       Cone               2                      3
Scoops              Streamlined                                

Engineering                                         4,5        
Jump Drive          ½A                 1    1       7,5       5
Manoeuvre D         ½A                 1    1       0,5       2
Power Plant         ½A                 1    1       2,5       4
Fuel, #J, #weeks    J-1, 4 weeks            1      20          
                                                               
Bridge                                      1      20         0,5
Computer            m/1                1    1       1         2
                                                               
Staterooms                                  1       4         0,5
                                                               
Cargo                                              40          
                                                               
Nominal Cost        MCr 17,00            Sum:      40        17
Class Cost          MCr  1,87           Valid      ≥0          ≥0
Ship Cost           MCr 15,30

It's even almost profitable as a freighter. And it makes most smallcraft look bad.

Estimated Economy of Ship     Standard                                     
       Ship price     Down Payment         Mortgage       Avg Filled
        MCr 15,30        kCr 3 060           kCr 64             100%
                                                                
Expenses per jump                       Revenue                 
Bank                 Cr 30 600          High            Cr      0
Fuel                 Cr 10 000          Middle          Cr      0
Life Support         Cr  2 000          Low             Cr      0
Salaries             Cr  2 400          Cargo           Cr 40 000
Maintenance          Cr    612                                   
Berthing             Cr    100                                   
                                                                
Summa               kCr     46                         kCr     40
                                                                
     Income potential per jump     kCr -6                   
  Yearly yield on down payment     -4,7%

 

[Spinward Flow]

LBB5.80 design utilizing LBB2.81 drives and weapon systems.

The Boat, Pinnace, and Cutter might have been 100 ton hulls simply rescaled to 30, 40, 50% respectively.

So LBB2 itself can do it (repeatedly!) ... but no one else can?
In other words, LBB2 "house ruled" its own small craft, but don't you DARE utilize those precedents yourself to guide your own designs!
Because ...

The smallcraft in LBB2'81 are not designed with LBB2, but with LBB5'80* which is the official smallcraft design system. They do not use A drives. (* Except using a non-standard bridge-size of 4 ton for all smallcraft.)

When a design system breaks ITS OWN RULES to make stuff that Players cannot reverse engineer without ALSO breaking those same rules (in the same way) ... there's a problem.

I'm amused by how ... quickly ... you glossed over the problem of "4 ton bridges for all small craft" as if it wasn't a misfire of enormous proportions that breaks LBB5.80 construction rules. It's almost as if it's "fine" for the authors to house rule stuff whenever it's convenient to do so (or words to that effect).

Again, pay no attention to the precedents published on these pages ... ... they are not examples to be followed nor emulated ...

I'm sitting here highly amused by the cherry picking on display, in which it's perfectly fine to "cheat" some things in the published small craft of LBB2.81 but not others. Bridges can be the wrong size (4 tons for all, instead of 20% of hull tonnage), construction costs can be wrong (LBB5.80 Maneuver-5/Power Plant-5 @ TL=9 in a 40 ton Pinnace costs MCr20.8 for a small craft with a final construction cost of MCr20) ... but because they're RAW, they're sacrosanct and can be neither improved upon nor questioned.

Apart from the fuel cheat, is that reasonable? Sure.

WHAT FUEL CHEAT?
You mean the one where I followed the precedent published in the LBB2.81 RAW and cited it?

The fuel formula CHANGED between LBB2.77 and LBB2.81 in multiple ways.
LBB2.77 jump drives "had no jump governor" (they used max jump fuel regardless of parsecs jumped). That got corrected in LBB5.79, p32 (1 ton, MCr0.3, TL=10+), but then the LBB2.81 drives changed the formula to make the need for a Jump Governor obsolete.

LBB2.77 maneuver drives consumed fuel, like rockets, to maneuver in small craft (0.01 ton per G per 10 minute combat turn) making it a bookkeeping exercise.
LBB2.77 small craft such as the 6G Ship's Boat and 5G Pinnace both had 12 tons of fuel, giving them 1200G/turns of maneuver capability (which translates to a mere 200G/hours). It was therefore possible for a LBB2.77 5G Pinnace to exhaust its fuel supply in as little as 40 hours of 5G maneuvering.

LBB2.81 (and I can't point this out strongly enough) ... CHANGED THAT ... such that maneuver drives WEREN'T FUEL WASTING ROCKETS ANYMORE. They were "maneuver drives" and they could maneuver freely for weeks at a time.
Since there was no need for bookkeeping of fuel for long duration maneuver burns, the "need" for a massive overabundance of fuel "disappeared" from the equation in LBB2.81. Fuel fraction went down and endurance went up, because the fuel formula used CHANGED.
This is then why the fuel tankage listed for LBB2.81 small craft took a very suspicious turn towards an unspoken "1 ton of fuel per 1 EP per month of endurance" backport from LBB5.80 into LBB2.81 (along with all the other updates and tidying up). It isn't detailed/admitted to explicitly in the text, but it is pretty obvious that is what is going on if you're sufficiently familiar with both LBB2 and LBB5 (both versions for each).

Not to belabor the already beyond obvious, but LBB2.81 CHANGED THINGS from LBB2.77 in multiple and subtle ways.
Even the Drive Performance Table ... CHANGED!
If you look at the tables in LBB2.77 and LBB2.81 ... there are differences(!) between the two regarding what letters yield what numbers.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

LBB5.80 design utilizing LBB2.81 drives and weapon systems.

No, LBB5'80 designs can use LBB2 drives with LBB2 fuel formulae.

Weapon systems are similar, but not identical, e.g. turrets have no cost in LBB5.

The Boat, Pinnace, and Cutter might have been 100 ton hulls simply rescaled to 30, 40, 50% respectively. And the Lifeboat and Shuttle just Gygaxed. And the costs just Gygaxed. And...

So LBB2 itself can do it (repeatedly!) ... but no one else can?
In other words, LBB2 "house ruled" its own small craft, but don't you DARE utilize those precedents yourself to guide your own designs!

I see you felt the need to truncate the quote. Note that I speculated about how they might have been made up.

Yes, of course they can make up anything they like. They didn't have a system for smallcraft design, so they Gygaxed it, just like they Gygaxed the stats for the air/raft.

IYTU you can make up whatever you want, it's called a house rule.

When a design system breaks ITS OWN RULES to make stuff that Players cannot reverse engineer without ALSO breaking those same rules (in the same way) ... there's a problem.

I'm amused by how ... quickly ... you glossed over the problem of "4 ton bridges for all small craft" as if it wasn't a misfire of enormous proportions that breaks LBB5.80 construction rules. It's almost as if it's "fine" for the authors to house rule stuff whenever it's convenient to do so (or words to that effect).

It's been that way for forty years, it's a bit late get upset over it. It's not like they said they were designed with LBB5, it's just remarkably close. Consider them Gygaxed, if that makes you feel better.

Of course they can make shit up, like the modular cutter. There is no rule for how to do it, but apparently it's possible. To do it ourselves we would have to invent some costs or procedures, aka a house rule.

I'm sitting here highly amused by the cherry picking on display, in which it's perfectly fine to "cheat" some things in the published small craft of LBB2.81 but not others. Bridges can be the wrong size (4 tons for all, instead of 20% of hull tonnage), construction costs can be wrong (LBB5.80 Maneuver-5/Power Plant-5 @ TL=9 in a 40 ton Pinnace costs MCr20.8 for a small craft with a final construction cost of MCr20) ... but because they're RAW, they're sacrosanct and can be neither improved upon nor questioned.

Because they are RAW, they are RAW, yes. IYTU you can do with them whatever you want, and that would be a house rule.

If you want to build your own smallcraft you can use the design system in LBB5, or just house rule them.

WHAT FUEL CHEAT?
You mean the one where I followed the precedent published in the LBB2.81 RAW and cited it?

As you just acknowledged in the previous paragraph the smallcraft in LBB2'81 are (presumably) built with LBB5 with LBB5 drives, so can't be a precedent for using LBB2 drives with LBB5 fuel formulae.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Sure, but what's reasonable is in the eye of the beholder. It's still a house rule and should be stated as such, even if it's something most people would accept.

We would probably disagree about what's reasonable on some points. E.g. I see the LBB2 system as deliberately crippling small ships, so 100 Dt ships are supposed to be marginal at best. The TL advantage is being able to build bigger more efficient ships. If we introduced half-A drives giving potential 1 in 100 Dton hull, I would see that as unreasonable as it would yield cheap 100 Dt ships with quite good payload, in direct conflict with what I see as the spirit of the system. Many would disagree.

Why would I bother with clumsy Free Traders when I can get 40 Dton payload for MCr 15?
Sure it's slow, but toss in a Demountable or Collapsible tank, and the Scout is obsolete...
I would say it breaks the LBB2 system... You may not agree, and that's not a problem.

ML-1211111-000000-00000-0       MCr 15,3         100 Dton

That maneuver drive, if extrapolated down from A, would be zero tons. The only way to get away with that is to bundle it with the power plant (Pn=Gs and it's 5% per G, MCr1.2 per ton of "drives") and not look at it closely (that is, somehow the power plant does part of the maneuver drive thing and less of the power plant thing). It also probably doesn't actually have 1EP in the High Guard sense, in that its power output is committed to the maneuver drive and can't be redirected to, say, a turret laser.

Anyhow, what you get is a Scout/Courier with J1/1G, only a Mod/1 computer, 5 wasted tons of drive bay space*, and 23Td cargo -- and save a little under MCr12, considering the volume discount. It can only mount missiles or sandcasters. Strip out the unneeded bits (2 staterooms** and the Air/raft) and you get 35Td payload. Its viability depends on whether the bigger Standard Hull discount at 100Td makes up for "wasting" 15% of its tonnage relative to the Type A Free Trader, in the form of its excess drive bay space and proportionately larger bridge.


------------------
*No, there's already a standard 100Td hull and it's sized for a set of Size A Drives. Sorry.

** Needs the second stateroom for the gunner. Delete the hardpoint to free up the 5Td that the turret and gunner need.

 

[Grav_Moped]

(LBB5.80 Maneuver-5/Power Plant-5 @ TL=9 in a 40 ton Pinnace costs MCr20.8 for a small craft with a final construction cost of MCr20) ... but because they're RAW, they're sacrosanct and can be neither improved upon nor questioned.

IIRC, LBB2'77 simply halved the price of non-starships built with its starship construction rules. Not sure how this could be backported into LBB5'80 small craft design rules as adapted for LBB2'81 since that half-price business didn't show up anywhere else, but I thought I'd mention it.