Merchant cruisers, the Millenium Falcon, and the profit imperative: a rant of sorts

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by daryen:
Well, two points.

First, the Broadsword was always treated inconsistently, implying it may have been streamlined after all. At the worst, just say you are using a streamlined variant.

Yep, there needs to be a streamlined variant for the Broadsword adventure.

Second, it is (in Bk5 terms) at least partially streamlined. So, while the original Broadsword may not be able to land on planets, it can always refuel at a GG.

Being a LBB2 design I tend to use the definitions from that book rather than High Guard - after all there is also a TL15 MT version, and the HEPlaR equipped TNE version (also TL15).

So I'm quite happy with the idea that there are streamlined variants of the merc cruiser out there.

And they would make good good exploration cruisers

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by daryen:
The other reason I still use Bk2 is that almost all Bk2 designs actually follow the rules, and therefore are easy to modify. Not always (e.g. Type A2), but usually. Whereas almost every Bk5 design is either broken or ridiculously broken. Either the numbers don't add up (e.g. AHL) or they don't even bother to follow the rules (e.g. Gazelle).

The x-boat and the A2 work as written in Traders and Gunboats if you design them with first edition LBB2.
I agree with your other comments though

Plus, even GDW was too lazy to get rid of Bk2. All of those base designs (Type A, Type S, Type A2, etc.) were not only not updated for Bk5, they were never even updated for MT. What was up with that?

Not only did they not get rid of it, they revised it and made many of their own designs broken in the process - like the aforementioned x-boat and A2.
They revised it for a set of rules produced a year after High Guard 2 had been released - so they could have tried to tie the two together.
Then they went on to produce two more versions of the CT rules which also stuck to LBB2(revised) rather than going the High Guard route.

(My aside: I am still absolutely amazed that I was able to faithfully recreate the Leviathan with Bk5 to within a single dton. I still think I had to have missed something.)

I'm not surprised by that - it wasn't done by the folks at GDW They appear to view the rules as no more than guidelines, going by some of the designs they put out

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by rancke:
As a aside, I find it difficult to understand why anyone still uses Bk2 designs. Bk5 is not so much more difficult to work with than Bk2 that I can see any real advantage to sticking to Bk2.

As a further aside, I will mention that I only use three design systems: Bk2, Bk5, and GT. If I want to use a ship designed in another system, I convert it to either Bk5 or GT. Only then will I use the ship.

Why? Because I am exceptionally lazy and the three systems I use each have a nifty little program that lets me quickly and easily make the ship I want, then tweak it around to see what the other possibilities are.

The programs I use are:
Bk2: The CT Utility, made by Stephen S Koo
Bk5: High Guard Shipyard by Andrew Moffatt-Vallance
GT: GURPS Modular Vehicles by Tom Bont

I have never found programs that were as simple and easy to use as those for MT or shudder either version of FF&S.

 

[Pickles]

Has anyone ever used the 'Explorer' class scoutship from White Dwarf 40 for trade exploration? IIRC it was designed for the purpose. I'll have to go dig it out and have a look.

 

[aramis]

Only one refutation of Hans...

The Rules (at least Bk2 and some prototype Bk5) predate the "big ships & scads-o-trade" OTU of post-Adv.4.

Until MT, the OTU was a graft-on... to a semi-generic game.

 

[GypsyComet]

For your consideration:
A streamlined 800-ton hull, based largely on the original (very early editions) Book 2 version of the Type C which carried Pinnaces instead of Cutters:
http://members.aol.com/gypsycomet/Jupiter.html

And a mercantile version of the same hull:
http://members.aol.com/gypsycomet/Capronix.html

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Aramis:
Until MT, the OTU was a graft-on... to a semi-generic game.

Yes, and then MT happened. And then TNE. And T4. And GT. And T20. No matter how we got here, here is we are now (With six different "windows" to the same universe).


Hans

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by daryen:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by rancke:
Why surprisingly? Bk5 is merely a refinement of Bk2 (or, as I usually look at it, Bk2 is a more simplified (and thus more inexact) representation of 'reality' than Bk5).

Because the whole engine/fuel sizing is so different between the two. Engines and lower tech (TL12-) power plants are so much more massive in Bk5, and the power plant fuel requirements are so much less in Bk5 that you can get some weird results.</font>[/QUOTE]I didn't realize that Bk2 power plants were greater fuel hogs that Bk5 power plants (I haven't done much work with Bk2 designs after Bk5 came out). But since even Bk5 power plant fuel consumption rates are absurdly high, I'd say that was one more reason to prefer Bk5 over Bk2.

Funny, power plant fuel consumption is one of the objections I have to Bk5...

Plus, even TL assumptions are different. In Bk2, the Type T is TL10. In Bk5, the Type T is TL12.

Two different Type Ts, maybe? Or maybe this means Bk2 made a mistake when it 'described' the 'real' Type T and Bk5 corrected it.

Quite frankly, it has always annoyed me just how different Bk2 and Bk5 really are from each other.

Think of them as two different editions of a historical RPG. Between the first and the second edition, the authors realized that they'd relied on a bogus source and (tried to) correct their mistakes.

Some day I'd like to sit down with all the different ship design systems and figure out what the 'truth' is.

I tend to stick with what the ship is made with. So, for example, if I try to make modifications to the Broadsword, I just have to make the variant if I am using Bk2. To use Bk5, I would have to remake the original Broadsword, then make the variant.

Now me, I would want to figure out what the 'true' Broadsword was like and then use the system that came closest to the truth. I guess it boils down to a difference of attitude. You think of the Broadsword as being 'made' with the Bk2 design system (which is of course, on the meta-level, eaxctly what happened). I think of it as being made by the people of the Traveller Universe and first described in Bk2 terms (which may not actually be all that close to the 'truth').


Hans

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Back to the original topic (

), here's a question for y'all: is a "merchant cruiser" solely intended as an "exploration" vessel?

That's never been my assumption (which probably contributed to some of the unpleasantness earlier in the thread), but I wonder if I'm alone in that view. Is "merchant cruiser" closer to "explorer," or to "frontier trader?"

Remember, I'm not just thinking about Adv. 4 here, but rather the class of ships called merchant cruisers, of which Leviathan and Lorimar are representative examples in canon.

 

[Pickles]

It is IMTU. According to me, the 'cruiser' designation means that such a vessel moves on a path of no fixed determination. As such, speculative trading would add a whole new emphasis to the term. The likelyhood of having the right goods in your hold when arriving at a previously unsurveyed world are near zero, so the the ship doesn't try. The cargo is purely 'sales samples' and interesting items/goods/materials/technology collected for further analysyis back home.

The philosophy behind my Merchant Explorer is the same. Basically, it's a scout ship for merchant corporations. Or, in the case of merchant cruisers like the Leviathan, for megacorporations.

 

[aramis]

To me, it's an exploration and long-range speculation craft.

It doubles as a pirate hunter.

Under the Bk2/Bk5/T20 paradigms, she should have maxed out turrets. Perhaps carrying most crew d/o, rather than single, or using small SR SO instead of standard SR SO.

She should carry enough cargo to make a payment by carrying goods worth KCr50/Td Base, and have a broker and estimator (Bk7/MT Trader skill of 3+), and when she needs operating capital, she follows what she's seen and jumps back to make the sale at a likely profit. With J3, she has an average of 9-12 worlds to pick from, and should be able to find one with good mods of the one's she's got data upon.

Her role is less "opening markets" and more "Survey," but she also is commissioned to buy warehouse rights and/or landing/trading rights. She'll carry a big factor, and probably also enough specie to make life interesting.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by rancke:
Yes, and then MT happened. And then TNE. And T4. And GT. And T20. No matter how we got here, here is we are now (With six different "windows" to the same universe).

And, my, aren't some of those windows heavily tinted. Stained glass tinted....

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Bromgrev:
It is IMTU. According to me, the 'cruiser' designation means that such a vessel moves on a path of no fixed determination. As such, speculative trading would add a whole new emphasis to the term.

Bromgrev,

That's as good an explanation as any of the others posted here and is damn better then most.

Consider it stolen for MTU.


Have fun,
Bill