Multi-Component Starship

[mactavish]

In my Traveller universe, vessels in excess of 1,200 dTons cannot Jump. Larger ships can be [and are] built, but they are typically locally-used freighters, mining vessels or system defense ships.

I implemented this for a variety of reasons, but now I'm in a bit of a bind.

Using the High Guard book, I found spinal mount weapons, which are awesome. However, they are far too massive for even my largest starships. I really want to have one of my superpowers build a FTL-capable ship that can travel to other star systems for the purposes of war and conquest.

Rather than make an exception to the size limit of Jump-capable vessels, I was wondering if there are rules (official or otherwise) that would allow for several smaller starships - say in the 600-800 dTon range - to connect together Voltron-style and make a much larger capital ship capable of carrying a spinal mount particle beam weapon (or whatever) that can be unleashed on distant worlds.

I think I've read some bits about larger ships that can break into smaller ones, but I'm not sure that will work in reverse as each of the smaller ships must be Jump-capable on its own.

Any suggestions or guidance toward the proper books/rulesets would be greatly appreciated.

mactavish out.

 

[kilemall]

I believe at least one of the Mongeese HGs had subcomponent builds, or maybe TNE, I'm not sure.


However I have a hard time dealing with the 1000-ton component Voltron battleship, all with separate jump-drives, computers, bridges, etc.


I think you would be better off just scaling up bay weapon effects and keep your universe small ship.


Other way to go would be Monitors ala Imperium, the larger warships ARE the non-jump ships and you have to overwhelm them with smaller ships then get enough stable ship assembly space/time to import your own.


Or, attack with Monitors doing near-C realspace approach from nearby systems over years.

 

[Carlobrand]

In my Traveller universe, vessels in excess of 1,200 dTons cannot Jump. ...

I think your first problem is that most spinal mounts are larger than 1200 dTons, and the ones that are smaller don't leave much room for jump drives and such, not with a 1200 dTon cap. Your problem isn't Voltroning the ship. Your problem is you'd need to construct the spinal mount itself in situ from components delivered by other ships. That makes for a way cool planetary bombardment scenario, but it's a bit impractical for fleet engagements unless Step 1 is to secure a beach-head in the system so you can start trucking in and assembling components. The problem there is that a defender of decent strength already has big non-jump warcraft assembled and ready to fight, which will make it very difficult for an attacker to secure a beach-head long enough to assemble his attacking force.

Maybe you could have your attacker jump into the Oort region, where they can count on time to set up a base and construct their attack force before the defending force could reach them. That also gives the defender the problem of splitting his forces: he needs to leave behind enough strength to keep you from sneaking in and clobbering him with small fry while his heavy hitters are away dealing with the Oort threat.

 

[McPerth]

Several questions (numbered to ease your answers):

1. what Rules system are you using?
2. up to what jump capability should this ship be able to jump?
3. What TL would this ship be built at?

 

[mike wightman]

In TNE Fire Fusion and Steel you could build spinal weapons of any size to fit the hull size you have.

Conversion of TNE ships to other Traveller versions usually equated the spinal mount of the RCES Clipper to be a spinal 'bay mount' weapon.

The simple solution since it is for your Traveller universe is to just reduce the spinal mount in size by a factor of 10.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

New Mongoose HG has rules for breakaway hulls, allowing a large ship to split into several smaller craft.

The combined ship could have a large spinal, but break up for jump.

Not sure it would be very efficient in a small ship universe, though.

 

[Enoki]

It's really rather simple if you think about it. You have one ship that's the gun, the other is the power supply. So long as neither exceeds your limit and both can jump, they simply link together and become the spinal mount. If necessary, fire controls and crew, etc., could be put on a third ship and transferred once in-system.

I think that most spinal mounts could be crammed into a ship around 1000 dT and the power supply almost certainly could. The big question is what level of jump could be managed on that displacement.

 

[Grav_Moped]

At that small-ship scale, aren't 100-ton bays effectively spinal mounts already?

It's all relative. You don't get planet-cracking levels of firepower though.

 

[kilemall]

At that small-ship scale, aren't 100-ton bays effectively spinal mounts already?

It's all relative. You don't get planet-cracking levels of firepower though.

That's where I'm saying scale it up for planetary firepower scenarios and leave it for space, cause spaaaaace is biiiiiiiiiig.


Done.

 

[whartung]

In TNE Fire Fusion and Steel you could build spinal weapons of any size to fit the hull size you have.

Conversion of TNE ships to other Traveller versions usually equated the spinal mount of the RCES Clipper to be a spinal 'bay mount' weapon.

The simple solution since it is for your Traveller universe is to just reduce the spinal mount in size by a factor of 10.

Yea, I would just do this.

Make smaller spinals.

At 1200 tons, you don't really have bay weapons either. MAYBE a couple of 50 ton bays.

Just make a spinal a 100 ton bay weapon.