Proposed Ship mission codes

[Condottiere]

Much like categories won't neatly fit into single or double alphanumeric codes, historically ships evolve over technological levels, so it's probably split by region and technological level.

Evolution tends to follow the path of least resistance and efficiency, it seems that interstellar freighters will likely be frames for containers, jump drive and requisite fuel tanks, rather than a capacious hull into which cargo is stuffed.

Going by current usage, description will be based on their capacity and routes, capacity by likely port facilities, and routes by where money can be made.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

What's the classification of this TNE Free Trader-like ship:
200 Dt, J-1, 1 G, 6 passengers, 91 Dt cargo, minimal armour (10), MCr 62.5:

What's the classification of this Free Trader-like ship:
200 Dt, J-1, 1 G, 6 passengers, 88 Dt cargo, decent armour (50), MCr 62.9:

Both of these fall into the Trader classification.

How much armour before it falls into the Military category? 100? 200?
The Gazelle has 62, is that military?

Military - Defined by the use of armor, weapons, and screens. Built at or above empire maximum TL, expense is not spared. Use of Screens (NucDampers, Meson Screens) is a definite military ship. Use of quad turrets, Barbette, or Bay weapons is also military.

If I increase the armour to 100 (same as a Dragon-class SDB), and add a laser barbette:
200 Dt, J-1, 1 G, 6 passengers, 48 Dt cargo, laser barbette, good armour (100), MCr 72.9:

Spoiler: Spreadsheet

Still a Trader?


How do you make a hard rule that a computer program can apply to all the ships on the wiki to make that determination?

 

[robject]

Same ship, hopefully the same classification?

I'm thinking same ship does not equal same classification, if the stuff packed into it is different.

 

[robject]

Still a Trader?

J-1, 1G, 6 passengers, 48 Dt cargo seems to be a giveaway, yes.

I think, perhaps, J1M1 and any passengers + any cargo space at all == Trader.
If you bumped it to J3, I might be tempted to call that a (small) Liner.

How do you make a hard rule that a computer program can apply to all the ships on the wiki to make that determination?

Gotta draw lines at some point. If it sorts 80% of the ships well enough, then that's a win.

Edge cases do not rule the rule, so to speak.

 

[robject]

I'll attach the spreadsheet I fooled around with to reduce the choices needed to hastily categorize ships.

if has_screens                                                                     ; military litmus test
{
   'Auxiliary' if no_spine OR if non_weapon_non_screen_payload > 20% ?
   'Fleet'     if hull > 1499 tons.
   'Defense'   if 499 < hull < 1500 tons.
   'Auxiliary' otherwise?                                                          ; not sure
}
else if has_significant_sensors_and_computer_power
{
   'Exploration'   ; includes scouts
}
else if staterooms_and_cargo > 10%                                                 ; pick a number
{
   'Seeker'.   if has_specialized_equipment                                        ; includes science vessels.
   'Yacht'.    if most_of_the_states_are_lux AND pax_tonnage > cargo_tonnage
   'Liner'     if J3+ and pax_tonnage > 60% cargo tonnage                          ; or something.  pick a number.
   'Trader'    if < 400 tons.
   'Transport' if > 1499 tons.
   'Merchant' otherwise.
}

else what?

 

[robject]

If I increase the armour to 100 (same as a Dragon-class SDB), and add a laser barbette:
200 Dt, J-1, 1 G, 6 passengers, 48 Dt cargo, laser barbette, good armour (100), MCr 72.9:

Q-Ship territory perhaps, but still a Trader. I'm sure you have your reasons. Maybe you're just trading in the Vargr Extents. . Or (more likely) your players are paranoid. Mine are.

Now, in my thinking, if you add screens, then you're a military auxiliary, and not a Trader anymore.

It's a shibboleth, a litmus test, but it's decent for the first approximation: if you have screens, you're actively looking for trouble. It works because any ship with screens is highly (80%?) likely to be designed for military ops. Maybe that cargo bay has a platoon barracks and a couple of GCarriers in it, and you carry a mercenary license.

In short, though: even if you ditch the armor, and only keep two little turrets, if you also have a Screen, Scrambler, or Globe, then you're military.

Anyway, it's a useful approximation.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Gotta draw lines at some point. If it sorts 80% of the ships well enough, then that's a win.

Edge cases do not rule the rule, so to speak.

Ok, good enough is good enough.

I still don't get some of the classifications, e.g. the connection between J-3 and Liner? The point of a Liner is that it carries people rather than cargo.


Screen for warship? Might work for CT/MT, not for MgT (too uncommon) or T5 (too cheap).


If I had to, I guess I would do something like this:

if has_screens OR has_spine OR has_bay OR ( has_barbette AND has_armor )    ; military litmus test
{
   'Fleet'     if has_spine AND J-1+
   'Rider'     if has_spine AND J-0                           // or Monitor...
   'Carrier'   if carried craft > 10 OR carried large craft   // incl Tender
   'Escort'    if ( NOT has_spine ) AND J-1+
   'Fighter'   if hull < 100
   'SDB'       if J=0
   'Auxiliary' otherwise?                                     // I give up, I have no idea...
                                                              // Note: Auxiliary is a naval non-combat ship
}
else if has_significant_sensors_and_computer_power            // Unidentifiable, not a Type S
{
   'Exploration'   ; includes scouts
}
else if staterooms_and_cargo > 20%                            //  10% too small, fits a Type T
{
   'Seeker'.   if has_specialized_equipment                                   ; includes science vessels. // Unidentifiable
   'Yacht'.    if most_of_the_states_are_lux AND pax_tonnage > cargo_tonnage  // Difficult to diff from Liner, the type Y fails this
   'Trader'    if < 500 tons.                                                 // Still have no idea why this is a classification? Why is size so important?
   'Liner'     if pax_tonnage > 200% × cargo tonnage                          ; or something.  pick a number. Liner = mostly passengers
   'Freighter' if pax_tonnage <  50% × cargo tonnage                          ; or something.  pick a number. Freighter = mostly cargo space
   'Merchant'  if pax_tonnage > 0 AND cargo tonnage > 0                       ; or something.  pick a number. Merchant = inbetween
   'Transport' otherwise.                                                     // No idea what this is
}
else
{
   'Auxiliary'                                                                // No idea what this is
}

Lots of ships will end up in the last Auxiliary bucket, including the Type T?

 

[Condottiere]

Que ships are usually armed merchantmen disguised to look innocuous.

One problem with Traveller ship design is that you can't add hull armour.

 

[robject]

One problem with Traveller ship design is that you can't add hull armour.

Some rulesets do... unless I'm misunderstanding you.

 

[McPerth]

Some rulesets do... unless I'm misunderstanding you.

I guess he means adding armor on a reffit.

IIRC in all Traveller versions I've played armor is integral to the hull, and cannot be reinforced latter, once the ship is built.

 

[Condottiere]

You're stuck with designed hull configuration and hull armour, as per Trillion Credit.

You cannot upgrade armour, and you cannot increase the factor.

 

[robject]

You're stuck with designed hull configuration and hull armour, as per Trillion Credit.

You cannot upgrade armour, and you cannot increase the factor.

Ah, that's true.

 

[kilemall]

I guess he means adding armor on a reffit.

IIRC in all Traveller versions I've played armor is integral to the hull, and cannot be reinforced latter, once the ship is built.

True, but I'd like to propose an exception- Ablat armor panels.

Of course, since it's bolted onto the exterior, it increases the tonnage volume or otherwise and the ship 'slows down'. Also, I would expect reentry would do a number on it.

 

[Condottiere]

Paste ablative heat shielding on top.

According to the current rule set, if you have a manoeuvre drive, it's not an issue, since presumably you can descend dead slow.

 

[kilemall]

Paste ablative heat shielding on top.

According to the current rule set, if you have a manoeuvre drive, it's not an issue, since presumably you can descend dead slow.

If you aren’t generating plasma on the way down you aren’t doing it right!

 

[tjoneslo]

Jump Drive performance is scaled based upon the TL of the Era or the pocket empire. We divide the jump performance into four categories: low, medium, high, and max.

At TL 15 Low jump is J1 or J2, Medium is J3, and High jump is J4 or J5, and Max is J6. In some cases these overlap, and either applies to that case.

TL  Low  Medium High  Max
11   1     1     2    2
12   1     2     3    3
13   1     2     3    4
14   2     3     4    5
15   2     3     4    6
16   2     3     5    7

 

[Condottiere]

Slow(boat to Vland), commuter, fast, express, expeditious, meteoric.

 

[tjoneslo]

Size is not a reliable indicator of anything.

It can be.

For Military ships (ships with lots of guns) there are two fairly obvious break points.

One is at 1000 tons where you can, in theory, start mounting Bay weapons. In practical terms you probably aren't going to mount just a Bay weapon on a ship, so this moves the break point to 1500 or 2000 tons. And you can do a secondary division based upon ships of this size that do mount bay weapons from those could mount bay weapons, but don't.

The MtG2 High Guard changes this and says you can mount a 100 ton bay on a 100 ton ship, and 500 ton bay on a 500 ton ship. Other design systems (TNE, GURPS) can further break this rule.

The second is around 10,000 tons where you can start to mount spinal mount weapons. For CT-HG the absolute minimum size for Spine + power plant is around 8.5K The MtG2 HG moves this to an absolute minimum size of around 7k tons.

On the commercial side, the real world has taught us that a ship optimized for one purpose functions better than ships build to combine two. But Traveller has a long history of having ships do combined passenger/cargo traffic, at least for small ships. And given the intended ports of call for the small ships, this is entirely sensible. But at some point, as you go up the size scale, you should find the ships being optimized for either passengers or cargo/freight. Where you put this line is somewhat arbitrary, and Traveller Ship designers may not follow the lessons of the real worlds. For symmetry, I added the two military break points to the commercial side as well: 1500 tons and 10,000 tons.

At least for the commercial side the Traveller designers working within the limitations of game and economics system didn't want to have ships with a lot of crew requirements, nor too hard to pay the mortgage. The ideal Traveller game has three to six players, so a ship with that crew size is ideal. Larger crews require NPCs with requirements for care and feeding. Larger ships require more payments, which require fixed routes to travel or more assertive patrons. These interrupt the ability to have adventures. The dividing line for this seems to be around 500 tons. Smaller than this are idea for Traveller groups. Larger require more work for the Referee and players. This dividing line is entirely meta-game derived, through I could hand wave something up.

In CT-HG there is a maximum ship size based upon the TL, as set by the computer models. The MT ship system had a similar limitation, but much more obscured. Neither MtG nor T5 have a limitation on the size of the hull based on TL or other factors. (TL10 -> 10k, TL11->50k, TL12->100k, TL13->1M, TL14+ -> No limit). So when cataloging ships from earlier eras (e.g. IW, M0) or pocket empires with lower TLs, this also becomes a factor in setting classifications. Is the ship pushing the theoretical limits of the ship size based on TL?

From this I derive four size categories:

10-100 tons => Small craft
100-500 tons => Small Starships
500 - 1500 tons => Medium Starships
1500 - 10k tons => Large Starships
10K+ tons => Warships and megafreighters.

These settings in and of themselves are not the final classifiers, but serve as part of the classification system to define the groups.

 

[mike wightman]

The size of ship required to mount a bay weapon varies by edition...

 

[McPerth]

From this I derive four size categories:

See that there are 5 categries listed...

And I would say just ships ,a sthey may be starships or non-starships...

The size of ship required to mount a bay weapon varies by edition...

Also in T5 (I really don't know)?

Remember this t hread is in the T5 froum, so expected to be moslty (if not exclusivelly) about T5, woter versions being used as comparisons...