Q-Ship idea

[Travellerspud]

one of the biggest problems with a Q-Ship is lack of power (or being easily distinguishable from a real merchant due to your above-normal power plant)...limiting weapons mainly to missiles

what if there was a Q-Ship that was say, 400 dTon and looked just like a type R Merchant...and had two power plants; a P-1 and a P-9. This Q-Ship also has 2 computers ( a mod.1 and a mod.6) The Q-Ship uses the P-1 normally, until attacked or sees a known pirate. They then turn off the P-1 and begin turning on the P-9. Same for the computers. The computers presumably can switch instantly.

Grand Survey (a CT product from what I can tell) has this to say about powering up;

Routine (Engineering, EDU) 5 minutes

so 15 minutes is the minimum (3d6-mods x5 minutes)...assuming Eng-1 and +1 Edu mod (5-9), the average would be 40 minutes and the max would be 80 minutes (4 space combat rounds)

Now, even 1 space combat rounds without power is insane, but 4 is suicidal....unless you have 4dTon of capacitors, which give 4 rounds worth of P-9 power

So, this ship (as far as I can tell), would be nearly indistinguishable from a type R merchant until it "instantly" becomes a much more powerful warship (only has 4 turrets still, but could have, say 2 fusion cannons, a triple pulse laser, and a triple missile battery maybe with nukes if it is Imperial).

Is there any way at range for pirates to detect such a ship? a densitometer has a resolution of 1km at "Long" space combat range (50,000-500,000 miles), although is capable of sensing an object as small as man-sized in empty space (just not pin-point it). A Neutrino sensor would not detect the "cold" power plant, and any sensors would appear to be from a mod.1 computer...what am I missing?

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

not much. just bear in mind you need your potential pirate to be lured close enough to prevent him escaping action or destruction, so your cover has to stand up to quite close range scrutiny, not just long range.


at what range would a densitometer be able to work out the ships internal layout was totally wrong for a type R?

 

[atpollard]

Put all of the extra parts in modular containers in the cargo hold.
Multiple power plants, a computer, etc.
Then the refit to Q ship becomes a matter of adding connections to the power bus and the sensor bus (for the improved signal processing equipment) and swapping out the 'easily changed' standard turrets.

Now the strength is that ANY Type-R can quickly become a Q-ship.

 

[Travellerspud]

...if I understand Grand Survey, and assuming a gross scan (10m resolution, or 1/2-2/3 the size of the power plant) the maximum range would be 500Km

that is pretty close, well within Short combat range...

I also failed to mention this Q-Ship has M-6 drives, so it is hard to get away from...

yes - straight-up pirates are a difficult concept in the Imperium...but Mercantile in-fighting (against each other, say McClellan Factors vs. Baraccai Technum) and Colonial privateers (say, Collace vs. Trexalon in District 268) are another matter...

 

[Travellerspud]

Put all of the extra parts in modular containers in the cargo hold.
Multiple power plants, a computer, etc.
Then the refit to Q ship becomes a matter of adding connections to the power bus and the sensor bus (for the improved signal processing equipment) and swapping out the 'easily changed' standard turrets.

Now the strength is that ANY Type-R can quickly become a Q-ship.

this is an interesting idea...however each container would have either .6 EP (using Striker) or 1.5 EP (using HG)...so at least 24 would be needed (assumimg the HG values)

if I was the Ref (and I am) I would say each Fusion plant would require it's own Engineer to baby it during start-up....and there are not that many staterooms!

plus this Q-Ship would be only M-1, so escaping it would be trivial (assuming the pirate survived the first round of combat)

but I do like the "any type-R can become a Q-Ship" concept....have to work something up (a smaller gunboat that fits inside the cargo bay? a self-powered mini fusion gun bay? hmmmm.....)

 

[Travellerspud]

....also, 200dTon of capacitors would provide 200 rounds of combat (but require 9 rounds out-of-combat to recharge each "combat round" worth of power)...however I doubt more than 20 rounds would ever be needed

this would be more expensive (4mc/ton vs. 3mc/ton) but need NO rounds of power-up...or Engineering ability to run....

and 20 rounds worth would fit into 6 of those standard containers (costing 80mc vs. 216mc for a real power plant)

this could make "any type-R" a Q-Ship (w/o the higher thrust though)

 

[Travellerspud]

1 standard shipping container (3.85 dTon) would hold 138.8 EP/turns of power...a nice "emergency back-up" for any ship!

 

[Carlobrand]

one of the biggest problems with a Q-Ship is lack of power (or being easily distinguishable from a real merchant due to your above-normal power plant)...limiting weapons mainly to missiles

what if there was a Q-Ship that was say, 400 dTon and looked just like a type R Merchant...and had two power plants; a P-1 and a P-9. This Q-Ship also has 2 computers ( a mod.1 and a mod.6) The Q-Ship uses the P-1 normally, until attacked or sees a known pirate. They then turn off the P-1 and begin turning on the P-9. Same for the computers. The computers presumably can switch instantly.

Grand Survey (a CT product from what I can tell) has this to say about powering up;

Routine (Engineering, EDU) 5 minutes

so 15 minutes is the minimum (3d6-mods x5 minutes)...assuming Eng-1 and +1 Edu mod (5-9), the average would be 40 minutes and the max would be 80 minutes (4 space combat rounds)

Now, even 1 space combat rounds without power is insane, but 4 is suicidal....unless you have 4dTon of capacitors, which give 4 rounds worth of P-9 power

So, this ship (as far as I can tell), would be nearly indistinguishable from a type R merchant until it "instantly" becomes a much more powerful warship (only has 4 turrets still, but could have, say 2 fusion cannons, a triple pulse laser, and a triple missile battery maybe with nukes if it is Imperial).

Is there any way at range for pirates to detect such a ship? a densitometer has a resolution of 1km at "Long" space combat range (50,000-500,000 miles), although is capable of sensing an object as small as man-sized in empty space (just not pin-point it). A Neutrino sensor would not detect the "cold" power plant, and any sensors would appear to be from a mod.1 computer...what am I missing?

Capacitors won't store power the way you want. CT Errata changed the Black Globe rules so that the capacitors are basically a one-way street - you can feed power in from the black globe or the jump drive, but it's either used for jump or bled out the heat exchangers after that.

You could arguably draw on the Striker design rules and install batteries for your lasers. 250 megawatt-seconds of TL9 batteries is 111 kg, costs Cr41,667, and delivers one shot for one 250 MW laser per Striker rules; you could fit enough batteries for 120 shots in a dTon at a cost of MCr5. Higher tech batteries take up less space but get very expensive very quickly. I assume each fusion gun turret has a single gun. (If you're using High Guard, two guns is no better than one, so unless you plan to coordinate both turrets as a single battery, a single gun is quite adequate.) Two fusion guns at 2 ep each and a triple laser at 3 means 7 eps each turn, and the MCr5 battery will power them for 17 turns - at which point you've most likely beaten them or been beaten since the Type R lacks the drives for much agility.

On the subject of agility, relying on the battery frees up your power plant to focus on powering your drives, which means you get the little bit of agility boost that the Type R can offer, improving your defense.

A problem will be convincing the guy sitting across from you that the laser can be powered in single bursts as is done in Striker, rather than needing continuous access to power as appears to occur in Book-2/High Guard/MT. After all, if this is possible, they could routinely install enough batteries for a single shot and just steadily trickle a couple hundred kilowatts of power to the batteries to recharge them between shots. If he insists on continuous power, then it's MCr50 and ten tons for each laser shot, which is very bulky and expensive for not much of a surprise. A second problem will be remembering that if you can pull that trick, the pirate can pull the same trick to power his lasers while his main power is devoted to agility, and with his faster drives he may get more benefit from it. However, if you want to make that trick possible in your own TU, it's a neat one.

A third problem is the model/6 you're thinking of requires 5 EP of power - consistently. No arguing that one. That's 1250 megawatts continuous. Batteries won't do that; you'll drain that 5 MCr battery in under half a minute. Best you can manage on the existing power plant without reducing agility is a Model/2, though you could do a Model/5 if you devoted the existing power plant to power that instead of agility. That gives you a Type R with a much more powerful computer and a good punch - for 17-20 turns - without needing a more powerful plant.

An alternative is hydrogen fuel cells. Per MegaTrav, about 21 dT in TL10 fuel cells will supply 1 EP/250 MW at a cost of MCr5.6. That has the advantage that you can draw on your ship's hydrogen for fuel, but you still need oxygen: you're consuming 9 kiloliters of liquid O2 per hour (and producing 10 kiloliters of water). LO2 is a bit denser than water. You ought to be able to stick enough fuel cells in your cargo bay for your 7 EP of weapons, and a half dTon of liquid O2 will serve them for about 4 and a half days if I have the math right. The advantage is the power is immediately available without the tell-tale neutrino signature, and you can stick more fuel cells in the hold for added power - best you're going to get is 9 EP though, unless you start cramming fuel cells into the staterooms.

An alternative for the low tech world is to go old-school. You're a little TL7 world with a pirate taking orbit and making threats. You commandeer the Type R that's sitting in port, grab some weapons and turrets off of other ships or small craft that are likewise in port, stick big diesel generators and some O2 tanks in the cargo bay of the Type R. Something about 20 dT in size (MCr1.4) will generate 1 EP/250 megawatts while the O2 and fuel hold out. You should be able to fit enough generators and O2 tanks and fuel in the bay to power your 7 EP of weapons for a couple or three hours. Starting it up takes seconds,and won't Mr. Pirate be surprised when the Type R flies up and starts shooting 7 EP worth of weapons at him. Might be best to open the cargo bay to space after the battle.

 

[Enoki]

One might note that Q-ships in historical usage were pretty much a failure... :toast:

 

[Travellerspud]

Capacitors won't store power the way you want. CT Errata changed the Black Globe rules so that the capacitors are basically a one-way street - you can feed power in from the black globe or the jump drive, but it's either used for jump or bled out the heat exchangers after that.

I thought it sounded too good....

An alternative for the low tech world is to go old-school. You're a little TL7 world with a pirate taking orbit and making threats. You commandeer the Type R that's sitting in port, grab some weapons and turrets off of other ships or small craft that are likewise in port, stick big diesel generators and some O2 tanks in the cargo bay of the Type R. Something about 20 dT in size (MCr1.4) will generate 1 EP/250 megawatts while the O2 and fuel hold out. You should be able to fit enough generators and O2 tanks and fuel in the bay to power your 7 EP of weapons for a couple or three hours. Starting it up takes seconds,and won't Mr. Pirate be surprised when the Type R flies up and starts shooting 7 EP worth of weapons at him. Might be best to open the cargo bay to space after the battle.

This could also fit nicely with some of the low-tech Vargr worlds...(or the Belgardian Sojorn!

 

[Carlobrand]

One might note that Q-ships in historical usage were pretty much a failure... :toast:

As antisubmarine craft, yes. If you count the German merchant raiders, which amounted to the same thing but were intended to attack merchant shipping, they had better success. One even managed to sink an Australian cruiser in WW-II, though it was sunk in the process.

 

[Enoki]

As antisubmarine craft, yes. If you count the German merchant raiders, which amounted to the same thing but were intended to attack merchant shipping, they had better success. One even managed to sink an Australian cruiser in WW-II, though it was sunk in the process.

Merchant raiders whether WW 2 or ACW or Drake's Golden Hind against the Spanish Main, all were more like pirate ships working for a government. They hunted merchant ships and avoided fights with warships.

The Q-ship was supposed to lure in a submarine and then engage it in battle. Submarine Captains quickly became suspicious of any merchant and would torpedo them before even thinking of closing and finishing them with gunfire or helping survivors.

The Q-ship is like a merchant raider going and looking for enemy warships to fight, something no sane Captain would do.

On the other hand, in Traveller a good question might be what kind of ship would make a good convoy escort?

 

[Carlobrand]

...
On the other hand, in Traveller a good question might be what kind of ship would make a good convoy escort?

Book 2: a 200 dT escort carrier with 10dT fighters.
Book 5: an agility-6, high armor destroyer escort in the 1400-1800 dTon range, built around a single missile bay, with the best available computer.

 

[rancke]

On the other hand, in Traveller a good question might be what kind of ship would make a good convoy escort?

A system defense boat stationed in a spot that covers the arrival and departure of the convoy. Except that the merchants don't have to jump in convoy.

For flexibility, several smaller SDBs would usually be better than one big one.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

A system defense boat stationed in a spot that covers the arrival and departure of the convoy. Except that the merchants don't have to jump in convoy.

For flexibility, several smaller SDBs would usually be better than one big one.


Hans

One presumes that or some similar arrangement is the reason we don't see pirates at A and B ports.

 

[MCEvans]

Just an idea on the power plant & computer, scale usage. When the Navy puts a ship into mothball the power plant is put into an idle mode, just enough to operate one air lock, basic emergency lighting and the computer at a minimum level just enough to run the anti-highjacking program. Now these are military grade components and a true dedicated Q-ship would be a military ship so these options should be available. Just don't use standard off the rack components unless that rack is your local IN Depot.

As for those that say that "That can't be done." or "Computers don't work that way." My response is that in 3000 years anything is possible, just look at how far computers have come in the last 30 years.

 

[sabredog]

On the other hand, in Traveller a good question might be what kind of ship would make a good convoy escort?

A 400 ton ship with high maneuver agility, the largest computer you can stuff in it, and four triple turrets - three of which are just missile racks so you can engage a couple of targets at long range while herding your sheep to the jump point. Like a corvette would do with a convoy in a wet navy.

Add 2-3 fighters to the ship's compliment and you'll be a force to be reckoned with as far as pirates are concerned. IMTU I use 200 ton ships for the job and they each have two fighters on board, armed with two missile racks and a pule laser. The ship itself has two triple turrets with beam lasers in one and missiles in the other. And for good measure the nose doors swing away to reveal four more missile racks and plenty of reloads.

Missiles are fire and forget so you technically ought to be able to stuff as many racks in the hold as you can reasonably do and just light 'em off since they wouldn't have to be subject to the limitations of the computer's programs other than Launch. But that probably ought to be something you don't let players get too close to that sort of thing or they'll end up destroying your universe; you know how they are sometimes.

 

[sabredog]

Another thing you can do with the idea of a Q-ship is to make a ship with dummy fuel tanks on the outside. Calculate the agility of the ship with and without the tanks and you'll have a sort of afterburner ability when they are jettisoned. That will speed up your Q-ship really quickly.

The second part of that equation is that you put a power plant, computer, and popup turret in each "tank". Armor the tank, too. Now you have a little self-contained monitor that you can jettison and add more weapons to the fight with while your "pokey" tramp freighter suddenly burns 5G and jinks like a fighter.

If you don't want to have things like fighters and suspicious-looking cans and boxes with lots of think cables snaking out of them found in the hold, then turn an external "fuel tank" into a fighter. If the tank is large enough - 10-20 tons, then just build it around a fighter. Stick four of those around the engineering end of the ship and make them look like drop tanks. Then, jettison them when trouble starts so they can engage the bad guys at a stand-off distance while your pop-up turrets start pumping out the Macross Missile Swarms. If you build a 400-600 ton Q-ship with a close configuration and disguise your fighters and/or weapon pods like this it will be a pretty ferocious little battlewagon in one turn.

Anyway, I'm just brainstorming here so the morphine might just be making me a little crazy, too.

 

[sabredog]

Now these are military grade components and a true dedicated Q-ship would be a military ship so these options should be available. Just don't use standard off the rack components unless that rack is your local IN Depot.

Don't be so sure....a private company, or consortium of shippers, would also be a prime candidate for using a Q-ship if they are having problems with security on some route. If the ship can be put together with off-the-shelf components stuffed into a Type R or similar then all the more likely a private group could do it.

The other advantage to using regular civilian type parts is that they are far more available anywhere the ship goes. it would really be bad if the ship blew out some critical component in a custom built military grade drive and the parts couldn't be found out on the frontiers where they are escorting. But, if they could get the part out of the stores of one of the merchies they are escorting, or in the next port, then it would be a more sustainable design - AND cheaper..

As for those that say that "That can't be done." or "Computers don't work that way." My response is that in 3000 years anything is possible, just look at how far computers have come in the last 30 years.

I endorse this. It is a science fiction game after all. Anything should be possible, it'e merely a question of how much it costs.

 

[Selandia]

What is the problem that have Q ships as a partial/total solution?

SDB and Escort are nice if you want to scare the rats away. To lure them to the trap is something else. Then, are Q-ship only a bait that may hope to survive while the powered-down SDBs come into action? Is the Q-ship also supposed to damage the pirate? Is the Q-ships wandering alone on the trade routes as a hazard to piracy? Is the Q-ship expected to lure pirate by jumping in system or is it playing spaceship operating within the system? In the later case, long term deception of pirate informants is a chalenge, while in the previous case, so many model of freighters exist in the TI, some of them in specialized trade, that a non standard starship is quite standard.

You are the pirate, here come a dispersed structure modular starship, with various pods, some rated HazMat with independant PoSup for environmental control, self propelled lighters powering up their PoSup before separation to reach various planets within the system, some passenger habitats with independent Po Sup for safety reasons (the habitat pod is the life raft of the ship), all riding the cargo beam of a Bridge/crew/engine main module with fuels in bellly tanks sized for a specific job. In as much as you can tell what is inside the ship and pods from that distance, some have the signature of industrial machinery rather than cases of goods, but what is wrong with that; are case of military ammunition so different from cases of hunting ammo, mining supply or PDF supplies. So the sp lighters look like modular cutters, should'nt they? The habitat IR signature is looking like crew quarters, may even be a Marine barack, but any dormitory for low quality non frozen passage would. Will we skip that fat 1G prey Captain? Then as you close you wonder why every powered pod as so much reserve power. The SP lighters are released, it is ok, the rats leave the ship...why the hell cargo lighters are turning toward us agressively...since when a trader has missile bays instead of turrets...that pod that signed like holding some refinery sub assemblies seem to hold an axial main weapon mount ...Captain, we have a 2000 tons problem!


Figuring the problem should give you some design parameters. Otherwise, what would be the difference between a corsair (aka wwi-wwii raider) closing under guise with unsuspecting preys, and a Q ship luring predator within striking distance? Would'nt the ECM and visual tricks of one trade be (for gaming purpose) available to the other trade, as far as looking as a pretty something else is concern?

have fun

Selandia