Racial/National Ship Characteristics and Tactics?

[Geage]

I'm fairly new to Traveller and I've been looking to see whether there are any characteristics usually attributed to ships (civilian and especially military) of the many factions in the OTU. I'm particularly interested in the ships of the Zhodani and Sword Worlds. I have some ideas in mind mainly based off the tactics they'd be using, but I haven't found many official references outside the Imperial ships detailed particularly in Fighting Ships.

Also I'd like to see whether anyone has ideas about the specific strategies and tactics of the various fleets and how these affect ship design/force composition and usage.

OTU background is appreciated but I would be interested in people's own backgrounds and opinions.

(Also, I'm playing CT).

 

[aramis]

There are a few items of note:

Hivers computers are better.

Zhodani install lesser sensors and commo, because they have telepaths and clairvoyants.

Exact implementation, however, varied between editions, but generally was "nil"...

 

[Geage]

That makes sense. I remember the K'Kree needing massive ships simulating the conditions of the open plain because of their claustrophobia. Would create a lot of problems in design (expensive!) and be cumbersome in battle.

 

[aramis]

That makes sense. I remember the K'Kree needing massive ships simulating the conditions of the open plain because of their claustrophobia. Would create a lot of problems in design (expensive!) and be cumbersome in battle.

Only changes for K'Kree were 48t staterooms, 24t per small craft stateroom, and 4t per "couch", and different drive crew rates. (Essentially, 1 per 50t, rather than 1 per 35T)

Engineers 1:100Td Drives
Technicians 1 per engineer, but are servants of the engineer
No stewards.
Medics 1:100 k'kree aboard
Gunners are usually others' bodyguards.

Almost all ships are 1.5 or 2 decks, and big saucers.

And each crewman will have 1d6 wives...

 

[shield]

There are a few others.

Zhodani commercial shipping does not normal carry weapons or even hardpoints - no piracy with the consulate. Max TL14

Aslan, rounded hull forms, max TL14, and ships usually have a shrine (equivalent to a large stateroom). They also have crew requirement variations - don't normally carry a medic and a steward is needed for high ranking males. Males are pilots and gunners, admin crew, engineering are females and low caste males

Solomani TL14 max, crew accommodations take 80% of normal displacement and weapons may be carried in fixed mounts. Fixed mounts can carry 2 weapons, no displacement cost, –2 to hit (have to aim the ship). Max number of fixed mounts = computer model number

 

[jatay3]

1st Imperium-emphasis on orbital bombardment capability to the exclusion of space superiority as for thousands of years there wasn't a space dominance threat. There were ship specs on record with the reverse emphasis but until the Terrans became recognized as a serious threat, few of these were produced. These were mostly produced at the Terran-Vilani border as the Vland regarded this as a local affair. When reinforcements arrived from Vland, most of these were also bombardment vessels for the same reason.

 

[shield]

Don't forget the Aslan are clan based and not many clans can afford the big stuff. So lots of smaller vessels - escorts and cruisers and fewer battleships (except for forces from the main 29 clans)

Same problem for the Vargr. Lots of small polities with modest TL (11-13) typical, so fewer massive battleships, also vargr charisma tends to make battleship captains very charismatic and hence liable to break-away from their govts, so most govts don't build battleships (govt has to be stable lomg enough to build a battleship anyway - 5 years). Vargr ships also tend to have lots of teeth i.e. weapons but little tail (weaker defences, less endurance). Their fleet support train is probably limited - not very charismatic to be piloting a tanker

Sword Worlders have problems, most of their ships ate TL10-11 with a few TL12. So no screens, no meson guns, average weapons and computers. They are going to have real trouble hitting fast, imperial vessels with high computer factors. They are also very likely to to be hit by imperial fire.

So high armour (they are going to get hit by lots of nuke missiles) high factor weapons and active defences (they need to offset the imperial advantage of speed and computers). Their lack of meson screens means a heavy battleship is very vulnerable to being destroyed by a single hit, so you would go for lots of cheap, fast hulls with good configuration - which clashes with the requirements of heavy and expensive armour to withstand the missiles. At this TL level the energy requirements for high speed means a very big power plant which again increases costs and limits the space available for armour

Cheers
Richard

 

[jatay3]

Don't forget the Aslan are clan based and not many clans can afford the big stuff. So lots of smaller vessels - escorts and cruisers and fewer battleships (except for forces from the main 29 clans)

Same problem for the Vargr. Lots of small polities with modest TL (11-13) typical, so fewer massive battleships, also vargr charisma tends to make battleship captains very charismatic and hence liable to break-away from their govts, so most govts don't build battleships (govt has to be stable lomg enough to build a battleship anyway - 5 years). Vargr ships also tend to have lots of teeth i.e. weapons but little tail (weaker defences, less endurance). Their fleet support train is probably limited - not very charismatic to be piloting a tanker

Sword Worlders have problems, most of their ships ate TL10-11 with a few TL12. So no screens, no meson guns, average weapons and computers. They are going to have real trouble hitting fast, imperial vessels with high computer factors. They are also very likely to to be hit by imperial fire.

So high armour (they are going to get hit by lots of nuke missiles) high factor weapons and active defences (they need to offset the imperial advantage of speed and computers). Their lack of meson screens means a heavy battleship is very vulnerable to being destroyed by a single hit, so you would go for lots of cheap, fast hulls with good configuration - which clashes with the requirements of heavy and expensive armour to withstand the missiles. At this TL level the energy requirements for high speed means a very big power plant which again increases costs and limits the space available for armour

Cheers
Richard

Aslan would have a number of decorative features; they have a thing for decorated weapons, which would include warships. Perhaps an old epic written in caligraphy.
Aslan would also have a number of utility craft that can serve peaceful and warlike purposes; an armed merchant, a Lash that can carry battle riders or lash transports alternatively. So on.

I don't know about Vargr and battleships. Battleships go in fleets, and with a constantly interconected Fleetnet, the individual ships may not be so individual. In jump space it is different of course. Also charisma actually counts for less in battleships with larger crews to take care of. Light ships, by contrast, are expected to look for trouble on their own. However the poverty, and instability of Vargr polities would reduce the battleline(do they retain the term out of tradition or do they call it battlewall now, in the Harrington manner?) considerably.

Swordies would not have a lot of the high-tech stuff that Impies have. However we can't forget that by comparison with us, even swordies would seem awesome. Swordies seem to go in for practicality and ease of construction and maintenance and that would extend to their ships. One thing Swordies can do is construct basic stuff and buy high tech goodies from the Zho. That may in fact be one reason why they never declare themselves neutral despite the fact that the political arguments in favor of neutrality compete reasonably with those for the Zho alliance(another is the possibility that the Zhos have played "Manchurian Candidate" with powerful Swordies, which is a plotline worth using).


The possibilities of computers for chrome effects interested me a lot. The internal and external decorative capacities are greatly extended. The great information space available is also interesting; recreational materials are one element every purser should not neglect. They help keep morale at optimum and attract employment if the ship has a reputation for good taste. Without taking space like fresh, non-artificialized food would. Aslan ships would have Aslan epics on board; naturally they prefer live performances but in a pinch few of them will sniff at a canned version. The Shipboard Information Service was also an interesting if obvious idea; it increases the possibilities of dialogue. I have often used it as a hook for IMTU short stories.

 

[McPerth]

Aslan (...) ships usually have a shrine (equivalent to a large stateroom).

TY for that piece of information. I'd never been able to find how's the heroes shrine trated when designin an aslan ship. I couldn't fint in in Aslan Alien modules either on CT nor MT.