Recomended reading on the forum?

[Spartan159]

I'm looking for information on large vs small ship universe. I know it's been debated to death and flogged thereafter but my Search Fu seems lacking. I am wondering about the possibility of a limited large ship universe where heavyweights number maybe a tenth of what they seem to be in the OTU. I'm sure someone took the trouble to estimate the budgets of the Third Empire and the Zhodani if nothing else. I have had TCS for years but never really played it; I've just used it as a resource so I've never really developed a feel for massive budgets. AHL is interesting to me for many things, the relevant one here being the limited number of only 99 hulls planned for a CA, that's only 14-15 per domain. I look forward to any comments, links or search terms I could use to find this information on my own.

 

[77topaz]

There are lots of threads on such topics:

"Small Ships/Big Ships Redux"

"A Big & Small ship universe in the same OTU"

"Medium Ship Universe"

 

[Spartan159]

Thanks, will start reading those. I tried to do a search and got 20 pages of results.

 

[77topaz]

Thanks, will start reading those. I tried to do a search and got 20 pages of results.

Yeah, the fact that the search function doesn't support "quoted phrases being sought together" does making searching for multiple-word phrases difficult.

 

[Timerover51]

One thing that you might want to remember is that even in a small ship universe, the ships are not that small. A Traveller displacement ton is equal to either 13.5 cubic meters or 14 cubic meters, depending on what version you are using. That equates to 476 cubic feet or 494 cubic feet, which is about 5 gross register tons in terms of commercial nautical ships. If you convert to displacement tons, which are used for warships, a 5,000 Traveller Displacement Ton is equal to from 67,500 displacement tons to 70,000 displacements ton, which is about the tonnage of a Yamato-class battleship, and larger than either a Iowa-class battleship or a Midway-class aircraft carrier. As gross register tonnage is a measurement of volume, as is the Traveller dTon, that would probably be more accurate for commercial ships.

At 5 gross register tons to the Traveller dTon, a World War 2 Liberty ship as 7100 gross register tons would be equal to 1420 Traveller dTons. Now, a Liberty was rated at being able to carry 10,000 deadweight tons of cargo, which I would view as a large quantity for interstellar commerce.

The Paul R. Tregurtha is a 1,000 foot long Great Lakes bulk carrier, with an approximate volume of 168,096 cubic meters which, dividing by 13.5 cubic meters for a Traveller displacement ton, is equal to 12,451 Traveller dTons. She can carry 68,000 long tons of cargo, normally taconite pellets. Computed in displacement ton terms, the light ship weight, without cargo is 14,497 long tons (of 2240 pounds, so equal to 1.016 metric tons) for a loaded displacement weight of 82,497 long tons, so call it 82,500 tons. and dividing that by 13.5 (figuring that a cubic meter of water is equal to 1 metric ton), you get 6,111 in term of Traveller dTons converted to displacement tons.

As the more accurate measurement is probably volume of the hull, a 1,000 foot Great Lakes bulk carrier is equal to 12,450 Traveller dTons, which would not make it that big in a Large ship universe. She does move 68,000 long tons, or 69,092 metric tons, of cargo. That is a lot of cargo for interstellar commerce. I should at that the Paul R. Tregurtha cost about $60 million US Dollars in 1981. There are quite a few 1,000 foot bulk carriers on the Great Lakes. The normal cargo for a bulk carrier is wheat, coal, limestone, salt (as in sodium chloride), and taconite pellets. Not exactly the type of cargo that could afford a One Credit per kilogram shipping cost.

My own view is that I cannot see any reasonable cargo for a freight carrier ship in Traveller the size of the Paul R. Tregurtha, and I am not sure even about a Liberty Ship.

 

[Enoki]

Merchant ships are normally sized in displacement as Gross Register Tons. This is a volume of 100 cubic feet (2.83 meters^3). It's one way to estimate the volume of ships for conversion to Traveller. That's a conversion of 4.75 GRT to one Traveller ton (4.7368 for exact if you want).

I've always assumed that there are small numbers of large merchants that move between key locations in sectors and subsectors carrying bulk cargo that is then distributed to smaller systems / ports by the equivalent of what today would be called "Coasters." The later are small 500 GRT to 3000 GRT merchants. The larger ships make it economical to ship large quantities longer distances while the smaller ships stay more local distributing the mass of goods a large ship brings in. The small ships would also collect goods and bring them back to a port for concentration and loading on a large merchant. A 500 GRT Coaster type freighter would come out pretty close to a Subsidized Merchant as a type.

The typical port for concentration would be a world with a pop of 9+ and a tech level of C or better say so long as the government and law level aren't oppressive. These worlds would see a few large ships coming and going every few weeks with maybe one or two in port. Any merchant would also have some room aboard for passengers, but these would really be secondary to hauling bulk cargo.

Something like an ocean liner or cruise ship would be a rarity, except that the latter might exist for inter-system cruises where there are several planets one could visit. There just doesn't seem to be the need for large passenger ships that operate without cargo in this universe. Small liners would be a better bet. These would offer premium service to wealthy passengers (think something like air travel in the 30's here or charter jets today) who aren't so concerned about cost.

I've also assumed that in areas of high piracy or threat, that ships often move in convoys rather than singly. That way they can have escorts to better protect them, not to mention that numbers give them an advantage in firepower.

As for bulk trade, consider that a world might have depleted its own easily extracted raw materials and is now importing these from other systems simply because the cost there is far lower that doing it locally (both because of the difficulty of extraction and the costs of labor). If you had some well developed high-tech world where the average cost of labor is say 10 to 50 times that of some backwater system, it might well be worth it to import something like raw materials.
I don't think the current Traveller trade system(s) really take that into account well.

 

[Condottiere]

You can blame the large fuel bunkerage for that feeling of claustrophobia.

 

[kilemall]

I've skipped the whole thing by going TL10 as the ceiling.

Best take care with any use of the HG critical hit weapon code larger then ship hull rule, limiting the ships should probably mean limiting the upper range weapons in either critical hits or size.

 

[kilemall]

And I disagree with the interstellar trade limitation concept, the cost per ton does put a ceiling on commodity or marginal product shipments and distance as well, but there are planets in just a subsector that have a LOT of population between them.

Just shipping enough tonnage for say 10% of the Holiday trade would be far more then you gents are postulating.

And then there is in-system traffic too.

 

[Spartan159]

Would there be enough trade along the X-boat route to justify large / Mega corporations running huge jump 1 to 4 cargo ships and liners, such as Tankers (water, fuel, hydrocarbons, groat milk) Container ships or RoRo, in addition to such like as the the ISCV King Richard of FASA fame (Granted, for this question a "smaller" ship of only o: 5,000 tons? Just what do those six 60,000 ton converted AHL merchant ships do? I know the Oberlindes one trades in Gvuurden Sector, not talking about that special case. I say jump 1 to 4 because not all links are jump 4 and I would tend to think a jump link would have dedicated ships jumping back and forth, not traveling like the King Richard along a length. IIRC that one was not limited to the X-boat route anyway, I just use it as a liner comparison.

 

[mike wightman]

Megacorporations do indeed trade along the x-boat routes:

Xboat links are represented by grey lines showing the established communications
routes. Generally, these routes are also the major freight and passenger
carrying lines.

Selected locations along major trade routes are established as express stations;

 

[Spartan159]

Right, but what size ships do they operate, anything in the 10k or larger range? I know of the 1k to 5k ships in TTA and SMC? It just dawned on me that the battlerider concept would work wonderfully for a MegaCorp, have a station outside the 100 pd limit (Perhaps at a star/planet L2 point) and the main time spent would be the fuel transfer. I know I've seen someone talk about the LASH cargo concept somewhere but I guess it really did not sink in on a large enough scale.

 

[mike wightman]

Some of the earliest TAS News articles in the JotTAS mention that merchant drop tank technology is finally going to be used on the trade routes of the Spinward Marches, having been common in the Imperial core sectors for decades.

 

[Timerover51]

Would there be enough trade along the X-boat route to justify large / Mega corporations running huge jump 1 to 4 cargo ships and liners, such as Tankers (water, fuel, hydrocarbons, groat milk) Container ships or RoRo, in addition to such like as the the ISCV King Richard of FASA fame (Granted, for this question a "smaller" ship of only o: 5,000 tons? Just what do those six 60,000 ton converted AHL merchant ships do? I know the Oberlindes one trades in Gvuurden Sector, not talking about that special case. I say jump 1 to 4 because not all links are jump 4 and I would tend to think a jump link would have dedicated ships jumping back and forth, not traveling like the King Richard along a length. IIRC that one was not limited to the X-boat route anyway, I just use it as a liner comparison.

Considering that they could conceivably carry 300,000 to 600,000 tons of cargo, I have not the foggiest idea. Again, the cargo would have to be valuable enough to justify the 1 Credit per kilogram shipping fee, or you would have to have enough highly valuable cargo to afford to carry less-valuble material, and charge the higher valuable cargo higher shipping fees.

The economics for very large commercial cargo ships simply do not make sense. Given the high cost of passenger fare, very large passengers ships do not make a lot of sense either, unless you are thinking of forced immigration from high-population planets.

 

[kilemall]

The economics for very large commercial cargo ships simply do not make sense. Given the high cost of passenger fare, very large passengers ships do not make a lot of sense either, unless you are thinking of forced immigration from high-population planets.

Oh, I don't know about that.

In our world the elite passenger liners became troopships.

What if the reverse occurred, surplus troopships got sold at auction below cost, removing that huge capital outlay/loan payment barrier?

Or, are subsidized to run a route as much as the local subsector ACS liners are? With 1000 ton mail contracts, guaranteed?

 

[Ackehece]

Oh, I don't know about that.

In our world the elite passenger liners became troopships.

What if the reverse occurred, surplus troopships got sold at auction below cost, removing that huge capital outlay/loan payment barrier?

Or, are subsidized to run a route as much as the local subsector ACS liners are? With 1000 ton mail contracts, guaranteed?

well... I can think of things that make no sense commercially and yet do well due to crazed rich people.

Tristan Da Cunha cruise stops are the top of my list.

people with money will be catered to no matter the cost and wierdness.

 

[Enoki]

Would there be enough trade along the X-boat route to justify large / Mega corporations running huge jump 1 to 4 cargo ships and liners, such as Tankers (water, fuel, hydrocarbons, groat milk) Container ships or RoRo, in addition to such like as the the ISCV King Richard of FASA fame (Granted, for this question a "smaller" ship of only o: 5,000 tons? Just what do those six 60,000 ton converted AHL merchant ships do? I know the Oberlindes one trades in Gvuurden Sector, not talking about that special case. I say jump 1 to 4 because not all links are jump 4 and I would tend to think a jump link would have dedicated ships jumping back and forth, not traveling like the King Richard along a length. IIRC that one was not limited to the X-boat route anyway, I just use it as a liner comparison.

It's not the X-boat routes that would drive cargo and passengers, but (or it should be) rather population, tech level, location relative to other systems, and starport quality.
The hubs of commerce would be pop 8+, Tech C-D+, starport A, and central to a large number of systems within J2 or 3 at most. J4 ships are getting pricey for fuel and operating costs compared to capacity (think fast cargo ship here, something that's always ended up failing here on Earth).
X-boats are for communications whereas commerce requires a ready market, reasonable levels of technology, and good port facilities.

 

[aramis]

Right, but what size ships do they operate, anything in the 10k or larger range? I know of the 1k to 5k ships in TTA and SMC? It just dawned on me that the battlerider concept would work wonderfully for a MegaCorp, have a station outside the 100 pd limit (Perhaps at a star/planet L2 point) and the main time spent would be the fuel transfer. I know I've seen someone talk about the LASH cargo concept somewhere but I guess it really did not sink in on a large enough scale.

In a Book 2+Book 5 hybrid universe, the 5KTd Bk 2 designs don't see a price match on cost to ship until about 20 KTd under book 5.

So, really, you shouldn't see Bk 5 merchants under about 15 KTd, and Bk 2 doesn't go above 5...

 

[kilemall]

In a Book 2+Book 5 hybrid universe, the 5KTd Bk 2 designs don't see a price match on cost to ship until about 20 KTd under book 5.

So, really, you shouldn't see Bk 5 merchants under about 15 KTd, and Bk 2 doesn't go above 5...

I never figured they should, LBB2 being cookie cutter ISO standard components and LBB5 being all custom.

That's how I justify both being in the same universe, LBB2 is standard parts able to be manufactured and replaced across a wide range of TLs to promote interstellar trade and ACS niche markets, and LBB5 is high performance specialized designs for both ACS and higher end customers.

 

[whulorigan]

I never figured they should, LBB2 being cookie cutter ISO standard components and LBB5 being all custom.

That's how I justify both being in the same universe, LBB2 is standard parts able to be manufactured and replaced across a wide range of TLs to promote interstellar trade and ACS niche markets, and LBB5 is high performance specialized designs for both ACS and higher end customers.

And somewhere I believe Marc Miller made a similar observation (it might have been in the T5 Beta), that ACS (= ~ LBB2) designed ships use the Vilani "traditional" approach (swappable plug-in components - don't ask questions, just install what the architecture manual says . . . ), whereas the BCS design rules (= ~ LBB5) follow a more Solomani approach of custom-engineered designs.