Scout/Couriers for Detached Duty...

[Darley51]

IF a merchant vessel is mortgaged for 40 years and then paid off... and presumably in GREAT shape to go on conducting business...

WHAT is the average age of a Scout Vessel assigned to Detached Duty? Is it IISS Surplus? Or...

I've seen adventures where the vessel was 25 years old... but why not 50?

and while I'm at it... though it makes for great game flavor (no pun intended) why would the service tolerate such a crappy air system in its ships and not redesign it in subsequent purchases?

??

 

[robject]

IF a merchant vessel is mortgaged for 40 years and then paid off... and presumably in GREAT shape to go on conducting business...

Maybe not GREAT shape... maybe okay shape...

WHAT is the average age of a Scout Vessel assigned to Detached Duty? Is it IISS Surplus? Or...

I've seen adventures where the vessel was 25 years old... but why not 50?

Okay.

I don't know what the 'expected lifetime' of ships are, but I've always treated them as having the same life expectancy as humans. Or a little better.

and while I'm at it... though it makes for great game flavor (no pun intended) why would the service tolerate such a crappy air system in its ships and not redesign it in subsequent purchases?

??

Mil-specs are forever?
Corrupt contracting?
Cost-cutting?
Re-use of Surplus?

 

[JAFARR]

First you have to make some assumptions. Like no battle damage, no bad landings, and all preventive maintenance performed as required (I think not later than 6 weeks past due is acceptable.) IMTU I expect a TL13+ ship to have a service lifetime of 120+ standard years if the assumptions above are valid. TL 11 or 12 = 100 years, TL 9 or 10 = 80 years, TL 8 or less 40 years. Some types of damage can be repaired enough so as to not effect the life span. Mothballing or non use and storage in a protected environment can extend the life span (based on referee's judgement as to how well it is protected), as may a major overhaul and/or remodeling job.

I don't think it really matters. How you think things should work IYTU works for me.

 

[Supplement Four]

First you have to make some assumptions. Like no battle damage, no bad landings, and all preventive maintenance performed as required (I think not later than 6 weeks past due is acceptable.) IMTU I expect a TL13+ ship to have a service lifetime of 120+ standard years if the assumptions above are valid. TL 11 or 12 = 100 years, TL 9 or 10 = 80 years, TL 8 or less 40 years. Some types of damage can be repaired enough so as to not effect the life span. Mothballing or non use and storage in a protected environment can extend the life span (based on referee's judgement as to how well it is protected), as may a major overhaul and/or remodeling job.

I don't think it really matters. How you think things should work IYTU works for me.

This is good advice.

For a simple rule, I'd tip the hat to what JAFARR says and say that the life expectancy of a vessel is TL x 10 years, given the ship is well taken care of.

The GM should step in and modify that number is the ship hasn't had such a caring crew in the past.

 

[Plankowner]

The air recycling problem on the Scouts?

Yeah, I heard about that. It was a problem on a group of Type S ships produced in the Deneb Sector by one supplier about 100 years ago. The problem was caught and the problems fixed, but not before several thousand of the ships were produced. Over the next few years, the IISS removed all of them from service and mothballed them. Recently some of them have been showing up on the Detached Duty Lists, but amazingly enough ONLY in the Spinward Marches. Someone needs to investigate that!

Anyway, even though the problem was fixed almost a century ago, the moniker of "Stinkpot" has stuck to this class of ship, at least in the Domain of Deneb.

It's more rumor and urban myth than actual fact, at least for most Type S ships in Service. Of course, what a group of PCs might get is up to the GM...

That's my take anyway.

 

[robject]

The air recycling problem on the Scouts?

Yeah, I heard about that. It was a problem on a group of Type S ships produced in the Deneb Sector by one supplier about 100 years ago. The problem was caught and the problems fixed...

Sorry, Baron, Your Eminence, Sir, but it turns out that that problem was identified, documented, and a fix filed... and then nothing happened.

One might say that there was a communications problem between a particular design bureau, local and central design-planning committees, and the factory dispatchers. Or perhaps there was a SNAFU when the retooling order went out to the various supplier worlds. Or maybe only a few of the worlds decided to implement said order. Of course, there's someone in charge over each of those factories on each of those worlds, each of whom have plausible deniability, as do those all the way up the chain.

What I mean to say is...

 

[Plankowner]

Still, sir, my point is valid. Not EVERY single Type S ever made has the air problem. Just some (especially the ones given out to Detached Duty). In fact, that might be WHY they are available for DD. Caveat Emptor!

 

[robject]

Still, sir, my point is valid. Not EVERY single Type S ever made has the air problem. Just some (especially the ones given out to Detached Duty). In fact, that might be WHY they are available for DD. Caveat Emptor!

Ah, I accept your challenge, Sir! Tomorrow at dawn, your choice of weapons, recipes and kitchen stadium setup, or unpowered scooters and slightly inclined asphalt road of appropriate length. Don't be late!

 

[Plankowner]

I chose sarcastic insults and condescending looks at 10 paces...

I shall see you at the appointed place and time. Bring your Second Sir, you will need him/her. :rofl:

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Gentlemen,

We're talking about scouts, here. Maybe it's not their ships that are the problem ...

"Yeah, I loooove having my own starship. Just fill up the tank, break orbit, and -- BAM! A week later, and I'm on a whole 'nother planet!"

"Well, OK; but ... why does it smell like gin, old laundry, and cat pee in here?"

"Really? I hadn't noticed ..."
​

The problem can't be cured because it's a personnel issue, rather than a technical one. I have it on good authority that no matter what kind of starship you fly, once you've got a good dose of Scout Funk into your filtration system, nothing short of a complete overhaul is going to get rid of it.

 

[Misfit]

Still, sir, my point is valid. Not EVERY single Type S ever made has the air problem. Just some (especially the ones given out to Detached Duty). In fact, that might be WHY they are available for DD. Caveat Emptor!

Hey, this Scout is brand new, why'd they put her up for detached duty?

 

[Gadrin]

once you've got a good dose of Scout Funk into your filtration system, nothing short of a complete overhaul is going to get rid of it.

:rofl:




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[Agemegos]

IF a merchant vessel is mortgaged for 40 years and then paid off... and presumably in GREAT shape to go on conducting business...

Yes indeedy. Once you own a few million CrImp worth of productive assets free and clear you can impute yourself a nice interest income in addition to your salary and profits (if any). Being a millionaire rocks!

 

[Icosahedron]

Sorry, I'm no accountant - how, exactly?

 

[RossWinn]

Ship Age

Depending on the Traveller Universe and background that the GM chose I have been on ships more than 100 years old.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Oh my freaking god....

Magnus :rofl:

The whole last half of this post had me dying. Wow, and I got to go with My Lord Snarky and Condescending, so if You need Second?

As for Starship Life, well, all the points raised are valid. As for the LS Amto problems, well, you are supposed to overhaul annually....

IMTU-the high TL rating the nicer and easier it is to keep....:devil:, but as a Ref, that means a bit more expense on the annual overhaul cost, or at least limits where they can be overhauled....well, they do have a Class A Starport, too bad the UWP here says the TL planet-side is only A, so since you guys have a TL C ship....."parts are hard to come by, ya'll got a place to stay while we order them from Regina?". :smirk: Yes, I am a bit of a dick sometimes, but hey, it's Science Fiction, not science Fantasy.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Well, you could always give them a choice between:

:alpha: A nice shiny new Scout with all the bells and whistles that was only used a few times and still has a full turret, "but yous gotta do a job for us first"

or

:alpha: The "busted-up, old, air system gone bad and the Jump Drive is about to go, too" Scout if they don't want that possibly lucrative but very very dangerous mission.

 

[Ishmael]

In my case, my characters were given an old battered zhodani hull ( chatl class ) to refit before they got it...and they have to use it to teach a junior, innocent, but very bright vargr technician the ins and outs of engineering for real...and not in a nice clean teaching enviroment. So they got a busted up clunker to fix AND a job to do before they get to retire. ( Do scouts ever really retire? or do they just keep getting in trouble despite being old enough to know better...)

I doubt any gov agency is going to give away shiny new equipment to retirees....they'll get rid of....err...dole out ships as newer replacements are deployed.

 

[BigBadRon]

I always figured that back around 1080 the IISS bought a new design for their Scout ship. They built them in their hundreds, and started deploying them in the field around 1083.

By 1084 it was apparent that all of the new ships had a problem with their air systems, so the possibility of a fix was looked at.

Two choices were available:

1) Strip out and replace the air systems on hundreds of ships.
2) Replace hundreds of ships with a slightly improved model, complete with much better air system.

Being a government department, they went for the choice that would get them the largest possible budget allocation for the following year. The newer model went into production in 1086, and smelled so much better that the crews started, unofficially, naming them after flowers.

This left the Scouts with a new problem though - what to do with the hundreds of surplus ships that were sitting about making Scout Bases smell real funny. They couldn't just scrap them, because that would look like somebody had made a mistake in purchasing them in the first place.

Then, in 1090, some pen-pusher came up with a brilliant idea - a way to keep the ships in service, without having to pay the crew a salary, and it would allow everybody involved in the mess to cover their arses...

 

[Tysis]

Ok I just read this thread. It took a supreme effort to keep from laughing out loud. The result of suppressing my amusement resulted in snickers that actually have me crying.

And some of my coworkers want to know what is so funny.