Ship types in Gateway?

[graden1]

Looking at the map of Gateway sector, and the TL/starport types available, raises some serious questions for me.

Gateway sector has very few large shipyards (high-pop. worlds w/type A starports) and most are TL-9 or 10 at best, which would mean the best jump drive they can manufacture would be jump-1. With so many worlds in Gateway two or more parsecs distant, wouldn't this make interstellar commerce in Gateway extremely difficult? Granted, dismountable tanks make it possible for Free Traders, Subsidized Merchants, etc. to make two successive jumps, but this takes two weeks and uses up cargo space, both of which take a huge cut out of profits.

The local naval yards face a similar problem, although their concern is lack of mobility rather than profits. What am I missing here, people?

Edited to add:

I realized the above questions are a bit vague, so here's one (or two) more specific issues to mull over:

Most of the Gateway governments' fleets are outfitted to TL-A. Given the strategic advantages they would gain, why haven't any of them developed the tech base to produce a TL-B, jump-2 fleet? And how do they carry out their necessary operations in Gateway's j-2 astrography with jump-1 fleets? (Lots of tankers?)

Many thanks for your input,

XO

 

[BetterThanLife]

Well as far as the Navy is concerned the Imperial Navy isn't limited to local production. There are a number of TL-E worlds with Class A Starports or Naval Bases. So while these aren't primarily High Pop worlds so wouldn't be for primary construction they would suffice for repairs and maintenance. Depot being only TL-A is another matter and several theories ahve been put forward. (Like that is the civilian area TL or locally sustainable TL, or intentionaly misleading.) As far as merchants are concerned, Jump-1 ships have the largest profit margin of any merchant under the standard rules so it doesn't really matter. (And carrying 20T in Collapseable/demountable tanks isn't really going to hurt the profitabity of a Free Trader much, nor is 40 tons going to hurt a fat trader much. Especially if we are charging per jump and a two jump hop to another world would then be charged as KCr20 for a Highpassage. Again longer jump vessels need not be manufactured here and there are a few places that they can be maintained. Though you are right about limited facilities for major construction.

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
Well as far as the Navy is concerned the Imperial Navy isn't limited to local production. There are a number of TL-E worlds with Class A Starports or Naval Bases.

Most of the Gateway adventures and campaign settigns are outside Imperial space, so the majority of the fleets that PCs run into will be those of smaller states.

They are valid questions, and I'm not sure anyone has actually thought that hard about them ... yet.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Actually going back to the book. I found that Ley Sector the Imperium has 5 Class A Starports at TL-E (State of the Art) and 3 of those are High Pop. In comparison the Spinward Marches had only 4 CLass A Starports that were TL-F (State of the Art) though they were all High Pop. So as far as the Imperium is concerned that appears to be fairly normal for a frontier region.

As far as Pocket Empires and Tech Levels, remember these small governments don't have nearly the resources of an empire the size of the Imperium. While there may be isolated examples of high tech it would generally be the exception not the rule. They just don't have deep enough pockets. Their idea of a Navy might be like comparing the Argentine Navy to the US Navy. (Or for a larger military dictatorship) Comparing the Russian Navy, in its current state, to the US Navy. Lots of neat toys, about a TL behind but unable to maintain it. Actually it would be more like the North Korean Navy setting sail to engage the US Navy.

So overall I think the setting works from that standpoint. As far as Merchant traffic goes I can't see LSP or General having a problem selling Commercial vessels to non-imperial citizens. And for small commercial ships you don't need all that big a yard.

 

[BetterThanLife]

OK Looking at the stats again.

Throughout the Domain outside the Imperium Borders, there are quite a few TLB worlds, a few TL-C Worlds and a handful of TL-D-F worlds and I even noticed a TL-G. Now There are extremely few TL-C+ high Pop worlds and even fewer with Class A starports.

Now a TL is the overall, sustainable tech level of the planet. Note that Stoner, for example, is TL-E but only has a class B Starport. However Irda, next door has a Class A Starport but only TL-7 (How does that work?). For one reason or another, perhaps because of the inhospitable conditions on Stoner, perhaps for security reasons, maybe even labor cost, whatever, the components are built on Stoner and ships are actually assembled on Irda.

There are other examples of similar astrographic situations throughout the Domain.

Also remember warships under TL-13 are a serious mix of compromises. It might make sense to build Jump-1 ships with fuel tankage for two or 3 jumps It will certainly save tonnage. Especially given the Astrography of the region.

 

[graden1]

Bhoins;

To be more specific, I'm particularly interested in the situation in Gateway sector, as opposed to the rest of the Domain. The Galians, Plavians, Viyards, Trindels, HPA's, Megusards, et. al. all seem to come up short in ship production, and jump tech in particular. Yet the sourcebook makes it clear there's rather a lot of interstellar trade going on in this sector.

So, what I'm wondering is this; are all the local merchants creeping along with jump-1 ships and dismountable tanks while all the banks patiently wait for the no-doubt-very-late starship payments? And are there hundreds of foreign-built j-2 and j-3 ships streaming into the sector to compete with them?

The reason I'm concerned about all this is I'm preparing to run a campaign which will begin in Ley sector, and progress into Gateway sector. I plan on making the PC's fully aware that things are different once they leave the Imperium, so I'm trying to get a handle on how smaller stellar governments, with lower TL's, operate. And all these TL-A fleets in Gateway look unworkable, on the surface, both for merchant and naval operations.

XO

 

[jwdh71]

Well remember, the ships in question might only have J1, but you can build them with J2 tankage, and simply jump twice to get to your destination. It's cutting it a bit close in the power plant fuel (if you only carry a 4 week supply) but it's doable. There is probably a sellers market in these areas for older, Imperial made high Jump numbered ships, and the spare parts to keep them running. Some ships that were not even military grade in the Imperium will be better than SOTA in the Little Kingdoms...

 

[Falkayn]

Perhaps it's a situation more akin to the 3rd World than we realise. After all, there are lots of countries that maintain national airlines, and military airforces, that can't provide the technical infrastructure to develop or build them. That doesn't stop them buying them, or importing in experts to train locals in maintaining them, or (more often) importing people with the right skills to fly them.

In fact that gives a bunch of Travellers some great opportunities to show off what they're worth. Skills acquired through the Imperial Navy or megacorp Merchants would be highly marketable in lower TL areas, precisely because they allow the locals to maintain their high TL toys.

In Gateway sector Alphaaric (Ariel subsector) is the only real high tech (TL:15/F) world, and it has a Class A Starport. Most of their 8,000 human inhabitants probably work on making starships as apparently Faar don't have any inclination to do so - I'd expect lots of automation in that industry.

Akeen (Lowtown subsector) is TL:13/D with a Class A Starport and similarly weird aliens, but again there are enough humans there to allow for a decent production schedule.

Everything else with a Class A Starport is pretty much TL:10/A or lower. Gateway (the world) is mentioned to be a major starship manufacturer, but with only TL:10/A local industry it seems a bit improbable - especially as they have a minimum Jump-2 elsewhere. I would probably GM their TL up to 13 or 14 for starship technology, and down for other types of technologies so that it can justify them having a major starship building industry.

There is an extended UWP format discussed in the Freelance Traveller RICE archives. It mentions the Tech Level being broken down, but doesn't give details. I have seen it elsewhere on the web too ... so you could use that to deus ex machine the right results.

 

[Klaus]

I've wondered about this too; specifically regarding the Sword Worlds in "The Golden Age"

Here their highest tech world had a class B starport, and only Gram could build warships at TL11, or at all. This seemed improbable for a polity that had survived Imperial expansion and indeed was able to act aggressively against the Imperium, both militarily and commercially (here it would not be likely that the Imperium or the Darrians would sell off their old ships to the Sword Worlders). This implied they'd need a larger shipbuilding base to do this.

My solution was to say that class B ports (which can make small craft) could at a push build bigger vessels (up to 1000tons) for more expensive (maybe 2-5 times both price and construction time). Jump drives could be made elsewhere and shipped in. This would only be feasible for military vessels or serious exploratory trade to be shared between the worlds (surely if Gram dominated shipbuilding it would be the centre of an empire, not the capital of a looser confederation). This way other planets could make expensive but useful small traders and gunships, and the gunship squadrons of Sacnoth would have the best kit availiable. This would not muss up the rules system too much, as only the local government would be allowed to authorise such vessels and be willing to pay for them, but it would really open up ship building. If there's so many ships out there (10,000's) then really there should be more places to build them.

 

[BrennanHawkwood]

Originally posted by Falkayn:

<Snip>

Everything else with a Class A Starport is pretty much TL:10/A or lower. Gateway (the world) is mentioned to be a major starship manufacturer, but with only TL:10/A local industry it seems a bit improbable - especially as they have a minimum Jump-2 elsewhere. I would probably GM their TL up to 13 or 14 for starship technology, and down for other types of technologies so that it can justify them having a major starship building industry.

The one that has been bothering me lately is 069-526 (Fonnein) from the Linkworlds Cluster document. The mainworld is listed as having a UWP of BAAA630-7 while the description of the place says that 'the yards manufacture small craft ... for buyers across the sector.' The B-class starport works as far as them building small craft and doing a lot of maintenance work on small starships, but their tech level of 7 makes it a little hard to expalin how they are able to build craft that are sold SECTOR-wide given the expense of importing much of the materials, equipment and skills they would need to support that type of operation.

Originally posted by Falkayn:

There is an extended UWP format discussed in the Freelance Traveller RICE archives. It mentions the Tech Level being broken down, but doesn't give details. I have seen it elsewhere on the web too ... so you could use that to deus ex machine the right results.

I'm not certain, but that extended tech UWP looks like the one that was in DGP's World Builders Handbook. GT:First In also allows for breaking a worlds tech level up into a tech profile which may have varying tech levels in different areas.

 

[BetterThanLife]

I have always assumed that they used Zhodani Navy Surplus ships. For commercial, since everything is on the Spinward Main, they didn't need more than J-1 ships. But aside from a few home brewed low jump craft, IMTU they used things like the 2000T Zhodani "Strike Cruiser" from Adventure 7, (Can you think of another way it could get to Garda Villis?) and the ill-fated Zhidts Class DE. (FASA)

Originally posted by Klaus:
I've wondered about this too; specifically regarding the Sword Worlds in "The Golden Age"

Here their highest tech world had a class B starport, and only Gram could build warships at TL11, or at all. This seemed improbable for a polity that had survived Imperial expansion and indeed was able to act aggressively against the Imperium, both militarily and commercially (here it would not be likely that the Imperium or the Darrians would sell off their old ships to the Sword Worlders). This implied they'd need a larger shipbuilding base to do this.

In Gateway you are likely to see something similar, situations. Imperial designs that didn't make the cut and didn't get a contract, Imperial ships that are declared surplus, Hiver designed and build ships to manuplate the locals to be favorable to the hivers... Etc.

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Klaus:
My solution was to say that class B ports (which can make small craft) could at a push build bigger vessels (up to 1000tons) for more expensive (maybe 2-5 times both price and construction time).

If it's for local consumption then I'd have no problem saying that their naval ships are produced by their Naval bases, and not their starports.

IMHO starports can be used to create commercially available starships, ones that can be sold elsewhere, but naval vessels for that polity (or their allies) would naturally be built in naval dockyards that could be kept more secure than an open commercial operation.

The real sticking point for me is the Tech Level - whe I checked out Gateway domain's worlds I looked at their TL, without regard to their starport size ... the result is pitifully few worlds with a high TL in Gateway sector (and they all have Class A or B starports).

 

[brudin]

brennan concerning fonnein i see somewhere than the starport was build in prevision of a boost on the system, and the boost dont come but they have all the ressource to be the cluster buildcrafter.
they only need base resource like metal and some import for the weapon, mostly they repair and upgrade craft more than build entirely a craft.

 

[graden1]

Thanks to everyone for replying; my apologies for not being more active in this thread this week. Work has been kicking my butt, and today has been no exception. Some quick responses to the various suggestions above, in no particular order:

Bhoins; I'd forgotten that J-1 ships charge per jump, even when using internal tanks to jump an extra parsec. (The THB makes this clear.) This does improved their viability in Gateway, even if they're kinda slow.

jwdh71; Building naval ships with tanks for multiple jumps would work, and would be useful for ships that need to operate independently of tankers.

Falkayn; interesting point about the naval yard v. the civilian shipyard. That would resolve a lot of other Traveller discrepancies in naval shipbuilding capacity!

Others; The most common reply regarding naval ships is that most TL-A governments would have some TL-B+ vessels purchased as surplus from the Imperium or other higher-tech sources. Gateway to Destiny specifically mentions a few cases like this, but they seem to be the exception rather than the norm.

A couple of other ideas I've had:

Starmercs are always a possibility, allowing a small interstellar government to adapt available forces quickly to its needs and budget.

And of course, any or all of the governments of Gateway might have TL-B or better fleet elements that nobody else knows about...yet.

I'm leaning toward the starmerc idea; "secret weapons" are so *&^%$#@! corny.

I'm going out of town for a much-needed long weekend. Everybody have a good one and I'll post at you Monday-ish!

Thanks again,

XO

 

[BetterThanLife]

Remember for these pocket empires a Cruiser might equivalent to an Imperial Destroyer or even a Destroyer Escort. You won't see anything as small as a 10-15 world "Empire" building, even if they had the technology, Squadrons of Tigresses. They simply couldn't afford them. Most of these small empires appear to be primarily concerned with piracy suppression, escorting merchants and the occasional shooting war with their equally low tech, low budget neighbor. You are probably looking at Patrol Cruisers, Mercenary Cruisers and Destroyer Escort range ships being the "Best of the fleet." Perhaps a Baby Carrier with a handful of 15T fighters. These are fleets that a Cruron of Atlantics would make short work of and a and a BatRon would just be a waste of firepower. But their neighbors don't have Drednaughts or CruRons. So it is less of a problem. (Unless they decide to attack or tick off the Imperium, the Hivers or the K'Kree.) Look what the Solomani have deployed in the region, at least so far. Small stuff to mess with commerce. FIgure that is the size of these little Navies or the Solomani Naval assets in teh region would be running scared. IF there were major fleet elements in the region then you would see Solomani Capital ships.

Further there would be no piracy in the region if the Navies were of a nature similar to the IN. The average Pirate is an armed merchantman. Against even a Ramada they have a difficult time just surviving, think about what happens if the escorts are in the 1KTon to 5KTon range. A whole Corsair Squadron would just go poof.

Remember what a Navy's mission is and who its likely enemy is before you design it. All the localities are likely to be using ships in the under 5Kton range with possibly a Purchased older Cruiser as the "Pride of the Fleet."

 

[Commander Drax]

Hi Guys,

Just to join the discussion I would like to add that all A class starports are considered to have a minimum tech level of 10, irrespective of the local world's tech level, B class ports would have a minimum tech level of 9, and C class would have 8, D class would have 7, and E class a minumum of 6, which is as low as it goes.

(Source DGP's World Builder's Handbook page 92)

In addition to this the World Builder's Handbook does contain rules for splitting up the tech level into various sub-headings such as:

High Common
Low Common
Energy
Computers/robotics
Medical
Environment
Land Transport
Water Transport
Air Transport
Space Transport
Personal Military
Heavy Military
Novelty.

Phew....

The tech level detailed in the world's UWP is only the High Common tech level. (the highest tech level to common or civilian items).

Armed forces like a technological advantage over their civilian counterparts, and can roughly be assumed to be at least one tech level higher than what is normal on their world. So a tech 10 world might support a tech 11 military. Other megatraveller rules also allow the creation of advanced technologies for research purposes (double all costs), again being one tech level higher than is normal, this would mean that the same tech 10 world with a tech 11 navy, might have a few tech 12 items representing the best of the best etc.

To conclude this a tech 10 world might have jump 1 ships freely available to merchants, jump 2 being the norm for the navy and the occasional jump 3 prototype if we follow the tech level charts.

As for building space craft at Tech level 7, according to the rules it is possible, Page 266 in the T20 THB handbook details maneuver drives that are freely available (1-2 G) from tech level 7.

My take on this is that discovery tech level of new items is completely different to the tech-level of manufacture once the basic principles are known. After all the Romans had the technology to build the gramaphone despite the fact that it wasn't invented until nearly two thousand years later, (they had no reason to put the ingredients together and make a gramaphone.)

In all things necessity is the mother of invention and gateway being a region of low astrographic density with worlds separated by common two to three parsec gulfs would see major investment by the polities there into either purchasing high tech shipping from the Imperium or developing it themselves, (stealing the information needed and developing the infrastructure needed to build it perhaps).

In MegaTraveller Journal 4, the Golden Age, adventure 'Lords of Thunder' had a jump 3 civilian ship (M class merchant) leaving Gateway for a trip to Sardis in the Megusard Corporate, the ship had Jump 3 capability and was implied to have been built in the Imperium and stuck to a regular though long route through neutral space on the 'Gateway to Sardis Run'.

Further I would also like to support the notion that much naval ship-building is done away from the civilian yards in Naval Basess.

Also there's no reason why nearby high tech worlds with sufficient infrastructure can't ship jump components and weaponry to neighbouring A class starports for assembly into hulls already built there. After all aircraft are very seldomly built at the airport, and usually in a factory hundreds of miles away.

Just my observations

 

[Falkayn]

Commander Drax, thanks for the update on the TL breakdown, and I think I agree with most of your other points too.

But a TL A/10 starport still can't give us the higher jump numbers we would like. I have a detailed analysis fo the Gateway starports/TL somewhere around here ... I'll bring it out later.

 

[BrennanHawkwood]

Originally posted by Commander Drax:
Hi Guys,

Just to join the discussion I would like to add that all A class starports are considered to have a minimum tech level of 10, irrespective of the local world's tech level, B class ports would have a minimum tech level of 9, and C class would have 8, D class would have 7, and E class a minumum of 6, which is as low as it goes.

(Source DGP's World Builder's Handbook page 92)

<snip>

As for building space craft at Tech level 7, according to the rules it is possible, Page 266 in the T20 THB handbook details maneuver drives that are freely available (1-2 G) from tech level 7.

My take on this is that discovery tech level of new items is completely different to the tech-level of manufacture once the basic principles are known. After all the Romans had the technology to build the gramaphone despite the fact that it wasn't invented until nearly two thousand years later, (they had no reason to put the ingredients together and make a gramaphone.)

Very good information...looking into it I did find mention in GT:Starports that imperial starports are built to GTL10 standards except on GTL12 worlds where they are built at GTL12 standards.

My 'issue' with Fonnein producing spacecraft wasn't so much a question of whether they could or not, it was more a question whether such a world would really end up building small craft "for buyers across the sector." That implies to me a very good reputation for quality craft that are economically competitive. I'm not sure that a TTL7 world in a supposed backwater cluster makes a good candidate for producing small craft at that scale (especially since, IIRC, those shipyards are part of a relatively new and somewhat cobbled together starport).

I think for purposes of my campaign, I am going to change that line to read "for buyers across the cluster." Either that or I am going to seperate the shipyard from the starport and make it a corporate outfit that was deliberately placed in an out of the way corner of the sector.

 

[Commander Drax]

that's a really good idea.

I think its a question of ecomomics more than anything else in that case. There has to be a good reason why the yard is located there, if the area is anything like europe you could argue that local people are employed who are paid less than ship building types elsewhere, or that the system contains needed resources such as vast heavy metal deposits that can be mined (by the tech 7 locals) in such abundance that the cost is cheaper when fashioning hulls. Imagine the associated industries that would support that, such as smelting and the transport network on land and in orbit needed to get the finished hull panels to the shipyard (if orbital). It would make for an interesting world.

 

[Commander Drax]

The one that has been bothering me lately is 069-526 (Fonnein) from the Linkworlds Cluster document. The mainworld is listed as having a UWP of BAAA630-7 while the description of the place says that 'the yards manufacture small craft ... for buyers across the sector.' The B-class starport works as far as them building small craft and doing a lot of maintenance work on small starships, but their tech level of 7 makes it a little hard to expalin how they are able to build craft that are sold SECTOR-wide given the expense of importing much of the materials, equipment and skills they would need to support that type of operation.

Bearing in mind that the world in question wouldnt actually produce the craft at tech 7, as applying the MegaTraveller rules previously discussed would give the starport and by proxy the ship building centre a minimum tl-9 capability, despite the world being tech 7.