Size limits on Bk2 Ships?

[Quint]

I've been looking at ship design in a small ship universe - and Ken Pick discusses out a 12,000 dton limit via extrapolating the chart from Book2. Could someone walk me through the logic there? I've eyeballed it and can't quite figure it. Is it based on his concept of ganging together a bunch of Z engines? It doesn't seem to be, but I'm just not sure how it works...

Thanks!

D.

 

[mike wightman]

No ganging required, the logic is based on a ship 'towing' an equal sized hull unit/cargo pod whatever.

The Z drive in a 4000t hull produces a drive performance number of 3.
For every 1-4000t you add to that ship the drive performance goes down by 1.

So in the range 4001-8000t a Z drive produces a drive performance of 2.

8001-12000t you have a drive performance of 1.

The same logic works for the Z drive in the 2000t hull (performance 6 so you can get up to 6x2000=12000t hull at performance 1) and the 3000t hull (performance 4).

 

[Quint]

No ganging required, the logic is based on a ship 'towing' an equal sized hull unit/cargo pod whatever.

The Z drive in a 4000t hull produces a drive performance number of 3.
For every 1-4000t you add to that ship the drive performance goes down by 1.

So in the range 4001-8000t a Z drive produces a drive performance of 2.

8001-12000t you have a drive performance of 1.

The same logic works for the Z drive in the 2000t hull (performance 6 so you can get up to 6x2000=12000t hull at performance 1) and the 3000t hull (performance 4).

That is so idiot simple...

LOL!

Thank you, I knew I had to be overcomplicating the question - to much High Guard...

D.

 

[Matt123]

Just an observation (take or leave it as you like), if stretching bk2 to 10,000 ton plus ships, I would also adopt the size limitation imposed by computers in bk5. Meaning model 4 computers for 10kton plus ships, which are only available at TL10+.

So no low tech 10kton+ ships.

On the other side of the coin, in bk2, you also get J6 ships at TL12.

 

[Timerover51]

Just an observation (take or leave it as you like), if stretching bk2 to 10,000 ton plus ships, I would also adopt the size limitation imposed by computers in bk5. Meaning model 4 computers for 10kton plus ships, which are only available at TL10+.

So no low tech 10kton+ ships.

On the other side of the coin, in bk2, you also get J6 ships at TL12.

The computers in Classic Traveller are one of the areas that really need to be reworked. While the early ones at Tech Level 5 and 6 are okay size-wise with vacuum tubes and early transistors, the later ones need to be both shrunk drastically and drastically reduced in cost. I reduce them by a factor of 10, and then really drop the cost of the software packages too.

I am a dedicated small ship universe guy.

 

[Jame]

The computers in Classic Traveller are one of the areas that really need to be reworked. While the early ones at Tech Level 5 and 6 are okay size-wise with vacuum tubes and early transistors, the later ones need to be both shrunk drastically and drastically reduced in cost. I reduce them by a factor of 10, and then really drop the cost of the software packages too.

I am a dedicated small ship universe guy.

I agree with you on this. Though I would enjoy 12000 ton ships at TL 13+ and 5000 tons at TL 9-11.

 

[robject]

No ganging required, the logic is based on a ship 'towing' an equal sized hull unit/cargo pod whatever.

Your maths are correct, but the concept is even simpler than you say.

The rules put no restriction on hull size. They say KCr 100,000 per ton. Then the tables give some sample hull sizes.

So Book 2 is perfectly fine with a 12,000 ton hull.

Heck, if you don't want it to move, you can build a million-ton hull.

 

[aramis]

No ganging required, the logic is based on a ship 'towing' an equal sized hull unit/cargo pod whatever.

The Z drive in a 4000t hull produces a drive performance number of 3.
For every 1-4000t you add to that ship the drive performance goes down by 1.

Except that the math you're showing doesn't quite check. I think you haven't caffinated sufficiently...

The Z drive produces...
_6 in 1000 Td = 6000 Rating•Tons
_6 in 2000 Td = 12000 Rating•Tons
_4 in 3000 Td = 12000 Rating•Tons
_3 in 4000 Td = 12000 Rating•Tons
_2 in 5000 Td = 10000 Rating•Tons

So, we can see that it is capped at rating 6, and produces a peak of rating*tonnage of 12000 (rating•tons).

Extrapolation says 6000Td should be raing 2, (12000/2=6000) and up to 12000Td at rating 1.

Drive Y, for that matte, is 8000 Rating•tons, so provides rating 1 to up to 8000Td.

Drive X is 6000 Rating•Tons.
Drive W is 5000 Rating•Tons.

the only things missing are the table entries.

 

[BillDowns]

Personally, if one wishes to upgrade CT LBB2 ships, and till maintain some compatibility with CT LBB5, this is what I do:

1. Consider each Drive letter as providing 200 dtons of "thrust"; Power Plants would be direct Energy Points, say 5 per letter; Power Plant fuel cost is fixed by Drive Letter
2. Use the provided table of Drive letters, and expand it as desired
3. Alternately, allow multiple Jump or Maneuver drives as long as they are equal in Drive Letters
4. Combined with allowing multiple Power Plants, which do not have to be equal
5. Use LBB5 weapons as desired with the EPs as indicated by step

This is easy to do and does not require any heavy calculations.

 

[Quint]

At the moment, though I framed this in terms of Bk2 (because I'm in favor of small ship universes), I've been looking at using Mongoose for the rules set. I actually like their way of handling capitol ships in their Bk5 as "collected sections of ship" - and realized that I could simply use that model but retain the main rules maximum of 2k dtons per section - which then takes me right back to a maximum of 12k dtons (since they have a maximum of 6 sections on the largest capitol ships). This has the advantage because now the standard drives and power plants each have a simple associated Letter to Tonnage relationship that doesn't have to be extrapolated - and each section merely has to have the "right sized drive" (or power plant) associated with it.

Just thought I'd toss that out there.

D.

 

[infojunky]

I have been heavily considering using the standard drives but throwing out the Drive potential table and using the 200 ton increment that they are basically based on. (Both CT and MgT have some interesting "rounding errors" in their drive potential tables)

Thus a A drive has 200 tons of "Thrust", "Power", etc... While a Z drive has 4800 tons.

Though the thought of Using Book5 as modified by the K'kree module has definitely been considered as well. (Basically extends the Letter code damage system on to High Guard based system)

But I too am a huge fan of the small ship universe, though sometimes my definition of Small wonders.... (I feel that the smaller ships are often smaller than the need to be, a Free Trader/Far Traver should weigh-in at 400 to 600 dTons, subsidised Merchant in the 800 to 1000 dTon range)

 

[Timerover51]

My problem is that I mentally convert Traveller dTons into wet ship gross tons or measurement tons. Gross tons is a measurement of internal ship volume in terms of 100 cubic feet blocks. Measurement tons is a measure of cargo carrying volume at the rate of 40 cubic feet per ton.

If you use the standard rounding of a Traveller dTon is equal to 500 cubic feet (the actual cubic footage is 494.4 cubic feet is you use a 14 cubic meter Traveller dTon or 476.8 cubic feet if you use the more accurate 13.5 cubic meter Traveller dTon), and compare those to a World War 2 Liberty ship, you get some interesting results. The Liberty was equal to about 7200 Gross tons or 11,500 Measurement tons, and was rated at a dead weight carrying capacity of 10,800 long tons. That was a total of fuel, stores, and cargo, with 8,000 tons being cargo and 2800 tons being fuel and stores if loaded for maximum range.

Based on Traveller dTons, a Liberty would be a 1440 dTon sized hull, and have a cargo volume of 920 dTons. A 5,000 dTon Traveller hull would be about 3.5 times the size of a Liberty. That is not a small ship. It you simply used the same proportions, the 5,000 dTon hull could carry, potentially, 28,000 tons of cargo.

How much cargo is going to be shipped over interstellar distances that can justify ships larger than a 5000 dTon hull? Especially when you consider that there is a minimum carrying cost of 1,000 Imperial Credits per dTon, although it makes much more sense to charge for cargo in terms of either mass or volume.

 

[aramis]

My problem is that I mentally convert Traveller dTons into wet ship gross tons or measurement tons. Gross tons is a measurement of internal ship volume in terms of 100 cubic feet blocks. Measurement tons is a measure of cargo carrying volume at the rate of 40 cubic feet per ton.

Displacement Tons x5 is Gross Tons. It's close enough for the licensees...