Small Ships/Big Ships Redux

[Anthony]

Well, that depends on whether the government thinks protecting pop-4 worlds from pirates is important. It's certainly possible that they don't, in which case 3-5 main fleets and not that many auxiliaries could be fine.

My general assumption is that the amount of protection a world gets is dependent on what the world's worth and how much trade passes through, which means small worlds off the mains aren't going to see significant presence from warships, giving PCs plenty of room to be relevant.

 

[savage]

I don't think the marches would've survived on 50k in shipping, or 500k. Big ships are necessary. They bring mass goods to worlds that cannot produce all of the materials. Smaller frieghters would carry specialty products or corporate special deliveries....

The star wars team did fine out of a freighter manuevering around heavy warships. The problem is in the vehicle limitations and the lack of differentiation between military equipment and commercial not size!

Players could have a good time on an 18k warship (we did), or a 125k battleship.... Or how about a 20k frieghter...

Savage

 

[s-feige]

So, I don't know too much about the 'small ship vs. big ship debate', but following are my thougts (straight IMHO):

From a roleplaying point of view, I have no problem with too big ships, and no problems with the small ones either. If there were no big ships, I would loose the possibility to play any 'Closed Quarters-Adventures' in deep space (you know, investigative problems with more than 20 protagionists - or how many passengers does a Subsidized Merchant have?), and probably couldn't invoke some sense of wonder in my PCs anymore (a 100,000 ton Warship is always an impressive sight...). If there were no small ships, I would have problems to give my group their own ship (at least, without supplying 10-more NPCs...).

I like to handle it the way that, if I need small ships, I use small ships and ignore the big ones, and vice versa. For me, it's kind of thinking in two scales.

That might not contain too much reality, but to me it's the same point as in: "How can the average high-stellar citizen afford to pay Cr295,000 for his personal air/raft?" (bothering me since our first trade-run...)

btw, I voted for no limitations...

 

[trader jim]

geeezeeee guys its a GAME....use what you want...
we are not rewritting the Washington Naval Treaty
of the 20s.....

 

[obsidian]

While everyone seems to compare Traveller ships to the modern era,I always envisioned it to be more similar to the late Victorian to early WW1 era.It is in this time that you could have privateers,armed merchants and armed civilians who stand up to the enemy for king and country.

 

[yaskoydray]

It is in this time that you could have privateers, armed merchants and armed civilians who stand up to the enemy for king and country.

That's a good point. A future history need not be limited by our 20th/21st century perceptions. With regards to how technology is used in a given environment, I'm sure there are ideas to be borrowed from all sorts of periods of our own history. The 20th/21st century might not be the "best fit"...

Just my 2 cents

-Y.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by thrash:

Not coincidentally, this is the period where iron hulls and steam power removed the previous limit of ~2,200 tons imposed by the technology of wood and sail, allowing ever-larger warships and rendering privateers obsolete.[/QB]

More importantly, it meant that warships and merchant ships could be constructed in fundamentally different ways. When you're using wood and sail, there isn't much you can do to up-armor or up-speed the ship (there being physical limitations on both structure and drive), so a merchant ship is nearly as competent as a warship -- simply add guns, and you have a warship. Once you're using metal hulls and steam power, a dedicated warship can suddenly dedicate a whole lot more mass to armor and power than makes sense for a merchant ship, making warships tougher and faster than merchant ships (which _also_ got bigger, they just used the increased size differently).

In order to have armed merchants make sense in Traveller, 'merchant ship + guns' has to be a sensible warship. Even with a 5,000 dton limit, that's _not_ a sensible warship design in any version of Traveller.

 

[dmarkow]

Hi - bit of an old traveller hand trying to get back into it - and so take both Anthony's and thrash's points of view

- (Anthony's side) With the mass populations and commensurate shipping of the 3I, I can't see small armed merchant ships. I have always associated 17th piracy or armed merchants with remote locations (the new world, barbery pirates, africa, south east asia) or areas in civil war (china) and not in organized heavily populated areas or areas with a close, large naval presence. While looking at http://www.grandsurvey.com/map.html I was amazed to see how populated the known universe was. The bulk of the heavy population centers in the 3I seem to be only two weeks away by a decent jump ship. Too many people - no frontier. Think if one wants few, small craft playing a major role one needs to thin out the sector a bit to a few billion or by about 90 percent.

- (Thrash's side), I've always wanted less scalability in the ship designs. Being a bit of a gearhead, I like FF&S2, but the system favors large ships as most items scale linearly with volume with the notable exceptions of fixed size items (overhead: sensors, C2, comms) or components that scale sub-linearly (power plants and armor). This makes big ships faster and more maneuverable than smaller ones - something I find a bit awkward in MTU. My approach is to place a negative scaling factor in the drives so big ships are slower. For FF&S2 gearheads, this might be exemplified by either:

1) putting a scale factor like power efficiency on drives but make it scale less than one (instead of logarithmic, I would make it geometric) or

2) to my more complicated liking - putting a surface area restriction on drives, upping the area of drives per kN of thrust and lastly placing a thrust penalty if the area to thrust ratio is off (still working out the details).

Either would create fast, small ships and slow, big ships - making all sizes possible and small quick merchants useful in big populated areas like the 3I.

 

[trader jim]

Big ships Lotsa Lotsa BIG SHIPS....then the small fry tend to stay away!!!.....

 

[vsper]

I think there will be large displacement ships. I feel it won't make a bit of difference since most of the time they are backdrop for other things going on.

For example players once needed to find some good scotch to bribe a particular official. That week hovever a tigress and a Plankwell pulled into port and Scotch becamea rare commodity. The players didn't get to steal one, Especially since crews are 1000+, but they played a important part of the game.

Vsper

 

[savage]

Perhaps players are star wars centric.

So, most players aren't involved in military settings but if they were a little extra armour never hurts.

Savage

"Nothing like sitting in the captain's chair of the battleship Iowa."

 

[themink]

I prefer a Napoleonic viewpoint. Each planet is at least a week from the nearest neighbour. Governors have to make their own decisions and trust that the central nodes will suport what they do. Help is at least a week away.

Eveything is "make do" and "good enough".

Traveller's stories can't be comfirmed.

Private ships can get pressed into service if the cause is important enough. (Angary is legal again)

So for most merchant ships, crew is 1 officer plus upto 6 "hands". Mil ships have more crew and are the same size. Some mil ships are much much bigger however they hang arround in fleets and just growl at other fleets - they don;t tend to interact much with regular shipping unless they are actively blockading.

 

[Cleon the Mad]

Large ships, VERY large ships. Conqueroring the masses. Opressing the proleatariat! The sparkle of meson beams causing implosions on a planet's surface! The march of a a hundred thousand battledress clad Marines across the battlefield!!! YES, that is what I like, and you will do what I say, for I AM CLEON THE IV, EMPEROR OF THE IMPERIUM!!

Um...err...well...anyway, I don't mind large ships, adds atmosphere. Yeah.

 

[ElliottWJames]

This issue seems to be divided into three basic issues:

What is appropriate for your party?

That depends on the size of the party, the number of characters per player and the willingness of the GM to run the others - unless you do some form of 'toupe' style like "Ars Magica." This means you tend to have ships in the 400dtons range. Possible 800ton "Broadsword" if running a Merc camapaign.

Similar consideration apply other 'indepenednt operator.

What is appropriate for larger organisation like Megacorps?

They've more money and have bigger budgets. They also have accountants who want the operatons to be economic - the old wages and maintenace issues. (For example the ancient Atheneans of Terra found it cost more in wages for the rowers for a season than it did to build the ship!) They will operate the most profitable ship for the job great mini-maxing exercises. True sometimes they mess up the calculations but big organisations are like that.

What is appropriate for Governments

The size of the planetary navy and their ships is probably going to be smaller and limited jump capability. Possible some for courier vessels. Most planets are concerned with local defence and their arn't that many captive worlds in the Imperium.

The Imperium itself and the other major powers will have the vessels upto the limits of technology, if you build it they will come. The point is this kind of vessel isn't seen very often and never alone. Check up on a book like "Janes Fighting Ships" and the follow the ratio of capital ships to smaller veseel. A quick look at the Britsh for 1914 shows a ratio of sometime time 30-to-1 in favor of the support vessels. Yes you'll see the big warships if they are on manuveours or there is trouble that needs that really big stick otherwise its down to the Gazelle close escorts upto say 1,500tons.

 

[themink]

Im currently working on a variant t20 where the M drive required doesn't scale linearly (aside The J Drive also acts differentlyh but that is irrelevant here)

What that will mean in universe building terms is that those big battleships (10kdT+) are likely to only pull 2G and once they reach 100kdT, 1G is the limit.

So small ships will be able to run away from big ones (David Weber et al) - Fighters become useful again etc etc It's all good.

I've also changed the weapon systems to add more "big" weapons for 1,000 ton mil ships.

End result - the bulk of shipping will be in the 100-1000 ton ranges, only mil ships are worth getting any bigger - and these are only to use the big guns and share an expensive computer

 

[Libris]

Vey few private craft in the real world are armed not because there are plenty of real warships but because communications are in real time. You can have strike fighters from a carrier on their way to an altercation in fifteen (or less) minutes. Similarly, if the attacked craft gets off a May-Day the whole world could know in seconds.

It may well be reassuring that the system you are in has a Tigress class batron around. It doesn't really help though when you have a privateer 1 light second off the port bow and the navy is ten light minutes away.

 

[savage]

I beg to differ. Many yachtsmen and commercial vessels have hand weapons (with the owner or captain's knowledge) while going through certain 3rd world on earth.
Piracy is smaller than it use to be but alive and well. Alternatives like firehoses can also be used to repel the unwanted.

The lack of communications in traveller really does impacts the type of defenses necessary.

Savage

 

[themink]

There's a fair difference between carrying pistols/shotguns or mounting something that can hurt another vessel.

Most yachtsmen don't carry firearms, only in low lawlevel, psuedo anarchic environments might that be possible. (Fairly subtle dig at universal statements that only apply to the country of the talker - snigger).

If the number of deep water yachts (ie those that equate to traveller ships in their usage pattern) that carry arms is as high as 1/3 I would be suprised. (Although I am subject to suprise)

Shallow Water yahcts probably have very similair firearm patterns to the country they spend time in. So your statement may be true for American based yachts but isn't true for Australian ones.

 

[Libris]

Well, I would say being armed personally isn't the same as your ship being armed. Of course a shotgun or automatic rifle in the cabin will work fine for defence but ain't quite the same as 'twin-fifties' in a front turret!

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by The Mink:
There's a fair difference between carrying pistols/shotguns or mounting something that can hurt another vessel.

Several japanese trawlers have opened up upon US trawlers with small arms fire. At least one occurance per year in Alaskan waters...

A heavy rifle has a chance of penetrating many civilian hulls at the waterline. Most yachts are going to be able to be sunk with handguns. (Fiberglass huls are fragile against firearms).

Piracy needs the following considerations to work:
(1) You must be able to force combat with the target
(2) you must be able to threaten the target
(3) you must be able to obtain the target's valuables before reinforcements arrive
(4) you must be able to escape or outrun the reinforcements.
(5) you must be able to use or sell the valuables.

In the 3I (1) is possible. (2) is likely. (3) is common provided you wait til just shy of the jump limit. (4) grab and skitter out to the jump limit. (5) is the problem....

In the modern wet naval environment, (1) is a problem, (2) can be arranged with SSM-MP systems (TOW or LAW), (3) is right out in anyyplace less than 100miles from a shore-base or carrier, (4) is also a problem... bigger naval vessels are in fact faster! (5) is no different a problem.