Starports, the book

[Garyius2003]

I bit the bullet and paid money for Starports because it looked good on the shelf.

Thoughts: Good concept, not as well done as GURPS, but good ideas. Decent to good adventure kick-offs.

The bad:

1. Silly concept ships, poorly designed floorplans.

2. Starport stat pages that are mostly white space for pages and pages.

3. Why does the Imperial SPA have customs modules for its Starports that have to be blocked with nano particles to smuggle through?

 

[zonk]

What do you think, is it worth it?

And I don't quite understand this

[FONT=arial,helvetica] Why does the Imperial SPA have customs modules for its Starports that have to be blocked with nano particles to smuggle through?[/FONT]

eh, wot?

 

[Garyius2003]

The starports book spends many pages with customs modules, and counter measures, right down to floating nano cloud of metal to allow a second courier to slip through.

The issue is that the 3I cares very little. No NBC, no slaves, no un-offered to the 3I Ancient stuff, that is pretty much as much as the 3I cares.

Why is so much of the book spent on something that will be seldom used, and looking for stuff that is easy to pick up?

 

[middenface]

1. Silly concept ships, poorly designed floorplans.

Go on explain, as I did them I'd like to understand why they are 'silly' ?

 

[Garyius2003]

Okay, assuming when I get done you won't go trying to get me booted:

Dregs--okay design given the story in the book, lopsides make no sense.

Recovery ships--How did this even seem like a good idea? SBDs can search even better, and tugs were already invented in Mongoose. See also cargo ships, like say, Class A2s to run out lots of spares and staterooms. Other Mongoose books invented a more usable salvage ship that looks better in design and layout. This ship is master of nothing, and jack of nothing.

Fuel tanker--I can't tell if it is meant to carry from surface to orbit, the other way, skim GGs and return, or what. That being said, it doesn't seem to be good for anything other than surface to close orbit and return with its two weeks of fuel, but it has staterooms and a lounge. I can think of several different, better, designs depending on what the situation is, just with five minutes thought.

Assuming you did the port designs, the A pictures makes no sense at all, for use or livability.

 

[middenface]

Okay, assuming when I get done you won't go trying to get me booted:

.

Nah, I wouldn't so that. I'm just curious why. Just so you know I just drew the plans and vessels and I'm quite proud of them.

 

[DaveChase]

Knowing middenface's work and hear not very positive review of it, makes me want to go and either buy the book or get a good look over of it.

I have a hard time believing that the quality could be that bad.

Maybe it will be a first.

Dave Chase

 

[aramis]

Okay, assuming when I get done you won't go trying to get me booted:

He asked, you answered politely, no problems!

I'll note that I've found a lot of good deckplan art isn't so much poor artistic ability as not matching the expectations of the user base and/or not matching the design system.

Exempli Gratia: the Merc Cruiser in MGT Core - nice plan, but it's got a sickbay, while the design system lacks sickbays (even in HG), and the design lacks space for the sickbay allocated, let alone costs. Yes, the ship probably SHOULD have a sickbay - but the deckplan author made a nasty error by putting one in as a "sickbay," as that's a term with very specific meaning for another rule, rather than as a "medical bay" or "treatment area" when it wasn't specified in the design.

Mongoose, in the person of Gareth, also erred in not including specs for a sickbay - even if it's just some rule of thumb inclusion such as "two squares of sickbay per 20 installed staterooms, providing one sickbay bed," especially since he references sickbays elsewhere in the rules. The joys, the joys.​

 

[atpollard]

Fuel tanker--I can't tell if it is meant to carry from surface to orbit, the other way, skim GGs and return, or what. That being said, it doesn't seem to be good for anything other than surface to close orbit and return with its two weeks of fuel, but it has staterooms and a lounge.

As a practical matter, the '2 weeks fuel' on a fuel tanker is a meaningless metric ... the ship has up to 84 weeks of reserves!

The core of your objections seem to be that a special purpose ship (surface to orbit, Gas Giant to starport, or starport to capital ship) would be more efficient at its specific job than the 'Tanker Ship' presented in the book. Frankly, I agree - that is probably true. However, to collect fuel from a Gas Giant, process it and deliver it to the highport would require one long duration specialized ship. To collect water from the surface, refine it and deliver it to the highport would require a different short duration specialized ship. To shuttle refined fuel from the highport to waiting giant ships would require a third specialized ship.

Or the general purpose 'Tanker Ship' could perform all three roles - less efficiently than the special purpose ship, but cheaper than three special purpose ships. Two weeks is plenty of fuel for surface to orbit or starport to waiting ship or orbit to Gas Giant or Gas Giant to orbit (remember the ship can refuel at either end of the Gas Giant trip). The lounge (4 ton staterooms) allows for long duration occupation - like a trip to the Gas Giant and back - in relative comfort.

I don't see a real problem with the ship. The layout reminds me of an air force tanker. My harshest criticism is that it looks like a small craft at first glance (rather than 500 tons) - which is both minor and purely subjective.

 

[atpollard]

Fuel tanker ...
I can think of several different, better, designs depending on what the situation is, just with five minutes thought.

Start a new topic and share your ideas.
I'd be interested.
I love ship designs ... especially work boats.

 

[Garyius2003]

Okay, for Mongoose playability, for gas giant sourcing for a Class C highport.

Gas giant units:

One surplus refurb express boat tender.

Two skimmer boats (smaller variants of the tanker boat listed in Starports, minus the staterooms, and maybe with armor 4 crystaliron).

4 tugs.

Ferry unit:

One modular cutter for a weekly run out and back with people and supplies. (Spare needed at the station)

Highport side:

Several tugs.

Transfer hulls:

100 cheaply made 200 ton hulls with a comp one, solar panels, some station keeping grav plates, and some com gear.



This system assumes transfer orbits taking advantage of the very high thrust of the tugs in MgT, sending one per day out, and one back. Add extra tugs and a bunch of extra hulls for more fuel needed.


Seed: The surplus and overage tender has been on station for four years, and is being brought back for a badly overdue rebuild. The PC's type A (A2, R, anything with a big enough bay to service a tug and some staterooms) has been chartered to replace the ship for a month.

1-2 A terror group decides to disrupt the commerce activity of the system by sabotage/piracy of the gas giant end of the system.

3-4 There has been a murder on board. Use any supplement for any game that had a remote area murder.

5-6 One of the skimmer boat's drives is badly damaged, and it is unable to leave the upper atmosphere. The tugs may be able to rescue it, or may not. The PCs ship may be able to rescue it, or not.

 

[nats]

I was hoping to get this book for use with adventure starts - adding some depth to patron meetings, researching , getting supplies and the like. Is it any good for that? Was hoping it would have some good starport plans showing interesting bars and foyers, some interior shots for atmosphere, not just basic plans showing a generic building and a runway. So is the book any good for what I would wat to use it for?

I dont like Mongoose books generally the way they intersperse flavout text with rules/tables/plans. Would much rather see a book with initial text first for flavour and ideas then a few Appendices with tables, rules, charts and plans in them. Every time I sit down to read a Mongoose Traveller book I get bored because of the lack of illustrations and the mix of flavour text and rules etc. For me this makes the books pretty useless as you have to read and remember everything (which I cant do) because there is no way you can use them for quick reference during a session.

Anyway I will probably get the starports book at some point but I dont have much high hope for it, have pretty much given up on Mongoose products. I buy them cheap on Ebay when I can but dont actually expect to ever want to read them!!

 

[Garyius2003]

Sorry I missed your post, for some reason it didn't bold in the thread on my screen.

Yes and no. There are some adventure threads, but the most fleshed out one borders, literally, on torture ⌧. Even these are in no way purchase and play, or even purchase and spend four hours prep time.

The maps are broad based and not usable for anything other than an idea.

There are a lot of seeds, ala 'Patrons', only with two-three thick paragraphs per idea. However, there is not a good way to flesh these out contained within this book.

You may be better off purchasing GURPS Starports for how the starports work, and waiting for this book to hit the discount box and buying it for the threads/seeds to use as ideas.

 

[rancke]

Okay, for Mongoose playability, for gas giant sourcing for a Class C highport.

What size Class C highport? How much traffic does it handle?

(This is a rhetorical question designed to point out that any game rules that do not take traffic volume into account is missing some pretty important aspects).


Hans

 

[Garyius2003]

Welp, in my example I postulated 175 tons of incoming fuel per day. Thus an average of 150 jump fuel tons divided 2/3 J1 and 1/3 J2, or 1,000 tons of ship outbound J1 and 250 tons outbound J2 per day.

I also noted it was subject to scaling. You could double up for 5 extra tugs, 10 extra crew, and 200 extra cheap hulls. I would assume as you approach 5k tons of outbound per day the SPA puts you on an upgrade schedule to B and gives low interest loans and grants to convert to huge fuel barges and a skimmer station.

Please note I just did as much thought as the makers of a book, sold for profit as part of an established line, did. For a post thread giving a comment on said book.

 

[CosmicGamer]

What size Class C highport? How much traffic does it handle?

(This is a rhetorical question designed to point out that any game rules that do not take traffic volume into account is missing some pretty important aspects).


Hans

Why must there be a direct correlation between traffic volume and star port?

Why can't one port be a system trying to facilitate increased trade but currently it is greatly underutilized while another port is in desperate need of expansion as they have long delays and are incapable of handling the large volume of shipping traffic?

Perhaps you mean how much traffic "can" it handle?
The book is filled with examples of how ports of the same class are not exactly the same. It says things like
"A typical Class C port has 50 or more landing pads"
or
"There is no standard design for a Class B Starport: however, the Downport usually spans an area of at least 10 square kilometres and may well include a range of underground areas."

 

[rancke]

Why must there be a direct correlation between traffic volume and star port?

I didn't say anything about a direct correlation. A strong correlation, OTOH, seems pretty logical to me.

Why can't one port be a system trying to facilitate increased trade but currently it is greatly underutilized

It can. In certain outlier cases.

...while another port is in desperate need of expansion as they have long delays and are incapable of handling the large volume of shipping traffic?

It can. In certain outlier cases. (Indeed, I use that to explain certain Class C and D starport ratings that make absolutely no sense to me. However, there's a limit to how many desperate needs of expansion that just happen to coincide at the exact same year I feel justified in using (Especially in the Spinward Marches where I have UWPs claiming that no change in those starport ratings happen in over a decade[*])).

[*] I'm especially nonplussed by Entrope, a world with billions of inhabitants, whose starport gets flattened during the 4th Froniter War and remains unrepaired for over three decades.​

The thing is, the Traveller world generation system has NO correlation between population size and starport type. And that just isn't plausible.

Perhaps you mean how much traffic "can" it handle?
The book is filled with examples of how ports of the same class are not exactly the same.

But does it go into what the differences may be and what the causes of such difference are?

It says things like

"A typical Class C port has 50 or more landing pads"

or

"There is no standard design for a Class B Starport: however, the Downport usually spans an area of at least 10 square kilometres and may well include a range of underground areas."

Good for the book. That sort of vague weaseling is certainly better than absolute statements, and can even be justified by the lack of word count to go into details. But going into at least superficial details would be even better.


Hans

 

[BytePro]

Starport class indicates quality - of services and fuel available.

Any quantity attachments (X pads, Y size, Z urinals, etc.) break with that design concept. Not that it can't work when defined in a setting specific context - though that will in all likelihood lead to other oddities... as one is trying to cram more meaning into one digit which is derived randomly with only one interrelationship...

As a quality metric - population need not figure into Starport class - only TL. (Both CT and MgT do this, though in opposite ways, IIRC). Service personnel can reasonably be transient. One could surely find RW analogies with airports. Especially when military, commercial and political interests are factored in - and one remembers space not only deals with much larger distances, but with less hospitable environments than any found on earth.

Now trade and trade routes - that is another kettle of fish... world gen just never factored these in, so tacking them on after the fact, without changing the world stats, is bound to have issues. I've always adjusted world stats when the bigger picture is taken into account. The authors of the OTU failed to do this, leaving the world in isolation stats standing (out like a sore thumb)...

A partial fix - is to actually not apply 'typical' quantity metrics to any starport class. A good number of high pop worlds could have low quality starports, but have berths for thousands of starships. Politics, environmental concerns, special interests, treaties, local prejudices, etc. can easily account for these oddities - and in good number. Of course, this is only be a 'partial fix' to other aspects of the design system that may not make sense when looked at too closely.

 

[rancke]

Starport class indicates quality - of services and fuel available.

Any quantity attachments (X pads, Y size, Z urinals, etc.) break with that design concept.

Which only goes to show that the design concept is inadequate and in dire need of being supplemented.

Not that it can't work when defined in a setting specific context - though that will in all likelihood lead to other oddities... as one is trying to cram more meaning into one digit which is derived randomly with only one interrelationship...

Who said anything about one digit? I'm thinking more in terms of some sort of extended starport profile, similar to DGP's extended law profile and extended TL profile.

As a quality metric - population need not figure into Starport class - only TL.

But a book about starports OUGHT to deal with quantity as well as quality. If it doesn't, it is of very little use. To me, anyway, and I suspect I'm not alone.

ervice personnel can reasonably be transient.

In which case they should logically be part of the population figure. The individuals may be transient, but the jobs they fill remain the same, so every time one transient leaves another arrives to replace him. Effectively they affect the local economy just as much as a permanent local resident would.

de and trade routes - that is another kettle of fish... world gen just never factored these in, so tacking them on after the fact, without changing the world stats, is bound to have issues. I've always adjusted world stats when the bigger picture is taken into account. The authors of the OTU failed to do this, leaving the world in isolation stats standing (out like a sore thumb)...

Agreed. The failure to take neighboring worlds into account is a major flaw in the world generation system.

al fix - is to actually not apply 'typical' quantity metrics to any starport class. A good number of high pop worlds could have low quality starports, but have berths for thousands of starships.

I disagree. Very few high population worlds would not have enough interstellar traffic to rate a decent quality starport. Even if the technology would have to be imported, let alone if the local tech level is high enough to support such a starport. You'd need some extremely economy-distoring social mechanism (the traditional one is some sort of extreme xenophobia or religious dogma) to prevent a high-population world from having a good starport.

And how can a world with a decent population and stellar tech possibly NOT have at least the facilities of a Class C starport? Earth today could easily provide the facilities of a Class C starport given someone with the knowhow to perform minor starship repairs.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Hans, Earth is a high pop world at present - and neither needs (nor apparently, wants) a practical spaceport much above a D level... Mind you, we're only TL 8...

It's perfectly reasonable for high pop worlds to lack starports - Isolationism, Low Tech (Pop 8 can be supported on Earth with pre-industrial farming, simply by good rotation schedules; current Pop 9 requires infrastructure to move it to the people), or even non-space-worthy natives can all justify such easily.

Industrial and Agricultural worlds probably should have better ports... simply because they produce what others really want.