Starship design rules.

[Havocatalyst]

Hey all,
I just recently picked up a copy of the TNE rules and was wondering where the starship design rules were. Do you need FF&S to design ships? I have looked at the ship examples in the book and dont really like the way they are presented. I know GDW was going thru a change in the late 90's with T2000, and the ships look alot like the vehicles from this game with the boxes. Also looks alot like the Harpoon ship profiles. Please let me know if I am going to have to hunt down FF&S to design ships.

 

[far-trader]

Hi Havocatalyst,

Yep, "Fire, Fusion, & Steel: Traveller Technical Architecture" (FF&S 1st edtition to some folks, to differentiate it from the T4 version) is what you need to design not just starships but pretty much everything fun for TNE: Spacecraft, Ground Vehicles, Lift Vehicles, Aircraft, Personal Armor, Small Arms through Spinal Mounts and more. I think I've even fudged water craft with the rules. It's a sweet book.

So sweet that even though I've not much used my well worn second hand copy for the last few years I find it hard to contemplate parting with it. In case you were thinking of asking Maybe there's a pdf version out there somewhere (legal I mean, like on Drive Thru RPG or somewhere).

Your take on the designs is about right as I recall. If you're looking for more TNE designs than you'll ever use check out the TNE Yahoo group messages:

Traveller TNE Yahoo Group

and...

(help me obi-Sigg-kenobi...)

...I've gone blank on the name of the archives of ship and vehicle designs for TNE out there on the web. Catchy little acronyms. I hate when my mind can't recall something like this

Ah, the BARD SARA pages YAY BRAIN! (thank you obi-Sigg-kenobi )

BARD SARA pages

 

[aramis]

Yup, it's on DTRPG.

 

[mike wightman]

There is another...

way to design the ships for TNE

Included in the Brilliant Lances boardgame is a Technical Architecture book that also contains the ship design system in a slightly more user friendly form - it even has some of the errata applied to it

 

[Badbru]

I was going to add that snippet Sigg. Actually I prefer to use Technical Architecture supplement as it's much less potentially spine breaking through page flipping. And, if you use Brilliant Lances for combat you will understand, and probably, appreciate why the ship layouts are like they are.

 

[mike wightman]

Yep, I prefer BL TA too for much the same reason - it's so much easier to use.

I don't think I've ever finished a FF&S ship design, but I've done quite a lot with TA, and then dipped into FF&S to build a new component (usually spinal mount ).

 

[Theophilus]

Also, an Excel spreadsheet version is available. Which works for ships and weapons.