Type ST Transport Scout: 199Td, J4/2G (LBB2 2nd Ed.)

[whartung]

Fuel tankage of 50 tons supports the power plant and allows two successive jump-1.

Is this the core of the issue with the Yacht?

I don't see what having an extra jump available has to do with anything.

If someone decides to spend 2 weeks of their 4 week reserve in Jump, well, that's on them.

Is it "best practice" to enter a system with only 2 weeks of life support? /shrug.

Honestly I don't think an extra week makes much of a difference in 99.999% of ship travel.

When ship travel fails, it's at jump. I don't recall many tasks that stick you out in the middle of nowhere, weeks from fuel, out of random chance -- except for the potential of a mis-jump.

Under NORMAL circumstances (maintained ships with refined fuel adequately far from gravity wells), Jump is perfectly safe. Keep your drives maintained, and they don't fail. These are civilian craft.

I remember back in the day, folks used to carry extra water for their cars going across the desert. It was somewhat routine, in fact, everyone seemed to carry the same type of container. Part of that was car reliability. The other part was distances between service. The third part was simply traffic density.

Unless you're bouncing out in the backcountry, pretty much no one does that any more. They don't need to. They don't put routinely put themselves in situations where they would need too. Once, we drove from LA to Nevada, and are car was having issues with the cooling system. We did, indeed, carry extra water for it just in case. But we knew we were "out of maintenance" and facing a potential problem.

Space is lethal enough, starships are expensive enough (you think they're expensive to maintain, wait until you have to actually repair them!), that Normal People outside of Living On The Edge Adventurers do not put themselves in harms way.

Nothing wrong with the fuel spec of a Yacht. I see no "loophole" here. Under normal conditions, jump can be done reliably and safely.

 

[Grav_Moped]

The issue is that it indicates that power plant fuel allocations as mandated by the rules are arbitrary rather than based on actual mission requirements.

There are cases where those allocations ought to reflect the actual mission requirements rather than an arbitrary 4-week mandate.

 

[whartung]

The issue is that it indicates that power plant fuel allocations as mandated by the rules are arbitrary rather than based on actual mission requirements.

There are cases where those allocations ought to reflect the actual mission requirements rather than an arbitrary 4-week mandate.

How is the RAW 50 tons arbitrary in the case of the Yacht?

 

[Grav_Moped]

How is the RAW 50 tons arbitrary in the case of the Yacht?

If the 4-week requirement is supposed to provide a specific safety margin (say, 3 weeks operation outside of Jump), then a ship designed to jump twice in a month should be -- but isn't -- required to carry an extra week of fuel. I can understand it where it isn't intrinsic to the design, as in a Subsidized Merchant with demountable tanks in the cargo hold. But the Yacht is specifically built to jump twice.

And in the case of normal-cadence jumps (once per two weeks), the Yacht's second jump can be made with just two weeks of power plant fuel. Which is fine because that's all it should need. The problem is that if two weeks of fuel is all that's needed for one single-jump flight, then making every ship carry twice what they need is arbitrary.

 

[boomslang]

The issue is that it indicates that power plant fuel allocations as mandated by the rules are arbitrary rather than based on actual mission requirements.

There are cases where those allocations ought to reflect the actual mission requirements rather than an arbitrary 4-week mandate.

Yeah, I have become fond of using the more-granular fuel use rates from the canonical CT Beltstrike module to calculate actual fuel consumption and reserve tonnages for B2 vessels, treating the 10Pn as a regulatory requirement only, and appealing to the case of the S7 (also canonical) Type J as an example -- thanks to various alternative tankage systems apparently available to B2 designs -- of how fuel use and carriage requirements are treated in operational practice in the OTU.


Thus, a B2 Type S is still technically fully spaceworthy at a mere 23dtons of fuel in internal hard tanks: the 20dtons supports one Jump-2, and the remaining 3dtons will run a plant-A at full blast for 28 days. In actual operations, the other ~17dtons is just gravy, allowing for extended in-system travel and loitering while helping keep the planetary navy from constantly having to mount emergency operations to rescue sloppy skippers who try to cut their safety margins too close.


It is interesting to note that under a "realistic" fuel-consumption model such as the one in Beltstrike, certain power plants that are lower-rated in larger hulls are actually dangerously under-fueled when operated in such larger hulls while relying only on a mere 10Pn dtons of fuel as per the base CT RAW, and in such cases the power plant's portion of the fuel reserve definitely needs to be adjusted upwards to suit.


I am inclined to treat Beltstrike as errata for B2 in this regard. This has the added benefit of making CT B2 designs have fuel requirements significantly more in line with pretty much every subsequent edition or version of the ship design rules.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The issue is that it indicates that power plant fuel allocations as mandated by the rules are arbitrary rather than based on actual mission requirements.

There are cases where those allocations ought to reflect the actual mission requirements rather than an arbitrary 4-week mandate.

Well, that's partly because LBB2 fuel formulas are ... kinda whack compared to the improved system offered in LBB5 for custom drives.

LBB5 runs fuel on a more logical percentage based system that permits the kind of hair splitting you're trying to do here.

LBB2 runs fuel on a seemingly arbitrary system that starts with a pair of tables which can lead to whacky edge cases very quickly. For example, a type-A power plant in a 200 ton hull yields Power Plant-1, while a type-W power plant in a 5000 ton hull ALSO yields Power Plant-1. How much fuel is needed for these two power plants? Answer: 10 tons for 4 weeks in both cases ... because power plant fuel is 10 tons per power plant number as yielded by the chart at the bottom of LBB2.81 p22.

Looked at from a High Guard construction system perspective (of a straight 1% per power plant number), that makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER ... but that is the Rules As Written (RAW) for LBB2 fuel formulas. This is part of the reason why you're "not allowed" to mix and match LBB2 and LBB5 drives and fuel formulas so as to pick the best of each to suit your purposes.

Bottom line, if you want to appeal to LBB5 fuel formula sensibilities, you can ONLY do so in the context of a LBB5 custom drives design. If you're using LBB2 "standard" drives, you have to use the LBB2 fuel formula.

The issue is that it indicates that power plant fuel allocations as mandated by the rules are arbitrary

They're not arbitrary ... but the computations are handled distinctly differently between LBB2 and LBB5, and trying to use the mentality and sensibilities of one in place of the other is going to be inherently problematic.

For example, a 100 ton ship (TL=9) with type-A jump, maneuver and power plant drives yield a performance of jump-2, maneuver-2 and power plant-2 at a total displacement of 10+1+4=15 tons under LBB2.81 rules, requiring 40 tons of fuel (20 for jump, 20 for power plant). So drives plus fuel totals 55 tons.

Doing the same thing using LBB5.80 rules with a 100 ton ship (TL=11) mounting custom drives for jump-2, maneuver-2 and power plant-2 has a total drives displacement of 3+5+6=14 tons, requiring 22 tons of fuel (20 for jump, 2 for power plant). So drives plus fuel totals 36 tons.

The LBB5 ship will usually cost more (in MCr) than the LBB2 design, but you'll usually wind up with more spare tonnage available (+19 tons in this example) allowing you to "do more stuff" within the budget limit of tonnage to spend on things inside the ship.



And just for added clarity, LBB5 does explicitly stipulate the following:

It is possible to include standard drives (at standard prices) from Book 2 if they will otherwise meet the ship's requirements; such drives use fuel as indicated by the formulas in Book 2.

So there's your RAW for which fuel formulas are to be used with which types of drives (standard or custom). You don't get to mix and match.

Since the thread title answers the question of which one you're using ... Type ST Transport Scout: 199Td, J4/2G (LBB2 2nd Ed.) ... that's pretty much an open and shut case on which fuel formula you have bound yourself to using.

If, however, you would prefer to use the LBB5.80 fuel formula instead ... well ... you're going to need to abandon the effort to use standard drives (and the rules and fuel formulas for them) out of LBB2.
Personally, I find LBB2 ship design "weird" for precisely this reason, and vastly prefer LBB5 instead, regardless of ship tonnage.

Your move.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

The issue is that it indicates that power plant fuel allocations as mandated by the rules are arbitrary rather than based on actual mission requirements.

Oh, absolutely, it's completely arbitrary, the entire LBB2 is.

But it's a strict rule, with no wiggle room.


E.g. a B-drive in a 100 Dt hull is potential 4, and the same drive in a 101 Dt hull is potential 2. It's completely arbitrary and utterly ridiculous, yet people still use the system ~45 years later.

The LBB5 system is much better from this perspective.

If you want to avoid the arbitrariness of LBB2, then use LBB5?

Or just wave the Referee wand and say "House-rule", but then you can't really say it's an LBB2 ship anymore...

 

[robject]

Yeah, I have become fond of using the more-granular fuel use rates from the canonical CT Beltstrike module to calculate actual fuel consumption and reserve tonnages for B2 vessels, treating the 10Pn as a regulatory requirement only, and appealing to the case of the S7 (also canonical) Type J as an example -- thanks to various alternative tankage systems apparently available to B2 designs -- of how fuel use and carriage requirements are treated in operational practice in the OTU.

[...]

I am inclined to treat Beltstrike as errata for B2 in this regard. This has the added benefit of making CT B2 designs have fuel requirements significantly more in line with pretty much every subsequent edition or version of the ship design rules.

This. I think we can all agree that 10Pn is ridiculous at its extremes. And I can say that while still being completely smitten and enamored with Book 2.


Now as for the original post... clever design, and I think it can be made to work. But, I was also thinking a Long Liner would hit the sweet spot for transport along the Xboat route. Nothing like a business jet to handle that sort of thing, if you HAVE to be there quickly and you're FAR too important to fly on an Xboat.

 

[robject]

Belter: Fuel Consumption

For a 100t ship (e.g. Seeker):

"Basic Power" is 0.05t per week. This is the overhead requirement.

Fuel for acceleration (A) = A x 0.35t / week, presumably per 100t of ship.


=> In other words, 1.6% ship tonnage per G of acceleration for power plant fuel for a month.

Extrapolating:

Accel.   Fuel Volume   100t  200t  300t
 1G         1.6%         2t    4t    5t
 2G         3.2%         4t    7t   10t
 3G         4.8%         5t   10t   15t
 4G         6.0%         6t   12t   18t
 5G         7.6%         8t   16t   23t
 6G        10.8%        11t   22t   33t

* * *

Since I'm a shill for Traveller5, I feel compelled to compare.

Traveller5 drives seem more efficient: fuel = A x 0.25t / week, no overhead, per 100t of ship.

But T5 can get partway there. The Early and Prototype stages of power plants require 0.28t and 0.31t per G per week. An assumed poor efficiency could account for the balance -- or could account for the whole thing.

Sort of. But really Beltstrike doesn't need justification; it works fine as-is. If it were generalized to four weeks and back-ported to Book 2, I think Book 2 would be the stronger for it, and without feeling like it "sold out to High Guard".

 

[boomslang]

Now as for the original post... clever design, and I think it can be made to work. But, I was also thinking a Long Liner would hit the sweet spot for transport along the Xboat route. Nothing like a business jet to handle that sort of thing, if you HAVE to be there quickly and you're FAR too important to fly on an Xboat.

There is a lot of fun to be had with barely-sub-200dt, single-crew-position B2 starships.


I have a single-passenger one that can make Jump-5, for instance.

 

[Spinward Flow]

There is a lot of fun to be had with barely-sub-200dt, single-crew-position B2 starships.

I have a single-passenger one that can make Jump-5, for instance.

:alpha: {sensors ping}

:alpha: {begin detailed scan}

 

[Grav_Moped]

There is a lot of fun to be had with barely-sub-200dt, single-crew-position B2 starships.


I have a single-passenger one that can make Jump-5, for instance.

I think it came up when we discussed the apocryphal J-5 Xboat link in Regina subsector. It's a cool concept, with a lot of adventure potential for small groups of players (or even single players).

HG can do it (J5/1G) in 100Td, but without passengers.

I'd use that in a form-factor visually identical to a Type S, as a personal shuttle for a subsector's roving Detached Duty (DD) coordinator -- a patron for Scouts.

The entire DD community in the subsector knows about Sailor Jerry, even if few of them know his actual job title. He just shows up at the starport, looking for all the universe like just another Scout on DD, with hints of interesting things to check out.

If he says something's interesting, there's probably something in it for you. You might never find out the actual reason he wanted it looked into, though.

Probably ought to get around to writing him up as a patron.

 

[Grav_Moped]

For a 100t ship (e.g. Seeker):

"Basic Power" is 0.05t per week. This is the overhead requirement.

Fuel for acceleration (A) = A x 0.35t / week, presumably per 100t of ship.


=> In other words, 1.6% ship tonnage per G of acceleration for power plant fuel for a month.

Extrapolating:

Accel.   Fuel Volume   100t  200t  300t
 1G         1.6%         2t    4t    5t
 2G         3.2%         4t    7t   10t
 3G         4.8%         5t   10t   15t
 4G         6.0%         6t   12t   18t
 5G         7.6%         8t   16t   23t
 6G        10.8%        11t   22t   33t

* * *

Since I'm a shill for Traveller5, I feel compelled to compare.

Traveller5 drives seem more efficient: fuel = A x 0.25t / week, no overhead, per 100t of ship.

But T5 can get partway there. The Early and Prototype stages of power plants require 0.28t and 0.31t per G per week. An assumed poor efficiency could account for the balance -- or could account for the whole thing.

Sort of. But really Beltstrike doesn't need justification; it works fine as-is. If it were generalized to four weeks and back-ported to Book 2, I think Book 2 would be the stronger for it, and without feeling like it "sold out to High Guard".

T5 build rules feel a LOT like LBB2 with a better implementation of tech levels.* There's a lot more detail there than I'd like to use in regular play, though -- but even stuff I wouldn't use directly is still useful as background detail.

I'm not all that familiar with Beltstrike but it seems like your backporting it into LBB2 makes sense.



* Relative to LBB2, T5 sacrifices the "you can't build bigger without higher tech" aspect, but in return it provides "tech isn't an impenetrable ceiling -- you can get ahead of your TL but you might not be satisfied with what you end up building". I always thought that the "LBB2 exceptions" to LBB5 capability limits were interesting niches, and the TL Stage Effects bring that to everything.

 

[Grav_Moped]

This. I think we can all agree that 10Pn is ridiculous at its extremes. And I can say that while still being completely smitten and enamored with Book 2.


Now as for the original post... clever design, and I think it can be made to work. But, I was also thinking a Long Liner would hit the sweet spot for transport along the Xboat route. Nothing like a business jet to handle that sort of thing, if you HAVE to be there quickly and you're FAR too important to fly on an Xboat.

That's the point of it. I mean, playing the corner cases to make it sort of work in LBB2 is fun and all, but the underlying ship and mission are what I was going for. (LBB5 makes it easy if you want to skip the house-rules arguments.)

The idea I was working with is that while a canon XBoat (either '77 or HG '80) can carry a few passengers in double-occupancy, that's not a practical way to move as many personnel around as the Scouts would need to. There's an unmet need for a small and relatively cheap fast people-mover. It just turned out to look a lot like a J4 Scout/Courier on steroids...

And the way to make it work in LBB2 R.A.W. is to drop the air/raft, one stateroom, and two of the three tons of cargo. You're left with two passenger staterooms, and it can carry up to five passengers if everyone doubles up. As an executive transport, add a gunner/steward and have the flight crew in double occupancy to carry two high passengers.

 

[boomslang]

That's the point of it. I mean, playing the corner cases to make it sort of work in LBB2 is fun and all, but the underlying ship and mission are what I was going for. (LBB5 makes it easy if you want to skip the house-rules arguments.)

The idea I was working with is that while a canon XBoat (either '77 or HG '80) can carry a few passengers in double-occupancy, that's not a practical way to move as many personnel around as the Scouts would need to. There's an unmet need for a small and relatively cheap fast people-mover. It just turned out to look a lot like a J4 Scout/Courier on steroids...

And the way to make it work in LBB2 R.A.W. is to drop the air/raft, one stateroom, and two of the three tons of cargo. You're left with two passenger staterooms, and it can carry up to five passengers if everyone doubles up. As an executive transport, add a gunner/steward and have the flight crew in double occupancy to carry two high passengers.

Back in original, dead-tree JTAS #6, LKW and MWM penned an article, "The Imperial Interstellar Scout Service", which was a prototype of what eventually became CT B6: Scouts. Even then, there was a recognized need for a "business jet" type of starship to courier VIPs around. (This was before the various 200dt, Jump-3 Couriers from the CT Alien Modules were canonical, I reckon.)


Anyway, the original idea for a dedicated IISS Courier was to gut a Type S of all fittings except two staterooms (keeping only the required engineering) in order to cram something like 55dtons of fuel into the hull in lieu of normal payload.


Depending on what fuel consumption model you use IYTU (see posts above), this configuration can either do two Jump-2s with a total of three weeks' power plant endurance, or else a couple of J-2s plus a J-1 with over six weeks' power plant endurance.


This is noteworthy as evidence that even back in the early days there was already a recognition that there would be circumstances in which certain people can be at least as high a priority for a courier service as dispatches are.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Oh, absolutely, it's completely arbitrary, the entire LBB2 is.

But it's a strict rule, with no wiggle room.


E.g. a B-drive in a 100 Dt hull is potential 4, and the same drive in a 101 Dt hull is potential 2. It's completely arbitrary and utterly ridiculous, yet people still use the system ~45 years later.

The LBB5 system is much better from this perspective.

If you want to avoid the arbitrariness of LBB2, then use LBB5?

Or just wave the Referee wand and say "House-rule", but then you can't really say it's an LBB2 ship anymore...

Oh, I've no problem with the "call it a house rule" thing. I just think these house rules are consistent with LBB2's fictional engineering and physics (though apparently not its in-universe regulations) so it does qualify as LBB2-compatible even if it's not strictly LBB2 compliant.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I just think these house rules are consistent with LBB2's fictional engineering and physics (though apparently not its in-universe regulations) so it does qualify as LBB2-compatible even if it's not strictly LBB2 compliant.

The rules are obviously set up to punish small ships. The point of the 10Pn rule (and the 20 Dt bridge) is that small ships are not very capable, and larger ships are disproportionally more capable. So to remove those restrictions you are fundamentally changing the LBB2 system. Making 100 Dt ships as capable as larger ships is directly against the spirit, as well as the letter, of LBB2.

LBB2 is very clear: Want a J-4 ship with some payload, make a bigger and more expensive ship.

This is possible, but not very practical:

SF-1242441-000000-00000-0        MCr 134         199 Dton
bearing                                            Crew=1
batteries                                           TL=12
                     Cargo=9 Fuel=119,6 EP=7,96 Agility=2

Single Occupancy    LBB2 design                     9,4     133,6
                                     USP    #     Dton       Cost
Hull, Streamlined   Custom             1          199            
Configuration       Cone               2                     22,0
Scoops              Streamlined                                  
                                                                 
Jump Drive          D                  4    1      25        40  
Manoeuvre D         B                  2    1       3         8  
Power Plant         D                  4    1      13        32  
Fuel, #J, #weeks    J-4, 4 weeks            4     119,6          
                                                                 
Bridge                                      1      20         1,0
Computer            m/4                4    1       4        30  
                                                                 
Staterooms                                  1       4         0,5
                                                                 
Cargo                                               9,4          
                                                                 
Empty hardpoint                             1       1         0,1
                                                                 
Nominal Cost        MCr 133,59           Sum:       9,4     133,6
Class Cost          MCr  14,69          Valid      ≥0          ≥0
Ship Cost           MCr 120,23

This is twice the size, less than twice the cost, and much more than twice as capable:

SF-4242441-000000-00000-0        MCr 239         400 Dton
bearing                                            Crew=6
batteries                                           TL=12
                        Cargo=73 Fuel=200 EP=16 Agility=2

Single Occupancy    LBB2 design                    73       239,2
                                     USP    #     Dton       Cost
Hull, Streamlined   Custom             4          400            
Configuration       Cone               2                     44  
Scoops              Streamlined                                  
                                                                 
Jump Drive          H                  4    1      45        80  
Manoeuvre D         D                  2    1       7        16  
Power Plant         H                  4    1      25        64  
Fuel, #J, #weeks    J-4, 4 weeks            4     200            
                                                                 
Bridge                                      1      20         2  
Computer            m/4                4    1       4        30  
                                                                 
Staterooms                                  6      24         3  
                                                                 
Cargo                                              73            
                                                                 
Empty hardpoint                             2       2         0,2
                                                                 
Nominal Cost        MCr 239,20           Sum:      73       239,2
Class Cost          MCr  26,31          Valid      ≥0          ≥0
Ship Cost           MCr 215,28

That is the essence of LBB2.

 

[boomslang]

That is the essence of LBB2.

The essence of CT (LBB5 included) is that starships themselves are for all practical purposes unplayable. This is not so much a malicious act, as it is a result of sloppy play-testing and disinterested editing, combined with a deliberate emphasis on mercenary and gun-for-hire campaigns by the designers at the expense of any other player-character pursuits, and the emphasis on fleet actions at the expense of realism in the specific case of LBB5. The rules of CT are sloppy and full of contradictions.

The Subsidized Merchant cannot exist (too small for a subsidy), neither the Type A2 nor the Type J can exist (inadequate fuel), and of course, the Type X cannot exist (lacks power plant).
Yet there they sit as veritable cornerstones of canon. Hanlon's Razor would seem to apply.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The Subsidized Merchant cannot exist (too small for a subsidy)

That little detail always bothered me too.

The government may subsidize larger commercial vessels (built on type 600 hulls or larger)

So naturally the Subsidized Merchant on LBB2.81 p19 is ... 400 tons.
When the Subsidized Merchant is published again in LBB S7 p19-23 it is ... still 400 tons.

Best explanation I have to reconcile this is to believe the LBB2.81 p7 reference is a typo ... it should say 400 tons instead of 600 tons.

However, even that kind of interpretation (the 400 ton limit) may be something that Referees ought to entertain as being "more like guidelines than actual rules" for Subsidies. Right now, I'm working on finalizing the design for a 100 ton subsidized mail carrier starship, whose job is to carry interplanetary and interstellar mail as bargain basement cheaply as possible (on purchase and operating costs) where it's really about "making bank" on the revenue from mail deliveries ... rather than cargo, passengers or even speculation. It's basically a mail delivery truck (In SPAAAAAAACEE!!!) that flies various (subsidized) routes around the Spinward Marches. I've even found at least one place where the route the subsidized mail courier ship takes (at Jump-2) winds up delivering mail FASTER than the X-boat system can deliver messages.

X-Boat: (Lanth) - Ghandi - Denotam - Frenzie - Garda-Vilis - {Vilis} (5 weeks minimum transit)
Mail Courier: (Lanth) - Tenalphi - Saurus - week in system - {Vilis} (4 weeks or less in transit, depends on how much time gets spent at Saurus)

There's some really interesting economics that happen under the rules if this little mail courier ship is allowed to exist by a Referee ... so once I get everything sorted and ready and formatted for the forums, I'll be posting that design in a new thread here.

 

[whartung]

The essence of CT (LBB5 included) is that starships themselves are for all practical purposes unplayable.

Or they're simply not designed to be playable because they're props for an RPG.

The closest they got to "playable" was the High Guard tournaments and Trillion Credit Squadron.

The tournaments got min-maxed by a computer program, but they didn't try to rebalance the system to eliminate that, and I don't know how many TCS games were played where the combat actually made one iota of difference, since most fights were likely (by design) horribly unbalanced so as not to bring up any glaring design issues with the system.

The space combat rules ala Book 2 are there as color for the adventure, not as a balanced tactical game. Similarly the trade rules are there much like random encounter tables are used in D&D, just to provide background filler for a campaign, not, again, as a "balanced" game in its own right.

You'll notice while we got tactical board games for ship combat, GDW never put out "Jump Trader, a game of mercantile in the stars!" as a competitive, balance trading game. Even GURPS Far Trader isn't like that, it's just a more detailed economic model to play in.

FFW is a strategic game that's not impacted by any ship design issues, and balanced through force structure and victory conditions more so than gaming ship design system rules and breakpoints with 19999 ton ships.

The games have never been balanced economically. They're simulationist at best to try and portray "given you have Ship X and Ship Y and they're antagonistic, how would that play out?" vs some balance "you have 100 yarns of currency to buy ships, make a fleet and fling it against your friends in a deep space arena".

Other tactical ship games fill the niche, and try to spend time on balancing. But even the king of those games, Star Fleet Battles, while they strived for it, they never guaranteed any kind of perfection for random pick up games with point based fleets. They did, however, spend quite a bit of time on the tournament ships to strive to, indeed, make them as balanced as possible.