Ultratech ships

[parmasson]

How about this…

The “Cobalt Blue” is a TL 20+ relic ship from an unknown civilization.

It displaces approximately 400 tons +/- 10%. Exact dimensions have been impossible to determine as sensors continue to return different values at different times.

The hull of the craft is a brilliant cobalt blue and is roughly shaped like an egg with various bulges housing sensors, and screens.

The maneuver drives protrude from the “rear” and appear as about two dozen crystalline rods of various sizes and hues depending on the angle the drives are viewed from.

When active a rainbow of colors blend to form a white glow that appears to function as standard M-Drives.

Sensors show that an antimatter power plant supplies the primary power. A secondary power source has been detected but its exact nature has yet to be determined.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Cool. Let's board her

Seriously; It'd make a great adventure.

 

[parmasson]

I am trying to use the MT rules for building the ship but it is kind a pain. I will try to post them.

 

[TheEngineer]

Why is that pain ?
Use a spreadsheet ....

 

[parmasson]

Does someone have a spreadsheet that could help?
It would need to go up to TL-20...

 

[TheEngineer]

Yes.
It does not yet include sensor/commo stuff, but all major components up to TL21

TE

 

[Chuck Anumia]

I like this ship!
Let's find out what she's got and what she can do
Does the computer sound like a Human Female?

 

[TheEngineer]

And Ships for Windows (Ace) should do the job, too....

 

[parmasson]

^Well you seem to be the man to talk to!

Would you be willing to send me a copy?

I hope to make it a 400 ton Jump5, 5G. I also plan to install two turrets. One with a disintegrator weapon and one with a missile launcher. For defense a black globe generator should do the trick. Since this was not a “warship” the more advanced white globe generator will not be installed. The ship’s interior will be constructed of hypercube materials effectively doubling its interior. When a PC enters the ship it will be disorientating as the human brain will have some trouble adapting to the multi-dimensional interior.

Controls will be mostly telepathic so there may be some serious problems operating the controls
As soon as I get stats this one will get deck plans so I can use it a few weeks.

Oh and Col Reb,
It can respond in a lovely Virginian if you need it to.

[edit] Wow, TL-20 gets me a transporter room too.

 

[parmasson]

Wait! Won’t this ship upset the game balance?

PCs in charge of a uber-tech supership?

Yeah, but it won’t last long . . .

The Intelligence of the “Cobalt Blue” will be come active and may decide that its interests don’t lie with the PCs.

Besides I like the idea of a ship that has a glassy deep cobalt blue hull.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

The ship’s interior will be constructed of hypercube materials effectively doubling its interior. When a PC enters the ship it will be disorientating as the human brain will have some trouble adapting to the multi-dimensional interior.

Nono...the hatch should be a portal to a pleasure planet! You step through, spend a week chilling out by the pool, then step back through at your destination...

 

[parmasson]

^Ummhmmmmm....
Now you are starting to sound like them.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Originally posted by General Johnnie Reb:
TL20 Hypercube?
Lord preserve us!
This would (IMHO) way OVERBallance the game.
I believe the original idea of Traveller was more like the original "Star Trek" kind of future technology.

Phasers= OK
Telporters= OK
Hand held Lasers= OK
FTL Coms= OK
Fusion Energy= OK
Anti Matter Drives= OK
Warp Drive (1 Parsec 1 day @ warp 10)= OK

Nanotechnology= NOT OK
Androids= NOT OK
AI= NOT OK
Extradimentional Spaces= NOT OK

I beleive there is even a statement in T4 to the effect that technological advances should be limited in scope and direction.

welp, I think Traveller was really meant to offer a variety of sci-fi environments, and gave rules to cover most of the convenient and popular milieus. In that vein I don't see a problem with super-high-tech (magic?) stuff being codified for the rules.

I think the challenge becomes how does one use their ACR with M-203 slung underneath the barrel in an intelligent ship that zaps your trigger finger? Or, if that's not the case, then how do you get a bead on an ethereal alien that's popping in and out of reality to obscure your aim with your LASER rifle? Or how about the ever incessant super-android with hyper intelligence and physical strength and dexterity to match?

Those are the kinds of things for the players to overcome. If not... well, then it's time to roll up Character Mark 2

I've got some wild Traveller settings brewing in my skull, but will withold them until I can put them down appropiately into PDF format.

There probably comes a point in TLs when no matter what the players want or would like to do that the opposition can essentially "read their minds" and prevent them from doing anything beyond being navigated to whatever fate awaits them. If that's the case, then you have a lousy GM

Otherwise the possibilities are limitless

 

[parmasson]

Yeah but uber-tech has a drawback. Where do I get spare parts? What if the hull is damaged? Hiding in a 200 ton Free Trader is easy because they are everywhere!

A TL 20 “scout”? Good luck. Everybody and their uncle will be after a piece of you and my players know it. Almost a year ago they obtained a “meson rifle” experiential TL 15 gizmo. Do you know that to this day they have not used it.

Why? Because they know that something that unusual is going to make the authorities take notice. They have told me that they are waiting for the right time when nothing else will do. I am not so mean as ref as to punish them for using stuff that I litter around the universe but they know that a low profile is more valuable than battle dress.

Any good storyteller has to mold the story to the audience. With another group this stuff might be a nightmare for your plot but for these guys it works fine because of their long term goals.

Their number one weapon is a silenced TL-15 body pistol.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Ah, assuming said vessel can be identified as a super cool TL-20 craft. Maybe the thing looks like an air-raft, or, as mentioned before, rips a page out of Doc Who and takes any shape (if any at all) it can, wants, or is commanded.

True, the spare parts thing could get sticky. How many TL-20 roadside garages are there in the Imperium? I have a hard time imagining some Ozark mechanic with a pot belly, ZZ-top facial hair wearing a baseball cap holding a TL-20 spanner

But hey! Stranger things have happened in the Traveller universe. Said ship may be part of a larger organism that can receive repairs via a kind of ultra-high tech network. Not that that engineering skill's going to come in handy.... even with a JOT of 5 or greater I have a hard time picturing where a character would get TL-20 training in mechanics. But I digress

It could be that the characters find themselves in a new strange high tech environment where conventional thinking (read that as shooting your way out) doesn't have a ghost of a chance of working.

More intrigue abounds with ultra high tech stuff. You just need to think outside the box

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Originally posted by Blue Ghost:
I have a hard time imagining some Ozark mechanic with a pot belly, ZZ-top facial hair wearing a baseball cap holding a TL-20 spanner

You never know, out of the way places are great for hiding research installations. I work in the Smokey Mountains, only 10 miles from my home is Oak Ridge National Laboratory - where they developed the atomic bomb. You've got a whole bunch of PhD's amoung a large gathering of rednecks.

Maybe some of the adventures would involve searching for a repair base for this Ultra-Tech ship?

 

[dm_dracos]

this is slightly off topic, but...im going for it anyways

I just finished a book called "rally cry" its basic story line is..a group of civil war soldiers get transported to a distant planet where many cultures are, including one that i think of as what would have been the mongul horde had they not gotten stopped.

so instead of giving the players the coolest newest toy, what about this...during a common jump, there is a problem and they misjump, jump drives wreacked totally, and MDrives barely working. only place to land is a nice little world that doesnt show any major industry ect.
and then they find through exploring that they have the cool ultra tech toys...what do they do with them, where do they go, when nothing in close to them. they are stuck.,
Just another evil thought from
Dracos

 

[Blue Ghost]

I read the first book in the Rally Cry series years ago when it first hit the sheles. A pretty descent read.

 

[Valarian]

Originally posted by Kurega Gikur:
PCs in charge of a uber-tech supership?

Sounds like the plot of Blake's Seven.

The PCs will soon be on the run, every noble in the Imperium will want to control the ship. Not to mention all the other interested parties.

Gaining the ship is one thing, holding on to it is something else completely.

[EDIT]
Oops - point already made (Note to self - must read rest of thread before replying to something)

Another high tech vs. low tech world novel is March Upcountry by David Weber. It's available in electronic form at the Baen Books Free Library.

 

[kafka47]

Or have it so cool that the players do not know how to operate the wretched thing. I am constantly reminded by the MegaDeth Black Spaceship from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Or even the infamous improbability drive, could it be the ship actually has an agenda all its own. Here one could take inspiration from Harry Harrison & McCaffery.