From JTAS No. 2:
Take, for example, the laser pistol. Although it does not specifically mention them, Traveller provides all the information needed to enable a referee to create them, with a little mental effort. Since, as referee, we are running the world, we declare that a laser pistol should be to a laser carbine as a conventional pistol is to a conventional carbine. A conventional pistol usually has no shoulder stock, and has a shorter barrel than a conventional carbine. Pistols often have lower powered cartridges, even if the caliber is the same, but this is not always true. As the pistol's barrel is shorter, the sight radius is also shorter, and the pistol is less accurate at a given range than the carbine. The general principles of operation are the same for both weapons. Referring to book 1 (pp. 35-37) ,we find that a laser carbine is 800 mm long, weighs 5000 grams, has a power pack which enables it to fire 50 shots before recharging, and costs Cr 2500. We decide that our laser pistol should be the same weight as an automatic pistol, but that the barrel should be only 100 mm shorter than the laser carbine. Subtracting 100 mm plus the length of a shoulder stock from the length of the laser carbine, we get a length of 350 mm, which is a little clumsy to handle, but we want it that way. For the purposes of firing, we will treat our laser pistol as if it were a laser carbine but with a DM of -1 at medium and - 2 at long range to reflect the fact that the lack of a shoulder stock makes it harder to aim. Note: If we wanted to make the laser pistol less clumsy, we could decrease the length of the barrel further, but we would then have to make the accuracy worse. We choose to make no change to the power pack (but, we could, if desired, make it weigh less, and radically reduce the number of charges it held, or make available more compact PP's at higher tech levels). Since most of the cost of the weapon is the "lasing" part of it's innards, we set the cost at Cr 2000.
Characteristics - Length: 350 mm. Weight: 750 grams. Base Price: Cr 2000.
The above example indicates how the Traveller rules can be used to create something not present in the rules. We don't have room to describe everything. With a little imagination, a little research, and a lot of thought, almost anything can be made compatible with Traveller.
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