What ships do you need?

[Condottiere]

The ubiquitous hundred ton Scout could be an example of a paramilitary organization having the smallest possible starship put together by mostly off the shelf civilian components.

 

[DonM]

Applying this to existing Traveller designs, one of the projects I've pitched a number of times would be:

1) review existing Traveller ship designs to determine a set of design criteria
2) have a public contest to submit designs to match those criteria
3) rebuild the inventory of Traveller official designs from the results of those competitions

So what is really needed is a set of defined missions or roles for ships, and the criteria across TLs for meeting those roles or missions, and then another study for adapting the identified design criteria to aliens or polities based on their requirements.

 

[kilemall]

As the leading McGuffin for my party to get together, I gave them an 'education hobby' skill of Starship Design-4, which is not a formal Naval Architect skill but is intended as the obsessive fanboy devouring every bit of trivia on the subject.

Then I put them in a ship design contest where they are the semi-finalists, with a robotic Naval Architect software package helping them with the technical creation. The winner of the contest gets a partially funded version of their winning design- immense motivation!

Then I told them they needed to design the best ship they would want to have.

So far I have a luxurious 600-ton yacht with glorious appointments AND armor, an outrageously useful 200-ton detachable container module/landing saucer intended for mining but can do much more, a 600-ton exploratory cruiser, a modular 'private Pullman' passenger ship, and one more design due.

Turn your players loose with a plausible reason to design their dreams and you will get surprises you never would have come up with.

 

[MikeinBallard]

How about an SDB jump shuttle carrying a 400-ton cargo module? Sort of like the 3I equivalent of a peace-time semi-tractor trailer combo. Or the same SDB jump shuttle carrying a stripped-down, salvaged SDB as a cargo module. You haul the SDB hulk around and refurb it on the hoof. Sounds like an adventure.

 

[salochin999]

Applying this to existing Traveller designs, one of the projects I've pitched a number of times would be:

1) review existing Traveller ship designs to determine a set of design criteria
2) have a public contest to submit designs to match those criteria
3) rebuild the inventory of Traveller official designs from the results of those competitions

So what is really needed is a set of defined missions or roles for ships, and the criteria across TLs for meeting those roles or missions, and then another study for adapting the identified design criteria to aliens or polities based on their requirements.

Cool idea.

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One factor I use in this is designs changing over time as TL develops so for example 100/200/400 dton specialist colony/fuel/supply/repair etc ships becoming obsolete as larger ship sizes became available so these obsolote ships become good options for bucket of rust ships that the players can get cheap.

It's my explanation why the Imperium hands out Type S ships to ex scouts - they have thousands of old ones.

http://www.michaeljohngrist.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/mojave boneyard/mojave desert boneyard1.jpg

#

Turn your players loose with a plausible reason to design their dreams and you will get surprises you never would have come up with.

Yes, that's thing other people come up with ideas I'd never think of myself.

 

[Patron Zero]

.....

It's my explanation why the Imperium hands out Type S ships to ex scouts - they have thousands of old ones.

.....

I'm of the strong belief that there are many such 'boneyards' scattered through the Imperium with decommissioned ships of many different designs-classification.

Such said, it does open a very large door for player characters to obtain some unique or if just less-common as a vessel for their adventures.

 

[Condottiere]

Considering the modular nature of the components, likely stripped for parts.

 

[Timerover51]

Applying this to existing Traveller designs, one of the projects I've pitched a number of times would be:

1) review existing Traveller ship designs to determine a set of design criteria
2) have a public contest to submit designs to match those criteria
3) rebuild the inventory of Traveller official designs from the results of those competitions

So what is really needed is a set of defined missions or roles for ships, and the criteria across TLs for meeting those roles or missions, and then another study for adapting the identified design criteria to aliens or polities based on their requirements.

I simply use the standard ships in Classic and Traders and Gunboats, with maybe some modifying by me of some of the characteristics. If I do need a new ship design, like the 600 dTon Jump-3 Subsidized Merchant, I design it.

I guess I fail to see the need to come out with a whole new list of standard ships. If a Game Master or player really wants a non-standard ship, then put the job of designing it on them.

 

[salochin999]

Considering the modular nature of the components, likely stripped for parts.

That to my mind is a feature - players come across an old ship in a ghost town on a backwater that is being used as a cheap hotel mostly stripped out apart from a broken M-drive

adventure 1: rumor there's a working power plant in an abandoned military research bunker currently occupied by...whatever

adventure 2: making freinds with a local tribe of bantha-equivalent herders to lift the power plant out of the bunker to the ship

adventure 3: power and M-drive working but no life support so fly off to the site of a haunted space hulk to scavenge for life support parts.

etc

 

[Patron Zero]

Considering the modular nature of the components, likely stripped for parts.

Not necessarily would there be a common compatibility of parts between ships, simply basing that juxtaposition on the breadth and width between the different contractors and suppliers that have produced starships for the Imperium over the years.

In our world the vast number of manufactures and parts procurers just in the field of military aviation is staggering, such a multitude that the US Air Force-Army Air Corp has utilized in it's 'short' history is example enough of how large such a catalog of items would be.

Mind that's not to include the body of after-market/post-production companies required to meet the needs of maintenance and restoration.

 

[Condottiere]

My presumption is that the Alphabet drives are built to standardized templates, which is why they're commercial off the shelf products, which simplifies maintenance across the Imperium and keeps commerce flowing.

 

[kilemall]

Not necessarily would there be a common compatibility of parts between ships, simply basing that juxtaposition on the breadth and width between the different contractors and suppliers that have produced starships for the Imperium over the years.

In our world the vast number of manufactures and parts procurers just in the field of military aviation is staggering, such a multitude that the US Air Force-Army Air Corp has utilized in it's 'short' history is example enough of how large such a catalog of items would be.

Mind that's not to include the body of after-market/post-production companies required to meet the needs of maintenance and restoration.

An additional potential complication could be TL, is a Tech 9 A-rating power plant the same as a Tech 14?

On the other hand, it also depends on how tight and consistent the specs are for a Type starship- are they specced to where a component from a TL14 world will match up with a TL9 ship made 100 years ago?

If so, that might make a players' Type ship much more valuable to pirates/salvagers/resellers, to part out if nothing else, with a ready market able to use them, then a HG-type ship customized to very special needs.

Could be that the TL14 part is so cheap to make it's ridiculously profitable to maintain backwards-compatibility with lower TL ship products.

A lot of which way you go with this is how stringently you price the different TL components according to the typical TL valuation differences, coupled with any special abilities conferred on the higher TL versions.

 

[Patron Zero]

I tend to think that there would be a profitable enterprise in acquiring parts and components for starship restoration as is with real-world vintage automotive enthusiasts.

One market being supplying to those seeking to operate 'vintage' starships as a matter of pride and as collectible items, likely the very rich end of society composing such.

Then you have the owner-operators of small fleets of merchant vessels that have found their profits in keeping older 'models' of starships in service rather than upgrading to more current types.

Maintaining the 'no-frills' ships that offer cheap but reliable transport and courier service would be another client-base for those in the salvage-recovery trade.

 

[whartung]

In Trav, where are the massive (or at least properly-outfitted) ships that support all this? It's all "When was the last time y'all visited a Class B or better starport and laid over a fortnight for maintenance?"

Only on the very fringes of explored space do you need that, but the 3I is quite well explored and settled.

Rather than bringing the shop with you, it's easier to jump back and get things fixed, or have the parts brought to you.

Odds are pretty good it's faster (two weeks) to get a part than it is to make your own. You simply need to ensure that you have reasonable stores to survive the downtime, and to not go alone to where you're trapped if your J-Drive goes down.

Either bring a friend, and their ship, or equip a jump shuttle on to your main ships. A 100 D Ton scout mated with a 1200 DT exploration vessel is a pretty versatile combination, and not a bad use of space. After a few hundred tons, unless you're a warship, you find it more and more difficult to fill that space with just staterooms and labs, so having a hanger that can hold a 100 DT Scout (or other small, jump capable ship), along with ships boats and other small craft isn't unreasonable.

If the Scout breaks, dock it, take it back to civilization and fix it. If the mothership breaks, send the scout back and get help. You're likely not going to forge a fusion power plant out of asteroid ore, and specialized manufacturing equipment is simply more efficient bolted to a planet anyway (unless it needs zero G).

Just consider exploration in the past. They had equipment brought over and set up on site, rather than mounting it to a ship. A ship is a specialized vessel better suited to moving things rather than making them.

Same with a train. Better to ship the equipment in, and set it up than make it conform to the constraints of being on a train.

Now, there may be a call for manufacturing ships, if they want to make use of the time while in jump and transit. Consider the fishing ships where much of the fish processing is done on board, where the actual fisherman bring their catch to the fishing processing ship, unload, and head back to the grounds. Meanwhile the processing ship prepares and freezes the catch until it's full and heads home. The transit time from the grounds to the ports is significant enough to make such a processing ship viable. They come back with concentrated fish filets while dumping the waste overboard.

But thats a volatile product, requiring special processing, rather than generic manufacturing.

So, for sure there will be exceptions, but I don't think there will be a preponderance of these kinds of ships. Jump drives and fuel space are expensive holes in space to be parked in orbit. Best to keep them moving doing what they do best -- transiting through jump space.

 

[boomslang]

Jump drives and fuel space are expensive holes in space to be parked in orbit. Best to keep them moving doing what they do best -- transiting through jump space.

But see, that presumes a completely mercantile rationale for the existence of starships, with navies filling a primarily commerce-supporting role through the as-needed remediation of political obstacles to trade and profiteering.

I am of the considered opinion that one of the most non-trivial design flaws in the 3I is the scarcity of unexplored frontiers, and my concern is that this is further perpetuated by the lack of starships with genuine exploratory capabilities.

Ideally, I want something in the 300Kton-to-5Mton range that is a) completely self-sufficient indefinitely, and b) can not only maintain and repair any ship system, of its own or otherwise, in the field by processing scavenged raw materials and fabricating anything required therefrom, but also c) is potentially even completely self-replicating with enough time, materiel, and operator expertise.

I have scoured things like GT sourcebooks over the years, and tried to cobble together some House Rules Or At Least Guidelines from stuff like the Cutter Modules book, but it is just not something that Traveller has ever seemed to want to support to any major degree.

10-to-15 year missions into wholly uncharted space are paid lip service by the Zhodani Core Expeditions project, but even that requires the Zhos to set up an absurdly-long chain of starports to support it. (And talk about a thankless existence: how dreary must it be for the poor schmucks condemned to spend their entire lives manning a gas station and repair garage on a years-long road to nowhere, in service to an empire so distant and beyond their reach as to seem more mythical than real? The more I think about it, the worse it gets.)

If anything, it would be much more humane to take everything and everyone with you, leave some navigational aids and the occasional "We Were Here" monolith, and go to the trouble of bringing everyone possible back home at the end of the mission.

But the technology to support this is noticeably absent in the rules.

As it stands, the Zhos have to build and permanently man a Class B starport out of whatever mud and rocks they can find every 200 parsecs or so toward the Core; and good luck with that, using the rules we have to hand.

A self-contained expeditionary mothership begins to look like the easier option after a short while.

 

[Condottiere]

Mongoose Space Stations gives you the capacity to fill up your five million ton Beagle with all the industrial base you'll ever need to make it self-sustaining, strip mining asteroid belts as you move along.