Who uses big ships?

[JAFARR]

... If you have a big merchant ship it's almost certainly subsidized meaning you would have factors on each planet pre-booking passage and/or freight so you would always be running nearly full. The LBB2 rolls are probably just the left overs the free-traders and casually haulers (that DD scout with the old type S at his disposal) will find.

Thanks for this input. I always thought those rules were for left overs and odd lots and that the major lines did not go by these rules. Especially when some of their ships would be full of their own products being distrubited to their outlets on the different worlds of their route.

As to big non-military ships, didn't Judges Guild do an adventure with a big ship that even had some jump capable attached ships to make side trips?

 

[robject]

Hmmm... Does LBB7 (Merchant Prince) support large cargoes? LBB2 usually assumes a small cargo bay.

Whatever the case, it implies very large cargoes indeed, in casually mentioning 100,000t bulk freighters and never addressing the issue again.

Add to that the transports in The Traveller Adventure (and the Spinward Marches Campaign), and you've got trade going on under our noses without a hint of how its conducted.

 

[far-trader]

Whatever the case, it implies very large cargoes indeed, in casually mentioning 100,000t bulk freighters and never addressing the issue again.

Add to that the transports in The Traveller Adventure (and the Spinward Marches Campaign), and you've got trade going on under our noses without a hint of how its conducted.

More like it's all conducted way over the heads of the ordinary PC rather than under their noses

Just like the super uber IN ships compared to the PC experiences with 400ton Patrol Cruisers

The trade rules are intended for simple PCs with small ships and no connections.

 

[Plankowner]

FASA put out a series of deck plans for larger merchant ships, up to 3000 dTn as I recall.

I still have them somewhere... along with the Hotel maps and the Mercenary ships... Have to dig them out again.

Does anyone know if they were ACCURATE?

 

[robject]

More like it's all conducted way over the heads of the ordinary PC rather than under their noses

Just like the super uber IN ships compared to the PC experiences with 400ton Patrol Cruisers

The trade rules are intended for simple PCs with small ships and no connections.

Exactomundo - that's of course the only conclusion one can reach.

 

[sfchbryan]

IMTU, big ships are background to keep me (the GM) amused. I have the ships stationed in a sector "showing the flag", anti-piracy patrols, etc. The battleships are mostly in port, but they also do sweeps. The players never see the schedule, but they do know what ships are home-ported where.

I have found this to be very useful if the PCs get in a crack. I can pull them out without it appearing to be a "deus ex machina".

As a player, the biggest ship used was the Haunting Thunder. My group ran a "no questions asked" salvage company. We pulled the Haunting Thunder out of the gas giant At Querion (nearly starting the 6th Frontier War in the process) & sold it to the Arden Federation Government. That transaction degenerated into a 4 way shoot-out between 1. our security forces. 2. The incoming Arden crew. 3. The Vargr pirates attempting to seize the vessel and 4. The Imperial strike force sent in to insure that Arden didn't get to keep it's nifty little toy.

We escaped to the boat bay & evaced (with our bearer bonds). As soon as we got a reasonable distance away from the ship, I pressed a little red button & the nucs went off, killing everyone on board & covering our escape.

Of course, we did have to go into low berth for quite some time to hide out.

 

[Icosahedron]

Whatever the case, it implies very large cargoes indeed, in casually mentioning 100,000t bulk freighters and never addressing the issue again.

Add to that the transports in The Traveller Adventure (and the Spinward Marches Campaign), and you've got trade going on under our noses without a hint of how its conducted.

I know some people treat Gurps as only semi-canon, but the traffic volume figures in the Gurps Starports book suggest considerable numbers of unseen (and large) ships, too. I agree the trade rules only cover PC-level left-overs and no rules exist for wider trade models - IIRC even Gurps Far Trader doesn't cover bulk freight, it is once again focused on PC level shipping (for obvious reasons).

If you want a working trade model, you will have to look outside of Traveller and/or make your own.

Similarly, there are no rules I am aware of for outlining interstellar war and warships at the large scale. Pocket Empires suggests huge fleets, but they are never described in detail. It strikes me that Marc et al did the same thing many of us do - hinted at the large-scale machinations of a star-spanning empire, but focused play (and rules) on your average PC.

Is that surprising?

 

[far-trader]

Thanks for this input. I always thought those rules were for left overs and odd lots and that the major lines did not go by these rules. Especially when some of their ships would be full of their own products being distributed to their outlets on the different worlds of their route.

You're quite welcome though I should caveat it with I'm not sure it can be supported by any specific canon

As to big non-military ships, didn't Judges Guild do an adventure with a big ship that even had some jump capable attached ships to make side trips?

Hmm, it's ringing some bells. Zhodani Core Expedition maybe? I'm sure somebody knows...

 

[far-trader]

FASA put out a series of deck plans for larger merchant ships, up to 3000 dTn as I recall...

Does anyone know if they were ACCURATE?

If I had to guess, I'd say no

If I had to bet, even money, I'd still say no

If I had to give you odds, umm, can I have a quick glance at the plans first, just a look should be enough :smirk:

 

[Darkhstarr]

I worked up a scenario for a derelict Azhanti High Lightning years ago where an instellar crime syndicate was refurbishing it as their mobile HQ. Eventually I'll have to post it. It was planned for my short-lived pirate campaign as one of their business contacts. I also had an idea to have the Imperium send a team out to destroy or neutralize it.

 

[robject]

I know some people treat Gurps as only semi-canon, but the traffic volume figures in the Gurps Starports book suggest considerable numbers of unseen (and large) ships, too. I agree the trade rules only cover PC-level left-overs and no rules exist for wider trade models - IIRC even Gurps Far Trader doesn't cover bulk freight, it is once again focused on PC level shipping (for obvious reasons).

Funnily enough, Marc never had a picture of uber-busy starports. At least, not the picture that economists would paint for us.

 

[far-trader]

Funnily enough, Marc never had a picture of uber-busy starports. At least, not the picture that economists would paint for us.

I'm not surprised, that's the "feel" I've always got from Traveller. It's mainly why I've always been so against the whole "thousands of starships in port" image and everything that goes with it some would see for high-pop worlds. In some universes sure, but not Traveller.

 

[Kavik]

The Flight of the Manticore

I used a 50K cruiser, the Manticore, as the main plot device. The players switched between ship command, fighter pilots (the Spikes?), and marines/ground elements as the adventures dictated. The "Manticore" was an obsolete vessel that was being transferred from Imperial to Client state control. Using the three different levels of play allowed a great range roleplaying and adventuring.

 

[rancke]

Funnily enough, Marc never had a picture of uber-busy starports. At least, not the picture that economists would paint for us.

You know this because he wrote it somewhere or you deduce it because of the background presented in all the CT material?

Without going to the trouble of assembling evidence (because most of my CT material is elsewhere), I'd like to suggest that the canonical evidence is at the very least ambiguous, if not downright schizophrenic. We don't see any busy starports, true, but then, we don't see many starports that would be busy, and IIRC we do see quite a few middle-class passengers and small-time business travelers. This strongly implies the existence of reasonably cheap passenger travel. Likewise, the existence of multiple 'orphaned' speculative lots available for peripatetic free traders (a lot of the speculative trade items have clearly not been manufactured on the world where they're found) implies a much, much larger market to provide the crack that these items have evidently fallen through.


Hans

 

[rancke]

I'm not surprised, that's the "feel" I've always got from Traveller. It's mainly why I've always been so against the whole "thousands of starships in port" image and everything that goes with it some would see for high-pop worlds. In some universes sure, but not Traveller.

You mean that in a universe where it is quite evidently profitable to ship things like grain, high-population worlds would obviously only ship in a couple of hundred dT of grain every once in a blue moon?

The existence of bulk goods on the speculative trade table implies the existence of bulk trade. The size of the population of a high-population world implies a large market for bulk trade items. This, in turn, implies busy starports with lots of big ships. The original authors may not have realized that or they may have decided to concentrate on low-population worlds for the adventures, but to say that the Traveller Universe doesn't have lots and lots of bulk trade is putting more weight on the available flimsy evidence than it can bear.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Funnily enough, Marc never had a picture of uber-busy starports. At least, not the picture that economists would paint for us.

And yet you yourself wrote, earlier in this thread:

"Whatever the case, it implies very large cargoes indeed, in casually mentioning 100,000t bulk freighters and never addressing the issue again.

Add to that the transports in The Traveller Adventure (and the Spinward Marches Campaign), and you've got trade going on under our noses without a hint of how its conducted."

:devil:


Hans

 

[far-trader]

I see no inconsistency in the above. I think what we're saying is there are really big ships doing the bulk of trade among major worlds with smaller ones filling in the holes. Not in the thousands per starport (per day I suppose I should have added) but (and it's just my feel for it) dozens per day at the busiest (a few really big and several smaller ones) down to perhaps one a week or less (and it could be a seasonal really big ship or a smaller more regular or irregular one).

I guess the biggest influence for my take is SMC and Al Morai. Here's an old sector wide line with only 53 (or 30) ships* of 3,000tons (or 1,000tons)* giving it 1 ship per world serviced. And they only service class A or B ports. And that is in the HG Big Ship Universe.

* errata I wish had been corrected at some point

Granted it's just one sector wide line in a "frontier" sector, but it implied the level of trade and service Marc intended.

As for robject's note, I suspected it was from conversations with Marc.

 

[robject]

I think what we're saying is there are really big ships doing the bulk of trade among major worlds with smaller ones filling in the holes. [...]

I guess the biggest influence for my take is SMC and Al Morai. [...]

As for robject's note, I suspected it was from conversations with Marc.

Looks like I'm working basically from the same notes as you, Dan. And I know Hans has different notes.

And, please note that Hans and I had a long discussion about Al Morai on COTI a couple years ago.
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=1120&highlight=al+morai

One important conclusion I reached through talking it out was that:

economics [of companies like Al Morai] aren't the same as those used for players in a tramp trader... I suspect that [an] implied, undocumented economy exists only along the Xboat route. It's too powerful otherwise.
...
We all know this, because the XBoat transports can haul 600-1200+ tons of cargo. We can also infer this from the fact that a fleet of Jump-4 vessels running along the XBoat route can turn a profit.

The 100,000 ton freighter is such a bizarre mention, too.

Here's what Marc thinks, on those rare occasions he thinks of interstellar traffic. It agrees with my preferences, and it gives me an upperbound on how many large companies may be operating in the marches... or anywhere.

What benchmark do I want to see?

a sleepy backwater starport has 1-10 starship departures/ arrivals per week.
a bustling on the route powerhouse starport has 1000 departures per week. I bet they have an orbital starport and shuttles carrying people to Orbital rather than crowd 1000 ships on the ground.

Add to "Departures" the ancillary stuff... free traders, scouts, yachts, which are basically inconsequential and are more likely the same numbers at ANY world.

"1000 departures per week" means (I think) roughly 6 significant* ships arriving and 6 significant* ships leaving each hour, every hour. One ship arriving and one ship departing every 10 minutes.

Low traffic.

Assuming "Significant" means something like regular, scheduled, corporate traffic, then a picture can be drawn, and various estimates made. Whipsnade argues reasonably well for the Marches having three sector-wide lines, Al Morai being one of them (HQ in Mora), and another headquartered at Glisten. Perhaps the third at Trin, or Lunion. Add in megacorp subsidiary lines (Akerut, plus one for Naasirka based out of Rhylanor, etc). Beyond that, we have interface lines (Oberlindes, McClellan, Baraccai Technum) and subsector lines (Sinzarmes).

 

[Anthony]

Funnily enough, Marc never had a picture of uber-busy starports. At least, not the picture that economists would paint for us.

So what does he think a spaceport on a world with a population of twenty billion would look like?

The best way to maintain the feel of classic Traveller (adventures, not wargames) is to eliminate Hi-pop worlds. That promptly pulls trade down a few notches, and pulls military budgets down by enough that "destroyer in every system" isn't a realistic option. Consider this way of redefining Pop codes:
0: <1k
1: 1k-10k
2: 10k-30k
3: 30k-100k
4: 100k-300k
6: 1M-3M
7: 3M-10M
8: 10M-30M
9: 30M-100M
A: 100M-300M
B: 300M-1B
C: 1B-3B
D: 3B-10B
E: 10B-30B
F: 30B-100B

You'd probably want to bump all pop codes in Core or the Rim (+3 or +4 is good enough) but for the border sectors, low population density is fine.

 

[mondokhan]

Not usually but I have.

I don't usually use big ships in campaigns. I will sometimes use them as a back drop to a situation, but not usually as part of a campaign. I did once have two campaigns that used a capital ship. One was a lost battleship and the characters were all fighter pilots. My early groups were heavily into combat. The other was a campaign creating a pocket empire. They started small and just before the conclusion they had a cruiser for a few sessions. Other than that most of my long lasting campaigns take place on ships 200-600tons. As a player (very rare...sadly I have to ref more) I tend to like highly customizable small ships.

It is good however to have stats on the big boys if even to just describe macro situations and give perspective to the small ship.

Mondo