epicenter00
SOC-13
My personal theory is that it's a side-effect of a GDW's "Age of Sail" mentality that is rife throughout Traveller. Or rather: while you're asking about air/raft roofs, why do Marines train with cutlasses to appreciable duelling levels? While grognards and people who think that Traveller is perfect to the point of being a subtitute religion might come up with all sorts of justifications, the real reason again (IMO) is that Traveller's designers were thinking of swashbuckler serials and movies and so on (Star Wars could arguably be compared to the same so saying it was inspired by lightsabers is the same thing).
So why are they open-topped?
The clue in the term "raft" in the name. Why is it a raft? An air/raft really has next to nothing to do with a raft. So why this weird conglomeration between air and raft? It's a raft that flies in the air. Air/raft.
Really, they're the grav version of those away boats used on sailing vessels that the captains in the frock coats and funny Napoleon hats would order lowered in the water after peering at shore through a brass eyepiece, the boat filled with various one-eyed jacks with striped horizontally shirts. They're used for getting from the ship to shore and can be pressed into duty as exploring rivers and estuaries and so on. They were designed for trips of a duration measured in minutes, or at worst, hours. Most of them don't have roofs or cabins because they weren't intended to be used in extreme circumstances and back then it was man's navy and what sailor isn't afraid to get a little wet from a rainstorm or fog getting to the ship? If conditions were too bad, they'd just wait.
Since it had to work to reach a ship in orbit, they let the air/raft fly into orbit and the passengers in the future man's navy would just tough it out wearing space suits (striped, presumably) and of course it could make a slow re-entry unassisted. Thus it fulfills the idea of a ship's away boat.
I don't think GDW put any more thought into it than that.
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If you want to really think about something strange, why do these ships have air/rafts at all? You have to realize that ships in Traveller are basically these eterna-powered reactors (since fuel is mostly to do jumps, not to fuel the reactor) held aloft and moved about by magical plates powered by the reactor and CT ships are notoriously low-maintenance. So essentially any ship in Traveller can hover at any height, if not forever, at least for weeks at a time, probably months, perhaps even years. You can sidle your Scout ship anywhere, because magic plates have no burning exhaust or whatever to harm stuff nearby - in fact, it's probably safer not to land your ship ever, even if you just hover it a few centimeters over the ground.
So why get out of the ship into an air/raft? Exploring exploring new worlds/uncertain places? Nu-uh.
So I think using an air/raft on worlds like that is pretty ill-advised already.
So really, the only time you'd be taking the air/raft when you're on a civilized world, doinking about. Then you can split up the party (maybe some people want to hit bars, others want to go watch opera, while a few unlucky beings might have to go buy supplies), you don't have to worry about local microbes (chances are if there's anything like that, it's already posted and you've taken your boosters), and most importantly - after weeks or months cooped up in that ship, you can fly with the wind in hair/feather/scales/pedipalps under the sun and sky - finally! Of course, chicks dig convertibles too.
So why are they open-topped?
The clue in the term "raft" in the name. Why is it a raft? An air/raft really has next to nothing to do with a raft. So why this weird conglomeration between air and raft? It's a raft that flies in the air. Air/raft.
Really, they're the grav version of those away boats used on sailing vessels that the captains in the frock coats and funny Napoleon hats would order lowered in the water after peering at shore through a brass eyepiece, the boat filled with various one-eyed jacks with striped horizontally shirts. They're used for getting from the ship to shore and can be pressed into duty as exploring rivers and estuaries and so on. They were designed for trips of a duration measured in minutes, or at worst, hours. Most of them don't have roofs or cabins because they weren't intended to be used in extreme circumstances and back then it was man's navy and what sailor isn't afraid to get a little wet from a rainstorm or fog getting to the ship? If conditions were too bad, they'd just wait.
Since it had to work to reach a ship in orbit, they let the air/raft fly into orbit and the passengers in the future man's navy would just tough it out wearing space suits (striped, presumably) and of course it could make a slow re-entry unassisted. Thus it fulfills the idea of a ship's away boat.
I don't think GDW put any more thought into it than that.
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If you want to really think about something strange, why do these ships have air/rafts at all? You have to realize that ships in Traveller are basically these eterna-powered reactors (since fuel is mostly to do jumps, not to fuel the reactor) held aloft and moved about by magical plates powered by the reactor and CT ships are notoriously low-maintenance. So essentially any ship in Traveller can hover at any height, if not forever, at least for weeks at a time, probably months, perhaps even years. You can sidle your Scout ship anywhere, because magic plates have no burning exhaust or whatever to harm stuff nearby - in fact, it's probably safer not to land your ship ever, even if you just hover it a few centimeters over the ground.
So why get out of the ship into an air/raft? Exploring exploring new worlds/uncertain places? Nu-uh.
- The Scout ship is much more resistant to gunfire and similar attack than the Air/raft. We've already concluded the ship can pretty much go anywhere that an air/raft can go and faster.
- The Scout ship has big laser weapons. The air/raft has nothing.
- Sending out an air/raft on an uncertain, quite possibly hazardous world with part of the crew while the rest stay in the ship is every bit as ill-advised and idiotic as the teenagers splitting up when exploring that old house that is potentially haunted or has a supernatural serial killer in it. Keep everyone together where it's safe in the big armored ship. Not in a big armored ship and a tin can.
- "But taking the air/raft means the ship is safe." Buhwhat? So you're going to load the crew into the air/raft and get it and the crew destroyed by a rocket launcher? Yeah, at least that Scout ship is safe. Pity there's nobody alive to fly it now. That's the kind of mentality that obviously was worked into the survival rolls for Scouts. I guess the GAO of the Imperium will be grateful your thoughts were so focused on protecting valuable property instead of lives.
- "The air/raft will go where the ship can't." Like where? I'd already be mighty suspicious if a world was riddled with caves just large enough for an air/raft but not the Scout ship. Get the ship as close as you can get and have it hover there (remember, it can station-keep pretty much forever - over oceans, 1000m in the air, 500m under water, and hovering in mid-air over that chasm - if some climate problem is enough to destroy the ship, I think squishy crew in their spacesuits have bigger problems than their ship getting damage). The guys and gals can check things out using grav belts or on foot.
So I think using an air/raft on worlds like that is pretty ill-advised already.
So really, the only time you'd be taking the air/raft when you're on a civilized world, doinking about. Then you can split up the party (maybe some people want to hit bars, others want to go watch opera, while a few unlucky beings might have to go buy supplies), you don't have to worry about local microbes (chances are if there's anything like that, it's already posted and you've taken your boosters), and most importantly - after weeks or months cooped up in that ship, you can fly with the wind in hair/feather/scales/pedipalps under the sun and sky - finally! Of course, chicks dig convertibles too.
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(and for decades following hoped for a resurrection of the show... )
