Adding a shuttle to a Starship.

[brionl]

* Classic, Mega, TNE, T4, Mongoose, T5, T20, GURPS, Hero. Did I get them all?

Hmm, I've got a crapload of Hero Games stuff, and a seperate crapload of Traveller stuff, but I've never seen any Hero Traveller stuff. Unless you're talking about a different Hero Games than the Champions guys.

But for the OP, yeah you should get High Guard. There are more options for all types of ships, not just Naval vessels.

 

[Patron Zero]

Perhaps I'm approaching your question in a non-linear fashion but may I ask the configuration of the 200 ton starship your PCs are crewing and is it a 'standard'-stock design ?

The other inquiry I have is about the requested shuttle. does it serve as conveyance for an ATV or simply to haul cargo up-down a gravity well ? Simply put, why drive a Hummer if A Mini-Cooper would suffice.

IMTU, I have a personal preference to a dedicated slip or internal-exterior fitted berthing, this works well for various sized small craft if such share a common hull diameter or like displacement.

 

[AKAramis]

* Classic, Mega, TNE, T4, Mongoose, T5, T20, GURPS, Hero. Did I get them all?

Hmm, I've got a crapload of Hero Games stuff, and a seperate crapload of Traveller stuff, but I've never seen any Hero Traveller stuff. Unless you're talking about a different Hero Games than the Champions guys.

But for the OP, yeah you should get High Guard. There are more options for all types of ships, not just Naval vessels.

Avenger & Comstar Games released HeroTrav. I bought it as 2 PDFs.

 

[Marikir]

Perhaps I'm approaching your question in a non-linear fashion but may I ask the configuration of the 200 ton starship your PCs are crewing and is it a 'standard'-stock design ?

The other inquiry I have is about the requested shuttle. does it serve as conveyance for an ATV or simply to haul cargo up-down a gravity well ? Simply put, why drive a Hummer if A Mini-Cooper would suffice.

IMTU, I have a personal preference to a dedicated slip or internal-exterior fitted berthing, this works well for various sized small craft if such share a common hull diameter or like displacement.

Sorry for the delay. Was sick.

It's a 200 ton former Biologic Research Lab ship (designed by me). They are in the process of purchasing/converting it to a trader/passenger ship. It's a 3 PC crew, so I offered to let them have an NPC that I had made up to learn the character gen rules. This NPC has a Ship's Boat. They seemed to leap at it, and mentioned "bolting that bad boy [onto]" their not-so-new ship, so I'm just trying to figure out the best way to kitbash some rules together since I don't have High Guard. I'm trying to really get my brain into a mode where I can run with whatever option they choose to go with, be it an interior bay, a docking attachment, or strapping it down someway.

 

[GypsyComet]

Simple solution, yes, but it then begs the following question to be answered - why pay for a lanthanum grid on a hull that has no jump drive? Particularly when the vast majority of them will never need that grid.

This is one of the reasons the idea of the hull grid was greeted with such scepticism in the first place. It was the approach by one campaign (that of DGP) that became official (I won't use the word "Canon" for the moment). CT assumed (by all appearances) that the lanthanum coil within the drive itself was projecting the jump field, and that either some tuning and shaping of the projected field was required beforehand or was assumed to "follow the mass" as a normal effect.

For the price being paid for just a hull, a bit of lanthanum tracery is hardly a huge expense, but if you assume it is, then you need to add or subtract some amount for the "ride outside" option vs its absence. It's that simple.

 

[kristof65]

Simple solution, yes, but it then begs the following question to be answered - why pay for a lanthanum grid on a hull that has no jump drive? Particularly when the vast majority of them will never need that grid.

This is one of the reasons the idea of the hull grid was greeted with such scepticism in the first place. It was the approach by one campaign (that of DGP) that became official (I won't use the word "Canon" for the moment). CT assumed (by all appearances) that the lanthanum coil within the drive itself was projecting the jump field, and that either some tuning and shaping of the projected field was required beforehand or was assumed to "follow the mass" as a normal effect.

I stated up front I was partial the DGPs interpretation - IE, the Starship Operators Manual in my original post. I'm not going to debate the coil vs hull grid part, I was merely looking at it from the viewpoint of the SOM - which is hull grid - which, IMO makes for all sorts of interesting complications.

Frankly, I think if you take coil approach, this is a non issue - simply tune the coil for a bigger bubble, and have performance affected appropriately.

Overall there is so much to debate over in Traveller (or any other RPG, for that matter), all one can do when answering a question like this is tell the OP what one does in one's own campaign, and what base assumptions they use. From there, it's up to the questioner to make their own decisions.

 

[Dave Chase]

...
Frankly, I think if you take coil approach, this is a non issue - simply tune the coil for a bigger bubble, and have performance affected appropriately.

Overall there is so much to debate over in Traveller (or any other RPG, for that matter), all one can do when answering a question like this is tell the OP what one does in one's own campaign, and what base assumptions they use. From there, it's up to the questioner to make their own decisions.

In reverse, I agree that the GM and setting should make the difference not the exact rule on exact page of exact publication.

Also, IF you want to stay close to cannon Traveller, you just have to get a bigger coil versus just fine tuning it.

Dave Chase

 

[GypsyComet]

Also, IF you want to stay close to cannon Traveller, you just have to get a bigger coil versus just fine tuning it.

I was assuming the installed jump drive was already big enough, actually, but you are right. If you want to keep performance the same, the drive sitting in engineering will need to be bigger. If you don't mind losing that range, it's all down to "special effects".

 

[Supergamera]

There are enough examples of modular tugs, ore haulers and asteroid hulls scattered throughout the versions to indicate that a lanthanum-grid hull is not the only way to bring a volume of matter into Jump. Disposable external drop thanks can also be carried into Jump, and I doubt they have a special hull.

If you want to do something in the middle, maybe limit the non-base ship size to some percentage of the base ship (50% in your case). I recall at least one example with a "lanthanum cargo net" which was draped around an added mass. You could also require them to attach some sort of field booster/amplifier to the shuttle hull, to direct the contours of the field around it.

 

[Marikir]

As a final note to this question -

The rules for the Docking Clamp found their way into my hands, so I used those. I assumed that the addition of the clamp would extend the bubble as well.


Now, my players just have to deal with the fact that their rated Jump 2 ship suddenly became a rated Jump 1 ship, but I think I'm gonna allow them to "override" the system if they want to attempt to get that Jump 2 back, since they haven't gone over the next tonnage rating point yet. Doing so would impose a negative to their Jump check plus it will consume pretty much all of their fuel if they do that.