Building a Special Arm spaceship

[zero]

Atm I am trying and failing to create a TL 16 Special Arm merchant vessel. My points were to have it as if it was TL 16 constructed and that it be Jump 3 minimum. It should also have been able to pay itself ok with its mortgage and such.

Struggled so much, have I, that I have unearthed my old TL 16 merchant design, the Stubby 2.0 and am now going to use that as a base for my craft, updating the incorrect M-Drive into a Thrust 2 Gravitic Drive and boosting the J-Drive and P-Plant to B-class, whilst removing certain elements I threw in because I had the creds left over :roll:

Anyway, heres my work (in progress)

Stubby 3.0, built on Darrian (TL 16 world).

Hull - TL 12, 100 tons, streamlined. Hull 2, Structure 2. 1,800,000 credits.

TL 13 B-class J-Drive. Jump 2. 15 Tons. 17,000,000 credits.
TL 9 (scrapheap) A-class M-Drive. Thrust 2. 2 tons. 2,200,000 credits.
TL 11 B-class Power-Plant. 7 tons. 12,000,000 credits.

(Total = 24 dtons)

Bridge (Holo-controls, TL 12 Hardened) 10 tons. 725,000 credits
Computer. Model 2 (bis) (scrapheap part) 156,000 credits
Electronics. TL 8 (scrapheap) Standard. 0 credits.

(34 dtons)

Weapon - Hardpoint #1 TL 9 Triple Turret (scrapheap part). 1 ton. 650,000 credits.
TL 10 Particle Beam (High Yield, Long Range) 3,800,000 credits
TL 11 Beam Laser (High Yield, Long Range) 900,000 credits
TL 9 Sand Caster (Resilient) (scrapheap part) 200,000 credits

(35 dtons)

Sand Ammo (x20) 1 ton. 10,000 credits.

(36 dtons)

Fuel. 44 tons. One Jump-4 and two weeks of operation

(80 dtons)

Cargo and Low Berths = 14 dtons
One Stateroom (4 dtons)

(98 dtons)

Extras
Fuel Scoop.
Fuel Processors (2 dtons) 100,000 credits.
Ship's Locker.

Ship Software
Manoeuvre/0
Jump Control/4 400,000 credits.
Library
Intelligent Interface (TL 11) 75 credits.
Agent (TL 12, Rating One) 1,600 credits.
Expert Programs (all TL 12, Rating 2);
(Astrogation, Comms, Engineer, Gunner, Pilot, Sensors) 8,000 x6

This is a ship that I've designed and then redesigned. I have no idea about mortgage payments as I have yet to work all that out.

Like I said, a work in progess. It'll be renamed and may be cooler than this one.

When the Special Arm take it out, it wont be used as a merchant, but rather as a light craft known to be holding Star Triggers, an ancient ship dug up for use in deterrant.

 

[DFW]

B JD in 100t hull gives you Jump 4, not Jump-2

 

[zero]

^ Yeah, I forgot to edit that bit from my old design, it is a Jump-4 craft.

Well, I cant manage what I wanted with a 100 dton vessel, so I will boost size to 200 dtons and make it a Jump 3 ship tomorrow.

Hopefully this will bring more fruitful results and make a ship worthy of the Special Arm to take out and about :roll:

I'm not holding my breath though... it'll still need a frankly huge amount of cargo space just to break even.

 

[rje]

200 tons gives you a lot more wiggle room, I think.

A thought, though. For a Special Arm merchant, perhaps it could be 400 tons.

 

[rust]

I'm not holding my breath though... it'll still need a frankly huge amount of cargo space just to break even.

Ah ... why do you think that the Special Arm has to engage in trade to
pay its bills ? :?

 

[DFW]

I'm not holding my breath though... it'll still need a frankly huge amount of cargo space just to break even.

In the MGT rules, there would be no commerce further than 2 parsecs. You'll have to use real econ to change the Freight tables to something that would allow trade to happen.

 

[zero]

@ rust; the Special Arm characters wont go trading in it, as its an ancient TL 16 merchant vessel, I'm just making sure it would work if it did trade

Plus these guys could make a quick buck doing a little trade on the side, I'm sure :lol:

I'm a lot more confident that it should work at 200 dtons doing some initial calcs, plus the Cargo Hold should be of a substantial size that whatever size a Star Trigger is, it can be held

 

[Solomani666]

If you are designing a TL16 ship, I highly suggest that you start from scratch. (I am currently designing an entire fleet of TL16 ship so you'll have to trust me on this.)

Some notes:

A particle beam in a turret takes up the entire turret.
Why are you using low tech components in a TL16 ship?
How is this even a TL16 ship when nearly every component including the hull is TL12?
You will never pay off a mortgage of a 100 ton vessel by trade.
The Special Arm would never conduct common 'trade' with a TL16 ship.

Half of your critical systems are cobbled together from a scrap heap.

I know this is harsh but...
This piece of scrap would probably wind up miss-jumping into one of its own systems and cause a second Darrian Maghiz.

You really need to rethink this one over and start from scratch and not scrap.

.

 

[locarno24]

A little harsh, but I have to agree with the "why scrap?" query.

You will never pay off a mortgage of a 100 ton vessel by trade.
The Special Arm would never conduct common 'trade' with a TL16 ship.

I doubt it'd 'trade' per se. But Special Arm may well have a mission which is some variation on 'Take this cargo here. Don't allow it to be searched or stopped, don't ask what's in it.", so a decent sized cargo bay is good.

 

[alex_greene]

That's the thing about designing merchants. They are built for huge cargo spaces.

It doesn't mean that what rides inside those merchants must necessarily be cargo. Just something very, very big ...

 

[zero]

The final design will probably shy from particle beams, going with lasers instead.

The components are cheap lower tech ones because of the immense costs of TL 16 equipment.

I am now designing around a 200+ dton hull, due to needing space for the cargo hold.

The Special Arm wont be trading in this ship, the backstory is its a pre-Maghiz Free Trader vessel used by the present Special Arm on missions and the cargo hold houses Star Triggers.

I am starting from scratch btw (now with a minimum J-4 craft), hopefully finding the TL 16 gear will be paid off ok with a larger craft with larger cargo hold.

 

[zero]

Ok, after some annoying issues with increasing dtonnage and credits going too steep, Ive started over (again).

This time I have made a basic ship profile at TL 10-14 bits in a 300 dton hull. There is one main armament, a Railgun Barbette, and it is joined with a sandcaster turret, that leaves an empty hardpoint for later edits.

My plan is to check the overall cost of this ship, then increase TLs of the the initial parts until the profit margin wont allow anymore.

This will mean that the ship wont be universally TL 16, but will have very high-tech parts. Lowest current TL is 10 this time around.

This has been a chore but I realise when this ship is complete, it'll be amazing :lol:
Ive been custom building it around the crew needed with thought going into all its facets and how it would interact with other ships (thus it holds a TL 10 Railgun Barbette in its current profile which I hope to make higher tech).

Hopefully I will have some more news tommorrow. Obviously when complete I will post the statblock up for free usage

 

[TC]

So......this was a lower than common tech ship that escaped with the turkic fleet to Daryen and somehow survived till today? Zero, TL10 ships hulls have a lifetime of decades.........TL16 measure in millennia. Stop trying to build it on a shoestring, it won't work. Just use the RAW for Darrian TL16 ships. Notice all the surviving Per-Meghiz ships are TL16 examples? There is a reason for that my friend.

 

[alex_greene]

Forget about the credits cost, mortgage cost or any of that.

Your TL 16 pre-Maghiz craft is a wonder of the age: effectively an Artifact, though not one built by Ancients.

So go overboard. Have fun, and never mind the credits cost. These things are found items, already built, and those who'd built them are long dead.

Well, when I say that ... TL 16 cold berths are also wonders ...

 

[zero]

I gave up on it in that regard, I found it impossible to make a TL 16 J3 ship that could function as a successful merchant based on monthly costs.
I could have just built a TL 16 ship with no limits but then I needed a limit or I'd have the players going round in some huge capital ship, if you know what I mean.

Instead, I thought - "Is going round in a TL 16 merchant vessel awesome?" - not really if its demilitarised. What if they get into a space battle?

Instead, I just made up a militarised Nalumb Far Trader. Its called "Ra'ar" (pronounced Ray-Arr) and ignoring cost, I wanted to make a ship that was a beast underneath the plain-looking hood

So I boosted its M-Drive (to F-class - Thrust 3, the Engineering deck has the room for the extra 6dtons), Electronics (to Advanced - makes the bridge a tighter squeeze but its a nice fit), Added four Railgun Barbettes (TL 12 versions) and an extra 6 dtons in Fuel Processing. Theres also an Armoury in there :lol:

Playing with adding Stealth to the hull, just to be sure :lol:

All the dtonnage is removed from the cargo hold stat-block-wise (Cargo Hold now holds 89.5 dtons over the Command and Engineering decks - with some [fake] Star Triggers, natch), so some cargo bay room is taken for things like the Barbettes, with one of the four even being on the 3rd Engineering deck... so theyre ready for whenever things get bad.

So when my Darrian Special Arm crew are doing their special black op missions and run into trouble (because aside from the railguns, theyre going to look like a normal Nalumb), theyre going to be just fine :wink:

 

[alex_greene]

Instead, I thought - "Is going round in a TL 16 merchant vessel awesome?" - not really if its demilitarised. What if they get into a space battle?

They get the hell out, fast. The ship's more valuable than the entire cargo plus players.

Thing about a ship like that is that due to its TL 16 components just about every Tom, Dick and Gvozzhdar will want to get their primary manipulators on all its shiny tech. Strip it down, reverse engineer the tech, get a technological leg up on the Impies, Zhodani and just about anybody else.

And if it looks as if it was designed to carry Star Triggers or Star Trigger components, they will pursue the ship without regard to its cost - even if it was not, at present, carrying Star Triggers: a sufficiently observant sophont could deduce as many things about the Trigger by examining voids and positioning of empty brackets and sockets for power and control feeds.

So I doubt that the ship would be entirely disarmed. Or, in truth, that the Confederation would let it out of their sights very much.

 

[BFalcon]

Instead, I thought - "Is going round in a TL 16 merchant vessel awesome?" - not really if its demilitarised. What if they get into a space battle?

They get the hell out, fast. The ship's more valuable than the entire cargo plus players.

Thing about a ship like that is that due to its TL 16 components just about every Tom, Dick and Gvozzhdar will want to get their primary manipulators on all its shiny tech. Strip it down, reverse engineer the tech, get a technological leg up on the Impies, Zhodani and just about anybody else.

And if it looks as if it was designed to carry Star Triggers or Star Trigger components, they will pursue the ship without regard to its cost - even if it was not, at present, carrying Star Triggers: a sufficiently observant sophont could deduce as many things about the Trigger by examining voids and positioning of empty brackets and sockets for power and control feeds.

So I doubt that the ship would be entirely disarmed. Or, in truth, that the Confederation would let it out of their sights very much.

That's actually a very good point... it's a bit like the US Navy developing their brand-spanking-new laser-armed anti-missile frigate (complete with latest computer and tracking/targetting tech) and then sending it on a lone patrol of the waters off China and North Korea and then wondering why they're chasing it down... the technological advancement that the ship represents is just too much to worry about the political repercussions, unless it will cause an all-out war... anything less will be hugely advantageous in the long run... and the diplomats can keep things from blowing up too heavily in the short term (that's why they're there, after all)...

Edit: Not to mention all the OTHER powers (probably including allies) who'd be trying to get their hands on that tech (one way or the other) while blaming any illegal methods on a suitable scapegoat...

 

[77thPatron]

Your best bet is to make this less of a merchant and more of a registered diplomatic courier ship, with nominal cover transporting security cargo and personnel to and fro Embassies and Consulates.

 

[BFalcon]

Your best bet is to make this less of a merchant and more of a registered diplomatic courier ship, with nominal cover transporting security cargo and personnel to and fro Embassies and Consulates.

Good plan actually - although they'll still need to be careful not to let on about the high tech unless they need to (I suspect people will suspect, but that won't be enough for them to risk a diplomatic incident). However, catching the ship in a neutral system with no other ships in range of communications would still mean that they could be targetted by other powers wanting the tech - after all, ships disappear in misjumps all the time - nothing to stop them pirating the ship, getting it to either a larger ship to stow it away on-board or to a base for a reshape before shipping it back to be researched... or stripping it and sending the refitted hull into an intentional misjump in the direction of the Claw...

Best to be very quiet about it and make it look scruffy...

Probably the best way to keep your players paranoid, come to think of it... the rest of the galaxy WILL be out to get you if they find out... and being a diplomatic ship for the Darrians, they'll already suspect... :lol:

 

[Solomani666]

You will never pay off a mortgage of a 100 ton vessel by trade.
The Special Arm would never conduct common 'trade' with a TL16 ship.

I doubt it'd 'trade' per se. But Special Arm may well have a mission which is some variation on 'Take this cargo here. Don't allow it to be searched or stopped, don't ask what's in it.", so a decent sized cargo bay is good.

True.
That would be a courier mission.
That is why I specified common trade.

But it would still never be done with an actual Star trigger on board or any ship that was TL16 if the receiving party were not Darrian.

.