But what does <insert component here> actually do?

[metlk]

So I'm short of functioning brain cells and all I can do is virtually page through Adventure Class ships reading descriptions (not even looking for mistakes) and noticing things that make me go *huh*:

1) Cargo cranes and loading belts: some ships have them, some don't; some even have both. But I don't know of a game mechanic (other than UNREP) that deals with the time it takes to move cargo on or off ships. The latent bean counter in me wouldn't ever buy a cargo crane (at a minimum of 3 tons and MCr1 per ton), and even a loading belt (eating 1 ton and just a little cost) is questionable if the work of 10 or 25 crewmembers isn't even defined. So some sort of mechanic should at least optionally cover cargo handling times. Yeah, I can think of some clever adventuring reasons to have the crane, but those wouldn't be reasons for a standard spec. Same goes for those Empress Marava Cargo Airlocks.

2) Common Area and crew space allocation in general. I can't remember if I typed something here about this or not, but there ought to be some direct Crew Efficiency, Morale, and Fatigue effects of too little or even of superior space allocation. Some of that is tossed around in varying ancillary texts, but they aren't in any way tied to tons/crew allocated to comfort. Crew Efficiency and Morale are more for NPCs, but Fatigue would cover Travellers as well and tie into Efficiency with DMs. There is a whole deal with the Naval Campaign stuff and Deepnight that builds that mechanic. So bonuses or penalties based on allocated space? Otherwise, the evil accountant would pack them in with double occupancy.

3) Anyone have anything else that fits in the "What's that actually do for me" category? I mean, you can say that about a theatre or swimming pool (or bowling alley?) but that's sort of a subset of point #2 (in addition to any sort of DM+1 on getting high passengers effect).

1. I can definitely come up with some uses for the crane when doing activities that aren't exactly above-board, but I'm not sure they really add anything that couldn't just be hand-waved in those rare instances where it might be needed.

2. Common area is definitely vague and I would prefer it have something more tangible for it. Even further into High Guard it also mentions a "Gaming Space" which goes even further than the common area into the "why do I need this" category.

3. If we jump into the Supply Catalog, I would start with the Autolaundry. In fact, most of the items in the "Home Comforts" section are completely pointless from a gameplay sense of purpose. I don't think I've ever played an rpg where I wanted to know how I washed my clothes and fed my pet sloth.

 

[Terry Mixon]

2. Common area is definitely vague and I would prefer it have something more tangible for it. Even further into High Guard it also mentions a "Gaming Space" which goes even further than the common area into the "why do I need this" category.

The spreadsheet in these forums for building ships says 1/4 the stateroom size for the common area achieves good morale. I'm curious what size would be good for excellent morale. Make the already good common room half again larger? Twice the size? Some less nebulous number?

 

[ottarrus]

So I'm short of functioning brain cells and all I can do is virtually page through Adventure Class ships reading descriptions (not even looking for mistakes) and noticing things that make me go *huh*:

1) Cargo cranes and loading belts: some ships have them, some don't; some even have both. But I don't know of a game mechanic (other than UNREP) that deals with the time it takes to move cargo on or off ships. The latent bean counter in me wouldn't ever buy a cargo crane (at a minimum of 3 tons and MCr1 per ton), and even a loading belt (eating 1 ton and just a little cost) is questionable if the work of 10 or 25 crewmembers isn't even defined. So some sort of mechanic should at least optionally cover cargo handling times. Yeah, I can think of some clever adventuring reasons to have the crane, but those wouldn't be reasons for a standard spec. Same goes for those Empress Marava Cargo Airlocks.

2) Common Area and crew space allocation in general. I can't remember if I typed something here about this or not, but there ought to be some direct Crew Efficiency, Morale, and Fatigue effects of too little or even of superior space allocation. Some of that is tossed around in varying ancillary texts, but they aren't in any way tied to tons/crew allocated to comfort. Crew Efficiency and Morale are more for NPCs, but Fatigue would cover Travellers as well and tie into Efficiency with DMs. There is a whole deal with the Naval Campaign stuff and Deepnight that builds that mechanic. So bonuses or penalties based on allocated space? Otherwise, the evil accountant would pack them in with double occupancy.

3) Anyone have anything else that fits in the "What's that actually do for me" category? I mean, you can say that about a theatre or swimming pool (or bowling alley?) but that's sort of a subset of point #2 (in addition to any sort of DM+1 on getting high passengers effect).

OK, here are some IMTUs for your questions...

1. Cargo handling. Without cranes, belts, or 'bots, the crew has to hand-bomb the cargo out of the bay themselves or hire stevedores to do it. Now, there isn't any independent free trader captain in space [Charted or otherwise] who completely trusts 'locals' inside their ships. [note: Okay, the Zhodani do, but they're weird anyway] Human stevedores are all thieves and robots are guaranteed to damage the ship. So it just makes sense to have equipment to put the cargo on the tarmac.

2. I grant you that crew space is an under-discussed issue, or series of issues. Here are some of mine:
- The crew lounge is a WORK space. It has posters, grease stains, dirty caff cups, etc. all over it. The crew lounge is where the crew can relax, complain, discuss, gripe, and otherwise not have to deal with passengers. Smooshing the crew and passenger spaces together is NOT the way to get repeat High Passenger traffic.
- Troops assigned aboard a ship need as much room to live as the spacehands do. I'm not talking about the 'cargo' troops that are dropped off at their destination. I'm talking about the troops who are part of the ship's normal complement... the troops who man some of the guns, help with the maintenance, are part of the damage control parties, form the landing parties, etc. They require room to train, get briefed, do maintenance, etc. and should not be stacked in 'barracks' like cordwood.
- The old 2300 had a very valuable ship statistic called Crew Quality. Crew with more tolerable living working arrangements have a higher crew quality than those who don't. This is important because some ship builds are purposely 'tight', like a naval SSN, and some ships are positively luxury liners in comparison like full sized CVN carriers.
- If you choose to institute a CQ rating, then a big bonus should go to those ships that equip an actual galley to make fresh food. Ask any service member and they'll tell you that fresh food is better than 'canned' every single time.

3. Much of this stuff is detailed in the excellent Starship Operator's Manual, but some of what I discuss above is not.

 

[Vormaerin]

In T5, you want about 5 dtons per crewman between quarters and crew common areas. That'll crew comfort high enough to avoid problems in a normal operating situation.

As mentioned in the post above, 2300 has some nice rules about this too.

The only efforts on this score I recall in MgT2e were those in Deepnight, designed around long journeys so not really going to make a difference in a typical campaign. Islands in the Rift has a stress mechanic, but nothing about the comfort of the ship affects that and its kind of undercooked imho anyway. I assume it doesn't address the ship quality issue because the adventure assumes you are on the ship the adventure is about, so it doesn't try to make a universal mechanic.

 

[ottarrus]

In T5, you want about 5 dtons per crewman between quarters and crew common areas. That'll crew comfort high enough to avoid problems in a normal operating situation.

As mentioned in the post above, 2300 has some nice rules about this too.

The only efforts on this score I recall in MgT2e were those in Deepnight, designed around long journeys so not really going to make a difference in a typical campaign. Islands in the Rift has a stress mechanic, but nothing about the comfort of the ship affects that and its kind of undercooked imho anyway. I assume it doesn't address the ship quality issue because the adventure assumes you are on the ship the adventure is about, so it doesn't try to make a universal mechanic.

Yes, but then we come to the deck plan.
Look, there are a lot of gearheads out there that love fiddling with the tonnage. That's awesome and it's fun. It has added some really interesting and useful ideas to the game in the years since LBB High Guard came out.
But from an at-the-table practical standpoint, deck plans are just as important as the math for most players. On quite a few of these deck plans ALL the common area space is jammed into one spot. I'm not talking about capital ships here, I'm speaking of the 'Adventure-class' under 1000 tons ships that most players can expect to buy. There are a lot of deck plans out there where passenger spaces and crew spaces are mixed together like cake mix and all the 'common areas' are in one spot. Not only is this lousy for ship security, but no passenger is gonna spend 10k a week to be served meals on a table that had disassembled ship parts on it two days ago. And no crew wants to be forced to be on their very best behavior from the instant they leave their stateroom door to the instant they return to it... ESPECIALLY if they're just heading aft for a watch in the engine room.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Yes, but then we come to the deck plan.
Look, there are a lot of gearheads out there that love fiddling with the tonnage. That's awesome and it's fun. It has added some really interesting and useful ideas to the game in the years since LBB High Guard came out.
But from an at-the-table practical standpoint, deck plans are just as important as the math for most players. On quite a few of these deck plans ALL the common area space is jammed into one spot. I'm not talking about capital ships here, I'm speaking of the 'Adventure-class' under 1000 tons ships that most players can expect to buy. There are a lot of deck plans out there where passenger spaces and crew spaces are mixed together like cake mix and all the 'common areas' are in one spot. Not only is this lousy for ship security, but no passenger is gonna spend 10k a week to be served meals on a table that had disassembled ship parts on it two days ago. And no crew wants to be forced to be on their very best behavior from the instant they leave their stateroom door to the instant they return to it... ESPECIALLY if they're just heading aft for a watch in the engine room.

This. I love deck plans and I'd like to know where the margin is for excellent morale so I can design something like that.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes, but then we come to the deck plan.
Look, there are a lot of gearheads out there that love fiddling with the tonnage. That's awesome and it's fun. It has added some really interesting and useful ideas to the game in the years since LBB High Guard came out.
But from an at-the-table practical standpoint, deck plans are just as important as the math for most players. On quite a few of these deck plans ALL the common area space is jammed into one spot. I'm not talking about capital ships here, I'm speaking of the 'Adventure-class' under 1000 tons ships that most players can expect to buy. There are a lot of deck plans out there where passenger spaces and crew spaces are mixed together like cake mix and all the 'common areas' are in one spot. Not only is this lousy for ship security, but no passenger is gonna spend 10k a week to be served meals on a table that had disassembled ship parts on it two days ago. And no crew wants to be forced to be on their very best behavior from the instant they leave their stateroom door to the instant they return to it... ESPECIALLY if they're just heading aft for a watch in the engine room.

Obviously, the deckplans aren't designed with mechanics that don't exist in mind. If you want to use the existing deckplans, you probably don't want to invent new mechanics for crew comfort, cargo loading, and other things that they aren't designed for.

 

[Geir]

Speaking of deck plans.... I'd like to see some enforcement of making docking spaces actually fit the vehicle involved (this also speaks to the question of the shape of cutter modules in another thread,... they look more like Eagle modules than cutter modules... not that that's a bad thing)

Crew comfort can be as simple as totaling up the number of tons of staterooms and common area and dividing by crew, but some spaces (wet bar, gourmet dining room, maybe even that auto-laundry from the CSC), should count for extra points.

But the more I thought about it, the more complicated it got in my head. Most ships should really have two or more ratings: At the simplest 1) crew and 2) passengers. Or 1) officers, 2) enlisted, 3) troops with common space and amenities divided by crew segment (and who gets the training facilities??). And then factor in the 'expectations' - apparently Sword Worlders don't mind crowding and I've always assumed some sort of privacy fetish for the Vilani, since... try booking a single room on a cruise ship some time - you're gonna pay extra. And submariners at least used to tolerate hot-bunking (is that still a thing?). Also that T5 metric doesn't take into account timing, except 'after 7 days', where the crew fatigue metric Martin does about three different ways in three different books (call it an evolution) does.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yeah. It quickly spirals into a substantial amount of new mechanics. If you are going to track PC stress, you need a mechanic for handling that stress that isn't just an END check, imho. Obviously, the companion has the Sanity stat that could be repurposed for that. But I don't think that has any ties into Chargen, which is the same issue with the other stats in the Companion.

And, ultimately, I'm not sure what benefit it brings to the table. It felt like the point in Islands in the Rift was just to make sure the PCs don't use the ship's extended range to just bypass the bad guys and finish the job. Which I don't consider a valid reason. Deepnight's a different issue. But trying to downsize that to a tramp freighter?

And, IRL, sailors have travelled long periods of time unable to get off the ship. We could say space ships are worse than submarines, but I kind of have my doubts about that.

I have the same issue with cargo unloading. I can see uses for it, but they are pretty niche and I don't know that redoing the ship data sheets and floor plans over it is worth the cost. If you are going to reduce cargo space so the ship can have gantries and forklifts, you'll need to increase the value of freight if you want those freighters to make them viable as freighters. Or getting into more pseudo science about how much anti grav doubles as TK. Most of them struggle to make a profit as it is. I tend to go with "if its a freighter, it's got the stuff to unload efficiently and if its not, it's a fancy pallet jack.

 

[Seffix]

In my games...

1) Ramps and cranes are vital pieces of sharship architecture for use when creative tactics are needed for some sort of scuffle or shenanigans. They may also need repair at inconvenient times to remind the Travellers that the ship needs maintenance.
2) Crew space and its many custom variations exist to allow the Travellers to display their personalities and quirks -- and in case you need a new place for a smaller scuffle or shenanigans.

I expect your milage (parsectage?) to vary.

 

[Geir]

I tend to go with "if its a freighter, it's got the stuff to unload efficiently and if its not, it's a fancy pallet jack.

Right, so I'd rather save the 3 tons and spend the MCr 3 on a triple turret with pulse lasers and an 'expansion slot' to be names later.

 

[ottarrus]

So, the deck plan discussion is yet another interruption of the segue to the digression so I'll start another topic for that.
Here's the link:

Deck Plan Commonality with HG Statistics

This is taking the deck plan discussion from @Geir 's topic of "But What Does Do?" There is often a disconnect between the practical at-the-table referees and players and the gearheads who love to design ships. That disconnect is deck plans. Players LOVE deck plans exactly like they love the...

forum.mongoosepublishing.com

 

[Condottiere]

Logistics have got to be completely or partly automated, by then.

But due to the occasional weird costs, you'd have to study what would be the most cost efficient method to move cargo, in Chartered Space.

It may turn out to be this:

 

[MasterGwydion]

The spreadsheet in these forums for building ships says 1/4 the stateroom size for the common area achieves good morale. I'm curious what size would be good for excellent morale. Make the already good common room half again larger? Twice the size? Some less nebulous number?

I increase the cost of the Staterooms and the cost of the stateroom's lifesupport to represent being designed with higher Standards of Living.

It will not help attract better passengers (high passage), but it will make the crew happier. It may give you a +1 to find middle passage passengers though.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Yes, but then we come to the deck plan.
Look, there are a lot of gearheads out there that love fiddling with the tonnage. That's awesome and it's fun. It has added some really interesting and useful ideas to the game in the years since LBB High Guard came out.
But from an at-the-table practical standpoint, deck plans are just as important as the math for most players. On quite a few of these deck plans ALL the common area space is jammed into one spot. I'm not talking about capital ships here, I'm speaking of the 'Adventure-class' under 1000 tons ships that most players can expect to buy. There are a lot of deck plans out there where passenger spaces and crew spaces are mixed together like cake mix and all the 'common areas' are in one spot. Not only is this lousy for ship security, but no passenger is gonna spend 10k a week to be served meals on a table that had disassembled ship parts on it two days ago. And no crew wants to be forced to be on their very best behavior from the instant they leave their stateroom door to the instant they return to it... ESPECIALLY if they're just heading aft for a watch in the engine room.

This wasn't a problem for the crew of the Serenity.

 

[swordtart]

There is plenty of equipment that provides no real in game benefit but is there for variety or quality of life (and CSC has a chapter devoted to it).

As for common space the SS Great Britain has examples of what steerage class was like in the age of steam. 6 people in a 2x2x2metre compartment. with maybe 1m companionway between compartments no fresher (but you could poop over the side) and bathe in the sea, shared messing. This was for months of voyaging. Even first class cabins were tiny (but the common space was admittedly much larger). They didn't have much in the way of portable entertainment either so that common space was more important for just passing the time with other passengers.

Given even the most cramped accommodation (barracks) are 14 cubic metres per person (so almost twice the space allocated to SIX people), they are pretty spacious by comparison and you only need endure it for a week or two. Now you could sat that some of that space is access, and some of it life support, but even so. Standard accommodation at 56 cubic metres per person is huuuuuge.

You could also look at modern cruise ship cabins for comparison or even houses in some parts of the world (e.g. Japan). Look at IKEA example bedsit room layouts for how not much space could be pretty comfortable if you used it efficiently (and that ignores sonic clothes cleaners and autochefs that are pretty common in traveller).

Probably the best modern comparator would be a nuclear sub. People on there are confined for months at a time and they have to carry all their life support with them. I doubt they get 14 cubic metres each, I think the captains cabin is 8ft square (2.4m) and probably less than 8ft headroom. That means the captain gets 1 DTon.

You could probably do a long corridor for exercise, but that is about it for necessary common space.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I’m hopeful that future updates will better quantify comfort levels aboard ship. Maybe make them all contribute to better income for the merchant ships and liners.

 

[agentwigggles]

POD has a table for looting a ship, and how long it takes based on the equipment the victim ship has.

 

[ottarrus]

OK, deck plans....
There are four sources of information for players and referees about Traveller ships, or rather, Traveller Adventure-class ships:
1. The ship statistic sheet;
2. The flavor text describing said ship;
3. The deck plans;
4. And the art showing the interior/exterior look of the ship.
Of these, the average Traveller PC is attracted by the artwork, reads the flavor text and looks at the deck plan. Traveller gearhead designers like the stat sheet where the math works out, but at the end of the day it is the art where the sensibilities of a setting are imparted to players. I agree that the math has to work out as well, but that's mostly referee information.
This is the reason why I maintain that the artwork, the deck plan, the flavor text AND the stat sheet must accurately depict the same features.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I just want to chip in with 'cargo cranes and loading belts are pointless when gravitics are available'. Standard gravitics are in common usage at TL 9; by TL 10 they can be expected to be pervasive. If the cargo deck is the same width as the loading / unloading door, then a simple 0.025 G of appropriately angled artificially-oriented gravity will clear the entire cargo bay in seconds -- and (without specific clarification & mechanics to the contrary) that absolutely should be standard procedure. I tend to think of cargo-handling equipment as a simple tool; a simple force multiplier -- at TL 4 it takes a person a 'full shift' to move one dTon of bulk 'product' 3m horizontally; at each higher TL, the tools available make that time shorter and the distance moved longer.

Also, if you are calculating for officer / crew / ships-troops / passenger comfort and sanity, then Biosphere should count. For that matter, 'Life Support' costs and 'Supply Points' need some attention. Do space station 'Residential Zones' require life support supplies (and the monthly costs for people AND / or staterooms), or are they self sufficient as long a power is supplied? This is super important for space-habitats, O'Neill cylinders, and gargantuan highports like the one at Mora. Do military ships need the same number of 'Supply Points' every day if they have Biosphere completely negating 'Life support costs' for every person on board? What is required to relieve the need for 'life support costs' for empty staterooms? Does turning off LS in the stateroom suffice, or does it just reduce costs -- or have no effect at all on costs?