Charted Space Capital Warships are under gunned.

[tytalan]

So here the thing it makes no sense for every enlisted crew member in a warship to share a stateroom. That’s just not how it’s done in real life and ignores the privilege of rank. No crew quarters on a warship should look something like thins.
E0-E2 would be in Barracks (Traveller starts rank at E0 instead of E1) this is the lion share of the crew
E3-E5 Double Stateroom (this is senior NCOs )
E6+ Single Stateroom (generally there’s only one of Bosun on a ship )
O1-O3 Double Staterooms (Junior Officers)
O4 & O5 Single Staterooms (Senior Officers)
O6 Single High Stateroom (only in cases of none combat officers)
Exceptions: The Captain no mater what his rank is will always have a Single Stateroom in adventure class Warships this will usually be a Mid but in larger ships it will be a High or even Luxury, Flag Officer will always have a Single Stateroom the same as the Captain’s though in larger ships they will usually have completely separate facilities with various luxuries for them and their Staff. The CAG on a Carrier will usually have the same quarters at the Captain, the commander of the ships marines will usually have a Quarter one size smaller than the Captain’s (Marines see Naval personnel as Sissies so this is tradition ) except the Ground Troops Commander on a planetary Assault Ship with have Quarters equal to the Captain’s or a Flag Officer depending on the size of the Troop contingent.

How does this make the Ships under gunned you ask? Simple the current system waste a ton of tonnage for crew that shouldn’t have staterooms but instead should be in Barracks, tonnage which could be better used for other things specifically weapons and shields/Armor. If you apply this more realistic Quarters Rules on Military ships you can also easily get a full Military crew requirement on a adventure class military ship instead of the civilian complement (with possible added Marines) that most of these ship designs show.

This is just another case of having the right tools (in this case Barracks) but still doing things the way they were done in CT, in some cases it only makes sense to update things.

 

[Condottiere]

Number of weapon systems you can stuff on a starwarship us based on how many hundred tonne blocks it has.

If they're undergunned, they just didn't use enough bays.

 

[tytalan]

Number of weapon systems you can stuff on a starwarship us based on how many hundred tonne blocks it has.

If they're undergunned, they just didn't use enough bays.

Actually the tonnage they use for crew is the greatest limiting factor. I recently redid a few of the capital ships designs and just by changing the crew quarters as I pointed out increased availability tonnage by almost a quarter in most cases. Also almost all capital ships do not use more than a fifth of available Hard Points which is what I think you’re talking about.

For example a Plankwell class Dreadnought barely uses a 1000 of it’s Available 2000 Hard Points

 

[Condottiere]

Long ago figured out that you can stack the crew at least three high in two squares.

Sticking point turned out to be life support, that can't be separated from accommodations.

 

[tytalan]

Long ago figured out that you can stack the crew at least three high in two squares.

Sticking point turned out to be life support, that can't be separated from accommodations.

Barracks are already a official system you just using them for enlisted crew as well as marines (1 person per dt life support included)

“ BARRACKS
Ships designed to carry large numbers of troops tend to use barracks instead of staterooms. A barracks may only be used to carry soldiers, basic passengers or other personnel who will put up with cramped conditions.” HG 2022 pg 50

 

[Condottiere]

No fresher.

 

[tytalan]

No fresher.

Yes there is it literally says it’s designed to carry personal like troops community freshers are a part of the common areas. Personal Fresher no but than that part of Rank has its Privileges so those that have rank have private Freshers

 

[GypsyComet]

For example a Plankwell class Dreadnought barely uses a 1000 of it’s Available 2000 Hard Points

That may be a translation issue. Prior editions of Traveller used ten hard points for bays and a variable number for spinals, while Mongoose requires much lower hard point assignment. If the Mongoose version of the Plankwell was designed to match the older version, quite a few of the hard points would go unused.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Crew quarters had to be staterooms because that is how you allocated life support for a ship. Originally one stateroom, 4 tons per person.

Then the rules were changed to double occupancy is almost standard, so only 2 tons are needed per person.

Final iteration was the small craft stateroom with double occupancy and 1 ton per person.

What I think should happen in Traveller ship design:

the life support system should have a tonnage based on number of people that can be supported, then how you allocate actual space aboard is up to the designer

hardpoints should be based on surface area instead of volume, this limits the hardpoints of capital ships in number, but there is internal volume for 50t to 200t bays

 

[tytalan]

That may be a translation issue. Prior editions of Traveller used ten hard points for bays and a variable number for spinals, while Mongoose requires much lower hard point assignment. If the Mongoose version of the Plankwell was designed to match the older version, quite a few of the hard points would go unused.

It’s more than that since many of the ships are not running anything like the CT version for example the Planet Class cruiser for mongoose runs particle bays and repulser bays while the mongoose version has Fusion Barbettes instead of the particle bays and no repulser bays. But there are major differences in HP requirements for bays plus there’s 3 sizes not 1/2 can’t remember off hand.

 

[tytalan]

Crew quarters had to be staterooms because that is how you allocated life support for a ship. Originally one stateroom, 4 tons per person.

Then the rules were changed to double occupancy is almost standard, so only 2 tons are needed per person.

Final iteration was the small craft stateroom with double occupancy and 1 ton per person.

What I think should happen in Traveller ship design:

the life support system should have a tonnage based on number of people that can be supported, then how you allocate actual space aboard is up to the designer

hardpoints should be based on surface area instead of volume, this limits the hardpoints of capital ships in number, but there is internal volume for 50t to 200t bays

I understand what your saying but I think that just over complicating the rules for ships that are rarely used or needed

 

[Sigtrygg]

I agree, capital ships are rarely anything more than adventure background setting, the rules should concentrate on the PC scale ships.

 

[Condottiere]

The larger hull, the more you save on crew wages.

 

[tytalan]

The larger hull, the more you save on crew wages.

Anything over 2000dt is only used by players in perhaps 2% of games, in fact I would say about 90% of ships used by players in a campaign are 1000dt or less.

 

[tytalan]

In fact the largest ship that I’ve ever seen in a game was a CT mercenary campaign and the ship was a Broadsword Class. If I remember right the ship was name after one of the swords in LotR’s. The largest ship in a campaign I’ve ever ran was a Fury Class in my MegaTraveller campaign and I started with the spindward Marches campaign moving on to the rebellion and playing around in the Trojan Reach.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The Kinunir was 1200t, a lucky group could salvage it...

the AHL on the other hand was a set of cavernous deckplans that I used as warehouses, starport docks, all sort of things. No way was a group of PCs ever going to take that ship...

Similarly I have had PCs conduct boarding actions on megacorporation bulk freighters, but the only bit that mattered was the crewed area.

In my Culture game the ships are better given UWP stats rather than USPs

 

[Condottiere]

If you don't have passengers, engineering is the largest contingent.

Captains should know astrogation.

You can put out a call for unpaid interns for maintenance.

 

[Garran]

Real-world surface ships aren't necessarily a great comparison; submarines are a closer analogy to a spacecraft.

And the problem there is that if you go cramming everyone into barracks then you'll have fatigue/stress problems building up really quickly compared to even double-occupancy staterooms. Subs usually have everyone crammed in such that even barracks would seem roomy but they also have very strict psych requirements and you probably can't crew your whole space navy that way.

Now sure, the ships have all kinds of other design problems, some due to edition (mis)translation, but giving almost everyone semi-private berthing isn't one of them if they're meant to remain habitable for weeks on end.

 

[tytalan]

If you don't have passengers, engineering is the largest contingent.

Captains should know astrogation.

You can put out a call for unpaid interns for maintenance.

We are not talking about civilian ship we are talking about military ships

 

[tytalan]

Real-world surface ships aren't necessarily a great comparison; submarines are a closer analogy to a spacecraft.

And the problem there is that if you go cramming everyone into barracks then you'll have fatigue/stress problems building up really quickly compared to even double-occupancy staterooms. Subs usually have everyone crammed in such that even barracks would seem roomy but they also have very strict psych requirements and you probably can't crew your whole space navy that way.

Now sure, the ships have all kinds of other design problems, some due to edition (mis)translation, but giving almost everyone semi-private berthing isn't one of them if they're meant to remain habitable for weeks on end.

Except you ignore a major component of the military ‘Rank has its privileges’. Also subs don’t have the massive common areas that these ship do so your sub comparison is really not a good one. Even a destroyer is massive enough to be a small town. While some aspects are similar between a Sub and a space naval ship others like the cramped space are not.