Civilian Sword World ships

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Greetings,
What kinds of ships would civilians use for cargo- and people shipping, adventuring and all that within the Sword Worlds? The SW book only covered military ships (and the yacht).

Would they be using the main book ships, such as Free traders, Sub Merchants and so on, or are they Imperial only?

From looking at how they build their military ships, I'd almost imagine a typical SW trader looking like the Vargr Armoured Fast Trader from supp 10

And what is it with their obsession with physical projectiles? Sure, everyone like guns that go boom, but even with heavy armor some defensive lasers would be useful (sure sand casters can also be used for anti-missile/torpedo work, but still).

Do the Sword Worlds fight against each other? If they do, using the ships in the book all those missiles aren't even gonna scratch the paint of the enemy ships unless they go all-nuke....

 

[phavoc]

I would suspect the sword worlders would build ships that are serviceable and somewhat austere.

Yes, many if not most civilian ships would be armed. They have a long history of fighting each other and outsiders. Remember they are a confederation, so they only have loose loyalty to one another.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

You want a World Ship? Here is one:

Do you think the Sword Worlds have any worldships like these?

(Just a little pun on the title Civilian Sword World Ships, I just got board, googled the words "World Ships", and look what I found. I know it has nothing to do with the topic, but if your really interested, these are Dyson Starships, the are propelled by hydrogen bombs! Amazing pictures aren't they? I'm sure they are off the scale for Traveller starships, even using the High Guard rules, The are Generation Starships, probably Tech Level 8)

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

So they would have their own designs, and not use the rulebook ships (Far trader, sub merchant and so on)? Or perhaps, for the sake of simplicity, their equivalent of free trader just happens to use the exact same stats as the A1, but look a big different? I'd assume they would generally be slow and armored, regardless of their purpose.

Since hey do seem to fight amongst themselves a bit I find it odd that missile launchers are their primary turret- and bay-mounted weapon. All their warships from the SW book have armour value 8 or above, seriously limiting missile effectiveness unless they go all-out nukes...

That said, with the new beta rules, SW ships will become brutal...

 

[Epicenter]

I'd imagine economics remain economics even for Sword Worlders.

Their ships are probably remarkably similar to designs used in the TI. TBH, they probably actually would use a lot of TI designs - standard Imperial designs aren't necessarily manufactured by the government. They'd be made by a plethora of companies small and large. There'd probably be Sword Worlds shipyards making civilian vessels, but it's likely a lot of market would be second-hand Imperial standard design vessels; they'd be cheap and they'd have a huge installed userbase so even critical spare parts are available everywhere and quite cheap. It'd be attractive to Sword World manfacturers to be able to trade off the spare parts they make locally to the Third Imperium when relations allow for trading (you might not like the TI, but money is money).

Another reason why SW ships would resemble their TI counterparts are the simple economics of arming your vessel. Space combat weapons are expensive, require upkeep, training, perhaps even dedicated personnel to operate the weapons. They also take up room in your ship that could otherwise be devoted to cargo. But after all that, your merchant vessel is still a relatively thin-skinned merchant vessel with "not so hot" maneuverability that can't take much fire. These items bite in your bottom line. In short, arming your ship is a path of very rapidly diminishing returns. Piling on missiles and lasers on your ship is going to make you into a very suspicious looking merchantman that struggles to turn a profit, but is blown up by any real (or semi-real) warship as easily as a much more lightly armed merchantman as your enemies can choose where to attack, when to attack, if to attack, and so on; you're going to get dogpiled by multiple ships and taken down no matter how much weaponry you have on your tinfoil tank.

I think merchant vessel operators understand this and probably have come to about the same conclusion as Imperial ship designs; sufficient weapons to keep people honest, but nothing beyond that.

As a result, yeah, I think you could probably get away with using the fairly generic designs for the sake of simplicity and just say they look slightly different.

 

[Condottiere]

It does say that gadgets and components need to be interchangeable, at least for military ships.

Might have mandatory commercial standards as well.

 

[-Daniel-]

I realize I am odd, but I like these ships. they look functional.