Reynard said:
I needed to go back to the original situation with the sparse information known.
1) A 1500 ton freighter to be converted to escort status
2) Needed as quickly as possible compared to building a comparable warship
3) Has three cargo holds, port and starboard 60 ton holds and a 120 aft (central?) hold
4) Has facilities for two 30 ton escort fighters, an interface pinnace and a fuel skimmer
5) Wish to create facilities to add 6 fighters by converting the port and starboard holds
Not much information but first thing I see is this is a very special freighter before conversion. Freighters normally don't carry fighters. This freighter is meant for special missions from the start. It would be interesting to know its weapon capacity as well as armor. Possibly the fighter capacity was an earlier upgrade.
The pinnace is reasonable for fast transfer of passengers and cargo to worlds without a Highport. The fuel skimmer as well as the pinnace implies this vessel commonly has missions away from better port facilities for fuel service and/or needs to avoid high traffic areas by wilderness refueling. Since the freighter can't use standard escort ships on missions yet needs those fighters, its missions call for very low profile. The fighters may be needed to fend off pirates prowling gas giants. Might also explain a need for hangars rather than docking space if the freighter must do battle damage repairs while continuing a mission.
Something calls for a massive increase in protection that expensive fighters plus support crews and facilities must take precedence over cargo capacity.
My call here is to have all fighters in their own docking space at 33 tons each. If you really NEED a hangar then have only one that is shared for repair and maintenance. Fighter can be swapped out as needed. For docks, you will need maybe 3 tons each from the 120t hold. The port and starboard dock now hold four more plus the original two. Each dock launches independently so all fighters can be launched simultaneously. The hangar can hold another and you would need to sacrifice 60 more tons from the aft hold for a total of eight fighters. Next you need to find more tonnage for the pilots and small craft support crew.
Not sure what's being hauled in the remainder of the aft hold but it has to be damned important!
Sorry for the sparce information, but part of the issue is that this campaign I'm running is based on GURPS TRAVELLER rather than MgT. Overall, the craft is a Jump-2 Manuever 1 freighter, whose intentions are for a Milieu Zero campaign set in the year 98 (we're now up to 99 with the Centennial coming up with the player characters on Mora in the Spinward Marches. The reason for the build of this particular ship are:
1) it was intended to carry materials necessary for the upgrading of Mora's Starport from its current level to the next level. Per T4's Pocket Empires, starports can be upgraded from an X to an E in 1 year for no cost. It can be upgraded from an E to a D in 1 year at double the cost. From a D to a C takes 10 years under normal circumstances, or 5 years at double cost, etc. Since the Imperium made such a STRONG effort to colonize Mora after ignoring the low hanging fruit of better or closer worlds in Deneb or even the Corridor subsectors, as GM, I'm going with the campaign premise that something caught Emperor Cleon's eye when he was at the Library on Vland - something so important that he set into motion, the colonization of a world some 152 parsecs distant from Sylea (or Capital as it would become). That same "urgency" was continued by the second Emperor (since Mora was not colonized until just after Cleon's death, but within the time frame required for a colony ship from the Third Imperium to arrive at Mora from Vland. In any event, the IMS Hargoth is a "City class" Freighter built at 1500 dTons in an era where much of Deneb and/or Spinward Marches is relatively undeveloped. Toss in fewer Class A starports, mandate that many of them are NOT Imperial ports, and we end up with a campaign that is not at all something you'd expect for a Third Imperium campaign set in say, 1105.
As a consequence of this - plus the fact that the Hargoth has better than 16% Iridium Throne backing (2 % publically, 14% from hidden factors) - its design was intended to deter ordinary pirates from attacking it immediately. If the bulk of pirate ships are between 200 to 400 dTons, a 1500 dTon freighter with 10 active turrets (5 hardpoints that do not have turrets installed) - plus two fighters for overwatch while wilderness refueling - plus a dedicated gas skimmer where necessary...
Well - you begin to see why this freighter is not your average expected 1500 dTon hull.
The fact that this was originally designed using GURPS TRAVELLER: STARSHIPS rules, might help explain why the information is sparce. If you want, I can send my copy of the ship description (it is in PDF format) so as to help explain some of the ship's capabilities. Otherwise, the fact that this is a Milieu Zero design based ship, might help to explain other things better.
