Custom Ships/Deck Plans

[Arkathan]

Thanks!
I start with Starship Symbols by Robert Pearce, Available at his Yet Another Traveller Blog website. The original version of the grid background is in his download section there, too.

Starship Symbols entry

I use the pdf version set at 178% magnification. I changed the file name to append 178 to the end of the name so I don't forget the setting.

Then I use PaintShopPro. I update mine whenever the Black Friday sales go under $35. Last time was 2022, when they bundled it with their Paint.
GIMP will work just fine. You want something that handles layers. Snapshot the piece you want, clean up the white around it and paste it in place. Use a separate layer for hull lines, so when you go pasting internals you aren't messing them up. Just goes under or over. Use several layers for Engineering so you can build up an interesting look.
For the ship images, either the ship designer in Galactic Civilizations III or screenshots from Elite Dangerous. The next one will use the ship designer from Galactic Civilizations IV.

Once you are done with the layers, save one copy with layers in case you find a mistake later and save another copy as a png.

 

[Geir]

Thanks!
I start with Starship Symbols by Robert Pearce, Available at his Yet Another Traveller Blog website. The original version of the grid background is in his download section there, too.

Starship Symbols entry

I use the pdf version set at 178% magnification. I changed the file name to append 178 to the end of the name so I don't forget the setting.

Then I use PaintShopPro. I update mine whenever the Black Friday sales go under $35. Last time was 2022, when they bundled it with their Paint.
GIMP will work just fine. You want something that handles layers. Snapshot the piece you want, clean up the white around it and paste it in place. Use a separate layer for hull lines, so when you go pasting internals you aren't messing them up. Just goes under or over. Use several layers for Engineering so you can build up an interesting look.
For the ship images, either the ship designer in Galactic Civilizations III or screenshots from Elite Dangerous. The next one will use the ship designer from Galactic Civilizations IV.

Once you are done with the layers, save one copy with layers in case you find a mistake later and save another copy as a png.

big fan of PSP myself. Do you make the white space transparent or do you just make sure they line up properly with the background?

 

[Arkathan]

Grid layer is the background layer. Pieces and hull lines (line tool) go on separate layers. Paste a shape, use magic wand on the outer white space, then delete. Reselect with box or lasso to move/rotate/resize.

 

[Arkathan]

The Mononoke 600 ton Stealthed Raider strikes suddenly from the shadows and retreats without a trace. With enhanced stealth, a concealed drive rated for 2 G's and stealthed Jump capable of traversing one parsec, a simple trader or remote backwater outpost has no advance warning of their impending doom. Meanwhile, its main drives can escape from all but military interceptors, and its J-3 can either traverse the expanses or carry a captured free trader, ensnared in its jump net, two parsecs away from the scene of the crime.

 

[Arkathan]

So, speaking of mistakes, like around midnight last night I only counted half the bridge squares, 20 instead of 40. By saving the layers, it was easier to move everything over. Above image is now fixed.
And -D'Oh.

 

[DigrizJB]

That stealth package is like 40% of the cost of the ship! Stolen Q ship or black ops ship?

 

[Arkathan]

Role? Up to your or your GM's imagination.
But don't think of the stealth package as being expensive. Think of it as being paid for after the seventh stolen free trader.

 

[Arkathan]

The great thing about Traveller is the infinite variety. There is an engineer/naval architect in every port absolutely convinced that they have the solution to every problem. In such an expansive populated areas of space, there have been millions of designs produced by such minds. Some of them may have suffered from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This design may well be one of them.
After negotiating a contract for ten shuttles and instead receiving all ten Drop-Stack Shuttles without the benefit of design approval, the broker asked the lead design engineer what he was thinking.
Naval Architect Henry McCullough replied, "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time."

 

[Arkathan]

The Carrack Class modular Long Haul Freighter has been around for thousands of years. Requiring only TL 9 facilities, it lets any interstellar capable shipyard compete for trade contracts. The default loadout installs six 108 ton Fuel/Cargo Container Modules equipped with cargo cranes and capable of holding 100 Dtons of Cargo or Fuel. Each Module loaded with fuel adds a parsec to the range of the Carrack, allowing it to bypass gaps in the mains to service remote systems, albeit at reduced capacity.
Three different passenger modules accommodate increasingly refined tastes when moving people beats out cargo.
For frontier areas, where patrols are spread thinly, the Carrack can carry up to two Q-Ship modules, containing 100 ton missile bays and their crew compliment. Nothing says don't mess with our freighters in quite the same tone as 13 salvos of 48 ship-killer missiles.

 

[Arkathan]

While the Fuel/Cargo Containers are the mainstay of Carrack Class Modular Long Haul Freighter, others exist and are used by various corporations as the needs arise.

 

[Arkathan]

Forgot the Excursion Module for the Carrack.
No image, because it isn't different enough from the cargo bay. Just stick a ship in it, a double stateroom and a kitchenette.

 

[Arkathan]

Another Economy Class addition:
The Radeaux Class Economy Hauler can carry nearly twice the cargo of traders twice its size for less than half the price... but it can't do it in style, quickly or safely. It does provide a cheap alternative to a high mortgage for your players as they start a campaign. Allowing them to quickly earn money travelling from one adventure to the next in well settled systems prior to venturing out into the unknown.

 

[Arkathan]

I've always wondered about the canon escorts that don't seem to be able to protect the things they are escorting.
The Fire Guard Class Escort Frigate can use point defense to cover nearby logistic ships and coordinate with other ships to designate and prioritize enemy targets.

 

[Condottiere]

Going by the last two major naval conflicts, navies tend to place a lower priority on them prewar, and only start ramping up the numbers after hostilities start.

Convoy experience indicates you only need range in line with the merchantmen you're escorting, but tactically be fast enough to chase down raiders.

 

[Arkathan]

Going by the last two major naval conflicts, navies tend to place a lower priority on them prewar, and only start ramping up the numbers after hostilities start.

Convoy experience indicates you only need range in line with the merchantmen you're escorting, but tactically be fast enough to chase down raiders.

4th Frontier War wasn't that long ago, so there's a reason for them to be around.
Covering troop transports are a part of its mandate. It needs that speed, both to intercept and escort the transports (which are fast) and to respond to threats. The reduction in Jump range reflects that it does not need to keep up with front line units for deployments, but still needs to respond to off-the-mains hot zones.

 

[Condottiere]

If the Bismarck turns up, the merchantmen are sitting ducks, which is a reason, that on occasion, second class battleships are assigned as escorts.

 

[Arkathan]

If they could afford battleships in every situation, we would not have Destroyer Escorts... Which are incapable of actually shielding the units they escort.

 

[Condottiere]

But, against what?

You don't really need stealth if you can catch up with anything, and nothing can really hurt you, which sort of was the case with Kriegsmarine capital ships; plus, being faster than anything that could.

This would be where the battlecruiser comes in, and the fast battleship.

Believe it or not, His Majesty's Ship, the Victory, was the premier fast battleship of it's time.

Battlecruisers are a sort of preemptive way to sweep the trade lanes clean of surface raiders, and track down the more elusive ones; you don't use them in anti submarine warfare, or to track down anything smaller than a light cruiser.

There's not a lot that escort destroyers can do once a cruiser pops up, except try and delay it long enough, so it's charges can scatter and escape.

But they can do considerably more against other destroyers, converted merchantmen, and submarines.

The real test of this would be in the Pacific, against Japanese convoys.

 

[Arkathan]

There's not a lot that escort destroyers can do once a cruiser pops up, except try and delay it long enough, so it's charges can scatter and escape.

There you go. And such ship's existed historically.
Taking a TL 15 escort frigate to the WWII Pacific theater would not be proof of anything, beyond the existence of aliens.

 

[Condottiere]

It's more that the expected threats tends to be more auxiliaries to minor combatants.

While I tend to joke about the Terran Express, it is based on the Tokyo Express, where the Japanese struggled to supply and reinforce their ground forces, stuffing them, sometimes, onboard cruisers and destroyers.

While the German capital ships, mid war, rarely sortied, the mere possibility of that tied down major units in the North Atlantic.

Since the narrative insists that the Confederation Navy (still) builds battlecruisers, you bet they'll sally forth at the start of any conflict, presumably, with the Imperium, and wreck havoc behind the lines, until the Imperium reorganizes.

Hard to say how the Zhodani will act, since that's not really my interest - they may feel that they don't want to divide their forces in the face of their enemy, though, apparently, they do like misleading the enemy to their true objectives.