boggo2300
Cosmic Mongoose
1st reality war if my memory serves.... by my count 7th Reality war would be Mongoose 1e.Yup, and there was no lanthanum hull grid until the seventh reality war...
1st reality war if my memory serves.... by my count 7th Reality war would be Mongoose 1e.Yup, and there was no lanthanum hull grid until the seventh reality war...
some of those are mighty small changes, just there to make up numbers it seems(I made the number up - but let's play...)
Original 77 no setting - jump torpedos (first casualty of the reality wars)
1st war 78 LBB:4 Imperium mentioned
2nd war 79 LBB:5 ship and tech paradigm changes
3rd war 79 TAS News bulletins, Spinward Marches fluff, Kinunir and other early adventures and supplements (proto-Spinward Marches/Imperium.)
4th war 80 LBB:5 ship paradigm changes again.
5th war 81 revision, yet another ship tech change, Library data A-M retcons
6th war 82 Library data N-Z retcons
7th war 87 MegaTravller
Really, when the Shattered Imperium, Virus, and the Wave We're Not Supposed To Call Empress are right there?jump bubbles are what make no sense. Stupidest thing in the game I can think of.
I have never in all of Traveller seen a shuttle with a hull grid, and it completely changes the dynamic of battleriders and of dispersed structured ships. How are those handled in YTU?Really, when the Shattered Imperium, Virus, and the Wave We're Not Supposed To Call Empress are right there?
But yeah, at my table it's hull grid, or spherical ship, or nothin'. Wanna piggyback a shuttle on your hull? It has to have a jump grid too. And your engineer has to make sure it gets connected when you remount it. And you have to have two jump performance profiles calculated and in ROM, one for jumping with the shuttle attached and one for not.
Hadrian Battle Riders are canon and have no jump grid. The ship still has to account for the displacement though.I have never in all of Traveller seen a shuttle with a hull grid, and it completely changes the dynamic of battleriders and of dispersed structured ships. How are those handled in YTU?
I honestly had no issue with the Shattered Imperium, I more or less ignored the Rebellion and so did every table I played at (and eventually all three tables threw out Megatraveller, 2 went back to CT the third to 2300. Virus was really poorly done, especially the back story, but again I more or less ignored it (My TNE campaign was in the TI with no Rebellion) The Empress Wave I kinda like how they changed it for T:20. To be fair I also ignore Jump Bubbles, but they are MUCH more annoying to me than the others, one must have frightened me as a kidReally, when the Shattered Imperium, Virus, and the Wave We're Not Supposed To Call Empress are right there?
But yeah, at my table it's hull grid, or spherical ship, or nothin'. Wanna piggyback a shuttle on your hull? It has to have a jump grid too. And your engineer has to make sure it gets connected when you remount it. And you have to have two jump performance profiles calculated and in ROM, one for jumping with the shuttle attached and one for not.
Yeah, that would work. You couldn't really do any sort of maneuvering (and one would have to wonder just where the hell you'd attach a tow cable to an entire ship that had a mount that was strong enough for the mass, but a little hand-wave here and there and I suppose it'd work.Towing a spaceship can work, but it won't be like towing a car, boat or glider.
You'd attach and apply thust as long as needed, but to decelerate you would detach the tow cable. maneuver behind the towed ship and reattach the cable, then apply thrust in the opposite vector. Course corrections would be the same process.
Or the airlock is in the same axis as the ship's thrust. Then the ship attached to the airlock is pushed along ahead of the main ship. Stopping would be an issue though.Yeah, that would work. You couldn't really do any sort of maneuvering (and one would have to wonder just where the hell you'd attach a tow cable to an entire ship that had a mount that was strong enough for the mass, but a little hand-wave here and there and I suppose it'd work.
There was mention of jump nets that would allow ships to take towed cargo's though jump space. I think GURPS had theirs acting like a jump grid where it was energized by the ship - basically a hull extension with large gaps in it.
I prefer that ships establish physical contact with one another (with a mechanism designed to share loads rather than just an airlock passage). You could do with much lighter-weight mechanisms if your thrust was very low. And, I suppose, one could start out with tiny amounts of thrust and work your way up to greater velocity.
In the SW universe the Millenium Falcon family did push cargo pods with their mandibles, and in that case it was simply an elongated ship. It operated the same as tubs on a river.Honestly, the whole tow cable does seem a bit unnecessary. Any docked ships can do the thing, and while the airlock being along the line of thrust would be convenient, it would not be required.
For that matter, just securing the ship being pushed to the nose of the pusher would be enough. . A dedicated tug design is probably going to locate the docking clamp, Jump Net or other way to attach the pushee, on its nose.
Even just having a bit of a cradle or bowl shaped front might allow it to nestle securely against most hulls well enough to apply thrust without having to actually attach itself. That sort of thing doesn't cost extra, though it probably excludes streamlined hulls.
Although...
View attachment 5154
Probably just a mechanical or gravity docking clamp on the nose of the ship. Attachs itself to the ship or container that it wants to push, and off it goes. Detaches, flies to the other side, reattaches, and decelerates. Detaches, flies to the other side and guides it into wherever it is being docked at.In the Traveller universe I'd expect tugs to have some sort of grapple, or perhaps even an electromagnet of sorts that physically links two ships together. So long as you are willing to slowly accelerate and maneuver so you don't stress your connection this would probably work.
Now that I think about it... the magnet idea could work if it was conformal enough to grasp multiple hull types - though it makes for some interesting ideas if you cranked up the power too much, would it affect systems and/or the innards of the ship being towed?