Fat Trader: Why C plant, drives?

[tolcreator]

Browsing over the ships and design rules, why does a Fat Trader (i.e. 400 ton Subsidised Merchant) have C jdrives, mdrives, and power plant, when it seems to only need B? It gets no increase in performance...

As is the 400 ton ship is less economical (in cargo tons per unit price) than its price in 200 ton free traders. Swapping out for B plants, we save 22 MCr and 14 tons of cargo (including fuel, keeping the listed endurance), making it more economical than its price in 200 ton free traders.

Sorry if this is a topic that's been done to death, didn't find anything with a casual google...

 

[rust]

Browsing over the ships and design rules, why does a Fat Trader (i.e. 400 ton Subsidised Merchant) have C jdrives, mdrives, and power plant, when it seems to only need B?

The shipyard had a number of surplus C drives and power plants
left over from a previous order that had been cancelled ...

No, it is one of the mysteries of the design examples in the core
rules. If there is a rational explanation, I also missed it. The on-
ly potential advantage would be that the ship could transport up
to 200 dtons of exterior cargo without reduced performance, but
I doubt that this would make sense for a standard subsidized mer-
chant ship.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Not a mystery at all. Well for us oldsters. Hold over from Classic Traveller.

In CT, damage was indicated by a reduction in the Drive Letter, then comparing new performance by the reduced drive letter. Also, Classic Traveller Book 2 did not have armor. So to "armor up" one could beef up the durability of systems by installing a larger drive, which might or might not improve performance.

If it did not improve performance, even better, because fuel for power plant and maneuver drive was 10 x Manuever Number (Thrust). Notice that Ship Tonnage IS NOT a factor. Note that this is a strict adherence to only using CT Book 2 RAW and not using any other CT source. So your Fat Trader having C drives meant that it could take a hit on Power, Manuever, and Jump (three possible hits) and still provide performance levels of 1 (Performance B at 400 tons).

It is also adherence to established canon:

Subsidized Merchant (type R): Using a 400-ton hull, the subsidized merchant (nicknamed fat trader) is a trading vessel intended to meet the commercial needs of clusters of worlds. It has jump drive-C, maneuver drive-C, and power plant-C, giving performance of jump-I and I-G acceleration. There is fuel tankage of 50 tons, supporting the power plant and allowing one jump-I. Adjacent to the bridge is a computer Modelll. There are thirteen staterooms and nine low berths. No turrets or weaponry are installed, but there are two hardpoints and two tons are set aside for fire control. The ship has one 20-ton launch. Cargo capacity is 200 tons. The ship is streamlined. - Book 2 Starships (1981 version), pg 19

 

[GamingGlen]

yeah, stupid hide-bound Vilani stuck in their ancient ways ... newer ships (at least in MTU) are more efficient.