HG: Subcraft hangars

[Gentleman John]

The TNE books are also a lot more reasonable on a lot of things - like reaction thrusters, etc.

You either have to take the CT/MT/MgT design systems with a grain of salt and fudge things till they look right when drawing deckplans, or the entire system needs to be rebuilt.

The original High Guard ship creation system was about as complicated as I wanted to get, except it didn't allow for creation of weapons. Later versions of the ship creation systems were just too detailed. The extra detail in MT was ignored as it made the design of a vessel far too complicated - I had no desire to work out the mass/volumes of every workstation required. TNE's new technologies were nice to have, but I tended to handwave the details. The less said about GT using the Vehicles system, the better!

So, even though the MgT design sequences may be slightly off, I am prepared to put up with them provided they give me a good idea of what is in my design. The deckplans do not have to be exactly right, just make sense from my engineering pov. If I decide the design has life support in one giant hold as opposed to split between the quarters, then that is my decision.

There are still times when I want to gearhead it, but I save those for playing Attack Vector or SFB. With Traveller, the old engineering maxim of "the first number you thought of is probably right" works perfectly well.

 

[Sturn]

From what everyone has said above, how about some basic house rules:

Custom Berth: 130% tonnage. Only allows craft of the same type (a.i. the sleeve on a Merc Cruiser). Only allows carrying the craft.

But add the following-

Bay: 200% tonnage. Allows maintenance. Generic bay that can hold craft up to half the tonnage of the bay and still leave room for maintenance of the craft.

Hangar: 400% tonnage. More spacious accomadations. As a bay above (room for maintenance), but what kind of extra game benefit? Quicker launch times?

Example: A 400 ton hold could house a 200 ton Free Trader as a bay or a 100 ton Scout as a more spacious hangar.

 

[atpollard]

Bay: 200% tonnage. Allows maintenance. Generic bay that can hold craft up to half the tonnage of the bay and still leave room for maintenance of the craft.

Hangar: 400% tonnage. More spacious accomadations. As a bay above (room for maintenance), but what kind of extra game benefit?

I would suggest that a 200% bay allows basic 'walk around' room which allows repairs involving hand tools (like patching a hole) and a 400% hanger allows room to get some heavy equipment in there (like rebuilding an engine).

Just my 2 cents.
Arthur

 

[GypsyComet]

Bay: 200% tonnage. Allows maintenance. Generic bay that can hold craft up to half the tonnage of the bay and still leave room for maintenance of the craft.

Hangar: 400% tonnage. More spacious accomadations. As a bay above (room for maintenance), but what kind of extra game benefit?

I would suggest that a 200% bay allows basic 'walk around' room which alows repairs involving hand tools (like patching a hole) and a 400% hanger allows room to get some heavy equipment in there (like rebuilding an engine).

Just my 2 cents.
Arthur

And TNE's as well, generally.

 

[rust]

And TNE's as well, generally.

What do you mean by "TNE's" ? :? - Thanks.

 

[AndrewW]

And TNE's as well, generally.

What do you mean by "TNE's" ? :? - Thanks.

Traveller The New Era

 

[simonh]

Traveller abstracts a lot into 'Displacement Tons' and I'm glad the system doesn't dogmatically apply volume-only logic in the design system.

Ah, but it does Simon, just like CT, Volume is the only statistic that is given and the examples bear this out. One of the big issues is that The displacement ton is explicit.

I don't think the volume-only definition is applied rigorously throughout the design system. For example it's used as a proxy for mass when calculating manoeuvre drive performance. It's only ever explicitly defined in terms of volume, but it's actually used in place of mass as well.

I don't think that's a problem, I think it's a feature. I don't actually want a system in which I have to juggle separate values for mass and volume and using displacement as a proxy for mass at various points in the system is a useful simplification.

Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

From what everyone has said above, how about some basic house rules:

I don't like these for two reasons. One is it's quite a significant departure from the published rules so designs will be incompatible. I'd only consider rules mods that augmented the design system (unless we find genuine bugs in the design system).

The other is that it makes carrying sub-craft a lot more expensive in terms not only of extra hull costs, but also the extra jump drive, jump fuel and manoeuvre drive capability to support it. Increasing berthing requirements significantly in this way could easily increase the overall cost of a ship by tens of millions of credits for small craft and even more for larger carried craft.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Infojunky]

Traveller abstracts a lot into 'Displacement Tons' and I'm glad the system doesn't dogmatically apply volume-only logic in the design system.

Ah, but it does Simon, just like CT, Volume is the only statistic that is given and the examples bear this out. One of the big issues is that The displacement ton is explicit.

I don't think the volume-only definition is applied rigorously throughout the design system. For example it's used as a proxy for mass when calculating manoeuvre drive performance. It's only ever explicitly defined in terms of volume, but it's actually used in place of mass as well.

Show me some examples please.

I disagree with you in that the expression of the system for the most part is volumetric through most of examples provided. I am not against your interpretion as then a lot of things would make more sense and give more flexibility in the choices/trade-offs one could make.

In your view what is the standard mass volume ratio?

My rule of thumb is 10 metric tons to the Displacement ton.

 

[GypsyComet]

From what everyone has said above, how about some basic house rules:

I don't like these for two reasons. One is it's quite a significant departure from the published rules so designs will be incompatible. I'd only consider rules mods that augmented the design system (unless we find genuine bugs in the design system).

The other is that it makes carrying sub-craft a lot more expensive in terms not only of extra hull costs, but also the extra jump drive, jump fuel and manoeuvre drive capability to support it. Increasing berthing requirements significantly in this way could easily increase the overall cost of a ship by tens of millions of credits for small craft and even more for larger carried craft.

Simon Hibbs

Except that the 130% option is still present. These additions do not invalidate prior designs.

To paraphrase from the Canon arguments next door, you only need to care if you are writing for Mongoose. Build the ships you want to play on.

 

[Beastttt]

I'd go with the off set of using the hyper drive rules(no jump fuel needed just double the mass of the jump drive)that will free up a lot of space

From what everyone has said above, how about some basic house rules:

I don't like these for two reasons. One is it's quite a significant departure from the published rules so designs will be incompatible. I'd only consider rules mods that augmented the design system (unless we find genuine bugs in the design system).

The other is that it makes carrying sub-craft a lot more expensive in terms not only of extra hull costs, but also the extra jump drive, jump fuel and manoeuvre drive capability to support it. Increasing berthing requirements significantly in this way could easily increase the overall cost of a ship by tens of millions of credits for small craft and even more for larger carried craft.

Simon Hibbs

 

[simonh]

Infojunky: Show me some examples please.

I have, manoeuvre drives. That includes chemical rocket thrusters in High Guard.

GypsyComet: you only need to care if you are writing for Mongoose.

The 130% option is used differently, but as you say for a home-grown game it's no big deal. More so if you intend to share the design though.

Simon Hibbs