Hot Rodding is dead?

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The Force is what gives an astrogator his insight. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
Is it bad that this actually makes sense? *maybe I need to schedule a CAT scan* lol
 
I thought the live Astrogator thing was a Mandela effect that I suffered from until someone pointed out it was buried in the Hiver section of AoCSv2 (but whether Martin put it in as a result of a Mandela effect, I cannot guess).
It's definitely a change from the original viewpoint, where the computer basically did all the astrogation and no PC sized ship (200 dtons or less) actually required an astrogator. I don't think anyone has established exactly how it leaked into Traveller from Niven (or whereever). I suspect someone just invented it as a justification for why Charted Space doesn't have robot probe ships or some similar bugaboo.
 
The problem is MJD invented it to solve a problem that doesn't exist in the setting.
In the Third Imperium there are completely automatic x-boats, no pilot, no navigator.
 
Whispers on the Abyss arrived in physical book form, which is cool - though I'd rather have the The Deep and the Dark - haven't had time to read that one all the way through and a physical book is always easier (tDatD (?!?!?) is somewhere in the dark depths of the US Postal system {see what I did there? I'm on good meds today}... maybe Friday....).

Anyway, the ship in Whispers isn't even close to a major refit version of a type R, but it got me thinking of a 'compromise' solution the major refit limitations: What would happen if you sliced the ship up? What I mean is, if you included in the price of the major refit the cost of the hull (including armour, stealth, shape or whatever mods), then it's not so much a refit as a frankenship, but hey, let's roll with it. Not sure what you could do with armour, but if it is surrounding fuel tank most of the way, replacing the entire hull cost in addition to the armour refit cost seems fair. You also have to displace some of that fuel, so stick a tank in the cargo bay to cover the change.

This is what they taught us in one of those mandatory work classes: the art of not saying "No", or "Yes, but", but "Yes, and". (Okay, so it's still mostly "yes, but", but in a Rule 0.5 sort of way)

For those saying "It's not the same ship, then" see Theseus, ship of.
 
IRL, they make very large changes to ships when its worth the money to do so. None of the restrictions in the Traveller rules reflect the situation with maritime refits, for what that's worth. They've done essentially entire rebuilds of the ship's interior and even lengthened ships in some cases. Those are pretty extreme and you'd need a good case for doing that over building a new ship. But there are times when that case exists.
 
They wanted to gut the Missouri and make two engine rooms. One nuclear propulsion and one gas turbine. That would allow the ship to get underway on an hour's notice and then run indefinitely without refueling to get to the trouble spot.
 
Whispers on the Abyss arrived in physical book form, which is cool - though I'd rather have the The Deep and the Dark - haven't had time to read that one all the way through and a physical book is always easier (tDatD (?!?!?) is somewhere in the dark depths of the US Postal system {see what I did there? I'm on good meds today}... maybe Friday....).

Anyway, the ship in Whispers isn't even close to a major refit version of a type R, but it got me thinking of a 'compromise' solution the major refit limitations: What would happen if you sliced the ship up? What I mean is, if you included in the price of the major refit the cost of the hull (including armour, stealth, shape or whatever mods), then it's not so much a refit as a frankenship, but hey, let's roll with it. Not sure what you could do with armour, but if it is surrounding fuel tank most of the way, replacing the entire hull cost in addition to the armour refit cost seems fair. You also have to displace some of that fuel, so stick a tank in the cargo bay to cover the change.

This is what they taught us in one of those mandatory work classes: the art of not saying "No", or "Yes, but", but "Yes, and". (Okay, so it's still mostly "yes, but", but in a Rule 0.5 sort of way)

For those saying "It's not the same ship, then" see Theseus, ship of.
As a Referee, I tend to let My players do whatever, moreso since most of My campaigns are sandbox-style.

Although, I am that Ref, that will ask, "Are you sure?" If I can figure out a way, I will usually let them do it, but it may cost them more than they plan on at the outset, but never without a warning first...lol...
 
It's easier to gut an existing spacecraft's components, and reinstall in a new hull, then trying to figure out how to upgrade, or extend, an existing one.

How much money you save is rather arbitrary.
 
Is it? Given how often they upgrade and refit maritime Naval vessels to keep the hulls in service, I wouldn't think that was necessarily true. And the mothball fleets that the Imperial Navy mantains suggests that isn't true in the future either.

Not that anyone has actually expressed an interest in increasing the hull size of a ship in this conversation. Moving interior bulkheads to make more space for engineering does not seem like a crazy ask. IMHO, if you can build a Hero class hull as a Far Trader or an Armed Trader, you should be able to rebuild an existing Hero Class Free Trader into one of those things. Will it be more expensive than having built the ship as a Far Trader from the beginning? Yes. Would it be cheaper than selling your existing ship and buying an entirely new ship with the refits you want? Quite likely.

Would it be more cool to upgrade your existing ship than replacing it regularly? Depends on your campaign, but quitely likely yes.
 
There are also reasons for keeping the same ship that may not make strictly monetary sense, such as that more-than-slightly-nonstandard variable transponder that got installed a couple of adventures back... a ship reputation, or difficulty with registering or purchasing a new ship because of previous felonies, etc. Or the simple fact that nobody at the current shipyard (Class B) can actually build or install a jump drive.
 
But the upgrade might fix that to normal maintenance costs.
Sure, it could. Nothing says it should. But then, nothing explains how a ship can be innately well maintained as a feature of the ship. Well maintained is a behavior of the crew. Unless the ship has its own brownies, domoviye, or house goblins on board. Maybe the refit crew causes them to quit. Anything is possible.
 
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It tends to be circumstantial.

This would be where breakaway hulls, modularization, and podularization, come into their own.

Otherwise, like your smartphone, you have to retire it, once it's no longer fit for purpose.
 
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It tends to be circumstantial.

This would be where breakaway hulls, modularization, and podularization, come into their own.

Otherwise, like your smartphone, you have to retire it, once it's no longer fit for purpose.
that's not how ships work. That's why they rebuilt a WW2 battleship to have modern weapon systems and considered giving it a nuclear reactor. Besides, you can rebuild a smartphone, it just doesn't make any sense, because the the shell basically irrelevant to the cost of the device, whereas the hull of a ship takes a long time to build.
 
And you think that will be different in the future?

And, more to the point, you think that's at all relevant to the rules on what is possible?
 
For starwarships, it would depend on political will, the economy, and who holds the purse strings.


Speaking of which:



It's no secret I'm meddling with the Confederation Navy order of battle, mostly by hindsight, and I'm figuring out optimal configuration, both in number and designs.

And there's this concept of diminishing returns.

Also, before naval treaty limitations, the Royal Navy was regenerating it's line of battle every decade.
 
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