Minimum starship size
- Thread starter Infojunky
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far-trader
Mongoose
Infojunky said:
Typo. Sloppy conversion and poor editing. It was a mistake. Oh look! Pirates!!...
Infojunky said:
...Lots and lots of pirates!!!
Infojunky said:
They should be made of the same stuff hull material is made of (very very pricey) and they need lots of volume to stand up to the abuse (physical and rules). No free launch.
But...
...I did (decades ago) append my old CT TL tables (for a very ATU idea) such that the minimum tonnage for jump decreased after the discovery. Starting at 95tons at TL9 and dropping 10tons per TL, to 5tons at TL18. And a wearable personal Jumpsuit at TL20
The idea never got used.
far-trader
Mongoose
Well, I can be more detail oriented...
...but you asked for it :wink:
First off there needs to be an accounting for simply structural considerations. That should be dependent on the stresses involved, which could come from two main sources. Acceleration and pressure.
So let's keep it real simple and say 1% per G of maneuver/gravity stress and 1% per Atmosphere value.
Let's take a couple simple extreme examples along for a ride...
Ship 1 - A 1G unstreamlined merchant cargo carrier that will never land on a world. All we need is 1% for the 1G thrust underway.
Ship 2 - A 6G airframe navy fighter carrier that routinely lurks deep in gas giant atmospheres. We need 6% for the 6G maneuver thrust, 3% for the 3G of the gas giant atmosphere depths and another 10% for the very dense atmosphere. So 19% total.
Now then we may also have to consider a loss percentage for any armor the carrier has. Let's continue with a simple 1% in this case per (CT) USP rating.
Ship 1 - Is an unarmed merchant so still just 1% total.
Ship 2 - Is a top of the line ship of the line with full armor USP-15 for another 15%. So 34% total now.
Hmm, anything else?
Well, just area I suppose. Which way back in B2 CT I figured cost half the hardpoints of the carrier to permit externally mounted craft. So no cost or volume, just a reduction in hardpoints. I suppose there should be an allowance of tonnage carried associated with it, perhaps half the tonnage of the carrier?
Ship 1 - Is a small subsidized ship of 600tons so it loses 3 hardpoints to carry 300 of those tons externally. Dropping those containers will improve performance considerably. The grapples for the containers require just 3tons and cost MCr0.3 (basic hull materials cost).
Ship 2 - Is a super-carrier of 50,000tons so it loses 500 hardpoints to carry it's 500 heavy fighters of 50tons each. The grapples for the fighters require 8,500tons and cost MCr850 (basic hull materials cost).
That's about how I'd do it off the top of my head and from old house rules, for CT.
...but you asked for it :wink:
First off there needs to be an accounting for simply structural considerations. That should be dependent on the stresses involved, which could come from two main sources. Acceleration and pressure.
So let's keep it real simple and say 1% per G of maneuver/gravity stress and 1% per Atmosphere value.
Let's take a couple simple extreme examples along for a ride...
Ship 1 - A 1G unstreamlined merchant cargo carrier that will never land on a world. All we need is 1% for the 1G thrust underway.
Ship 2 - A 6G airframe navy fighter carrier that routinely lurks deep in gas giant atmospheres. We need 6% for the 6G maneuver thrust, 3% for the 3G of the gas giant atmosphere depths and another 10% for the very dense atmosphere. So 19% total.
Now then we may also have to consider a loss percentage for any armor the carrier has. Let's continue with a simple 1% in this case per (CT) USP rating.
Ship 1 - Is an unarmed merchant so still just 1% total.
Ship 2 - Is a top of the line ship of the line with full armor USP-15 for another 15%. So 34% total now.
Hmm, anything else?
Well, just area I suppose. Which way back in B2 CT I figured cost half the hardpoints of the carrier to permit externally mounted craft. So no cost or volume, just a reduction in hardpoints. I suppose there should be an allowance of tonnage carried associated with it, perhaps half the tonnage of the carrier?
Ship 1 - Is a small subsidized ship of 600tons so it loses 3 hardpoints to carry 300 of those tons externally. Dropping those containers will improve performance considerably. The grapples for the containers require just 3tons and cost MCr0.3 (basic hull materials cost).
Ship 2 - Is a super-carrier of 50,000tons so it loses 500 hardpoints to carry it's 500 heavy fighters of 50tons each. The grapples for the fighters require 8,500tons and cost MCr850 (basic hull materials cost).
That's about how I'd do it off the top of my head and from old house rules, for CT.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Infojunky said:
OTU these only appear in TNE, so the idea that a hard-wired AI is necessary to keep a stable jump bubble going below 100 tons might work.
If it isn't carrying living tissue (that you want delivered alive), then the assumed instabilities of point one are not a concern. But if you thought missiles were expensive...
TNE/T4 solution works for me.
External Grapples vary from 10% to 30% of the carried volume depending on streamlining. I'm not a big fan of giving up hardpoints in addition (since airlocks and cargo doors don't have that requirement) but that might be a solution for "excessive use". One per (say) 200 tons is a hardpoint freebie; beyond that they burn hardpoints at some ratio (which could be 1:1).
Next up would be the Docking Ring, at 100% carried volume. This would be the default case as shown in the main MGT rulebook.
Craft bays go up from there, to as much as 4x carried volume. Why? ease of maintenance. In a Docking Ring, external damage cannot be reached since the craft is effectively skin-tight. Up to a 2x bay would impose a significant penalty, 3x a lesser penalty, and 4x none. The penalty would vary with the repair or modification task, but would probably be a time penalty in most cases.
Give reasons for the options instead of outlawing them.
Golan2072
Cosmic Mongoose
Jump for ships below 100 dtons might work at very high TLs in the OTU; at normal (imperial) TLs it shouldn't work. However, this depends on the universe: in the Elite and Star Wars universes you have jump-capable fighters so if you're building an ATU similar to them you might want to include jump-drives for smaller ships at common TLs, while in Babylon 5 you need quite a large ship to jump on its own (without a gate) until you get to Minbari TLs, so for most Earth/Narn/Centauri/League ships the limit would be above 100 tons (maybe 1,000 tons?).
Jump torpedoes are quite setting-changing as they make interstellar communications far cheaper (and allow ships to easily send messages without carrying large and expensive sub-craft). In the OTU they shouldn't work; in an ATU they might if you want much cheaper interstellar communications (and thus a larger volume of interstellar messaging).
External grappling should IMHO cost nothing more than the carried ship (the cost of the grapple/airlock itself is negligible). However, it SHOULD effect drive performance.
You should even be able to tow other ships even through jump (ala Nostromo), but, again, this would effect drive performance.
Jump torpedoes are quite setting-changing as they make interstellar communications far cheaper (and allow ships to easily send messages without carrying large and expensive sub-craft). In the OTU they shouldn't work; in an ATU they might if you want much cheaper interstellar communications (and thus a larger volume of interstellar messaging).
External grappling should IMHO cost nothing more than the carried ship (the cost of the grapple/airlock itself is negligible). However, it SHOULD effect drive performance.
You should even be able to tow other ships even through jump (ala Nostromo), but, again, this would effect drive performance.
To my mind, it all depends on what you think best facilitates the kinds of situations you want to include in your game. I ran a frontier travellogue game set in the Spinward Marches rimward edge where the player ship had Jump Torpedoes. I felt that it would be a useful, yet limited resource for the players and it turned out to provide them with a much richer set of options and tradeoffs that were fun to work through in play. I also found that, while this was clearly a breach of canon, funnily enough the logical consistency of the Traveller Universe didn't spontaneously disintegrate before our eyes. Nor did the Canon Police bust down by door at 2:00am and drag me off for re-education.
Just be up-front with your players about what you're up to and work out any potential issues with them to make sure you have a consensus, and you should be good to go.
Simon Hibbs
Just be up-front with your players about what you're up to and work out any potential issues with them to make sure you have a consensus, and you should be good to go.
Simon Hibbs
I ask these question because these things exist in one form or another in the the classic books.
Really the grapple is just another one of those things that a been part of the hull cost, that didn't get split out until FF&S. There where many options that where fluff in earlier editions that were a paid choice within FF&S. I just am looking at the broad spectrum that is Traveller for options that could be used with MGT. Or in other words I'm playing with the tool kit.
Jump Torps, are one of those things I never have used. But 50 ton Jump Cutters have shown up a couple of times as Adventurer scale craft. Example; the Broadsword, inspired By Piper's Star Viking, has two cutters, Piper had these as full utility starships in his book.
Options, is all that i am looking at. More chrome is good.
Really the grapple is just another one of those things that a been part of the hull cost, that didn't get split out until FF&S. There where many options that where fluff in earlier editions that were a paid choice within FF&S. I just am looking at the broad spectrum that is Traveller for options that could be used with MGT. Or in other words I'm playing with the tool kit.
Jump Torps, are one of those things I never have used. But 50 ton Jump Cutters have shown up a couple of times as Adventurer scale craft. Example; the Broadsword, inspired By Piper's Star Viking, has two cutters, Piper had these as full utility starships in his book.
Options, is all that i am looking at. More chrome is good.
Infojunky said:
I like 'em all, to a degree. The first two are better, IMO, if they're rare and a bit unsafe.
I reckon a Jump-4 cutter can be made by installing a Type A jump drive and power plant in it. There's still 16 or 18 tons left for payload, right?
Or, if you want to get wilder and woolier, posit a Type 1/2A jump drive and power plant, for Jump-2 performance in a cutter, and Jump-1 performance in a Scout.
rje said:
I was kinda thinking that more controls would be necessary, i.e. a double bridge slice +1 computer model for the jump limit. as extra calculations need for a sub optimal jump field formation.
As for the Jump Torp, the controlling software would require a similar model increase and a remote bay.
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