Modular ships in 2300 - more flexibility possible?

[Yatima]

The rules state that ships can have up to 70% of their volume as modules, increasing the price of those components proportionally. This works fine, but envisages a ship as a set volume with a proportion of swappable pieces.

I've long wanted to design a ship using a modular system such as that proposed for ships in the Jovian Chronicles, where ships are essentially a string of modules that can vary in mass, drive section, bridge, armaments etc. Clearly there'd be a degree of redundancy in the components in each module, and you'd need a bus/cable system for power, data, fuel etc when assembling the ship. The computer would become a distributed network of machines, with a master unit somewhere coordinating the work of lots of local (bis) computers - I've always imagined this to be the case anyway.

But is such a system feasible in 2300 and what adjustments to the rules and ship design system do people think would be required? Some of the Jovian Chronicles ships would be sweet to use in 2300 and the general principal of a ship as a modular grab bag seems very 2300 to me in any case.

 

[kermit]

The Bughunters game for Amazing Engines does something like this. Written back in 1993 by Lester Smith, one of the old GDW guys who also worked on 2300AD; it is heavily influenced by Aliens and 2300AD. The star drive is very similar but without the 7.7 LY threshold. Instead normal humans must enter suspended animation or suffer severe illness and the ships are much slower.

By coincidence just the other day I was looking into converting Bughunters (BH) ships to Mongoose 2300. All BH ships are completely modular and the tonnages given for the various pieces seem pretty close to the dton systems used by Treaveller. I was thinking of using the BH system as is but adding an additional 10% dton for civilian ships and 20% dton for military ships to represent a central core (the extra dtons for military ships takes into account compartmentalization between modules and armor).

I just checked and you can pick up a copy of BH on Amazon for just $2.66 plus $3.99 S&H. I recommend it and you might be able to pilfer some of the background material as well.

Benjamin

 

[Yatima]

Thanks, I will look into getting my hands on a copy. I was vaguely aware of that system, but it sounds really quite interesting.

 

[Lemnoc]

ships are essentially a string of modules that can vary in mass, drive section, bridge, armaments etc. Clearly there'd be a degree of redundancy in the components in each module, and you'd need a bus/cable system for power, data, fuel etc when assembling the ship. The computer would become a distributed network of machines, with a master unit somewhere coordinating the work of lots of local (bis) computers - I've always imagined this to be the case anyway.

But is such a system feasible in 2300 and what adjustments to the rules and ship design system do people think would be required? Some of the Jovian Chronicles ships would be sweet to use in 2300 and the general principal of a ship as a modular grab bag seems very 2300 to me in any case.

It's a cool idea, and the way I would imagine ore freightage in particular would really pencil. Instead of fuel tanks, large (perhaps sculpted) chunks of water ice. I'd play around with stutterwarp drives in the low efficiency range. These ships do not have to be fast or particularly maneuverable. if it takes them years to cross distances, then mostly robotic control with pilots boarding the things when they approach their destinations.

Would like to see what you come up with.

 

[Colin]

I've always liked Jovian Chronicles. I even did some writing for it.

It would be possible to do what you want with 2300. Design each section with the equivalent of a small-craft cockpit. That covers the controls required for each module. The module that contains the bridge has to have a bridge designed for the maximum size of ship, along with the equivalent of a small craft cockpit. Add all the modules together, and cross-reference the total size in tons with the drive efficiency table to get the stutterwarp speed of the whole ship.

So, you need a stutterwarp/power module, fuel modules, cargo modules, hab modules, and a bridge module. Things like weapons and spin habs can be optional modules.

 

[Yatima]

Thanks for the replies, very helpful indeed. I'll have a go at this at the weekend and see what I can come up with. I had in mind a survey ship, the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, that I want for a little project that the new rules have inspired.

If it's any good, I may post it for critique.

J

 

[Lysander]

The Bughunters game for Amazing Engines does something like this. Written back in 1993 by Lester Smith, one of the old GDW guys who also worked on 2300AD; it is heavily influenced by Aliens and 2300AD. The star drive is very similar but without the 7.7 LY threshold. Instead normal humans must enter suspended animation or suffer severe illness and the ships are much slower.

By coincidence just the other day I was looking into converting Bughunters (BH) ships to Mongoose 2300. All BH ships are completely modular and the tonnages given for the various pieces seem pretty close to the dton systems used by Treaveller. I was thinking of using the BH system as is but adding an additional 10% dton for civilian ships and 20% dton for military ships to represent a central core (the extra dtons for military ships takes into account compartmentalization between modules and armor).

I just checked and you can pick up a copy of BH on Amazon for just $2.66 plus $3.99 S&H. I recommend it and you might be able to pilfer some of the background material as well.

Benjamin

Bughunters was a neat little universe. The book also had very nice fold-out color near star map attached inside the back cover as well.

 

[GJD]

The Bughunters game for Amazing Engines does something like this. Written back in 1993 by Lester Smith, one of the old GDW guys who also worked on 2300AD; it is heavily influenced by Aliens and 2300AD. The star drive is very similar but without the 7.7 LY threshold. Instead normal humans must enter suspended animation or suffer severe illness and the ships are much slower.

By coincidence just the other day I was looking into converting Bughunters (BH) ships to Mongoose 2300. All BH ships are completely modular and the tonnages given for the various pieces seem pretty close to the dton systems used by Treaveller. I was thinking of using the BH system as is but adding an additional 10% dton for civilian ships and 20% dton for military ships to represent a central core (the extra dtons for military ships takes into account compartmentalization between modules and armor).

I just checked and you can pick up a copy of BH on Amazon for just $2.66 plus $3.99 S&H. I recommend it and you might be able to pilfer some of the background material as well.

Benjamin

Bughunters was a neat little universe. The book also had very nice fold-out color near star map attached inside the back cover as well.

SPI, the wargames arm of TSR, did a version of it for Sniper! that came with some nice geomorphic starship and colony maps.