Near Future Traveller

[Terry Mixon]

Luckily, the page below also has this:

Where the Referee deems it appropriate, the same
Advantage or Disadvantage can be applied more than
once to a component, increasing or decreasing its
quality. All alterations are additive. For example, if two
+10% alterations are taken, the net modification is 20%.

True, but that doesn't mean it references having more than two total disadvantages. You could have only two and put them both in the same thing.

 

[rinku]

It's worth noting at absolutely everything to do with prototech has to be allowed by the Referee and extra limits can be imposed as they deem fit.

Retrotech is a bit different, generally gear using those rules can usually be found just by shopping. But the Referee still has veto about demand and availability... if I want to go and buy a TL8 horse buggy, I may have to source a special order.

 

[Condottiere]

It's either one or the other.

For advantages, three points, divided any way from amongst one and two point advantage options.

Allowing dungeon masters to playing loosey goosey with effects seems contrarian with their decision to clamp down on mixing and matching advantages to disadvantages.

Speaking of which, upto two points of disadvantages, added up in any combination.

It would be nice to have the option to pick two disadvantages, without prototyping.

 

[rinku]

I mean, I get that. Same or lower tech and you make it cheaper but bulkier, or smaller but more expensive. It's not prototech then, just manufacturing tradeoffs. Isn't there some discussion about that?

 

[Limpin Legin]

I mean, I get that. Same or lower tech and you make it cheaper but bulkier, or smaller but more expensive. It's not prototech then, just manufacturing tradeoffs. Isn't there some discussion about that?

There is a discussion in this thread, if that is any help:

J

Thread 'Questions about Fabrication Chambers'

Aug 11, 2023

Page 7 of the updated / 2023 version of the Central Supply Catalog includes rules for 'Fabrication Chambers'. Generally the price is 'volume x price per volume for specific capability', which is fine. Fabbers of better capability become available (but not mandatory) at higher Technology Levels, which is also fine. So what is the price of a lower-capability fabber built one or more TLs above when the capability became available? What is the price difference between Basic / Improved / Enhanced fabbers of the same volume, all built at TL 14? TL 15? The text doesn't give any guidance...

• J. L. Brown
• Replies: 32
• Forum: Traveller

and this one:

M

Thread 'Traveller Manufacturing Rules'

Sep 19, 2024

Hey guys! Okay, so I do a lot of building and manufacturing in Traveller and one thing I have noticed is that the rules for Fabricating and Manufacturing are entirely unbalanced. Using the Mineral Refinery and the Manufacturing Plants, I can build a planet with less than 200 million sophonts that can out-produce the entirety of the Vincennes subsector. Examples below. (I use a 50% material cost for production)

In a non-microgravity environment, 1 Mining Bot can mine just under 12 Dtons per day. 6 tons of Mineral Refinery can handle this along with 30 tons of Smelter. This requires 1...

• MasterGwydion
• Replies: 178
• Forum: Traveller

• 

 

[Sigtrygg]

You can already add early grav lifters at TL8 using the prototype rules, but they're big and power hungry, and orbital range only.
If you add the orbital range double disadvantage, on top of the intrinsic prototype disadvantage, you're looking at 600% cost, -50%. Since I can't find the rule I once assumed of 3 disadvantages max, you could boost it up to 4 disadvantages*, and get it to 600% -75%.... Which works out to be +50% cost on top of a normal M-Drive-1. On something like a free trader, you'd have a 2.5 ton drive, needing 26PP, and costing MCr6. Best paired with a 1g reaction drive...

*Not saving anything for the intrinsic prototype disadvantage.

The core concept of this thread is no gravitics or fusion until the jump drive is invented. Now that means yes, the Germans were experimenting with gravitics during WWII, the US continued this work building prototypes at Area 51, but to the civilian world - no gravitics.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Especially good if you like dealing with radioactive stuff; an atomic torch ship taking off or landing is going to want a spaceport set up well away from people, and might actually need a chemical drive to operate near a station or planet.

Mongoose does a good job of never explaining what a reaction drive is. Even close to realistic physics and engineering require it to be some form of torch ship...

for highports you could have chemical rocket tugs...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Luckily, the page below also has this:

Where the Referee deems it appropriate, the same
Advantage or Disadvantage can be applied more than
once to a component, increasing or decreasing its
quality. All alterations are additive. For example, if two
+10% alterations are taken, the net modification is 20%.

Unless you invoke rule zero you are still limited to the number of disadvantages for your TL.

So no component can have anymore than 2 disadvantages.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

So how much radiation shielding does a primitive hull provide? How much radiation are you taking in interplanetary space? Price/tonnage of "low tech" radiation shielding?

Wouldn't a primitive hull need heat shielding for reentry?

Personally I wouldn't allow fuel skimming for a primitive hull or reaction drive.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Apparently, insulation sucks.

2. Anything non manoeuvre drive[n] needs heat shielding during atmospheric reentry.

3. Fuel scoops allow unstreamlined and partially streamlined ships to gather unrefined fuel from a gas giant (streamlined ships have fuel scoops built-in automatically at no additional cost).

4. A ship with radiation shielding decreases the amount of rads absorbed by all crew by 1,000 (rather than the normal 500) and treats the bridge as if it is Hardened. Radiation shielding costs Cr25000 per ton of hull.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

2. Anything non manoeuvre drive[n] needs heat shielding during atmospheric reentry.

Thanks, I'd forgotten that, never having worked on designing a ship without M-Drive for Traveller (that also did re-entry).

Of course the question now becomes the cost and mass of primitive heat shielding.

3. Fuel scoops allow unstreamlined and partially streamlined ships to gather unrefined fuel from a gas giant (streamlined ships have fuel scoops built-in automatically at no additional cost).

I wouldn't think unrefined fuel would be usable and that portable processors wouldn't exist. Not to mention the fuel usage skimming a gas giant in a fragile primitive hull. My inclination is they couldn't manage the flight through the gas giant atmosphere due to fragility.

4. A ship with radiation shielding decreases the amount of rads absorbed by all crew by 1,000 (rather than the normal 500) and treats the bridge as if it is Hardened. Radiation shielding costs Cr25000 per ton of hull.

But does a primitive hull get the "normal 500" shielding or something less due to the materials and the emphasis on low mass to make it operational? Maybe 100 or 250 and again would the shielding material still be "mass less" and as efficient? Maybe both should be cut in half and radiation shielding by 1-2% of the habitable portions of the ship?

Then there is the cost and mass for hardening with primitive materials, which I had not thought of till you mentioned it. Thanks again. One more to think of.

 

[Condottiere]

Lack of insulation and hull points tend to indicate lack of radiation protection.

I'd half organic radiation absorption for a primitive hull.

 

[rinku]

Mongoose does a good job of never explaining what a reaction drive is. Even close to realistic physics and engineering require it to be some form of torch ship...

for highports you could have chemical rocket tugs...

To be fair, if you have a fusion power plant you can pretty much use anything convenient as reaction mass. Maybe the waste helium? It's got to be disposed of somewhere. Theoretically, you're turning tons of liquid hydrogen into it on a weekly basis...

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

To be fair, if you have a fusion power plant you can pretty much use anything convenient as reaction mass. Maybe the waste helium? It's got to be disposed of somewhere. Theoretically, you're turning tons of liquid hydrogen into it on a weekly basis...

Except reaction drives show up at TL 7 and fusion power plants aren't till TL 8. You could say though that it is a fusion drive but it doesn't produce any excess power. Not sure anyone would want to launch such a ship from anywhere they liked though.

 

[rinku]

Technically you could have a reaction drive at pretty much any tech level. Compressed air or even throwing rocks in the opposite direction will move a spacecraft in microgravity.

And less flippantly, solid state rockets were a medieval invention, so TL2 could do it. Gunpowder contains its own oxidizer and can burn in a vacuum. TL5 and 6 can definitely build liquid fuelled rockets, though you probably need TL6 ones to get into orbit.

Use the prototech rules to flesh those out, probably.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I am trying to make Traveller based ship design rules for TL 5-7 and this thread has been very helpful.

I may need to reread Pournelle's King David's Spaceship for more ideas.

 

[rinku]

Bob Shaw's "Land and Overland" books ("The Ragged Astronauts", "The Wooden Spaceships" and "The Fugitive Worlds") are worth a read too, although their low tech spacecraft work in a very specific environment and alternate physics are probably in play as well.

Victorian Science Fiction is, as always, informative for TL4-5.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I'll have to see if I can find copies.

 

[rinku]

Ironically, the most convincing VSF space travel story is probably H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon... and that uses a version of antigravity

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I like John Wood Campbell's The Moon is Hell. Not so much about space travel but an expedition being stranded on the (far side of) moon when their relief ship crashes. Having no satellites they can't even notify Earth and have to survive on their remaining couple of months supplies for a couple of years (no cannibalism, no plants, no animals).