Okay, say your group wants to sell their starship...

[rinku]

It would actually be fun to let them fold ship shares towards it, and have them own something... interesting. And maybe base the campaign on non-starship ownership.

If needs be, small craft can be ferried between systems, either as cargo or on an external grapple. Maybe the boat is the one that has the grapple, and it hitches rides?

 

[Vormaerin]

A nice small craft is pretty useful to have. The regular gig (not the military one) is within the price range of this perk and it's Thrust 7 with 2 cabin spaces and a proper turret.

Or the pinnace, which is slower (Thrust 5 and a Fixed Mount) if you need more cabin space because your party is bigger than 3.

But the gig's half the size of the pinnace so cheaper to transport to another system. If changing systems ever comes up and I've run campaigns where it never does.

But, personally, I have jump tender type ships be pretty common between systems and have a lot more non starships operating in most systems. The jump drive is a huge tax. So finding a ride to another system costs money, but isn't difficult to arrange.

 

[rinku]

The common Subsidised Merchant has a large enough main cargo bay to contain a lot of the standard ones, as does the X-Boat tender. Plus the large freighters, which is likely how most boats get delivered from their shipyard of origin.

I imagine there's quite a few old X-Boat tenders working boat transport jobs.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes and no? The volume of the cargo bay may be large enough, but it's not clear that the cargo bay door does, though the Subby has that pretty big front door. Still packing your boat into a shipping container is probably annoying, because that's not a hangar that you are gonna fly it into

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Yes and no? The volume of the cargo bay may be large enough, but it's not clear that the cargo bay door does, though the Subby has that pretty big front door. Still packing your boat into a shipping container is probably annoying, because that's not a hangar that you are gonna fly it into

With items like that you have the pinnace land/be placed on the bottom part of a shipping container then assemble the container around it.

 

[J. L. Brown]

What's problematic about it? You can take 2 ship shares or you can get a free small craft, which can be pretty handy in all kinds of situations. Particularly if your group gets a ship that doesn't already have one or doesn't get a ship at all.

Hauling it around; more especially if the party does not have a ship. But even with a ship, many ships do not have a dedicated small-craft berth, so your boat displaces paying cargo & freight.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Hauling it around; more especially if the party does not have a ship. But even with a ship, many ships do not have a dedicated small-craft berth, so your boat displaces paying cargo & freight.

Docking clamp to mount it to the exterior of the hull. Access via the docking hatches in the docking clamp.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Unless travelling to a really minor world there will be larger ships (1000s of tons) for which even carrying a Free Trader (or maybe even a subsidized merchant) would be no issue if you can handle the freight charges and your own passage.

For MTU a percentage of ships have docking clamps (and over sized J-Drives) to allow them to act as Jump Tugs. Many systems won't be able to make their own non starships but will want/need them so docking clamps pay for themselves. Depending on the ship any size docking clamp is possible.

 

[rinku]

I was thinking less along the lines of what is usually done in busy systems (a ship designed to move around other ships, like a Jump shuttle or X-Boat Tender), but more along the lines of what might be possible locally if you need it done and they aren't available.

Clamps are always nice, but I was working on specialist ship and boat carriers not being around. But now that I look at the Fat Trader the original deckplan shows the rear cargo bay doors as 10.5m wide and 6m height. So it can accommodate most small craft (at least CT ones). It CAN load its own Launch into its bay, and looks like you could get about 3-4 inside, more if they were stacked, maybe.

Classic small craft are generally non-flattened cylinders; A cylindrical launch or Ship's Boat (diameter 4.5m) can easily get into a Subby, even through the 7.5m wide front bay doors. The wings on the Pinnance would prevent entry, but if they can be demounted or folded for transport (likely) it would fit. The Cutter only just fits (6m diameter); I'd tend to rule those out, unless it's a flattened cylinder design. Although I can't discount the standard design blueprint set having been drafted so that the Type-R cargo bay doors and bay being just a little taller than 6m, and the Cutter being just a little smaller that that. It would make sense.

I don't REALLY want to try to sort out the Mongoose era deckplans. Although it looks like the current subby bay doors are 10.5m x 6m front and back.

 

[Vormaerin]

Hauling it around; more especially if the party does not have a ship. But even with a ship, many ships do not have a dedicated small-craft berth, so your boat displaces paying cargo & freight.

So that assumes several things that are not, imho, in evidence:

1) You are playing a campaign that requires moving from world to world rather than around a space faring single system
2) You need to go some place off the beaten path enough that no jump tender exists to pay to take it across for you.
3) Your players are dumb enough to take the small boat instead of the ship shares if they know the crew is getting a ship that can't take it.

or

3) The GM is a big enough prick to not tell the players that they are gonna open the campaign with a "get a ship adventure" that isn't compatible with carrying a small craft (like High N Dry).

 

[Vormaerin]

Clamps are always nice, but I was working on specialist ship and boat carriers not being around. But now that I look at the Fat Trader the original deckplan shows the rear cargo bay doors as 10.5m wide and 6m height. So it can accommodate most small craft (at least CT ones). It CAN load it's own Launch into its bay, and looks like you could get about 3-4 inside, more if they were stacked, maybe.

Yes, but they aren't going to let you "fly" your ship into the cargo deck. You are going to put it in a specialized shipping container

 

[rinku]

I think the main, common benefit from actually taking the small craft over the two ship shares is that you are allowed to spend a budget on one. Ship shares can be used to purchase a ship, and nothing says you have to use a standard design, or pay for its small craft.

So the MCr10 from that first Ship's Boat result does help the total.

But if the group gets a ship which comes with a small craft (Lab Ship, Yacht, Safari Ship), hand the player High Guard and show them all the toys. They'd not get a refund on the included small craft, but they could have a very special boat to love and cherish...

 

[rinku]

Yes, but they aren't going to let you "fly" your ship into the cargo deck. You are going to put it in a specialized shipping container

Sure, but the final dimensions of that container (Or cradle, or pallet) can't be smaller than the boat.

I'd actually expect a craft not to be crated up, unless it's also disassembled. Most likely it's secured on a framework cradle. The boat hardly needs protection from bumps, it would need to be supported inside a container anyway, so why bother with the box?


(And maybe even just the lower half of that setup).

 

[swordtart]

A nice small craft is pretty useful to have. The regular gig (not the military one) is within the price range of this perk and it's Thrust 7 with 2 cabin spaces and a proper turret.

Or the pinnace, which is slower (Thrust 5 and a Fixed Mount) if you need more cabin space because your party is bigger than 3.

But the gig's half the size of the pinnace so cheaper to transport to another system. If changing systems ever comes up and I've run campaigns where it never does.

But, personally, I have jump tender type ships be pretty common between systems and have a lot more non starships operating in most systems. The jump drive is a huge tax. So finding a ride to another system costs money, but isn't difficult to arrange.

Having a small craft 30 DTon or less is a major advantage in getting piggy backs due to the cost of the docking clamps. A 150 ton ship with Jump-2 can ferry 5 of them with only a 5 DTon "tax". If you carry small ships at the normal cargo rate (which seems reasonable) you can get KCr30 per type 1 clamp. That is a much better return than the other types and economic advantage would tend therefore to make them more common.

 

[Vormaerin]

And the smallcraft crew has to buy cabin tickets on your ship on top of that, because most small craft are not suited for week long habitation. Cabin space is basically just a business or maybe first class airline seat. That's fine for a day or so, but not so great for a week.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Docking clamp to mount it to the exterior of the hull. Access via the docking hatches in the docking clamp.

It is nice that you have a solution for your Traveller universe; but no 'starter' ships come with docking clamps -- nor is it clear that an airlock is included with a clamp. Plus there are some other disadvantages to clamps:

A ship’s Thrust and jump capability must be
recalculated when another ship occupies its docking
clamp, using the combined tonnage of both ships. This
likely means the manoeuvre drive will be operating at a
lower Thrust and the jump capability is reduced.

The size of a docking clamp dictates the tonnage of the
ship it may attach as shown in the Docking Clamp table.
Docking clamps can be added to streamlined ships but
the ship becomes unstreamlined when another ship
is docked to it. Docking clamps alone do not affect a
streamlined configuration. It takes three full rounds to
release or clamp a ship of less than 2,000 tons, during
which time neither ship can expand any Thrust or make
any attack rolls. Larger ships take D3+3 rounds.

A party of Travellers is paying a noticeable opportunity cost for a 'Ships Boat' without dedicated Docking Space.

So that assumes several things that are not, imho, in evidence:

1) You are playing a campaign that requires moving from world to world rather than around a space faring single system
2) You need to go some place off the beaten path enough that no jump tender exists to pay to take it across for you.
3) Your players are dumb enough to take the small boat instead of the ship shares if they know the crew is getting a ship that can't take it.

or

3) The GM is a big enough prick to not tell the players that they are gonna open the campaign with a "get a ship adventure" that isn't compatible with carrying a small craft (like High N Dry).

1} Every -- to my knowledge -- published campaign, and many published adventures, require the Travellers to make at least one interstellar jump; often more than one. Expecting that a party will need to be able to travel to other systems is NOT an extraordinary expectation out of a sci-fi game named 'Traveller'.

2} No special 'jump tenders' are necessary; nor are many detailed in the published material. However, paying to have a 20 dTon Ship's Boat carried as freight for a single parsec jump is a minimum of 20kCr; more if the transporter requires payment for the extra 'bulk' of unusable space (10% or more?) around the oddly-shaped boat.

3} A Ship's boat is worth up to 10MCr; it is not unreasonable that a player might choose that over a 1MCr ship-share. Even if they turn around and sell (probably at less than full 'list price') the Boat, it is still extra effort that has to be made in-game. Contrasted with a

• 'Type A Free Trader' benefit worth 11MCr+; or an
• 'A2 Far Trader' benefit worth 12.9MCr+; or an
• 'Empress Marava' benefit worth 13.5MCR+; or a
• 'Type K Safari Ship' benefit worth 15MCr+; or a
• 'Type Y Yacht' benefit worth 15.5MCr+; or a
• 'Type L Lab Ship' benefit worth 28.8MCr+

It is distinctly a second-best choice.

3b} You are assuming the worst of a referee you have never met. There are good reasons to NOT start the players off with a ship, and to NOT give the party a free ship in the very first scenario. And whether the party gets an 'incompatible' ship or not, the Boat owner has to either pay to transport it, or pay to Berth it until the party does have a ship; or sell it. Once the party does have a ship, they must decide whether carrying the Boat is worth the opportunity cost of the freight or passenger space it occupies -- and they might disagree with the Boat owner, which is needless friction from a 'benefit'.

The Boat owner CAN offset some of the expense of moving the Boat if they carry freight while being carried as freight. This is probably a marginal savings at best. The 20 dTon Launch and the 40 dTon Slow Pinnace are probably the best choices for this.

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Vormaerin]

Every current edition Mongoose campaign is a wander around in a starship campaign, which is one of the weaknesses of the current lineup, because that is not particularly necessary for Traveller. We used to have boxed sets like Tarsus and Beltstrike, that were single systems set up for long term play. Certainly the Expanse and Firefly are modern examples of single system campaigns. It is absolutely not a requirement to faff about the universe doing planet of the week.

20k credits is pretty affordable. The party's spending that or more to travel between systems anyway. That's the fuel cost of your jump ship anyway unless you are wasting tons of time off skimming fuel. Plus, you don't have to have all the specific crew skills. No one in your party has steward? No problem. The steward is waiting on you. Didn't roll up a decent Astrogator? Don't need one anyway.

That kind of cash equivalency "balance" is, imho, nonsense. Aside from the fact that the ship's boat is owned free and clear and those other benefits saddle you with a huge recurring debt for the next 30 years. If you park your free trader to go do a deep jungle expedition, your mortgage is still kicking over. Not a problem with your ship's boat. And having a 5G to 7G boat can often have definite advantages over one of those lumbering 1G or 2G vessels.

And you completely missed the point of the two #3s. The first one is that if the ship's boat is going to be a problem with the campaign set up, then the player will know that. So they can choose not to take the small boat and get part ownership in whatever ship they are taking instead.

And the 2nd example in particular was not any kind of expectation that the GM is providing a ship. I was saying that if the players didn't have a starship out of chargen and the GM DID intend to make one available promptly, they'd tell the player deciding on a ship's boat or not that this would be the case.

If you are running a published campaign, I would assume that the GM is going to let the players know if chargen choices they make are relevant or not. If not, the campaigns is, presumably, shaped by the characters. It is by no means a given that anyone in the party ends up with a ship. In my last campaign, no one had an actual starship, but one of the players did have the ship's boat option. There wasn't a published story being run, so the players went where they wanted to go. Sometimes that involved spending long stretches in the same system, sometimes they just paid to move the boat with them.

While it doesn't have the traditional "have ship, will travel" upside of a starship, it doesn't have the "Oh god, I need to make boatloads of money every single month" that puts a crimp on a lot of "you know, let's go do this cool thing that isn't that profitable" options.

I simply do not think it is problematic at all. It's less of a problem than two players getting different starships (T:NE's mechanics nicely prevented that) and if there isn't some other PC ship in the mix, the ship's boat isn't a problem at all.

 

[Condottiere]

You can always modify the smallcraft, to attach a jump drive (and fuel) module.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Classic Traveller was about travelling - but you were not assured to have a PC group from character generation alone.

You had to survive as a scout and then get lucky on the musteing out roll, or get very lucky in the merchant career to get to high enough rank to have a shot at a free trader, and then get lucky again.

Oh no, the PCs don't have their own ship, what a stupid name - Traveller but they cant't travel.

Except:
patrons can provide passage tickets
characters can buy passage
characters can work for their passage
a patron could charter a ship
characters can charter a ship
characters could be shanghaied, kidnapped by raiders, be forced to attempt to stowaway

getting from world to world in Traveller is pretty easy for any group of Travellers, who needs the hassle of crew salaries, life support costs, mortgage payments, searching for freight and passage...

I like ship porn, I like designing starships, I like wargaming space battles and system invasions, but the vast majority of my Traveller refereeing has been for PC groups that do not own their own ship.