Opinions on custom ship building
- Thread starter zero
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far-trader
Mongoose
DFW said:
Easily possible for a place like Earth today
The Imperium just parks a couple 400ton type T Cruisers in orbit and imposes a blockade on our sorry little red zoned world. And with justification.However your earlier was for an advanced TL15 single world gov Earth of the future. I see no issue with it wanting to nor enforcing for itself the single main world Imperial Interstellar Starport as I briefly described. IMO that is part of the responsibility as a member world.
Of course there will be other cases. Worlds where there are few concerns and the Starship operator is trusted to maintain the best interests of the Imperium (as in dangerous goods and people being spread to other worlds). In those cases there won't be a problem landing where ever (with the caveat of course that the physical landing may not be as safe).
Worlds with low Starports (D or E, and of course X). Worlds with balkanized governments. That is all that comes to mind off hand as likely exceptions. And only as possible exceptions, they wouldn't be in every case imo. And other worlds might also be exceptions. BUT these would be exceptions to the rule only, and as exceptions are by definition rare.
And while I'm talking about the Imperium and MTU it's all built logically on the background of the basic rules without the Imperium specifically described. There are (many) certain presumptions built into the rules that predate the OTU but inform to the nature of the universe.
And don't forget, population distribution wise, the bulk of the sophonts will be living on worlds with high law levels as Pop is a DM for Law. High Pop worlds will generally be High Law worlds, and one will expect the bureaucracy to impose stringent trade and migration rules.
In my opinion of course, as informed by and deduced from the basic rules.
Nathan Brazil
Banded Mongoose
One thing to keep in mind. If the characters are not personally financing the ship, you will need to keep illegalities out of the equation. Before you build your ship, the money for it or the loan for it has to be determined. The bank involves itself in ship design from a profitability standpoint. The bank line of thinking would go like this:
If the ship is to be used for business but l "extremely high risk" (low tonnage high priced illegal goods, low berths without insurance waivers or shoddy berths, what have you) as opposed to your "standard high risk" Far Traders/Fat Traders/etc. a bank will not finace a custom ship. They want their nice "safe" 40 years of monthly payments without ships skipping or the ship impounded due to illegalities. If the ship skips (forced or otherwise) the bank gets no payments and no ship due to default. A bank will support some risk, but not the kind where the percentage chance losing its received payments gets higher.
Your universe's banks may vary though.
If the custom ship is fully subsidized by the future owner, then have at it. But If you have money to burn to buy/build a high risk ship...
If the ship is to be used for business but l "extremely high risk" (low tonnage high priced illegal goods, low berths without insurance waivers or shoddy berths, what have you) as opposed to your "standard high risk" Far Traders/Fat Traders/etc. a bank will not finace a custom ship. They want their nice "safe" 40 years of monthly payments without ships skipping or the ship impounded due to illegalities. If the ship skips (forced or otherwise) the bank gets no payments and no ship due to default. A bank will support some risk, but not the kind where the percentage chance losing its received payments gets higher.
Your universe's banks may vary though.
If the custom ship is fully subsidized by the future owner, then have at it. But If you have money to burn to buy/build a high risk ship...
far-trader
Mongoose
DFW said:
Riiight. But I have more experience in interstellar commerce and business...
Sorry DFW but all your supposed extensive experience in world wide commerce and business means squat for informing fictional interstellar commerce and business. Really.
Nathan Brazil, I always personally make sure a group of characters can make their monthly payments (mortgage, life support and maintenance) based on the income they could gain possible in a month before finalising the design of a custom ship. If the payment is higher than their income for the month, I downsize the ship, simple.
No, but I wouldnt mind a crack at one after I sort this new ship out.
While we're at it though, I noticed something on Travellermap.com;
Terra has a UWP of A-867A69-F.
Under MGT rules, Terra with its Law Level of 9 would be up for Amber Zone status, also when running the numbers under world creation rules the max TL it could have with those numbers is E, not F.
There was another inconsistency when I sorted out the Orichalc sector, with a UWP for Ovid that ran C-100001-D. Surely the middle part should be 100100, right? Or is it a place populated only by robots? Would those numbers count against the population? Plus max TL would be B, not D.
Whats going on with the Travellermap.com UWPs??? :?
While we're at it though, I noticed something on Travellermap.com;
Terra has a UWP of A-867A69-F.
Under MGT rules, Terra with its Law Level of 9 would be up for Amber Zone status, also when running the numbers under world creation rules the max TL it could have with those numbers is E, not F.
There was another inconsistency when I sorted out the Orichalc sector, with a UWP for Ovid that ran C-100001-D. Surely the middle part should be 100100, right? Or is it a place populated only by robots? Would those numbers count against the population? Plus max TL would be B, not D.
Whats going on with the Travellermap.com UWPs??? :?
Travellermap.com UWPs are not based on Mongoose Traveller rules nor source books.zero said:
Travellermap.com is an awesome fansite - but, it is not specific to Mongoose's version of Traveller nor is it 'official'. Note that there is no real 'official' map anyway, except by version, by product, by errata... from over 30 years of published materials!
Repeat... the UWPs in the Mongoose sector books don't necessarily match Travellermap.com and its UWPs don't intentionally conform to Mongoose Traveller UWP generation rules.
In fact, its data does not follow rules per se, so much as past information and fan input. Click on the More... link at the bottom of the page - Joshua details out a bit about his sources. :wink:
Also - the random world gen rules, like all other RPG rules, are not absolute. Nothing states a UWP has to conform to their restrictions...
AndrewW said:
For lightly trafficked worlds that would make sense. But notice I specifically said Class A starport - the busiest type there is. It would be analagous to saying the port of Rotterdam (one of the busiest in the world) is going to let ships drop anchor offshore and all cargo will be transported to/from them via cargo lighters and barges. It would never happen. You need some sort of orbital infrastructure to handle all of the traffic. Transferring cargo with orbital terminals/stations is much more effecient than flying everything up/down to the surface.
Super-sized container ships are overtaxing the capability of many ports to off-load that much cargo and monopolizing the limited berthing space. One solution being closely examined is airships (Heliostats actually) to ferry TEUs from the ship to the shore allowing them to offload without closing the port to almost all other traffic.phavoc said:
So ferrying cargo from orbit (at Traveller's negligible Fusion/MD costs) might not be as crazy an idea as it first seems.
atpollard said:
Yes, still nuts as it still raises costs of goods AND, the Planet is PART of the 3I. It isn't a foreign power and more than the EU is another nation to Italy or the US Fed gov is to a state...
Also, it isn't a military base. You need to reread the materials you purchased.
So, yes TOTALLY nuts.
atpollard said:
Yes, you are right. As the newer and larger container ships are being designed and built, they are overloading the capability of the ports. However that can be addressed by modifying (as much as possible) the cranes and such that unload the ships.
Heliostats are an interesting idea, though they would be highly subject to weather, especially fog. Some ports are still hamstrung from rail/storage space. Though a heliostat could in theory stay away from a standard port and take the container to different yards.
*cough* just going back on-topic for a second by saying I got High Guard and have decided atm to just work on the Stubby stat-block, making a Stubby 2.0 if you will, already decided it'll be a TL 12 constructed ship and will see what I can do to make the ship cheaper or boost profits from the original
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Okay, so I built a spaceship today (should say, I finished it today ), based off my reliable Stubby, the premise being its an antique ship built on a TL 16 world, so lots of discount and scrapheap salvage parts! :wink:
Anyways, so Ive got to assign software to the Computer (Model 2, found on a scrapheap :wink: ) and I tend to have a mix of the starship software in the ship creation bit of the Core and some programs from the Equipment section, mainly Expert programs based on ship-relevant skills (with a ship of two, there'll be something we wont have a skill in :lol: ).
I take it I could have discount Ship software using the High Guard rules for antique stuff, will the Expert programs etc from the Core Equipment chap. be able to be bought at a discount too?
), based off my reliable Stubby, the premise being its an antique ship built on a TL 16 world, so lots of discount and scrapheap salvage parts! :wink: Anyways, so Ive got to assign software to the Computer (Model 2, found on a scrapheap :wink: ) and I tend to have a mix of the starship software in the ship creation bit of the Core and some programs from the Equipment section, mainly Expert programs based on ship-relevant skills (with a ship of two, there'll be something we wont have a skill in :lol: ).
I take it I could have discount Ship software using the High Guard rules for antique stuff, will the Expert programs etc from the Core Equipment chap. be able to be bought at a discount too?
