Prime Directive Traveller
- Thread starter Nerroth
- Start date
rust, there are pages of "general" starships in our lists. Small freighters, large freighters, variants of those, and all sorts of ships that companies might need along with various police ships. When I was running one of the empires in a campaign, my merchant marine stayed quite busy building "stuff" to keep the empire's business (and businesses) ticking along.
Most recently, the Amarillo, an Armed Priority Transport was featured in Starship Aldo. So, yes, there are a bunch of civilian ships, but one doesn't see them as often in RPGs because they have exceptionally boring lives, except when attacked.
Most recently, the Amarillo, an Armed Priority Transport was featured in Starship Aldo. So, yes, there are a bunch of civilian ships, but one doesn't see them as often in RPGs because they have exceptionally boring lives, except when attacked.
This seems to be an interesting difference between the average TravellerJean said:
universe and the Star Fleet universe. In most Traveller settings some ra-
ther small civilian starship, often a Free Trader, is the most common play-
er character starship, and warships in player character hands are compa-
ratively rare.
rust, freighters pray for a boring life. 
Being attacked or hijacked is a Very Bad Thing because the Orion Pirates are in it for a profit. They are not going to pick a fair fight. A freighter's best hope is often to surrender up its cargo and to be allowed to go its way. (Pirates are also clever about this -- letting the hull and crew go means the insurance pays up and officials don't become as interested in hunting down the "murderous thieves."
One of the things that struck me early on is that I felt the era after the General War had a "Traveller-like" feel to it. Retired navy personnel bought retired/civilianized gunboats which became known as "workboats" and did a lot of wandering around doing more exciting things than ordinary freighters did. These civilian teams might tackle a planet and survey it if they have appropriate science skills. They might be hired unofficially to keep an eye open on this planet and see what's going on. They are more likely to have "interesting" ports of call (a freighter captain wants a dull life).
Being attacked or hijacked is a Very Bad Thing because the Orion Pirates are in it for a profit. They are not going to pick a fair fight. A freighter's best hope is often to surrender up its cargo and to be allowed to go its way. (Pirates are also clever about this -- letting the hull and crew go means the insurance pays up and officials don't become as interested in hunting down the "murderous thieves."One of the things that struck me early on is that I felt the era after the General War had a "Traveller-like" feel to it. Retired navy personnel bought retired/civilianized gunboats which became known as "workboats" and did a lot of wandering around doing more exciting things than ordinary freighters did. These civilian teams might tackle a planet and survey it if they have appropriate science skills. They might be hired unofficially to keep an eye open on this planet and see what's going on. They are more likely to have "interesting" ports of call (a freighter captain wants a dull life).
Well, in all honesty, playing a freighter in the SFU just prior to the General War would be kinda fun... not having a large starship to play with and having to worry about raiding klingons/kzinti/romulans etc... of course, you could be playing a convoy protection crew and be flying a Q-ship made to look like your normal ship, ready to blow the raiders into dust...
Rick
Mongoose
Or you could be playing a raider's crew and it's your "Big Book of Targets" 8)
Either way, having an entire book of civilian ships might be overkill, but I think it would be important to balance the military designs and the civilians. After all - the numbers of civilian ships are going to be much greater than the numbers of military ships kicking around!
Either way, having an entire book of civilian ships might be overkill, but I think it would be important to balance the military designs and the civilians. After all - the numbers of civilian ships are going to be much greater than the numbers of military ships kicking around!
Lincolnlog
Mongoose
Several Points:
I don''t think a ship's crew has to be extremely experienced to be on a bridge crew. Many times personnel/officers get experience on smaller ships prior to receiving more prestigious posting. But even on know Fed ships, you may have a young, heavily accented, expert junior officer manning the navigation consul.
So, your campaign could take place on a DD, and your bridge crew could be less experienced then say a legendary crew of a famous CA.
Also, combat could & should take place in times other than war. So the large fleet engagement is the exception and ship to ship actions more the norm.
Our intrepid DD crew is dispatched to Planet Whatevah, to represent the Federation for some minor diplomatic occasion and is rudely interupted by a pesky Klingon E4 crew that was sent to disrupt the festivities.
Even as an avid war gamer, I don't want to have to stop role playing set up a wargame in order to fight a short engagement between these two ships.
I don''t think a ship's crew has to be extremely experienced to be on a bridge crew. Many times personnel/officers get experience on smaller ships prior to receiving more prestigious posting. But even on know Fed ships, you may have a young, heavily accented, expert junior officer manning the navigation consul.
So, your campaign could take place on a DD, and your bridge crew could be less experienced then say a legendary crew of a famous CA.
Also, combat could & should take place in times other than war. So the large fleet engagement is the exception and ship to ship actions more the norm.
Our intrepid DD crew is dispatched to Planet Whatevah, to represent the Federation for some minor diplomatic occasion and is rudely interupted by a pesky Klingon E4 crew that was sent to disrupt the festivities.
Even as an avid war gamer, I don't want to have to stop role playing set up a wargame in order to fight a short engagement between these two ships.
]Lincolnlog
Mongoose
Good point, you would not want the "consul on the console" :lol:
Presumably.
Access to warp capability for things that drift more into the traveller small craft territory would be the other big change.
A big small-craft (say 80 dTons?) can easily reach sizes far larger than a shuttles and well into the size that one expects to be (slightly) warp-capable.
Nor would I. A two-ship duel, especially where one ship is entirely PC-crewed is precisely the sort of thing the traveller ship combat rules are for. But by the same logic, a major engagement (say a dozen vessels total) is not workable in those rules because of time and scale. There's nothing mutually exclusive about it - it's merely a question of having the ACTA conversion rules in your back pocket for when you need them.
There will be a system that will at least allow you to design civilian ships.zero said:
Designing outright military ships is a huge problem. One will likely be done, but it also likely be a complete mess. (Or, more properly, the system will be fine, but what it produces will be wholly unlike most SFU ships.)
To be honest, I probably wouldn't bother trying to make a template for building military ships. The SFU doesn't really lend itself to it, and there's a lot more scope for the civilian side of things anyway.
That said, I could see allowing various module/pack/configuration options for ships that are already modular in nature, or that have non-weapon option mounts in other game systems. It won't be a lot, but it would still allow some room for customisation.
That said, I could see allowing various module/pack/configuration options for ships that are already modular in nature, or that have non-weapon option mounts in other game systems. It won't be a lot, but it would still allow some room for customisation.
Rick
Mongoose
I was looking at some TOS deckplans last night - the Saladin, I think - and thinking that trying to shoehorn the deckplans of the SFB ships into a Traveller PD book (MGP did it with the B5 and High Guard books) would be a monumental task, and I think you'd lose a lot of detail.
Then I thought that maybe having full plans for the entire ship wouldn't be necessary, given that turbolifts can be accessed near to most major locations. All you'd need would be a cutaway, side view, of each ship, showing the deck layout and a key telling you what was on each deck.
You could then do a series of detailed plans of the major locations (bridge, sickbay, engineering, etc) that could be used for nearly all of the ships.
For example, if you had a large, medium and small example of each location, you could just indicate which ships had a medium bridge or a small sickbay.
I'm willing to bet that a large bridge on a CA and a large bridge on a DN don't look too dissimiliar.
Of course, this would be for the larger ships, smaller ones would have full deckplans, but you'd only be looking at 2-3 decks in most of those cases.
Then I thought that maybe having full plans for the entire ship wouldn't be necessary, given that turbolifts can be accessed near to most major locations. All you'd need would be a cutaway, side view, of each ship, showing the deck layout and a key telling you what was on each deck.
You could then do a series of detailed plans of the major locations (bridge, sickbay, engineering, etc) that could be used for nearly all of the ships.
For example, if you had a large, medium and small example of each location, you could just indicate which ships had a medium bridge or a small sickbay.
I'm willing to bet that a large bridge on a CA and a large bridge on a DN don't look too dissimiliar.
Of course, this would be for the larger ships, smaller ones would have full deckplans, but you'd only be looking at 2-3 decks in most of those cases.
