Questions about Laboratory Ships.

[tneva82_]

Oh, they know about the trade 5 for 2 thing...they just don't want to.

Of course not they want to have their cake and eat it too... Trouble is cut down the size of a laboratory ship to say 200 tons you aren't going to have nearly the cargo capacity of say a 200 ton free trader so it's still not going to be that great as a cargo hauler compared to what they could put 2 ships shares worth towards.

Insisting on having those trades for specific type of ship in book means that basically all of those would be useless in some other settings. Not every setting has exact same ship design after all...

 

[vladthemad]

I'm sure the OP is long beyond needing this information...but as it was necro'd and some other questions came up I'd like to help out a bit.

The Laboratory Ship mustering out benefit is literally the ship called the Laboratory Ship on pages 121-122. There's no need to convert another ship into a lab ship. The five ship shares you receive when you gain the "lab ship" benefit is for this ship only. If the player wants a different ship, he only gets two ship shares as noted on page 35 of the core book. This rule holds true for all the other named ships you can gain from mustering out. Free traders, corsairs, et. al. are the ships listed in the book as such. You get 5 shares if you pick that ship, 2 if you want a different ship. Of course you can deviate from that all you want, just wanted to share how the rules were intended.

Now, if you muster out with a the lab ship on pages 121-122, there's nothing to prevent you from gutting out all the lab space for cargo to use it as a cargo ship. As it's 100 tons of space dedicated to those rooms, you'd free up a significant amount of room. Heck, the lab space isn't even listed with a cost, so you can safely assume the labs are empty rooms on purchase, and all the areas on the map designated as 5. Labs could easily be used to hold cargo.

To the few that were confused by the maps provided on 122, look at the picture on 121. The left hand two maps don't stack, they wrap around in a circle. To visualize, imagine taking the two sections of map to the left of page 122 and taping them together to form a loop. Where you see the letters A & B at the top and bottom by an iris door, that's where the maps would connect. All of the other areas stack on the 1. Bridge/Avionics area. Below the helm area is the sensors area, and above it going upward are the quarter deck, the engineering deck, the two fuel decks, and then finally the flight deck which would be at the center of the loop.

The pictured ship on page 121 isn't truly representative of the maps and stats, but it's close enough to understand how the ship is laid out. The skinny tube running from the outer ring to the inner area in the picture should be a lot thicker, and the center cylinder shouldn't be so large. It looks like that picture was drawn to look like the MegaTraveller era Lab Ship, which isn't an exact match the Mongoose generated one...but it's close enough to help understand how the ship is meant to be laid out.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I'm sure the OP is long beyond needing this information...but as it was necro'd and some other questions came up I'd like to help out a bit.

The Laboratory Ship mustering out benefit is literally the ship called the Laboratory Ship on pages 121-122. There's no need to convert another ship into a lab ship. The five ship shares you receive when you gain the "lab ship" benefit is for this ship only. If the player wants a different ship, he only gets two ship shares as noted on page 35 of the core book. This rule holds true for all the other named ships you can gain from mustering out. Free traders, corsairs, et. al. are the ships listed in the book as such. You get 5 shares if you pick that ship, 2 if you want a different ship. Of course you can deviate from that all you want, just wanted to share how the rules were intended.

Now, if you muster out with a the lab ship on pages 121-122, there's nothing to prevent you from gutting out all the lab space for cargo to use it as a cargo ship. As it's 100 tons of space dedicated to those rooms, you'd free up a significant amount of room. Heck, the lab space isn't even listed with a cost, so you can safely assume the labs are empty rooms on purchase, and all the areas on the map designated as 5. Labs could easily be used to hold cargo.

To the few that were confused by the maps provided on 122, look at the picture on 121. The left hand two maps don't stack, they wrap around in a circle. To visualize, imagine taking the two sections of map to the left of page 122 and taping them together to form a loop. Where you see the letters A & B at the top and bottom by an iris door, that's where the maps would connect. All of the other areas stack on the 1. Bridge/Avionics area. Below the helm area is the sensors area, and above it going upward are the quarter deck, the engineering deck, the two fuel decks, and then finally the flight deck which would be at the center of the loop.

The pictured ship on page 121 isn't truly representative of the maps and stats, but it's close enough to understand how the ship is laid out. The skinny tube running from the outer ring to the inner area in the picture should be a lot thicker, and the center cylinder shouldn't be so large. It looks like that picture was drawn to look like the MegaTraveller era Lab Ship, which isn't an exact match the Mongoose generated one...but it's close enough to help understand how the ship is meant to be laid out.

I posted a map of a nonstandard lab ship of 1600 tons of displacement in the triplanetary thread.
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&p=862211#p862211
You have to scroll up one or two posts, its on page 2 to see it, I saw the mistakes in the original deck plans that I based this on and corrected them. Basically the engine pods were pointed in opposite directions from each other, I fixed that.

 

[phavoc]

The Laboratory Ship mustering out benefit is literally the ship called the Laboratory Ship on pages 121-122. There's no need to convert another ship into a lab ship. The five ship shares you receive when you gain the "lab ship" benefit is for this ship only. If the player wants a different ship, he only gets two ship shares as noted on page 35 of the core book. This rule holds true for all the other named ships you can gain from mustering out. Free traders, corsairs, et. al. are the ships listed in the book as such. You get 5 shares if you pick that ship, 2 if you want a different ship. Of course you can deviate from that all you want, just wanted to share how the rules were intended.

It's really more a limitation of the core rule book and the list of ships that it carries than anything else. They couldn't reference a ship design that wasn't listed in the book and still tell players everything they need for the basic game is included in the core rule book.

Ref's should feel free to modify/provide to their hearts content.

 

[GypsyComet]

We just did a short campaign on a lab ship as a "doctors for hire" wandering clinic. Great fun, though the ship itself went through our usual process of "this doesn't fit, so the ship is probably more like this". Is it "cheating"? That depends on what you get out of your RPGs.

 

[Reynard]

It makes perfect sense to me your ship availability is directly determined by your career. When you receive a shares towards a vessel in your career, it represents the connections and access to it rather than a share being a direct monetary payment. Most research facilities won't have, let alone need, access to a free trader. Think of it as you get 2 shares currency and 5 shares connection to the lab ship.

One idea for your players stuck with a lab ship but wanting something for trade adventures is make the lab ship an Antique, an old ship that seen it's days and not shiny and new. Use Primitive and Advanced Spacecraft from High Guard page 52. I remember one Traveller edition made ships cheaper for every 10 years over a certain base age but making it more 'primitive' can bring down the initial cost. That's pretty much the Millennium Falcon.

The standard lab ship doesn't list any actual Lab Space so consider the vessel to have been gutted and put in mothballs until your scientist came along. Clean space to remodel as the players want, a real fixer-upper. Right now, that's 121 tons cargo plus 15 passenger staterooms but you will need space stations for trade as you have only the pinnace for surface access. Really though, have the character roll a merchant if they WANT a merchant campaign and make one of the benefit rolls automatically a free trader. Far less messy.

 

[AndrewW]

One idea for your players stuck with a lab ship but wanting something for trade adventures is make the lab ship an Antique, an old ship that seen it's days and not shiny and new. Use Primitive and Advanced Spacecraft from High Guard page 52. I remember one Traveller edition made ships cheaper for every 10 years over a certain base age but making it more 'primitive' can bring down the initial cost. That's pretty much the Millennium Falcon.

Don't even need High Guard:

Characters can also get extra ship shares by taking an older and more damaged ship, to a maximum of 10 bonus ship shares. See Old Ships on page 136.

 

[Reynard]

That's where I saw it! Damn problem with information between two or more books. Thank you!

 

[vladthemad]

The Laboratory Ship mustering out benefit is literally the ship called the Laboratory Ship on pages 121-122. There's no need to convert another ship into a lab ship. The five ship shares you receive when you gain the "lab ship" benefit is for this ship only. If the player wants a different ship, he only gets two ship shares as noted on page 35 of the core book. This rule holds true for all the other named ships you can gain from mustering out. Free traders, corsairs, et. al. are the ships listed in the book as such. You get 5 shares if you pick that ship, 2 if you want a different ship. Of course you can deviate from that all you want, just wanted to share how the rules were intended.

It's really more a limitation of the core rule book and the list of ships that it carries than anything else. They couldn't reference a ship design that wasn't listed in the book and still tell players everything they need for the basic game is included in the core rule book.

Ref's should feel free to modify/provide to their hearts content.

I'm only speaking to the intent of the rules and what the OP had asked about...and to help clear up later confusion. As you noted, you can modify to your hearts content. If you want to give them a mercenary cruiser and call it a "laboratory ship", you're free to do so The only issue with giving players a much larger ship is that they then have to carry a much larger mortgage on that ship. Of course if you are using handwavium to negate the whole mortgage thing, ship size probably doesn't really matter.

The only thing I would suggest is that you remember if you give them a huge ship to begin with, they really won't have anything to shoot for. If you start with a small ship, working their way up to a large ship is much more satisfying than having it handed to you as a mustering out benefit. I assume this is why there isn't a Mercenary Cruiser mustering out benefit Of course if they pool all their shares together and want to get something they can't really afford...let them. That way you have another mcguffin as the bank sends hunters after them for skipping out on payments!

It makes perfect sense to me your ship availability is directly determined by your career. When you receive a shares towards a vessel in your career, it represents the connections and access to it rather than a share being a direct monetary payment. Most research facilities won't have, let alone need, access to a free trader. Think of it as you get 2 shares currency and 5 shares connection to the lab ship.

My thoughts exactly. A researcher is going to have more access to a Laboratory Ship than a Far Trader. Ship shares are defined as credit rating, favors, etc. They can't be cashed out for...well for cash, and they don't represent any specific amount of money. It's a discount, not hard currency, and you would get more based on your previous career if you are getting a ship that is related to it. Scouts get scout ships, merchants get merchant ships, etc. You can still get a discount, just no as big a one if you want to get something else. Hence 5 ship shares for a Far Trader benefit, vs. 2 ship shares for something else.

The standard lab ship doesn't list any actual Lab Space so consider the vessel to have been gutted and put in mothballs until your scientist came along.

It does have laboratory space specified. Check the stats on page 121, under extras, as well as the actual ship description. It doesn't have a cost associated with it, but there is 100 tons of space listed. I assume it's just empty rooms, but you could use something similar to the ship's locker rules...as they don't charge for ship's lockers either, and they are full of useful stuff. Personally, I make my players buy all that ship's locker stuff...they get nothing free!

Also, I thought I'd share my rules regarding scout ships. In MTU if multiple scouts muster out with scout ships I let them combine them for a larger scout ship. The scout ships have no mortgage associated with them, as they are on loan and a great mcguffin for adventure because you're still expected to accept special work as directed by the IISS. I saw it beneficial to let them have a larger ship instead of say...multiple type S's. Examples allowed were the ships in the Scout book and the ships listed as scouts in some of the ship books...although in general most of those didn't exceed 200 tons, so that's what they are currently using.

Lastly realize that there is nothing that states they have to use ship shares immediately. They could save them until they had more money to get the ship they want. Also they can be used in a few other instances, i.e. starting capital for a company based on the rules in the Merchant Prince book. You might also let them use them as a get out of jail free card. Let them burn a ship share to prevent prison time for doing something foolish...and let's face it, players love doing foolish things!

 

[Reynard]

Yes it does have 100 tons and states that is dedicated to science equipment but there is no cost associated in the Core Book. Difference from a ship's locker is the SL should only contain a minimal amount of common items. For simplicity sake and before you purchase High Guard it's a big vague guess as to what facilities are in the lab area. With High Guard page 47, there's stats for lab space. Pack the space and you can have 25 scientists with their own 4 ton facility at a cost of MCr 25. Since the ship only as staterooms for 15 scientists, some labs might be larger.

I could see players adding in starting lab space below the full capacity to accommodate their initial needs and more added as research grants come in from sponsors. The initial lab cost would be part of the ship cost at mustering for determining ship share value.

Now you get an idea how big that lab ship is and why refs might want to create more modest size vessels for smaller research requirements or maybe give the lab ship a larger jump for frontier missions.