Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Starships: Tankers

A. Prepositioned tankers.

B.

C. Tends to work better with smaller starwarships, in this case, probably two hundred tonne strike craft.

D. Milch cows would be stealthed, or at least innocuous seeming commercial or private starships supplying commerce raiders.

F. On the premise that frontline fleet tankers don't make sense, dromedaries carrying stores, and at least the capability of supplying fuel, do.

 

[Condottiere]

Spacestations: Engineering and Manoeuvre Drive Factor Zero


0.5% ... In order to use the manoeuvre drive, the ship requires an amount of Power equal to 10% of the hull’s total tonnage multiplied by the maximum Thrust the drive is capable of (multiply by 0.25 if the ship is capable only of Thrust 0).

A manoeuvre or reaction drive with Thrust 0 allows for an orbiting space station to maintain position but is not sufficient to move the hull any great distance.

Manoeuvre drive systems include thrusters and gravitic compensation ... Manoeuvre drives cost MCr2 per ton.


Manoeuvre drive with Thrust 0 consumes tonnage equal to 0.25% of the space station’s total hull and costs MCr1 per ton. Enables the station to make flight corrections to stay in orbit.

MANOEUVRE DRIVE
Required power = 10% of hull tonnage.


1. Spacecraft says half a percent at two megastarbux per tonne, and twenty five energy points per kilotonne of hull.

2. Spacestations contradicts this with a quarter percent at one megastarbux per tonne, and one hundred energy points per kilotonne of hull.

3. Reconciliation would be fifty percent cost reduction, which would two budget advantage slots; three hundred percent energy inefficiency, ten disadvantage slots.

4. Size reduction fifty percent, five advantage slots.

5. Ten minus five, is five; budget two, three; budget two, one.

6. One disadvantage slot remaining.

 

[Condottiere]

7. So, what does this mean?

8. Both sets of manoeuvre drives are plausible, with a lot of arm twisting.

9. If the space station is mostly stationary, I'd go for the cheaper one.

A. If there's active manoeuvring, the more expensive one has a lower energy requirement.

B. I'd just bite the bullet, and install thrust factor one, and as the modules are added on, just fractionalize performance.

C. Going by reactionary rocket factor zero, which formulaic is more in line with the spacecraft design, that may be more accurate.

D. Since it's not an option for the spacestation design sequence.

 

[Condottiere]

E. Unless, there's some rule, as with jump drive factor zero from Interstellar Wars, that you can only have a quarter gee thrust for the same amount of energy for factor one.

 

[Condottiere]

F. Speaking of which, assuming detachable bridge information really is canonical and correct, you could give a drop pod thrust zero, ... basic manoeuvring capabilities, equivalent to Thrust 0. A detachable bridge is even capable of soft-landing on a planetary surface.

G. Assault, or otherwise, supply drops, one way passenger pods, etcetera.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Armaments and Repulsor Bays

Objects held by a tractor beam cannot expend Thrust but may be moved by the tractor beam operator as if they had Thrust 1.


1. Range is short, twelve hundred fifty klix.

2. Takes about two rounds to cover that distance at factor one acceleration.

3. Grab an unresisting hull of appropriate volume at maximum range, and accelerate towards you for two rounds.

4. Switch polarity to repulse from traction for another two rounds.

5. You should have a velocity of four gees in we'll assume in the desired direction.

6. If the bay is in a capital turret, I'm thinking trebuchet, especially at twelve hundred fifty klix, so acceleration should be a lot more than thrust factor one, if the turret turns how many times in six minutes.

7. Or maybe particle accelerator in a virtual centrifuge.

 

[Condottiere]

8. I wonder if you can use the tractor beam like a wireless elevator?

9. Instead of needing to build beanstalks, you just lock on a pod, and tractor it up.

 

[Condottiere]

A. Though you probably have to account for the local gravity.

B. Which usually means you minus that of potential thrust factor, which in this case would be one.

C. So it does raise the question if total power of the tractor beam, say being double that of the object being lifted out of the gravity well, would overcome this, though wouldn't affect the acceleration beyond factor one in any event, much like a factor one manoeuvre drive can't go beyond that, regardless of how much volume you discard.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Engineering and CONCEALED MANOEUVRE DRIVE


Manoeuvre drives, whose function is described in Ship Design on page 15, use thruster plates to move a ship without the need for propellant. Manoeuvre drive thruster plates are typically located on the outer surface of a ship (facing aft is standard) where they can perform best. While acceleration to their facing is optimised, a ship may accelerate in other directions at reduced thrust without turning the ship to a new facing. For example, thruster plates can accelerate a ship at up to 25% of their maximum thrust to port or starboard and 10% to fore. Therefore, a ship with Thrust 4 could exert one G of thrust to left or right and 0.4G to fore without the need to turn the ship on its axis.

As such, thruster plates need not be exposed at all and can optionally be concealed behind bulkheads. This rather severely degrades performance but there are some ship designs that are willing to accept the trade-offs for added stealth. See the Sensors chapter on page 55 for more information about features that make a ship easier to detect, including the use of their manoeuvre drives. Concealed manoeuvre drives are contained within ship bulkheads but must be within three metres of the accelerating surface of the ship.

Concealed manoeuvre drives add 25% to the tonnage and cost of the drive. The additional tonnage comprises a system that contains and exhausts thruster plate ionisation out of specially designed ports, reducing their detectability to almost nil. Concealed manoeuvre drives cut performance in half (round down), so a ship with Thrust 2 is reduced to 1 and so on. These drives are designed to operate within confinement, so simply removing the outer bulkhead does not add to their performance.


1. Vector ninety degrees can be up or down.

2. So basically, with factor four aft aimed thrusters, you could land vertically on the belly on Terra.

3. Going by what's implied by detachable bridge and thrust factor zero, you could make a soft belly landing with factor one aft aimed thrusters.

4. And now, spy ships and blockade runners can have concealed jump and manoeuvre drives, which leaves us with researching concealed fusion reactors.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Accommodations and FULL HANGAR

Normally, when a smaller ship or vehicle is included in the design of a larger one, it is installed in a docking space, with barely enough room for crew and passengers to scramble aboard. Most repairs and maintenance require the craft to be launched first.

Alternatively, a full hangar allows for repairs and maintenance of the craft when it is on board its mother ship. The hangar includes specialised testing and repair equipment. Spare parts must be acquired separately. It normally takes 2D minutes for the auxiliary ship to enter or leave the larger ship.

A full hangar consumes an amount of tonnage equal to twice that of the craft it contains (round up to the nearest ton). Use Shipping Size for vehicles, as detailed in the Traveller Core Rulebook.


1. Docking space at one hundred ten percent would probably be specific to the actual class of ship it was designed for, or, at best the tonnage and general hull configuration.

2. You could generously make two hundred percent agnostic to actual hull configuration.

3. By extension, a spacecraft of any configuration could be stored in a docking space that's two hundred percent of it's volume.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: Top 10 Epic LEGO Spaceships!

Giant spaceship with interior by Jordan Morgan
17:53 Huge Classic Space ship by Mark Neumann
23:34 Halo ship by Mark Kelso
26:40 Shadwocaster by Jonathan Walker
33:01 PCS Atlas by Chris Giddens
37:56 Spinning Ring Ship by Jeff Bergquist
41:43 Serenity by Adrian Drake
44:11 Pillar of Autumn by Lee Jones
50:36 Crash Site by Jon Reimer
57:34 Battlestar Galactica Ship by Brandon Griffith
1:03:36 Orion 1 Ship by Mike Hinkel
1:08:09 Star Wars Tower Ship by Corry Lankford
1:14:37 Massive M-Tron Ship by Yamo
1:19:29 Solacium Ship by Peter Mowry
1:23:35 Independence Day Ship by Allen T. Hickmon and Aaron Fiskum
1:32:33 Kel Corona Ship by Sean Mayo
1:37:04 Spear of Destiny by Rolf Holbrook
1:39:58 Space Battleship Yamato by Jim Beute
1:43:07 Whale Ship by Christian Benito
1:47:54 Crashing Epic LEGO Ships organized by Simon Liu
1:50:12 Complete History of LEGO Classic Space by Dana Knudson


1. Hatches.

2. Spacetruck; sliders; modular, or podular.

3. Wooden superstructure.

4. Flying leaf.

5. Close structure; or open.

6. Probably a better laboratory ship.

7. Lower cargo hold could be detachable, as an option.

8. Rotatable engines.

9. Freeze chambers; janitor.

A. Structural integrity.

B. Central rotating drum, opposite of double hull.

C. Tower ship, more space station.

D. Mass driver spinal mount.

E. My Little Universe; SHIELD.

F. Fly by wire.

G. Really do have to figure out if you can leverage the ring for some interesting gimmick.

H. In theory, spinal mounts would be spears or lances.

I. Structural integrity; secondary armament looks a tad crowded.

J. Articulated tail, swat away missiles; mouth ramp.

K. Optional range band.

L. Classic.

M. Preprinted three dee modular components.

 

[Condottiere]

Spaceships: Your Own Personal Spaceship

Many of us dream of one day owning our on spacecraft, of traveling to space and other worlds when we choose to. What technologies must the future deliver to make this dream a reality?

1. Aluminum.

2. Fuel.

3. Transporters in constant motion.

4. Outside of minor adjustments, you'd be mostly cruising.

5. Thrust factor zero, in preference to solar sails.

6. So, spacestation, rather than spaceship.

7. Taxation, licences, permits, environmental impact reports.

8. Micro black hole - insult?

9. Inertial compensators remove mass?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Reducing the inertial mass of a ship via 'gravitics' would go a long way to a better explanation for the M-drive.

 

[Condottiere]

I suppose to the point of inertialess.

If you go down that path, it has to be a field effect, rather than directioned thrust, with apparently secondary effect of compensation, as opposed to outright cancellation.

I think for Traveller, it's pretty much guesswork.

It certainly spikes the concept of adding reactionary rockets, and/or high burn, mostly, since it doesn't appear to allow that inertial compensation, and that means you're not likely to get more of a five gee boost for a very short period of time.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Inertia reduction not inertialess. With inertial reduction you have less mass to move with your ion drive so instead of 0.001g acceleration you get 1g.
Inertialess would allow for travel at the speed of light which is never a good idea.

 

[Condottiere]

To the point, much like the revised warp factor system isn't supposed to reach ten.

I don't know what screwing with the mass of the human body does to our general or long term well being, so I would suppose there are two fields, the outer reducing the mass of the spaceship and it's contents, enveloping an inner field, that cancels the effects of the first.

In that sense, you could include other forms of propulsion within the outer field.

So it begs the question, can you switch off inertial compensation, and how much energy are you sparing?

 

[NOLATrav]

So it begs the question, can you switch off inertial compensation, and how much energy are you sparing?

High Guard 2020 Update, pg 15, "How Maneouver Drives Work"
Another important feature of all manoeuvre-drive systems is gravitic compensators or ‘G compensators’. These enable a ship to engage in high levels of thrust without adversely affecting the crew contained inside. Ships are typically equipped with enough gravitic compensation to counter whatever Thrust score the ship has. Therefore, a ship with Thrust 4 is also equipped to compensate for 4 Gs of thrust.

So ostensibly cutting inertial compensation saves you 50% of the M-drive's required Power.

 

[NOLATrav]

Which begs the further question, can you shunt that Power back to the m-drive and double your Thrust score?

IMTU you can, which is how 1G traders can land on and take off from worlds with 1+G surface gravity. I guess this concern is looked at in Solomani Front but I've yet to pick that up.

 

[Condottiere]

As described in the High Guard 2.5, very ambiguous, or to put a finer point on it, fracking unclear how inertial or gravitational compensators work, or if there is a difference between the two as classically presumed.

I had thought about having a gravitational value created by the manoeuvre drive, and then splitting it between thrust and compensation, but didn't see anything in the rules that would justify that.

As regards taking off on Terran norm gravitational worlds with ye monothruster, I think it should be easier to overclock it without long term damage, for either six or twelve minutes, needed to get to orbit.

 

[NOLATrav]

I recall that T5 has overclocking but it’s in my head that’s for power plants, can’t recall it being applied to m-drives. I’ll have to take a look.

Any rules for overclocking in MgT anywhere? I’ve only got a few issues of the MgT JTAS and don’t recall seeing it.