Ship Design Philosophy

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

1. I think what we're seeing here are two approaches to spacecraft design.

2. The Americans, and later, the Confederation Navy, are quite content to have cheaper jump drives, at the cost of requiring, temporarily, more power points to effect a transition.

3. That's why the Confederation Navy uses Victory jump drive modules from it's establishment, till now.

4. They don't particularly care if their jump flash is more prominent, since the chances are, if sensors are sensitive enough to detect that, they would have spotted a default jump drive arrival, as well.

5. The more commercialized Venture project, is desirous of achieving its goals at the lowest possible cost.

6. The Venture drive itself is a dead end development.

7. However, it's easy maintenance, restricted range, and low capacity, ensures that a single crewman has no problem operating it.

8. Commercial shipping, within the Confederation, does develop a preference for two and three parsec ranged jump drives, even for independent operators.

9. Direct competition would be the Beowulf class free traders, that cost fifty megastarbux, and have a cargo capacity of eighty tonnes, and ten standard staterooms.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

A. At it's most basic, you'd have one hundred twenty tonnes divided amongst a six tonne small bridge, ten tonne jump drive, one tonne manoeuvre drive, three tonne (early) fusion reactor, thirteen tonne fuel tank.

B. The remaining eighty seven tonnes would be payload, cargo, weapon systems, advanced sensors, accommodations, hull armour and features.

C. In theory, as a pure freight delivery service, a Venture drive equipped starship can transport eighty tonnes of cargo, with only one general skill crewman.

D. There could even be a company that coordinates this, interstellarly.

E. amazing
.

F. delivery and pickups

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

G. If you looked at it perspectively, the Venture drive equipped starships compete with other monojump starhips, ranging in size from one to two hundred tonnes.

H. For pleasurecraft, that would be a more compact yacht.

I. That could go two ways.

J. One would be pleasure cruiser configured, which I suppose most yachts in Traveller would be.

K. The one would be for one configured for single handed handling.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

L. I don't think that just because you have a shipyard, you can manufacture engines, whether jump, manoeuvre, and/or power plants.

M. You can have a manufactory associated with the shipyard, do that.

N. Which may be in the neighbourhood.

O. If you have to build each piece of engineering individually, if not customized, than that seems artisanal.

P. If if the same basic components are utilized, it may turn out that they aren't compatible, or interchangeable.

 

[Condottiere]

Performance Summary
Rolls-Royce's latest twelve months gross profit margin is 23.0%
Rolls-Royce's gross profit margin for fiscal years ending December 2019 to 2023 averaged 15.3%.
Rolls-Royce's operated at median gross profit margin of 19.0% from fiscal years ending December 2019 to 2023.
Looking back at the last 5 years, Rolls-Royce's gross profit margin peaked in June 2024 at 23.0%.
Rolls-Royce's gross profit margin hit its 5-year low in December 2019 of 5.7%.
Rolls-Royce's gross profit margin decreased in 2019 (5.7%, -25.4%) and increased in 2020 (9.7%, +70.6%), 2021 (19.0%, +96.6%), 2022 (19.9%, +4.3%), and 2023 (22.1%, +11.3%).

Let's assume you want a gross profit of twenty five percent for engineering.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

Q. We'll assume that given costs for spacecraft construction are retail.

R. Which does raise the question, how much the production cost of said spacecraft components are, sans installation.

S. This is where an actual, existing, production line comes in.

T. You know, sunk costs.

U. I assume you have to install a new set of tools every time you have a new engineering design.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

V. We also tend to miss out on the length of time and costs on research and development.

W. Research less so, since you'd know it's possible, others have built something similar, and all you'd need to do is figure if you have the expertise and facilities to build it yourself.

X. If not, you're going to need to attract those talents, and retain them.

Y. As well as possibly acquire the tooling and the real estate for production.

Z. And then assemble a suitable production line.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

1. I originally created the Venture drive as part of a project to design the cheapest starship in Traveller.

2. What we have is a one hundred twenty parsec tonne, technological level budgetted ten tonne jump drive module.

3. Module, in the sense you could have clones, and together they could have their performances combined to transition larger loads.

4. Though, honestly, there are more efficient ways to do it.

5. It's an option, if for some reason, there's no other choice.

6. As constructed, default cost is nine megastarbux.

7. Since this is obviously a very old design at thirty six centuries, ten percent discount drops the suggested retail price to eight megastarbux.

8. I don't think after so long, it matters over the difference of a tenth of a megastarbux.

9. That does make this the cheapest jump drive in Traveller, out side of Model/Three, which is a one shot drive.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

A. While originally this was a joke, I've been reflecting that the Confederation might actually be encouraging widespread (re)adoption of the Venture drive.

B. Wolfe could have decided, as part of the Confederation (re)industrialization programmes, to establish factories on low(er) teched worlds to support their industrial base.

C. Could be one factory manufacturing Venture drives per subsector, per quadrant, or per sector.

D. We'll assume that workers on lower teched worlds have cheaper labour costs.

E. Also, lower overheads, like real estate, energy, transport.

F. It would be fairly easy then, to ship out completed jump drives to neighbouring systems.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

G. Another interesting question would be exactly how many starships are built, and of what type.

H. This would allow us to figure out annual production of Venture drives required.

I. Per (sub)sector.

J. It should be fairly easy to scale up a factory to produce one Venture drive per day.

K. Which would ensure optimum margins, after production and overhead costs are accounted for.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

L. There are three general applications.

M. Military, of which I'm thinking of the Catalina class, which would be a rather short ranged patrol craft, that keeps an eye nearby hexes, if not the outer system.

N. The Confederation Navy could use them to annoy the Impies, by popping up on their radar, and forcing them to scramble interceptors.

O. Also, search and rescue.

P. Patrolling the nearby spacelanes.

 

[Condottiere]

Inspiration: The Cities of Mars

One day we will journey to the Red Planet and perhaps settle there, but what great civilizations and cities will emerge on the red sands?

1. At this point, I don't think you just send out colonization ships, that just orbit or crash the planet.

2. Shelter, air. food, fuel.

3. Economic case for colonization.

4. You should have a staging area.

5. Ideally, then a hiport.

6. Downport is going to have to be carefully selected, likely close to the area(s) that make the colony viable, economically and atmospherically.

7. Subsidization would depend on outside forces continuing investment, financial or otherwise.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

Q. Commercially, it would be sort of equivalent to a white van.

R. Easy to operate, cheap to maintain.

S. Could be used to ferry packages around.

T. Or, as an interstellar bus.

U. As to the (Solo)man(i) driver, probably not a reflection on his character.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

V. Private uses abound.

W. You can practically substitute any Suleiman class conversion.

X. And if you're desperate to get away and don't ten, or seventeen, thousand to hire a blockade runner.

Y. Yachts, safari ships, prospecting mules.

Z. Signing up for a three week tour on a charted sightseeing starship.

 

[Condottiere]

Starwarships: Piankir Class and Cockpittization

1. Again, what are the actual rules on command and control centres?

2. The dual cockpit on the legacy two kilotonne Tenzig class might be considered a victim of copy pasting.

3. But, the Piankir class would seem to be made up specifically for this new publication.

4. And, the hull, or pod, is six hundred tonnes.

5. One's described as an emergency conning position.

6. The other, emergency control station.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

1. It's one size fits all hull configuration.

2. As long as volume is capped at sixteen and four fifths hundred cubic metres.

3. So, over thirty six centuries, every variety and combination of hull configuration(s) has been adopted and adapted.

4. If there is such a thing as performance degradation, you had a leeway of twenty tonnes you could slice off the hull.

5. Since I don't recall there ever being an option for overclocking the jump drive, I think it's safe to say, that once any jump drive performance falls below one hundred parsec tonnes, it's either time to refurbish it, if that's possible, or scrap it.

6. Unless that's one way the one shot drive option operates.

7. You can overclock to one hundred twenty five percent in volume (though probably not in range), at a penalty of minus two to the engineering roll.

8. Possibly, permanently.

9. Which doubles, every time you try that again.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

A. If jump capacitors degrade faster comparatively to the rest the drive.

B. You could allow the overhead jump capacitors to degrade to zero.

C. Assuming that doesn't affect the overall operation of the jump drive in particular, and transitioning in general.

D. At a capacity of thirty power points, you could permit the core three quarter tonne jump capacitor to degrade to eighteen power points, with a fifty percent safety margin.

E. Or even thirteen power points, with seven percent.

F. Though, at this point, I'd filter the power first through the batteries.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

G. Spacecraft maintenance has always been sketchy.

H. I think at this point of it's product life cycle, the Venture drive's price tag of eight megastarbux is a reasonable extrapolation.

I. Maintenance would be eight kilostarbux per annum, 21.92 starbux per diem.

J. Installation is, for all intents and purposes, free if it's a new construction.

K. It seems, the current cost to switch out a jump drive would be fifty percent of retail, not including the jump drive.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

L. Who manufactures a Venture drive?

M. Originally, I had this down to a hobby engineer, constructing one in his garage.

N. But the more I thought about it, and I've had years, it seems to me a rather practical way to get around.

O. If you're not in a hurry, and tend to stay put in one subsector.

P. And it's an introductory product towards an interstellar industrial base.

 

[Condottiere]

Startrucks: Venture Drive

Q. Presumably, an installed jump drive acquires quirks; per roll.

R. There's a five and a half percent chance that maintenance costs are halved.

S. Thirteen and nine tenths percent chance that maintenance costs are doubled.

T. Sixteen and two third percent chance that repair rolls are penalized by minus one.

U. Eleven and one tenth percent of psionic echoes.