Ship Design Philosophy

[HalC]

Thing you have to remember is that the Scout Service is a Civilian Institute and not a military one. And its main purpose is to deliver mail, explore and update charts. As well as operating in areas that have little access to higher jump range technologies, so it is easier for them to operate whilst keeping costs down.

So keeping up with the fleet isn't their priority, IMHO. Plus, the Navy does make use of its own couriers, which would be more likely to have higher jump drives so they can keep up.

In My Traveller Universe, I use Scouts as a sort of good will monitoring system of low population worlds that are not really on the main routes for merchant activity. Their small cargo capacity limits them from handling high needs shipping, but their constant patrolling of the worlds where they put in to keep tabs on things, a finger on the pulse of the world so to speak, allows them to assist the subsector Duke in keeping informed of things happening within his subsector. They're not military, nor are they really government ships per se - they go where they go and report upon what they see. Even scouts who have left the service and flit about in their own scout ship as a mustering out benefit, are required to report on things they see where every they may go. Just seems to be a natural fit for me.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible

A. Factor/one seems fairly common for commercial shipping.

B. For sub Terran gravity wells, that's enough to lift off.

C. And that allows you to keep the base technological level to nine.

D. Commercially, in the far majority of cases, there's very little point in having more than factor/three.

E. Which is base technological level ten.

F. Too bad for a factor one plus that would one able to lift off from any colonized world, you'd need technological level ten.

 

[Condottiere]

Starships: Cheapest Possible

G. Decided to look up reactionary rockets factor/zero.

H. Reaction 0 drives require 0.25 tons of fuel per hour of Thrust.

I. Probably means percent, not actual volume.

J. The actual thing needs one percent volume, and costs one fifth of a megastarbux per tonne.

K. Seems the cheaper option, for something that's used rarely.