Ship Design Philosophy

Condottiere said:
This isn't contradicted in High Guard; ...
No, but other forms of accomodation has other costs, e.g.:
Stables cost Cr25000 per ten tons. A ten ton stable is capable of housing 20 human-sized or 10 cattle-sized creatures. Life support costs are Cr250 per ton.
Brig ... Designed to hold up to six prisoners, it can uncomfortably hold double that number in a pinch. ...
A brig consumes 4 tons and costs MCr0.25. Life support costs are Cr250 per ton.
 
Condottiere said:
Each stateroom on a ship costs Cr1000 per month. This cost covers supplies for the life support system as well as food and water, although meals at this level will be rather Spartan. Each person on board a ship who is not in a low berth will cost an additional Cr1000 in life support costs.

Cr1000 per stateroom, Cr3000 for double occupancy, Cr100 per low berth, Cr1000 per person

This isn't contradicted in High Guard; I don't think it's even mentioned.

Was getting at with low berths you don't pay the per stateroom though, just the per person part.
 
The implication is, just the existence, and access to, a stateroom creates that overhead, in addition to the per person variable cost.

Double occupancy might make sense at one and a half thousand schmuckers, not three hundred percent.
 
Spaceships: Beaming Energy Through Space

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhgJwnpYRGc

You don't just transmit energy down dirtside, you could also power up drones; or dronish weapon platforms.


BEAM-inflatable-room3.jpg


You can set up shop anywhere; if you apply a self-sealing tech level nine coating, possibly even in orbit.
 
Spaceships: Crew Facilities or Stating the Obvious

High Guard doesn't seem to repudiate the Core book's requirement that every unpopsicled passenger or crew member still costs one thousand schmuckers each, per month, in life support costs.

Costs mentioned per tonne appear to be associated with keeping that space oxygenated and climated.
 
Condottiere said:
Spaceships: Crew Facilities or Stating the Obvious

High Guard doesn't seem to repudiate the Core book's requirement that every unpopsicled passenger or crew member still costs one thousand schmuckers each, per month, in life support costs.
Page 22 of HG2e even suggests a time in ship design to calculate Life Support Costs and then goes on to say... "This may be more difficult on ships belonging to Travellers as the number of people on board can vary greatly, but such ships are generally small enough that this will not be a burden to calculate on a month-to-month basis. So I expect there was never a plan to change that cost from the CRB to HG.
 
I'm disappointed this isn't clarified in High Guard, since life support costs is one of the primary cost drivers in interstellar travel and commerce, as well as something Traveller parties have to keep an eye on.

I didn't notice myself until I started parsing the text.
 
Spaceships: Human Resources and Soft Downsizing

Using the software programme Virtual Gunner as a basis, you probably could substitute that for any other crew position; it specializes in a specific skill-set and supervising one type of equipment, rather than the more general Virtual Crew programme.
 
Condottiere said:
I'm disappointed this isn't clarified in High Guard, since life support costs is one of the primary cost drivers in interstellar travel and commerce, as well as something Traveller parties have to keep an eye on.

I didn't notice myself until I started parsing the text.
What was there to clarify? It is a cost of managing a ship day to day and is in the core rules in the section about managing a ship that you own. It is not a cost of design and build. The rules are in the right place for what they cover.
 
Paying three thousand schmuckers for double occupancy, and then another two thousand schmuckers for two humans, which if it's a mistake is a double payment for the same breathing space.

I'll bypass this impasse by not designing in staterooms.

Still, one thousand schmuckers per mouth breather allows little leeway.
 
Starships: Cheapest Possible, or the Potato Class

Pimp my Potato

arm-optionb-carrying-asteroid-1170x658.jpg


You could file off the edges and fill in the cavities, and then add racing stripes.

Methone_PIA14633.jpg
 
Nice thing about rocks, you can start with a big one,and end up with a little one. Take the average lumpy piece of nickel-iron sculpt it into a nice uniform shape. Then fill in the surface with 'rock-crete" and give it a shape the is symmetrical and better balanced without having to get creative with where you position drive/sensors/weapons units.
 
Condottiere said:
Paying three thousand schmuckers for double occupancy, and then another two thousand schmuckers for two humans, which if it's a mistake is a double payment for the same breathing space.

I'll bypass this impasse by not designing in staterooms.

Still, one thousand schmuckers per mouth breather allows little leeway.
It is clearly not a mistake. The cost for the rooms is for the rooms. What it costs to have them and maintain them. The cost for the people covers the food they eat, the air they breath, the cost to recycle their waste etc. So in the end your cost is based on space used and the real number of folks on board. Not just half of the equation. This then allows you to not pay for people not on board. Seems logical and clear to me. :D

But I would be the first to defend your right to do what you want in your game of course. :mrgreen:
 
Give them a luxury stateroom, and then drag in some extra beds.

You have a fixed life support cost of two fifty schmuckers per tonne for practically everything else, and five hundred for the luxury version.

And of course, nothing for cargo.
 
Condottiere said:
Spaceships: Going Bio

So every semi-tonne of a biosphere will cost you a hundred thousand schmuckers; actually, the cost is closer to one eighth of a megaschmucker, because you need to power it with half a scott every six minutes, and that means you need more power plant.

That seems a lot more juice than you would need to grow a hothouse full of marijuana.

Outside of loss of volume, it would take about ten or eleven years to break even, if life support costs are a thousand schmuckers per person per month.

In that case, if you have a biosphere, it's primary purpose should be for something else, and life support just happens to be a nice bonus.

On the other hand, if your life support bill is two and a half thousand schmuckers per person per month, that's just a tad over four years, which would be a sign to go ahead.
 
Spaceships: Torpedo Boat

The forty–ton torpedo boat is built to pummel enemy craft into submission. It has two torpedoes, usually a mix of nuclear and bomb–pumped lasers depending on the enemy’s defences. A torpedo boat does not have any active defences and is dependent on escorting fighters whilst waiting for an opening in the fighter screen before darting in at high acceleration and opening fire.

Remember when you could embed a torpedo into each weapon slot? That made sense, since they weighed in at two and a half tonnes. It didn't matter that you couldn't emplace a torpedo barbette, since those guys didn't make sense, if the load was already five tonnes, where would you put the electronics, launching and loading equipment?

Since torpedoes have shrunk seven and a half times in volume, that makes less sense, in the sense fire power and efficient use of space; also, I doubt that you could do that individually anymore, you'd have to emplace that five tonne barbette.

Unfortunately, range has been capped at close, which will make for a hot approach.

Just when you think you're getting something for nothing, ammunition capacity is capped at two for smallcraft; which is like, two thirds of a tonne for a minimum thirty five tonne craft.

Perhaps if we used a hundred tonne hull with a hardpoint, we'd get more dakka dakka?

Apparently not, since those barbettes only carry three torpedoes, or a tonne's worth.

I rather suspect we're not going to be seeing many torpedo boats, or as the Solomani will term them, torpedo bombers, deployed.
 
Spaceships: Crew Facilities or Stating the Obvious

I calculate that every one thousand schmucker's worth of life support, will cost you just a touch under fifteen centimes every six minutes; probably relevant for those doing dirtside to low orbit shuttling.

Though you have to wonder, exactly what supplies are you using up to generate a thousand schmucker's, if not more, worth of life support costs per months, Kobe beef?
 
I don't know how much this stuff might cost but I assume that life support costs also include consumables for the air, water and possibly waste recycling systems.

1000 per month is just 30 per day. If we assume that a credit is equivalent to a dollar/euro/pound more or less that is not an insane amount to spend on food. Although it is high. Obviously we want the food on a ship to take up as little space as possible and to have a long shelf life. Chances are we end up with something like freeze dried frozen dinners, but since we probably have significant demands on taste as well perhaps a prepackaged star ship dinner is relatively expensive. So, I think 30cr per day is high, but not so high as to be incredible.

I wonder how much it costs a long haul airline like British Airways to provide each dinner. I did a little research and a couple of references claim $10 as a ballpark cost for a good quality meal in business class on a long haul flight. I'm not sure I'd want to eat solely that food for an entire week but I certainly wouldn't be too happy to have worse than that. If we take that number at face value and assume that breakfast, dinner and any snacks the passengers demand are significantly cheaper we are perhaps looking at $20 for a full days food on an airline that doesn't have the same shelf life issues that a star ship does.
 
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