OriginalCaruso
Cosmic Mongoose
I prefer to not play “Spreadsheets in Space”. I don’t make Credits an issue, they are a minor part of my game
Ship Shares - how do they work in your Traveller Universe?
- Thread starter HalC
- Start date
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
The lab ship is a lousy design.
Because one use of lab ships is research that needs no artificial gravity it is a ring BUT why not make it a non gravity hull, save half the hull cost and reduce basic power by 50%. Advanced power plant, emergency power plant. Two computers /15 bis and /15. The /15 is mostly their lab computer and does run in that capacity while the main computer runs the ship as well as the sensors and probes for data gathering, it can also do extra science computations as needed (these are frills that could be dropped for a budget Lab ship shaving MCr's from the price). Uses Virtual Crew for station keeping with the low g M-Drive. Pilot is available for the Pinnace most of the time.
Then there are the 20 labs and 20 staterooms. Each lab one scientist and all the staterooms are full with no crew? Then they have no lab assistants and no stewards. You expect those scientists to clean up after themselves and do all the dirty work? I'd say 6 labs each with an attached studio (for the scientists. I'd give it 6 Scientists (1 a Head Scientist/administrator) and 5 working Scientists. The Head gets a High Stateroom the others a normal stateroom. Each gets 2 lab assistants/grad students who double bunk. They also have 2 briefing rooms (the crew might use one at times).
Crew are Captain (High stateroom). Pilot, Engineer, Astrogator and 2 stewards each have a stateroom. Most of the time there is no Astrogator. The Captains main job is to keep the Scientists from messing with the ship in unauthorized ways.
I think that with a Pinnace it could be had for about 100 MCr..
Now consider how would this ship be used? Mostly as a station, it should spend long periods in one star system, often in an orbit that is unchanging whether around the star a planet or an asteroid or something else doesn't matter where. Scientific research projects aren't typically done in a day or even a month. Many take years, decades even. The ship might never use its jump drive again once it reaches the system it goes to do its first research project (which is why mostly no Astrogator). More a space station than a ship. So I'd give it a (budget 30% extra power) J-1 and fuel for 2 jumps, the cargo bay can hold a collapsible fuel tank. I'd also give it a .25 g Advanced M-Drive (50% power) it can't land and isn't planning to go anywhere fast. When travelling to their research destination the scientists would often not be aboard.
A pinnace that can be used to refuel it (fuel processor, streamlined collapsible fuel tank) and for data gathering (its own Probes 5 of them). A /10 computer. No lab. Included in the 100 MCr cited above.
Up to 3 Gigs (10 tons with its own probes) a /10 computer. No lab. Scientists or lab assistants likely the pilots or using Virtual Crew. - Not included in the 100 MCr cited above. They might carry air rafts or other vehicles.
I'd place many of these ships in relatively new colony systems doing research on the system and supporting the colony as needed (each lab might have a different specialty for that purpose). Also for detailed survey of systems likely to be colonized or used as a mineral or fuelling systems. Others would be deployed for study in/of established systems (isolated medical research in case of accidents for example). Some might eventually become Seekers with the higher quality sensor apparatus.
In some cases at least a ship with modules aboard would be used to set up subsidiary research bases composed of those modules on planets/moons/asteroids etc. to work with the Lab ship. Scouts/Couriers might come and go on regular schedules with supplies/personnel.
A smaller 200 ton lab ship (that is truly a ship) might also be built much cheaper for such uses based on a Free Trader hull.
Sounds like you have the makings of a TAS submission.
Not sure what the Lab Ship would even be used for by a player character half the time. Do they mostly run charters for scientists? 20 labs is a lot for a player group to need, though if each lab is specialised for a particular science and a scientist could have multiple specialisms then you might have more labs that actual scientists on board. I suppose if the whole group were scientist adjacent then you could run a science in spaaaace campaign (Star Trek seemed to spend a lot of time investigating astronomical phenomena and then hitting snags).
Hmmm, I only had one player ever generate a scientist with a lab ship but they decided to roll up another one as they were not "sciency" and I could see that getting in the way as they would be expected to come up with the technobabble and the rest of the group (who most had science and engineering backgrounds) would have to supress the urge to shoot it down as implausible. In a more mature group (we were all freshmen) it could have added an interesting dynamic. Genuine mad scientist trope, but the scientist would be right (and the players and GM just need to accept that pseudo-science is real and go along with it).
Of course we know where that sort of thinking leads.
"No, you fools, you are thinking like grad students. I am playing chess not checkers. My experiments confirm that injecting with bleach is the solution!".
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