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). One idea we had was running a travelling university. You would move to a low tech system and offer to teach science to the locals. Most of the people using the teaching labs would be day trippers.
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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Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
For alternative uses it would depend on remodelling and alternate versions. I'd envision some of the lab ships would have features like reinforced hull, armour, heat and radiation shielding. Others would have a light hull to make it cheaper. Medical/military research on pathogens/aliens that you wouldn't want to risk getting lose in the population with sealed lab areas and remote handling equipment. Private research away from government oversight (unethical stuff perhaps).
With overhauls a Seeker, a rich guys mansion in space, a manufacturing facility without those pesky gravity fields. A low g facility for the elderly. A first contact ship that is obviously not threatening, unarmed, no armour, slow as can be. A ship used for leisurely tours around the system or to a nearby system and back, even a honeymoon ship. Maybe a prison ship, low g and the prisoners on fast drug, computerized security and password inputs with time limits between strokes. In a occupied belt a roving general store/medical clinic. Hospital ship. Disaster relief for minor colonies. Even a oddball subsidized merchant.
Design it right and multiple ships could be docked together to be a functional much larger station.
You could make a pure station that has a jump ship that moves these around for the scout service, needs different docking clamps (or the ship has the clamps) but the station without a J-Drive and a smaller bridge has more room aboard for all those other options. If they stay in one system for long periods the jump ship could service many stations. You'd need to schedule moves long in advance.
With overhauls a Seeker, a rich guys mansion in space, a manufacturing facility without those pesky gravity fields. A low g facility for the elderly. A first contact ship that is obviously not threatening, unarmed, no armour, slow as can be. A ship used for leisurely tours around the system or to a nearby system and back, even a honeymoon ship. Maybe a prison ship, low g and the prisoners on fast drug, computerized security and password inputs with time limits between strokes. In a occupied belt a roving general store/medical clinic. Hospital ship. Disaster relief for minor colonies. Even a oddball subsidized merchant.
Design it right and multiple ships could be docked together to be a functional much larger station.
You could make a pure station that has a jump ship that moves these around for the scout service, needs different docking clamps (or the ship has the clamps) but the station without a J-Drive and a smaller bridge has more room aboard for all those other options. If they stay in one system for long periods the jump ship could service many stations. You'd need to schedule moves long in advance.
MonsterX
Emperor Mongoose
The IGS Science Ship Explorer might be a more sensible take on the lab ship idea, from p228 of the Spinward Extents book. J3, M2, 20 Probe drones, 5 labs, workshop, 16 staterooms, 5 scientists. From the IGS base in the Vanguard reaches, the poorly surveyed Fulani Sector is accessible by J3 - if you can convince the Zhodani Colonnade to allow passage.
Anstett
Emperor Mongoose
How one of my players Lab ship works in our game:
mavikfelna
Cosmic Mongoose
My doctor character had a Lab ship (50% paid off) that he used for disaster relief, mostly pandemic response, around Rhylenor and the surrounding subsectors. I never customized it but it would have changed out a bunch of labs for medical bays and recovery equipment and small craft, sold it off when we started playing to buy a customized Animal class Safari ship refitted for survey and exploration.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You probably want to demagnetize, and deradiate, the laboratory spacecraft.
MarcusIII
Banded Mongoose
It is simply an abstraction of a myriad of different ways & means (pun intended) a PC could own part interest in a ship or Cr set aside for a ship. I do not predetermine it but come up with a idea based on the character that receives it. No one size fits all. Maybe a great uncle (or aunt) who was a wealthy merchant dies and leaves enough to pay for 1/4 of a Type A and the will stipulates that the Cr be spend on obtaining a merchant vessel. Just off the top of my head.Hello Folks,
How many of you have, as GM, dutifully generated characters along side of your players, and followed the rules as posted? OK, those of you who were GMs or Players who have loved the concept of Ship Shares - can put your hands down. Now lets see the show of hands regarding "how many of you Traveller GMs have ever wondered how to make those ship share concepts work in game play as if it were the real deal?"
For instance - we all have heard of subsidized merchants and subsidized Liners right? But how does a ship share come into being? Is it a financial tool in which someone takes their discretionary pay when they're 22 years of age, and acts as an investment that grows with time? Are ship shares financial instruments in which other organizations buy ships with no money down of their own, and then relinquish their ship to the rightful owners who invested in "ship shares" some two or three decades earlier?
A ship share for a Yacht is worth more than a ship share for an Empress Marava class ship or a Beowulf class ship right? So - how does this work in your game universe other than "get a ship free" kind of thing (and how does one explain how a single character somehow gains five ship shares?)
Just asking.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
I call anything less than a full payment to be the down payment and the financing begins right then.
Any month paid in advance in MTU removes 2 months from the remaining term.
The first makes it easier to pay your mortgage, the 2nd makes it easier to pay off early if the opportunity arises.
Minimum down payment 25% of the ships value at purchase and some type of business plan. The bigger the down payment the looser the business plan can be as your equity (which they can take if you forfeit) is far higher than their money in the ship.
Any month paid in advance in MTU removes 2 months from the remaining term.
The first makes it easier to pay your mortgage, the 2nd makes it easier to pay off early if the opportunity arises.
Minimum down payment 25% of the ships value at purchase and some type of business plan. The bigger the down payment the looser the business plan can be as your equity (which they can take if you forfeit) is far higher than their money in the ship.
MarcusIII
Banded Mongoose
Yes, paying down principle should shorten term of loan.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Depends on the fine print.
I doubt that the Merchant Marine would go out of it's way to screw the recipients of their surplus commercial vessels, but it should be clarified in the contract, exactly how the vessel is to be paid off, and any variants to that.
The usual assumption is, that there are powerful co signer(s) to the mortgage.
If one or more parties to the mortgage are also getting a percentage of the net profit, they might not want to settle at a lowered profit.
I doubt that the Merchant Marine would go out of it's way to screw the recipients of their surplus commercial vessels, but it should be clarified in the contract, exactly how the vessel is to be paid off, and any variants to that.
The usual assumption is, that there are powerful co signer(s) to the mortgage.
If one or more parties to the mortgage are also getting a percentage of the net profit, they might not want to settle at a lowered profit.
The spin gravity OPTION on a Lab Ship is a feature, but most of the time probably isn't used. Certainly, while travelling to and from jump point a non-gravity torus is going to have to have some way of dealing with the floor direction shifting 90 degrees.
Once in orbit around something, and IF the experiments need the artificial gravity switched off but don't mind spun Gs, you spin it up.
In any case, it gives us an interesting ship architecture and a really good jogging track.
Once in orbit around something, and IF the experiments need the artificial gravity switched off but don't mind spun Gs, you spin it up.
In any case, it gives us an interesting ship architecture and a really good jogging track.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
I'm building a huge research ship with a pair of *checks build spreadsheet* 700-meter hamster cages. It is utterly ridiculous. It has artificial gravity, but I'm voting it stays off and the cages will keep on turning.
MonsterX
Emperor Mongoose
Where are you expecting to find hamsters that big?I'm building a huge research ship with a pair of *checks build spreadsheet* 700-meter hamster cages. It is utterly ridiculous. It has artificial gravity, but I'm voting it stays off and the cages will keep on turning.
Fluffy Bunny Feet
Emperor Mongoose
Low acceleration. The ship I proposed has .25g it can use less, it also moves with a minimal crew (no scientists) when jumping to another system they can deal with the slight tilt which can be minimized by spinning for higher g. It can even move under remote control from the pinnace and only be occupied during jump. It moves rarely and being slow isn't that much of an issue.
It seems silly to have a ship designed for spin gravity when it would rarely use it.
Now personally I'd have a ship (maybe based on the subsidized Merchant or a liner) that has all the internal features of the Lab ship but is streamlined and can land. Wouldn't need the pinnace as it could both land and fuel itself.
I'm considering making the lab ship a pure station and having a custom jump tug that takes them to their destinations, it would have to add a 2nd docking clamp (which helps players who can then dock their PC ship to the station if needed). Unsure how big the ship would be. If the station has enough cargo hold it could add more jump fuel in a collapsible tank.
One feature I will add is 2 breakaway hull connections. One on the leading edge and one on the trailing edge. A 2nd station could dock its leading edge to the trailing edge of another making a 800 ton station. They would be offset enough that the M-Drive wouldn't be aimed at the equivalent M-Drive on the next unit. It would limit how many could be linked but that isn't basically a problem. Leggo block stations essentially. The Hospital ship variant and any other variant that kept the breakaway hull system could be linked to give more varied abilities.
