I was recently taking a close look at the small craft in MgT and noticed some curiosities in the 30 Ton Ship’s Boat.
In the core book it is listed as having Maneuver Drive-A and Power Plant-A with a resulting 6 gee acceleration. This actually makes perfect sense since MD-A will provide 1G for a 200 Ton (dT) ship and 2G for a 100 Ton Ship. That implies 200 Tons of ‘thrust’ (TT) for MD-A which should yield:
200 TT / 200 dT = 1G (200 Ton Free Trader = 1G)
200 TT / 100 dT = 2G (100 Ton Scout = 2G)
200 TT / 66.7 dT = 3G (95 Ton Shuttle = 3G - perhaps an 'oops')
200 TT / 50 dT = 4G (50 Ton Modular Cutter = 4G)
200 TT / 40 dT = 5G (40 Ton Pinnace = 5G)
200 TT / 33.3 dT = 6G (30 Ton Ship’s Boat = 6G)
All of these ships are listed as MD-A (as opposed to the small craft listed as MD <A). So far so good.
Then MgT:High Guard lists rules for Designing Small Craft, with a complete list of drives that differ in the basics like ‘Cost per Ton’ and ‘Percent of ship required’ from the tables in the core book. I actually have no particular problem with this – somewhere in the universe there is a handwave that will explain that they are somehow different technology or whatever. (It seems a little odd, but I can simply accept that the drives for small craft are different from the drives for starships, and move on.)
Comparing the PP/MD-A to the PP/MD-sJ (both yielding 6G in a 30 Ton hull) reveals that PP/MD-sJ is 8.1 tons and 17 MCr, while PP/MD-A is 6 tons and 12 MCr. The PP/MD-A is both smaller AND cheaper than its Small Craft counterpart (sJ).
So is there any reason that a small craft could not use PP/MD-A as a smaller and cheaper alternative?
In the core book it is listed as having Maneuver Drive-A and Power Plant-A with a resulting 6 gee acceleration. This actually makes perfect sense since MD-A will provide 1G for a 200 Ton (dT) ship and 2G for a 100 Ton Ship. That implies 200 Tons of ‘thrust’ (TT) for MD-A which should yield:
200 TT / 200 dT = 1G (200 Ton Free Trader = 1G)
200 TT / 100 dT = 2G (100 Ton Scout = 2G)
200 TT / 66.7 dT = 3G (95 Ton Shuttle = 3G - perhaps an 'oops')
200 TT / 50 dT = 4G (50 Ton Modular Cutter = 4G)
200 TT / 40 dT = 5G (40 Ton Pinnace = 5G)
200 TT / 33.3 dT = 6G (30 Ton Ship’s Boat = 6G)
All of these ships are listed as MD-A (as opposed to the small craft listed as MD <A). So far so good.
Then MgT:High Guard lists rules for Designing Small Craft, with a complete list of drives that differ in the basics like ‘Cost per Ton’ and ‘Percent of ship required’ from the tables in the core book. I actually have no particular problem with this – somewhere in the universe there is a handwave that will explain that they are somehow different technology or whatever. (It seems a little odd, but I can simply accept that the drives for small craft are different from the drives for starships, and move on.)
Comparing the PP/MD-A to the PP/MD-sJ (both yielding 6G in a 30 Ton hull) reveals that PP/MD-sJ is 8.1 tons and 17 MCr, while PP/MD-A is 6 tons and 12 MCr. The PP/MD-A is both smaller AND cheaper than its Small Craft counterpart (sJ).
So is there any reason that a small craft could not use PP/MD-A as a smaller and cheaper alternative?
