TL15/16 Ship Designs - Final Attempt - On Topic Thread

[Solomani666]

The Traveller ship building rules are for building IMPERIAL ships.

These ships are limited in the following ways:

1. They use lowest bid contractors. (i.e. cheapest designs possible.)
2. Use 'off the shelf' parts.
3. Are generally an overall TL12 design despite its possible TL15 meson cannon and shields.

From High Guard Page 52:

The Traveller core rulebook gives rules for building spacecraft as they are built in most shipyards across the Imperium – a mix of common off–the–shelf components, lowest–contractor–offer hulls, and electronics imported from high–tech or industrial worlds across the subsector. The overall tech level of the resulting spacecraft is roughly TL12, regardless of where it was built.

So the question remains. What rule modifications would you suggest for a civilization that builds TL15/16 ships that:

1. Use the very highest quality contractors with the best designs possible.
2. Use the best custom parts and components.
3. Are of a PURE TL15/16 design.

Yes, this will require a modification of the rules as stated.

Please keep comments relative to the thread topic.

I am also creating an "Off Topic Thread" for those people who insist on posting comments having little or no relevance to the question asked.

If you still intend to answer this post with "But the rules say..." then you
need to reserve your comments for the Off Topic Thread".

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=46409

 

[barnest2]

1. Use the very highest quality contractors with the best designs possible.
2. Use the best custom parts and components.
3. Are of a PURE TL15/16 design.

1. Use the higher hull/structure rules from high guard to represent high tech hulls. It also has rules for high tech engine components and the like, which make them smaller and such. These will do it happily.
2. Much harder to fix. Higher maintenance costs. Also, see answer to 1.
3.... can I say see option 1 again?

 

[Solomani666]

1. Use the very highest quality contractors with the best designs possible.
2. Use the best custom parts and components.
3. Are of a PURE TL15/16 design.

1. Use the higher hull/structure rules from high guard to represent high tech hulls. It also has rules for high tech engine components and the like, which make them smaller and such. These will do it happily.
2. Much harder to fix. Higher maintenance costs. Also, see answer to 1.
3.... can I say see option 1 again?

Again. The rules are for Imperial ship design.

It may be a TL15 hull but it is still built by the lowest bid contractor who is more worried about profit than the survival of their species and the family members who will die of the ship should be lost. Not to mention themselves since the initial crew of a ship usually participates in its construction.

All of their planets have TL15 infrastructure so maintenance is not a problem.

Also there components tend not to break down very often due to the high quality and production standards.

 

[DFW]

Again. The rules are for Imperial ship design.

It may be a TL15 hull but it is still built by the lowest bid contractor

No, the rules for building are for technology that exists in the Trav universe.
There is NOTHING in the rules that talks about lowest bid contractors for higher TL. The rules for cost of different TL components AND how that changes the quality are in HG.

 

[rust]

The Traveller ship building rules are for building IMPERIAL ships.

Plus those of all the other species and interstellar states of the Traveller
universe, from A as Aslan to Z as Zhodani. They are not the rules for Im-
perial ships, they are the far more generic "laws of technology" of the en-
tire known universe.

If you do not like them, you can introduce your own and widely different
rules, but it simply makes no sense to try to redefine them within their
current framework by moving around some goal posts with approaches
like "lowest bid contractors" and thelike.

 

[Solomani666]

Again. The rules are for Imperial ship design.

It may be a TL15 hull but it is still built by the lowest bid contractor

No, the rules for building are for technology that exists in the Trav universe.
There is NOTHING in the rules that talks about lowest bid contractors for higher TL. The rules for cost of different TL components AND how that changes the quality are in HG.

High Guard Page 52

The Traveller core rulebook gives rules for building spacecraft as
they are built in most shipyards across the Imperium – a mix of
common off–the–shelf components, lowest–contractor–offer hulls,
and electronics imported from high–tech or industrial worlds across
the subsector. The overall tech level of the resulting spacecraft is
roughly TL12, regardless of where it was built.

 

[Mithras]

Where does it say that? I failed to find any reference to bidders or any such mention of outside contractors in the Traveller Book. I think you might be confusing the Traveller universe with the (so called) 'real world'.

Again. The rules are for Imperial ship design.
It may be a TL15 hull but it is still built by the lowest bid contractor who is more worried about profit than the survival of their species and the family members who will die of the ship should be lost. .

 

[rust]

High Guard Page 52

The Traveller core rulebook gives rules for building spacecraft as
they are built in most shipyards across the Imperium – a mix of
common off–the–shelf components, lowest–contractor–offer hulls,
and electronics imported from high–tech or industrial worlds across
the subsector. The overall tech level of the resulting spacecraft is
roughly TL12, regardless of where it was built.

Which is one reason why people here continue to tell you to take a look
at High Guard and use the advanced rules there for your scenario, and
I see not a single post telling you to use the core rules only for it - so
what ?

 

[DFW]

The Traveller core rulebook gives rules for building spacecraft as
they are built in most shipyards across the Imperium

Read what you're writing. I'm talking about HR ship building rules. NOT Core rule book. Do you understand the difference?

 

[rust]

But back on topic, if you like advanced high tech ship designs, take a
look at the Darrians supplement:

Darrian military philosophy grants its defensive ships every technological
advantage it can afford. The following vessels are all TL15 designs using
the advanced component rules from High Guard.

 

[DFW]

But back on topic, if you like advanced high tech ship designs, take a
look at the Darrians supplement:

Darrian military philosophy grants its defensive ships every technological
advantage it can afford. The following vessels are all TL15 designs using
the advanced component rules from High Guard.

Excellent. I don't have that supplement but perfect for TL15/16 design rules he's looking for.

 

[Solomani666]

But back on topic, if you like advanced high tech ship designs, take a
look at the Darrians supplement:

Darrian military philosophy grants its defensive ships every technological
advantage it can afford. The following vessels are all TL15 designs using
the advanced component rules from High Guard.

Excellent. I don't have that supplement but perfect for TL15/16 design rules he's looking for.

Thanks. That was a big help.

I'll probably just build the whole fleet at TL16 and call it a day.

I may bend the rules a little by building a dreadnought with duel PP's and duel spinal mount meson cannons. I can't think of any reason that a highly advanced race could not acheive this. Heck, they even did it in Starblazers.

 

[DFW]

Thanks. That was a big help.

I'll probably just build the whole fleet at TL16 and call it a day.

I may bend the rules a little by building a dreadnought with duel PP's and duel spinal mount meson cannons. I can't think of any reason that a highly advanced race could not acheive this. Heck, they even did it in Starblazers.

If you can get hold of Mega Traveller, you can adapt some of the rules too. It goes up to TL 17 or 18 I think.

 

[BP]

Dual spinal mounts at TL-16 seems a reasonable extension, especially given the TL improvements listed on pg 66. At TL 15, Type A & B Meson spinals mounts are only 20% the size and cost (and 140% the damage). Personally, especially given that we are only talking one TL - I'd throw in some balancing effect for higher TL dual spinals - like doubling the tonnage (which would take more hardpoints - i.e. reducing the ability to have other weapons).

Thus a TL 13 Type D Meson would normally take 14,000 tons and 140 hardpoints - at TL 16 it is normally 5760 tons (58 hardpoints). For dual TL 16, it would be 11,520 tons each (115x2 = 230 hardpoints).

The 'logic' being that dual spinals requires more structurally...

 

[barnest2]

This is something I thought about for a while, back when I still liked making enormous ships for fun. Basically it came too "if I'm building a ship of several hundred thousand tons, why could it not have multiple spinal mounts"
I basically eventually worked it down too one per 200,000 tons of ship (so a 600,000 ton ship could have 3)

 

[Solomani666]

This is something I thought about for a while, back when I still liked making enormous ships for fun. Basically it came too "if I'm building a ship of several hundred thousand tons, why could it not have multiple spinal mounts"
I basically eventually worked it down too one per 200,000 tons of ship (so a 600,000 ton ship could have 3)

Three spinal mounts on a ship is just sick and so wrong. You are obviously a pervert and should seek therapy immediatly. And while you are at it... stay away from little children.

 

[barnest2]

.... what?

 

[Galadrion]

See, this was why I liked the FF&S: Naval Architecture idea. With a big enough ship, you could build in several of these large guns without necessarily making them spinal mounts - a ship the size of Dahak could have batteries of secondary guns each powerful enough to intimidate a Tigress... and you really don't want to think about what primaries could do.

Grandfather help any system in which two of these behemoths clash...

 

[atpollard]

I may bend the rules a little by building a dreadnought with duel PP's and duel spinal mount meson cannons. I can't think of any reason that a highly advanced race could not acheive this. Heck, they even did it in Starblazers.

I would respectfully suggest that a single spinal mount should be superior to two "half sized" spinal mounts (an area vs volume square-cube law thing). Thus dual spinal mounts should be reserved for only the largest ships mounting spinal mounts that cannot be built any larger under the rules.

I would also suggest that a small cost penalty be applied - perhaps no 'standard design' discount for the ship or even double price for an experimental prototype.

In other words, no free lunch.

 

[atpollard]

Using the double barrel shotgun as an analogy, one common advantage of a DB shotgun is that one barrel can be loaded with birdshot and the other with buckshot, so whatever animal you encounter, you have the right ammo for the job.

Applying this to a starship spinal mount, perhaps the weapons should be different so that whatever the target, you have the optimal offensive weapon ready to fire.