What spaceships would you use in a firefly type setting?

[Hopeless]

As noted in other threads I've started or commented (in some cases) I'm involved in a Traveller game set in the Spinward Marches that involves the x boat route being used instead as a series of linked extra stellar gates allowing travel between star systems to be almost instantaneous.

However 14 years previously these Gates self destructed taking all of the systems they were located within, which through virtue of these gates were also the most advanced and held most of the forces of the Marches.

The Sword Worlds rose in rebellion since alot of the systems that blew were also in their sector of space but they used older and some obsolete models of spacecraft.

Currently my players are in the Kinorb system using a mining vessel with eventual access to a laboratory ship belonging to the scholar character.

I've been wondering what ships I should use or in this case shouldn't and I was wondering what your view on this is.

Do I restrict the really advanced ships and work with the fact that the Solomani Empire dislikes having civilian ships armed but have a habit of employing such q-ships for missions they'd rather have no link to?

How have you handled this concept or would if it came up?

 

[CosmicGamer]

From your description, the most advanced systems were destroyed via the gate disaster. No mention is made on the difference between the "most advanced" systems and other systems. Population distribution, tech level disparity, resource availability, production (even lower tech) capability...

I can see that the centers of traffic would have also become centers of trade. You also imply this included the largest, most advanced shipyards.

Here are some thoughts though, based on the little snippet of setting info you've provided.

Jump ships would not be needed between the systems connected by gates. Many of these jump ships would have been outside the jump gate systems. For an extreme example: If the gate system was one leg of ALL of this jump trade, it seams that 50% of the jump ships would conceivably been in the gate system and 50% were at other locations when disaster struck. That is a possibility of 50% of the total jump capable ships surviving. Depending on YTU, determine the amount of trade and traffic between the systems without gates, where the gate system is not one of the legs, and add this to 50%. So I don't see a shortage of jump ships. In fact, there could be an overabundance since the largest markets are now gone.

Science ships, scout ships, and other vessels that predominantly operate away from the gate system should mostly be intact after the gate disaster.

Military fleets.
It seams a little odd to just let an enemy fleet use gates to invade, but you indicate "held most of the forces of the Marches" so I guess somehow it couldn't be prevented. Not that these ships would be of much use now without the gates since they probably had no, or minimal jump capability since they just sat in the gate system, or traveled between them.

I would think there would still be a good number of military in key areas. Systems with key resources would still need to be defended. Also an enemy could easily lay siege if there were no military outside the gate system.

Next is the production of ships.
If there was some military bases in outlying systems, some shipbuilding capability might also not be in the gate systems. Even if the military was mostly centralized in the gate systems I'd think there would be a few bases with shipbuilding capabilities in other locals. Perhaps a research base which might be experimenting with higher tech than even the gate system shipyards had.

Why would there not be at least a few shipyards and industries operating at the same or near the gate systems TL at locations where they would be closer to the resources. Especially mining vessels, and non jump vessels. If these ships were only built at the high tech gate system shipyards then the resources would have to be shipped out to the gate system and the craft would have to be shipped back.

How about those scouts? Where would their bases and shipyards be?

What about repairs? Every ship that breaks down has to be put inside a larger vessel and hauled off to the gate system? Or would there be shipyards with a similar tech level as the gate system to repair ships.

Unless YTU is small, it seams that there would be some surviving shipyards of decent TL.

Overall
I don't see a shortage of jump ships. They were jump capable for a reason and many would have been away from the gate systems. While total production of ships is drastically diminished, so is the population and need for these ships.

While overall, I can see the gate systems being the "most advanced" there would still be tech spread elsewhere. It may be specific areas of tech like mining or agricultural. Factories that made circuit boards to go into mining or agricultural machines might have to adapt to new needs.

Being just 15 years since the disaster, it's easy to believe that lots of changes still need to be made or are in the works.

Some, perhaps interesting, twists.
While ships are available, they may not meet the needs.
- Huge cargo ships are sitting around unused. They used to supply the gate systems, The resources are available to fill their holds but demand in the non gate systems is so small it's not worth the fuel to take these huge ships there.
- The shipyard at the scout base produces ships that don't suit most peoples needs. They are trying to make custom ships to fit customer needs but they have a slow turnout.
- A military base is pumping out ships as fast as possible but they are leaving out numerous top secret military grade systems. The ships have to go somewhere else to be finished because they won't let the civilian personnel needed gain access to their base.
- A shipyard that produced non jump capable mining ships is being modified to be able to produce jump capable ships.
- A yard that used to just repair jump capable ships is now being totally overhauled and expanded to be able to build jump capable ships.
- Speaking of repair yards, they may be super busy re-purposing ships, even brand new ones because there may be a scout or some other shipyard but you need trader ships or something else.

This is just a quick analysis with a lack of, or possibly overlooking facts.

btw, I'm not sure how the post matches the title: Firefly

 

[rcbecker1]

I think Firefly like is the point. low tech and not gunships all over the place

 

[GypsyComet]

Are the old gate systems present but now blasted and barren, or did they just vanish, star and all? The other systems would know even if they couldn't jump, as the light of the gate stars being affected would have been seen just a little over three years later.

Another possibility is seen in the anime series Cowboy Bebop (which, if you haven't seen it, is *very* Traveller-like) in which a gate over Earth blew up, showering Earth with a wide variety of nastiness. With Earth a blasted and nearly uninhabitable wasteland, the rest of the system still carries on, extensive terraforming having made many worlds inhabitable. Gates are still used to get around the system in a few days instead of weeks or months, making the open spaces of the system rather wild.

In Traveller terms the Serenity is very much in the Adventure Class range, running anywhere from 400 to 700 tons depending on interpretation, IIRC. By comparison, the Bebop is about 3600 tons, but has a much higher level of automation and functions with less crew than the Serenity. It would have a much higher crew requirement to be a fully functional trawler, but to get around it just needs the handful we see.

A setting like you describe is going to have a handful of the big commercial ships left, used to supply either the gate worlds from lucrative supply worlds off the gateline, or vice versa, but most of what will be around is in Adventure Class range (<2000 tons). The tramp traders, exploratory, picket and escort ships, and, of course, pirates.

 

[Hopeless]

Are the old gate systems present but now blasted and barren, or did they just vanish, star and all? The other systems would know even if they couldn't jump, as the light of the gate stars being affected would have been seen just a little over three years later.

They originally thought it was a communications fault since any astronomical observatories outside of the core systems took alot of time before they noticed the destruction happening.
The first any system knew of the disaster was when shipping started jumping in avoiding the core systems after some scout ships spread the news following the discovery of a very few jump capable ships had escaped the destruction.

Another possibility is seen in the anime series Cowboy Bebop (which, if you haven't seen it, is *very* Traveller-like) in which a gate over Earth blew up, showering Earth with a wide variety of nastiness. With Earth a blasted and nearly uninhabitable wasteland, the rest of the system still carries on, extensive terraforming having made many worlds inhabitable. Gates are still used to get around the system in a few days instead of weeks or months, making the open spaces of the system rather wild.

In Traveller terms the Serenity is very much in the Adventure Class range, running anywhere from 400 to 700 tons depending on interpretation, IIRC. By comparison, the Bebop is about 3600 tons, but has a much higher level of automation and functions with less crew than the Serenity. It would have a much higher crew requirement to be a fully functional trawler, but to get around it just needs the handful we see.

A setting like you describe is going to have a handful of the big commercial ships left, used to supply either the gate worlds from lucrative supply worlds off the gateline, or vice versa, but most of what will be around is in Adventure Class range (<2000 tons). The tramp traders, exploratory, picket and escort ships, and, of course, pirates.

The majority of ships will be very old save for a remarkably few surviving military ships and any shipyards which were previously used to build components before being shipped to the core systems are being retooled to build ships most of which have been claimed by the nation in control of that system to rebuild their military so any civilian ships will be at least ten or more years old at best.

Only watched a couple of episodes of Cowboy Bebop and have to admit I didn't notice the automation although there are some drone warships ala Enterprise but was wondering how varied I should make the ships say make one Far Trader look different from another either due to being maintained by a system with poorer resources than the others... perhaps make a few systems more attractive for ships to travel to for example Fulacin is one of the most advanced surviving systems in my game and thats mostly due to its proximity to Macene which is an Imperial Naval Depot neither of which had a gate.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

All of the above.

 

[Hopeless]

From your description, the most advanced systems were destroyed via the gate disaster. No mention is made on the difference between the "most advanced" systems and other systems. Population distribution, tech level disparity, resource availability, production (even lower tech) capability...

I took the base information from the Spinward Marches and modified it by reducing the population and tech level of systems the further they were from the core systems whilst the core systems had an increase in population with some an increase in tech level since they were now on a direct link with higher tech level systems.
I set the game 150 odds years after that mentioned in the MGT spinward Marches book but as mentioned its been 14 years since the Gates exploded so since then those systems without an inhabitable world have been steadily reducing in population as they moved to systems with an inhabitable world.

I can see that the centers of traffic would have also become centers of trade. You also imply this included the largest, most advanced shipyards.

Here are some thoughts though, based on the little snippet of setting info you've provided.

Jump ships would not be needed between the systems connected by gates. Many of these jump ships would have been outside the jump gate systems. For an extreme example: If the gate system was one leg of ALL of this jump trade, it seams that 50% of the jump ships would conceivably been in the gate system and 50% were at other locations when disaster struck. That is a possibility of 50% of the total jump capable ships surviving. Depending on YTU, determine the amount of trade and traffic between the systems without gates, where the gate system is not one of the legs, and add this to 50%. So I don't see a shortage of jump ships. In fact, there could be an overabundance since the largest markets are now gone.

The Gates are set up at the edge of the system when they detonated they took apart most of the outer planets and as have as yet made it impossible to discover what effect it had on the inner planets.

Most ships were caught unprepared and destroyed those that survived did so because when they jumped they ended up in a system and were detected and rescued before their ships either crashed/blew up or disappeared since those lucky enough to actually make the jump were crippled or in the throes of blowing up upon arrival.

Following the destruction the Sword Worlds rose in rebellion and any ships in their vicinity were either seized or destroyed when they met resistance, the Empire forcibly recruited shipping until the MegaCorps stepped in and even then the resulting war with the Sword Worlds and then the Aryan Alliance insured there were very few ships remaining afterwards.

Science ships, scout ships, and other vessels that predominantly operate away from the gate system should mostly be intact after the gate disaster.

Scout ships definitely but they still had to answer to the Imperial Navy and many turned sides after the destruction of the Sword Worlds subsector since in the early days of the war it was assumed to have been the Empire was responsible, even now after the Aryan Alliance was established forcing the Sword Worlds, the Solomani Empire and the Theocratic Consulate to briefly ally to battle the technologically superior foe there is still a feeling of distrust towards the Empire that the truce has done nothing to resolve.
Science ships, closest thing to that would be lab ships and they tend to be independent, other vessels are either with one of the Mega Corps or freelancers and very rarely armed.

Military fleets.
It seams a little odd to just let an enemy fleet use gates to invade, but you indicate "held most of the forces of the Marches" so I guess somehow it couldn't be prevented. Not that these ships would be of much use now without the gates since they probably had no, or minimal jump capability since they just sat in the gate system, or traveled between them.

I would think there would still be a good number of military in key areas. Systems with key resources would still need to be defended. Also an enemy could easily lay siege if there were no military outside the gate system.

Back before the destruction only the Theocratic Consulate was considered an active foe and their edge made it impossible for the Empire to send their military straight into one of their systems so any battle between the two had to be done by jumping into their system.
The Consulate however have on occasion been able to infiltrate Imperial systems but never in the kind of numbers that would make an invasion via the Gates remotely possible.
The Consulate can hold off the Empire and have done so for over a century, whether this would have continued had the Gates not exploded is difficult to say but it would have required the Empire to fool the Consulate into invading several systems in force to give the Empire the edge they need to finally defeat their only real rival in the Marches.

Next is the production of ships.
If there was some military bases in outlying systems, some shipbuilding capability might also not be in the gate systems. Even if the military was mostly centralized in the gate systems I'd think there would be a few bases with shipbuilding capabilities in other locals. Perhaps a research base which might be experimenting with higher tech than even the gate system shipyards had.

Why would there not be at least a few shipyards and industries operating at the same or near the gate systems TL at locations where they would be closer to the resources. Especially mining vessels, and non jump vessels. If these ships were only built at the high tech gate system shipyards then the resources would have to be shipped out to the gate system and the craft would have to be shipped back.

How about those scouts? Where would their bases and shipyards be?

These are more or less unchanged from the classic Spinward Marches release for Traveller with the x-boat route marking what systems were on the Gate Network.

What about repairs? Every ship that breaks down has to be put inside a larger vessel and hauled off to the gate system? Or would there be shipyards with a similar tech level as the gate system to repair ships.

Unless YTU is small, it seams that there would be some surviving shipyards of decent TL.

They'd need access to a system with a suitable technological level such as Fulacin.
This doesn't mean there isn't another way to make repairs but they probably won't have the parts necessary to repair or maintain the ship properly.
Fuel is derived by using a process that separated hydrogen from water, but can also be dervied by refuelling froma gas giant the trick is having fuel scoops and a means to refine the fuel so it doesn't impair the ship further.

Overall
I don't see a shortage of jump ships. They were jump capable for a reason and many would have been away from the gate systems. While total production of ships is drastically diminished, so is the population and need for these ships.

While overall, I can see the gate systems being the "most advanced" there would still be tech spread elsewhere. It may be specific areas of tech like mining or agricultural. Factories that made circuit boards to go into mining or agricultural machines might have to adapt to new needs.

Being just 15 years since the disaster, it's easy to believe that lots of changes still need to be made or are in the works.

Part of the problem is that with alot of their tech base being lost in the destruction has made inhabitable worlds vital to their continued existance, many systems have been lost off the official records over the years simply because they were viewed as unimportant but the records they do have aren't accurate being at least a century out of date since the main records were destroyed and some systems have changed greatly (for example Fulacin has now a standard atmosphere due to their efforts to repair the damage to their ecology and environment).
It is entirely possible that some of the military or civilian shipyards have survived both the destruction and the war that followed but neither the military nor the civilian services have been in a position to find out.

Some, perhaps interesting, twists.
While ships are available, they may not meet the needs.
- Huge cargo ships are sitting around unused. They used to supply the gate systems, The resources are available to fill their holds but demand in the non gate systems is so small it's not worth the fuel to take these huge ships there.

Definitely the Mega Corps especially love these!

- The shipyard at the scout base produces ships that don't suit most peoples needs. They are trying to make custom ships to fit customer needs but they have a slow turnout.
- A military base is pumping out ships as fast as possible but they are leaving out numerous top secret military grade systems. The ships have to go somewhere else to be finished because they won't let the civilian personnel needed gain access to their base.
- A shipyard that produced non jump capable mining ships is being modified to be able to produce jump capable ships.
- A yard that used to just repair jump capable ships is now being totally overhauled and expanded to be able to build jump capable ships.
- Speaking of repair yards, they may be super busy re-purposing ships, even brand new ones because there may be a scout or some other shipyard but you need trader ships or something else.

This is just a quick analysis with a lack of, or possibly overlooking facts.

btw, I'm not sure how the post matches the title: Firefly

From what i recall Firefly is set after a war where the Alliance effectively conquered their neighbours to insure their rule was uncontested even if their presence was neither wanted nor desired.
In the aftermath some people chose to move away from Alliance controlled territory to try and make a life away from their direct rule as well as establish a new life free of their past.
If Firefly had not been set in the same solar system I saw it as a good example for why my game could get off the ground since Traveller is usually set after the player characters have mustered out from their particular service and what they want to do next.

 

[IanW]

I've been wondering what ships I should use or in this case shouldn't and I was wondering what your view on this is.

Do I restrict the really advanced ships and work with the fact that the Solomani Empire dislikes having civilian ships armed but have a habit of employing such q-ships for missions they'd rather have no link to?

How have you handled this concept or would if it came up?

I'd use the standards - the A2 Far trader and the Type S Scout.

You can build a dandy Q-ship out of a Far Trader by replacing the cargo mount with a baby spinal mount/bay weapon, by the way.