Vector movement

Hopefully, some of you have had time to fiddle around with the design system but judging from the lack of questions in the chat I kind of doubt that. I have whipped together some designs of popular ships in the Traveller universe, you can download them here, they have been updated 2010-05-31.

They are all made with the 1dTon = 5 m3 option so you may have to convert them to regular dTons. Simply edit the values of all dark yellow cells as follows:

• Change the topleft cell to read 14 or whatever value the dTon is in your version of Traveller.
• Divide the hull volume value by 5.
• Divide the powerplant output by 25.
• Divide the cargo volume and hangar volume by 5.
• Divide the living space by 5.

The ship designs were quickly made and especially the Azhanti may need some serious rethinking. I have written down some notes for each design so you understand why the look as they do.

Azhanti This ship was just whipped out and it has never been playtested. It requires way too much technicians compared to canon and you may have to add robots to reduce the crew to something more reasonable. Consider the design as a starting point for your own version.

Cutter This is a 50 dTon design with 25 dTon modules. It can do 2G loaded and nearly 3.5 Gs unloaded. The cutter is sometimes used for interplanetary missions so I added large crew stations and enough living area for a cramped one week tour. The cutter has a small turret and that can be fitted with up to 1 m3 weaponry if needed. The fuel scoops allow it to use fuel modules without the need for each and every one of them needing fuel scoops.

Donosev The Donosev is interesting because it has such a vast array of sensors, I gave it every kind of sensor there is and the Visual/IR is huge, with as Scan of +5.

Launch This is the launch for the subsidized merchant. It has only a 1G floater to keep the power requirements to a minimum. It uses its 2G fusion drive for thrusting with enough fuel for 30 GTurns, it has fuel scoops so its fusion drive can cut down on fuel consumption and radioactive exhaust by running in airbreather mode while inside an atmosphere. I gave it a small turret so it can be armed if needed. My youngest daughter has one of these with a missile launcher and IMTU no one has ever heard of an armed Launch so it has seen a fair amount of space battles.

Subsidized merchant I always wondered why it had wings when it obviously (from Keith drawings) also had at least a floater. I figured that the floater was only capable of lifting the ship unloaded. Fully loaded it needs an atmosphere to take off and enough runway to reach its 161 km/h stallspeed. The fusion drive works in airbreather mode when inside an atmosphere to cut down on fuel and to cool the exhaust. The fusion drive has only 10 GTurns of fuel and this should be enough for planet to -> jump point and jump point to -> planet, the reaction mass might need adjusting upwards. I think the oldtimer in Pilot’s handbook that never trusted subs crews was wrong; they are better spacers than any of those lazy reactionless drive softies.

Suleiman scout There is not much to say there really as it has been extensively covered in the DIY starship 1 – 4. Probably the best player ship in Traveller, in my humble opinion.

SDB Burgund The SDB has extreme stealth against Visual/IR, can take a lot of pounding on hits thick hull and can dish out missiles forever. It lacks any kind of stealth against radar, neutrino and mass sensors. The captain is supposed to run popped in, drifting with floorfield off and powerplant on idle. It takes a special kind of person to crew an SDB, more like submarine crews than surface Navy.

Rampart fighter This is also just a quick sketch. The attack tactic is to come at the target with good speed, launch the missiles and as the fighter drifts the pilot/gunner steers the missiles onto the target with enough relative vector to gain that bonus on PEN and DAM, Rocketpunk manifesto calls these kind of fighters for Lancers.  Fighter pilots know they will be eaten for breakfast in a real war with the Zhodani so the Navy give so slack while on base. 45 % of mess brawls are started by fighter pilots.

Well, at least I have given you some ideas on how to do Traveller designs in the Intercept design system. If you want an interesting match I suggest pitting a subsidized merchant with an armed launch against a single Suleiman to see how that fares. The Suleiman has a huge tech advantage but the little launch can spin circles around the scout and the trader can soak up quite a lot of damage due to its bulk.

8 minutes to the sun – is space too big or lightspeed too slow, or both?

This entry was posted on April 15, 2010 at 02:03 and is filed under Design system, Intercept, Traveller. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.