I haven't played Traveller in the past 15 years (!), and our ships were just
original Book 2 stuff, so this is just burbling on my part. I like the
Megamass idea a lot (and think it would also be a good approach to Iain
M.
Banks' "Culture" vessels. As an alternative though, here's another approach
which reduces the number of systems on each ship- I'm a firm believer in
combining systems to increase speed and playability.
I suggest that the FT Mass scale is nonlinear, and can be approximated to
Traveller using this formula:
Traveller Mass =2.3*(FT Mass cubed)
assuming that ~100 tons for a scout ship and ~75000 tons for a heavy cruiser
are reasonable figures.
Notes FT Mass Traveller Mass 1 2.3 Courier 2 18.4 Scout 4 147.2 Destroyer 14
6311.2 Maximum Escort 18 13413.6 Heavy Cruiser 32 75366.4 Maximum Cruiser 36
107308.8 Battlecruiser 40 147200.0 Battleship 48 254361.6 Battledreadnought 60
496800.0 CVL 70 788900.0 Superdreadnought 80 1177600.0 CVA 98 2164742.0
Maximum Capital 100 2300000.0 5 Megaton ship 130 5053100.0 10 Megaton ship 164
10145171.0 20 Mt(ish!) ship 200 18400000.0
I suggest giving ships "Kra'Vak Armour" (Level 1 for cruisers, Level 2 for
capitals) but thinking of it as an assortment of standard defensive
systems. I would also suggest a rule of doubling the mass points for A-
and
B- batteries on escorts, and A-batteries on cruisers, to increase the
definition between hull sizes. An exception would be made for spinal
mounts; I suggest letting them fire into the forward arc with a -1
penalty unless the target is directly ahead.
Any thoughts? Rob
Cool idea Robin,
However, the firepower of a mass 30 FT ship relative to a mass 80 FT ship is
not equivalent to a Crusier class 15000 ton ship versus a Light Carrier(60000
Ton). Still the outcome is the same when these two antagonists meet.
I believe Mike's 50 tons per mass point is, OK. But I was trying to find a
"true" conversion so I could use the FT combat system is FRP that need more
detail (cargo space and such) not so I could drag starships from other games
into FT. When Mike gave us the cargo space requirements for troops and
equipment in more thrust, whether he likes it or not, he gave us the
conversion factor. I just crunched the numbers.
> Joe A. Troche wrote:
> Cool idea Robin,
> However, the firepower of a mass 30 FT ship relative to a mass
> antagonists meet.
> I believe Mike's 50 tons per mass point is, OK. But I was
> gave us the conversion factor. I just crunched the numbers.
True, Joe, but who's to say that 1 ton in the "official FT" universe is the
same as 1 ton in the "Traveller" universe, or any other universe for that
matter? What I mean by "ton" (tonne?) may not be what you (or Marc Miller)
mean by "ton". According to my cargo space rules in "More Thrust" the
accommodation for one man in an FT ship is 4 CS ( i.e. 4 tons). The standard
allocation for one stateroom in a Traveller ship is 4 tons, but on military
ships the occupation is usually 2 men per stateroom, ie 1 man's
accommodation is 2 tons. See what I mean?
Food for thought, perhaps.
What does anybody else think?
> Mike Elliott wrote:
Seems like you're on the right track by starting with a crew member for
scale. I am still working on my conversions right now - hope to share
them soon.
Don't forget that in Full Thrust, half of the ships mass is allocated for
drives and crew quarters.
Manuever Drives, Fuel, Crew 25% FTL Drive 25% Discretionary Space 50%
Does anyone else want to run the calculations to determine the similar numbers
for Traveller capital ships? Comparing the design assumptions of the two games
would provide a useful reference for a conversion effort.
I am assuming the following weapons are available: Lasers, Particle
Accelerators, Meson Guns, Sandcasters, Det-laser missiles, and all of
the screens. I am eliminating tech levels by considering only TL14 and TL15
ships (Imperium, Zhodani, Solomani, NO CARRIER damn... ok log back in...
and most of the other major races (including the Aslan). That puts everyone on
a level playing field.
More as I do it...
Michael Carter Llaneza To Hell With Senator Exxon!! Conceptual Design Services
The Worse it gets, Duty Now For The Future The more I get used to it
Veteran of the Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force 1990-1951
> On Mon, 22 Jul 1996, Mike Miserendino wrote:
> Mike Elliott wrote:
> >accommodation for one man in an FT ship is 4 CS ( i.e. 4 tons). The
Having just bought Marc Miller's Traveller, and thinking that I wouldn't mind
running a Traveller campaign at some point, I realised it'd be fun to come up
with some Traveller rules for Full Thrust.
Before I go off and re-invent the wheel though, is there anyone
out there who has already done this, though about doing this, or is just
interested in seeing what I come up with?
I should warn people that I've only played Traveller a couple of times (I'm
not a die hard Traveller fan who's played it for the last umpteen billion
years), so I'm not too familiar with Traveller
technology (though I'm working on it!), hence this pre-emptive cry
for ideas.
YehSomeone has done it before! A couple of years back a friend and I were
involved in a Traveller campaign (he was Gming it in fact) and we wanted a
quick way to resolve ship to ship combat, being none too enamoured with the
"official" Striker rules. SO we set about converting Full Thrust and it seemed
to work quite well.
> Martin ??? wrote:
> the "official" Striker rules.
There was a fair amount of discussion on this subject on this list only
recently. Check out the archives on Jerry Hans Web page.
"Striker" for ship to ship combat?? No, no. "Striker" was a (pretty useless)
set of rules for ground combat.
> So we set about converting Full Thrust and it seemed to work quite
> really well. Even had rules for Zhodani psychers to try and intervene
I'm sure a lot of people here would be interested to see your rules, Martin,
please.
> Cheers
> Martin ??? wrote:
I have some of the relevant mail archived on my home machine, no - it's
not on the web I'm afraid. Drop me a note if you'd like to see the discussion
online.
> >So we set about converting Full Thrust and it seemed to work quite
I'd like to see the rules too. It was the vast disparity in ship sizes that
really made the Traveller conversion difficult. My approach was to pick a
representative ship and make the rules work for that ship and
others within an order of magnitude (by size/weapon kit). This gets the
job done without Mass 1000 Superships at the Capital Ship end of the spectrum.
> >Cheers
> In message <843481971.662843.PN013@lamp.ac.uk> you wrote:
> YehSomeone has done it before! A couple of years back a friend and I
I'd be very interested in seeing these rules.
> The only problem we had
For the campaign I've got in mind, players will also normally only ever
encounter smaller ships (but then, they're going to
be starting with a _really_ small ship).
> a cop out I know but worked really well. Even had rules for Zhodani
Sounds like fun...
In message
<392213230996*/S=Elliott/I=MJ/OU=UK22P/PRMD=BULL/ADMD=CWMAIL/C=GB@MHS>
> you wrote:
> There was a fair amount of discussion on this subject on this list
Okay, I've found these archives before, but didn't download the files with any
Traveller stuff in them (I seem to remember a lot of the files seemed to be
missing).
I'll go have another look, thanks.