 October 3, 2014 - 2:44pm | The Name that Ship thread has produced 2 magazine articles with one in the works. I'd like to see a 4th make it into the submission cue which will mean a year's worth of content from this series. So what do we think about Trans Travel? A young mega corp with 60-70% of the Frotnier's carrying trade. How did they get so big so fast? Could they have done it by building ships like the Gullwind? or perhaps ships like the large and small freighters included in KHs? My inclination is that it was with the large and small freighters in KHs- a basic simple pattern that could be churned out fast like cookie cutter houses. Or do you think it could have been something else? Also TT would need Q ship or a Q cargo pod which turns any freighter into a nasty surprise for the ill intentioned. I think they would have experimented with an actual Q ship design but settled on the Q cargo pod. In part this would be because if they did churned out the large and small freighters from KHs then the presence of the Q pod gives pirates pause if they recognize the TT ship- "There is 4 of them in convoy and the chances of one having a Q-pod are high perhaps we'll let these ones pass and look for prey with less potential for mayhem." Need to stat out the Large and small freighters anyway- I did not see stats in the WoWL modules after several scans of it. Hull sizes? I think the HS for these freighters should be less if not carrying pods but by adding a bunch of pods you bump the HS and HP Not HS determines the DCR but adding cargo pods should not increase DCR, IMO. They're obviously ion powered craft so ADF 1 and MR1 How many cargo pods each could these ships carry?  Pictured above is a 3/4 stern view of the tanker done by Jay Thurman on Deviant Art. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 3, 2014 - 3:13pm | RE: Hull Size based on depecitons of them and the 30 year old TSR miniature they appear to have 2 ION engines. Consulting the Hull Size Chart I think this means we're dealing with HS 7-9 and size B engines for the large freighter and the small freighter look real small so perhaps a HS 3 or 4 with type A drives (I know the chart says a HS3 has 2 engines and a HS 4 has 1 but this is most likely a type-O i think) Personally I like a HS 4 since by the rules it can carry 4 hull spaces of cargo- and we can simply make that a cargo pod holds 2 HS of cargo and the small freighter can carry 2 of them. Going with HS8 for the large freighter means it carries 4 cargo pods each holding 2 HS of cargo. EDIT: HS 4= 20HP and 32DCR HS 8= 40HP and 44DFR Lets say removing a cargo pod removes 2 HP from the ship thus a small freighter running light would have 16 HP and a large freighter running light would have 32HP. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 3, 2014 - 3:34pm | Large Freighter: MS x2 and when armed a LB (mounted on deck 4 other side of the hull from large launch) The MS makes sense as the water becomes back up fuel for the ion drive) Small freighter being HS 4 coulld mount a MS - call it MSx1 RE: pods We effectively has one already designed in that we reprinted the system ship star liner in a previous issue, it would make a lot of sense for TT to use these as pods with its freighters. though this probably qualifies as a double sized cargo container. There is also the Corsair pods which work as one model of Q-pod dry cargo and tanker pods are just big empty containers. Need another Q-pod more conventionally designed ie not a fighter bay Could consider an AG dome and pod which only the large freighter can haul and it can only haul two of them (and nothing else) and must always haul two of them for balance reasons. The ag pod is a cylinder pod with an ag dome jutting out from its side, the hold holds robots, fertilizer, H2O and etc. The ag pod and dome were not really all that successful a program and were discontinued which makes them rare. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 3, 2014 - 5:13pm | Trans Travel took unusual steps to become a megacorp. They started with large starships with interchangable cargo pods. These took bulk cargos with low margins usually from planetary governments, other megacorps and the UPF. The starships were meet in system by HS 3 system ships which took some of the cargo pods and transported them to the final destination while also dropping off outgoing cargo pods. Vast profits were made by first the massive amounts of cargo they could transport at low cost and by the quicker delivery since the small system ships took the cargo directly to the city and many times the factory where it was intended. In the early years being a Trans Travel employee was very hard as the demand to be constantly on the go left employees with time for no other interests. But they were paid in equal amounts of currency and stock options. The early employees and all now very rich and the younger ones hope to get that way too even though many of the original employees are still working for Trans Travel. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
October 3, 2014 - 5:48pm | @ rattraveller: Nice background fluff, when you say large ships, how large? System ships doing the city and factory runs is intersting too in that there are docking and trade stations somewhat positions strategically in the Frontier. Docking and Trade Stations would be ideal locations to facilitate this and where they dont exist then simple grunt force transhipping of cargo in vacuum would do. If you have digger shuttles you should also be able to have shuttles with grabber arms that would be ideal for this. In some systems its the lower population world with the station and New Streel and Pan-Gal are newer systems and they have none. Hentz, Araks: DS & TS Rupert's Hole, Cassidine: TS Triad, Cassidine: DS Inner Reach, Dramune: TS Zik-kit, Kizk'-Kar: TS Lynchpin, Moonworld: DS Kdikit, Madderly's STar: DS & TS Morgaine's World, Prengular: DS & TS Kir'-Kut, Solar Major: TS Pale, Truane's Star: DS & TS Clarion, White Light: DS Rim system: Faire, Capella: DS Homeworld, Capella: TS T'zaan, Cryxia: TS Hum, Fochrik: TS Stenmar, Kazak: DS Point Go, Klaeok: DS & TS Osaka, Osak: DS Note: I have an issue with the restriction on Trade stations not being about to sell items that were manufactured on the planet below. Its illogical and some of the stituations created in Zebs make this stupid IMO. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 3, 2014 - 6:56pm | um...the small freighter is HS: 5 and the large freighter is HS: 12. Just look on the map with WoWL, under the name "small freighter" or "large freighter". |
October 3, 2014 - 7:05pm | um...the small freighter is HS: 5 and the large freighter is HS: 12. Just look on the map with WoWL, under the name "small freighter" or "large freighter". thats disconcerting, HS 5 is three engines and HS 12 is 4. Neither of these match the images nor the miniature. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 3, 2014 - 7:27pm | http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/3764 |
 October 3, 2014 - 9:55pm | Wow. That is a beautiful ship image in the first post. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 4, 2014 - 3:48am | Wow. That is a beautiful ship image in the first post. Yeah, we have a guy. Seriously, though do we like the "story" that TT built itself into a mega corp almost over night with container ships that were cheap and easy to build? The 10 years that was Laco's War could also be said to have been a distraction to PGC. That PGC had previously been operation many of the ships in the carrying trade but it had been building Gullwind style vessels with internal cargo holds- these are slower to unload even with proper robotic support. Druing Laco's war Streel unleashed privateers to go after any PGC vessel. The program was initially successful till Space Fleet tried to do more to regulate the situation. However a lot of damage was done and this style of vessel just takes time to build so when a little corporation called Trans Travel turned up with container ships, which were a new paradigm in interstellar travel, PGC welcomed them while it was dealing with Streel and Laco's War. Within a decade it was obvious that the new paradigm of container ships were 30% more effecient and Trans Travel was growing by leaps and bounds. Orginially, PGC had labelled the container ship as disposable and therefore a poor investment such that it kept building "proper" internal hold cargo ships. It was 7 years after the end of Laco's War and yet 40% of PGC cargos were still carried by Trans Travel and PGC realized she could not compete with the TT business model and divested herself of most of here fleet. The side effect of that move was that Gullwind style vessels ended up in the hands of independents and small operations (at a greatly discounted price) ensuring the ship's popularity and longevity within the Frontier. I believe even the MSO has a few set up as hospital ships. Some were even pressed into exploration duties. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 5, 2014 - 3:15am | It's a shame to see CGI imagery rather than drawings. I like everything else though! |
October 5, 2014 - 4:18am | How does this idea grab you: the design of the TT container ships is such that the engines and the tail boom can be jettisoned and the ship itself can enter atmo and land as a life boat in an emergency ( it will never take off again but hey any crash landing you can walk away from is pretty good). They are a nice saucer shape and if the engine struts were retained they would be be there to act as wings, though I'm sure its a horrible design from a aeronautical point of view. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 5, 2014 - 5:22am | jettison the pylons and the boom and it might work...non-powered - just using the struts to support the craft but, no control or steering though. It would need something...some kind of steering or a parachute - something. |
October 5, 2014 - 5:47am | Breaking rockets. and parachute perhaps. Perhaps only the Upper half of the ship as well or only the small freighter can do this. write it off as design feature that the star ship engineer designed into the small freighter but no one really expects you to ever use it. If we allow this feature it then suggests a recalibration of the Crash on Volturnus- instead of a straight up rail road the situation develops where the PCs have a choice: let the pirates board and become prisoners and proceed with the adventure from there or use the emergency crash landing feature to escape the pirates and proceed to the recommended water landing (south of the original crash site on the Votlrunus map). Players can have some control of the situation too- water landing no one is hurt, desert landing dice for injuries to PCs as in the origninal module. Forest landing is a dice for injury situaiton but leads to the kurabunga encounters. Pirates show up and because the kurabunga hate them they will join in the ensuing fire fight with the PCs leading to a fairly easy first contact. In fact a overlay can be done on the Volturnus map with a shaded cone showing potential flight path of the ship. within this cone is regions that actually cover numerous hexes. Whatever PC has some flight skill gets to take the controls and make skill checks for control of the ship as it moves from one region to the next each turn of the crash. a successful skill check means the player and choose the nect region the vessel enters and a failure means its diced for. the ship will always glide forward to one of several landing sites along the broad end of the cone. Players can exert some control over this process and its a little more sand box and less raid road. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 5, 2014 - 7:00am | Before Trans Travel was Terledrom Travel and another company, Trans Galactic Travel , both based in Fromeltar.Trans Travel came out of a merger of these two small companies. Thus Trans Travel's history can be traced indirectly to the time of the First Common Muster. The original small container ship was HS 4 (conforming to Shadow Shacks) and was designed by one of these companies (Terledrom Travel) and it incleded the emergency life boat landing feature. At the time of the merger it was felt that this design was a little small. And with the new 20 year plan to take over a significant portion of the carrying trade from PGC coupled with the recent completion of or soon to be completed series of trade and docking stations in across the Frontier TT committed itself to the container ship model. Part of that paradigm required that its freighter mount grappels to aid with cargo handling. Thus the need for a new HS 5 freighter (conforming to the WoWL inside cover -grappels are MHS 5 equipment) . TT then went on to design the HS 12 freighter which is also grappels equipped but lacks the life boat feature despite the saucer shaped main hull. Though it can jettison the cargo boom if it needs to. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 5, 2014 - 8:19am | Re: spacer accademies in Fromeltar. The Terledrom militia is responsible for two systems and has a lot of hulls listed for both systems in the KHs campaign game. Without a doubt there is a large militia school on Terledrom. Trans Travel will have a need for trained spacers to man its Q pods and corsair pods does it run its own facility or get its crews into the militia school? The answer might seem obvious because mercenaies are not sent by their employer to attend West Point but since Terledrom is run by a council of vrusk companies and elected dralasites in might seem natural to the vrusk to take advantage of the goverment sponsored school. One might even ask if it is a government sponsored school. It could be a vrusk trade house that runs this school. And government and or corpoirations simply pay for employees to attend. Of course the human model of you go in debt to go to school and the n try to get the job would be turned around here, you get the job then go to school. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 5, 2014 - 8:30am | I doubt the arms would survive contact with an atmosphere on their way in. Maybe if just the 'disc' lands, that would make more sense. That or the arms are 'disposable' and not expected to survive re-entry but act as useful brakes as they burn up. You have to make sure that the disc was 'clean' in shape - i.e. not protrusions on its underside or sides - in order to for it be able to get through an atmosphere. So, those small features I can see on either side of it in the CGI above would have to be moved further upwards along the upper surface of the disc. |
October 5, 2014 - 9:02am | Please forgive the somewhat hasty sketch, but here's an alternative design: With this design, the 'trailer' part of the ship is all aft of the main streamlined 'disc/wedge'. The trailer is made of sections of a certain length. Each length has four mounts to which hexagonal cargo pods can be attached. The hexagonal shape allows one pod to be fitted to another, if needed. In this way, each mount can have 'X' amount of pods attached to it, in stacks. The ship can drag up to 'X' amount of lengths with 'X' amount of pods per length, as required by the trip. The part furthest aft contains other engines. In this way, aside from the need for the foremost and aftmost parts, a ship can be lengthened or shortened and more or less pods carried - all tailored by whatever the cargo order requires. So one could end up with a long ship with a mass of attached and stacked pods, or a shorter ship with less pods. My sketch shows a shorter versions, but hopefully you get the general idea  |
October 5, 2014 - 6:53pm | I doubt the arms would survive contact with an atmosphere on their way in. Maybe if just the 'disc' lands, that would make more sense.
Using that logic - the wings of the space shuttle would burn up on re-entry. |
October 6, 2014 - 1:38am | No, because they're designed not to do that Objects have to have specfic shapes and profiles in order to survive re-entry, so my point was that those shown in the pic at the top of this thread would not do that job very well. |
October 6, 2014 - 10:08am | That, and the shuttle has all those tiles. Which, when as we learned when one or more falls off, allows it to burn up during re-entry. |
October 6, 2014 - 10:26am | That, and the shuttle has all those tiles. Which, when as we learned when one or more falls off, allows it to burn up during re-entry.
Yeah, they're probably not going with tile technology anynore, new engineering solutions already being worked on. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 6, 2014 - 2:37pm | Is my idea as described above doable...? |
October 6, 2014 - 4:45pm | Is my idea as described above doable...? I like the hexagonal containers at the match the WoWL inside cover. The ship is doable and simply a slightly different take on the classic. the CGI version was done by an artist on DA who had played Star Frontiers all of once and needed a project to occupy himself and thus rendered some classic SF ships which we jumped all over for the magazine. I've always like you ship sketches but would like to see them in a more complete form. Perhaps if we bake the image in Gimp we might darken up the lines some and then the images would translate well as B/W images for the magazine. as to the discussion on the life boat- I'm all for simply jettisoning the boom and the engines and let the saucer skim into the atmo on forward momentum. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 7, 2014 - 1:34am | Yeah, I need to redraw it in detail - the above is a very hasty scribble |
October 7, 2014 - 6:03am | Yeah, I need to redraw it in detail - the above is a very hasty scribble
Pretty good foe a scribble. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 7, 2014 - 2:26pm | Well, it needs to be redone (alot), but thanks I'm currently in the process of drawing up a few dozen ships of various shapes and sizes, to sell as clip art. Some of them might be suitable for Star Frontiers  |
October 7, 2014 - 10:15pm | Yes, I wished I drew as well as the two of you. I'm trying to draw a Dralasite freighter with the engines in the front but, the pylons are conneceted to a section that is rounded - like a TIE Bomber. This is the Engineering Section. Then there is a cylindrical elevator that goes to a trapezoid body with two decks ~ the bridge and crew quarters. Last is the cargo frame, for system ships, (for loading connexes) or an enclosed cargo hold, for starships. It ties in with two new shuttles, they are like forklifts. I got the idea from the Serenity game. I saw these two and it made sense for SF. Plus, working on a "Wyngate" type Space Station from Traveller to use as a Corp. space station. Someplace they can refuel and do maintenance on their ships and contractors. I think like, Streel and PGC would pick up on that! "I need you to carry this or fight that but, I will not pay you. I will let you use our maintenance bay but, you have to pay the Corporation for all the costs." They get the job done, don't have to pay anyone for it and get paid for use of their space station. BUT - it only works if they allow the PCs immediate access. |
October 12, 2014 - 2:07am | Jaxon - if you post a diagram/sketch here of what you think the layout might be for that freighter, I can create a rough drawing for you. |
October 12, 2014 - 6:42am | Thanks KRing. Give me a day and I will. |
