Yes, that was the good part.

On the other hand, if you wanted to do a misjump or a cold sleep in the ship into TNE, you had what was a TL-15 ships and I don't think TNE ever made ship sheets for those, did they (for Brilliant Lances)?

Really, a product like this ought to have an official online build tool. With that, the community could crank out a lot of designs fairly quickly (and the tool could do calcs of the number of standard deck plans squares the gear occupies - a la Ships for Windows III from Hugh Foster which does that).

Then you'd hook that to a small database on said same online portal and when you finish a design on it, you can choose to save it and make it available to the community. The first set would be the old standbys, in various configs, then people could open it up... we all know there have to be boat loads (no pun intended) of designs that aren't currently represented.

I do like the design of non-streamlined spine + cargo modules (containers with stuff, containers with fluids or gases which could be tanks, and so on). That's a fairly efficient way to move stuff from one spot to another.

And for places like the core or other busy trade ports, having everything containerized from the get go would get you in and out of the port much faster with a cheaper fee (because the ports stevedore-bots could just detach your standard pods, scan the routing codes, etc. and get them moving to their destination - even if it is just warehousing until sold or transshipped.)

There should be standard storage containers in sized that optimally would fit in standard bay designs. I know ship designers like a blank canvas, but if you've noticed, cargo ships, barges, the gear for unloading cargo ships, tractor trailers, and even forklifts and trains all work to some similar standards. I can totally see that in the OTU's busier areas. It would *so* speed up goods handling. 

Of course, so would pre-clearance at the departure point by customs of the arrival point.

Aw... it's too easy to get off on interesting lines of thought about what could be created...

TomB

On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 2:35 AM Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:


On 22Jun2020 1255, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2020 at 7:50 PM Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com
> <mailto:xxxxxx@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     I was fine with it, errata aside. Well, that and being frustrated
>     that
>     so many of the basic ships had to be made at TL15, which meant that
>     actually very few worlds were making free traders, etc. DGP really
>     should have made sure that their system could design sensible
>     versions
>     of the common smaller ships at lower TLs.
>
>
> Here is another disconnect. Many low to mid level planets, in most far
> out regions, Tech E/F are rare.... so why were all the ship designs
> TL-15? And if you think some standard designs are not effective money
> makers for trading ships, imagine if you drop the TL!
> Yes, I agree that there ought to have been more attention to the
> actual texture of the known sectors (and esp the ones players would
> play in at the fringes) when they thought out balance points in ship
> building.
By the way, that you could design some of the smaller ships at TL10-12
was one of the things that sold me on TNE (and FF&S).

In MegaTraveller's Imperial Encyclopedia every ship and boat is TL15,
except the Close Escort and Gig, which are TL14 (as they were in CT). In
TNE's core book the Far Trader is TL12, as are the Subsidized Merchant,
the Liner, SDB, and all the small craft, while the Free Trader is Tl10.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>

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