One of the things that has bugged me about Traveller is the vehicle
design rules. With MT now being out, one can design any kind of wheeled
or grav vehicle from a moped to a Death Star-Type dreadnaught capable of
wiping out planets with one shot. COACC added design rules for
aircraft. What about water vessels? I think Trav could benefit from
some organized system of designing water-borne ships and boats. (For
the duration of this post, any reference to ships, boats, vessels, or
naval craft is to be construed as referring to water-borne, and not
space-borne vehicles.)
Think of the possibilities:
* Mobile starports.
* Putting fuel refining capability on the ships so they could "skim" from
the very water they floated in.
* Superultramega mobile energy weapon platforms. With a ship power
plant, one could power some LARGE energy weps, or mount some very mean
mass drivers.
* Submarines - they could "skim," too, and use an MHD drive (like the
Red October). Communications wouldn't be a problem once meson
technology became available. ICBM's would also be obsolete once meson
weps could be mounted on subs- this would also enable them to be used
for orbital defense, too. Unless one could (somehow) find out where a
sub with a meson gun was firing from, the sub would be invulnerable.
* Needless to say, you could still do all the fun things with watercraft
that are possible with today's technology (off-shore fire support,
piracy, and so on).
I think it would be pretty easy for someone who knew Trav vehicle design
rules at least reasonably well to come up with a ship design system that
was at least semi-workable, except for a few very technical questions:
1) How does one calculate the amount and cost of armor for a ship, given
such stats as length, beam, and depth of the keel? (I hope I make myself
clear- I am not too familiar with naval architecture or terminology.)
2) Given the same stats as above, how is the displacement (and the
draft) calculated?
3) I think that the outputs of extremely large power plants should be
scaled again, since gigawatt powerplants might appear regularly on
ships.
4) How does one calculate the cruising and maximum speed of a craft
given the physical dimensions, and the power output of its drives? I
anticipate a formula for this using the power output, length-to-beam
ratio, and the displacement of the vessel.
5) Anybody got any ideas about the volume, weight, and cost for aircraft
catapults used on carriers?
6) How is weather handled?
7) What about the maneuverability of vessels? How is that calculated?
8) How do the ballast tanks for a sub figure into the design?
Fortunately, the only variables here are the volume needed for the
tanks, and the pumps needed to clear/fill them.
9) How is anti-submarine warfare handled?
10) What about MHD drives for subs? What kind of weight, volume, and
cost requirements are needed?
Volume, weight and displacement for subs should be easy- just modify the
starship hull tables slightly.
Any suggestions, comments, or input is appreciated.
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* John J. Wilber * You can't lose at solitaire! *
* [email removed] * The most difficult part of theory is execution *
* student, partier, and * (Most things are easier said than done) *
* fun-loving guy. * *
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