In response to my letter on Jump Drives in MT, [email removed]
asks about the planetoid vessel in Supplement 9, Fighting Ships. It is
stated there that the vessel was carried aboard a Battle Tender to
transport this monitor from one system to another. The question: how
did it do this? I do not recall if the specific class of Tender is
mentioned in the article. If it was a World Class tender (or similar
vessel) that does not fully enclose the carried vessels, I would suggest
a Lanthanum Net, similar to the one for the Jump Tug in the same supplement.
The idea for a Lanthanum implanted net is not my own (apologies to the
person who thought of this, I've forgotten your name). On the other hand,
some tenders fully enclose their carried vessels, so no problem.
As regards how to install a Lanthanum grid in a planetoid vessel in general,
I would propose keeping the same rules I stated in the previous article.
Any alternative would gamble differing from the stats stated in the
Referee's Manual. As regards how physically to do this, perhaps they use
planetoids with Lanthanum in them to begin with. I mean, how do they put
Lanthanum in Starship hulls anyhow? In principle, one could bombard the
hull (be it planetoid or not) with a beam of ionized Lanthanum particles,
and perhaps displace the resident particles with Lanthanum.
racnke.ediku.edu wrote suggesting a Jump shuttle incorporating a Lanthanum
net (as mentioned above) instead of incorporating Lanthanum directly into
the hull of the SDB. I also have pondered this idea. It has the advantage
of leaving the price of the SDB unaltered. Also, Supplement 7, Traders &
Gunboats states that docking the SDB and Jump Shuttle is a tedious process,
requiring several hours. Surely one could deploy a Jump net in that time.
This may in fact be the Seeker Gaming Systems explain it, as they have
published the set of deckplans (in, gack, 25mm scale!) and the MT stats
both for the SDB and the Jump Shuttle (the shuttle isn't in the Imperial
Encylopedia). The price of the SDB is the same as in the Imperial
Encyclopedia, and the Jump Shuttle can now do Jump-5 (whoop!) when not
mated to the SDB. Myself, I think more along the lines of the use of
my system for the design of Battle Riders and Battle Tenders. There is
now way I'm going to allow several hours for my Riders to mate with my
Tenders (and in my fleet, Riders are king). I propose the following rule.
To successfully deploy a Jump Net:
Routine, Pilot, Engineering, 15 minutes
Referee: if exceptional failure, the Net has suffered sufficient damage to
decrease performance. Jump -1.
and the following rule for those not using Jump Nets:
To successfully mate a Battle Rider with a Tender:
Routine, Pilot, Intelligence, 2 minutes
Referee: if destroyed Mishap, Rider and Tender have collided. Each vessel
suffers one critical hit. Increase task difficulty one level and reroll to
disentagle the two vessels.
Call me biased, but this makes a Lanthanum grid more useful for battle
purposes than a Net. I view a Net as a way of transporting things when
you are not in a combat situation.
- --He who trembles when he thinks of TNE: Lewis Taylor Goss