TNE ship design notes:
Well, I've spent some time looking at the technology of starships
in TNE. MAJOR differences from previous versions of Traveller. Enough
so that the basic ships should have been mostly scrapped, in fact.
There isn't really enough info to do a complete, conclusive analysis,
but a few points are already clear:
1) Maneuver fuel seems to be set at 12.5 KL/G-hour/100T displacement
of ship. Whether intentional or not, given that figure, and the MASS of the
ships, the maneuver drive is medium-high range fusion rockets. Basically
excellent...
2) Design requirements and (possible) mistakes: All of the canned
ships have quite a lot of maneuver fuel. All well and good for PCs to rip
around in, but aren't the merchant ships designed to make money???
A Free Trader, for the first time, carries more fuel than cargo.
A Free Trader, for the first time, is capable of doing THREE jumps
on one tank of gas. It'll only leave you 6 G-hours to maneuver in, but
that is MORE than enough on a normal commercial run.
So the Free Trader should have redesigned into something with only
about 4-10 G-hours, if the goal was OPERATIONAL compatibility with previous
versions of Traveller, or it should have been made clear that the ship can
make SEVERAL jumps, which would go a LONG way toward making it actually
useful to PC merchant types.
I would suggest that a "normal" merchantman (in a reasonably safe
place, like the Spinward Marches) should have no more than 6 G-hours worth
of maneuver fuel. That puts (in the case of the free trader) another
570 KL (an extra 75%) in the cargo hold...
3) SDBs: This has become a misnomer. It should be PLANETARY
DEFENSE BOAT. The new maneuver limits make it impractical to defend a
whole system with any ship that cannot Jump. The canned SDBs are entirely
suitable for defending a main world, but transferring back and forth from
the main world to the gas giants and other planets will put a major drain
on the fuel supply, or require LARGE amounts of time. Either way, it is
easier to use a J-1 boat to do the job that an SDB used to do (after all,
the J-1 requires MUCH less fuel than the normal space crossing, and takes
less time if you are going as far as Jupiter...)
4) I note with dismay that the Mercenary Cruiser is now J-1, 1G.
MAJOR CHANGE! Far more than I expected after seeing the rest of the ships.
Not that this is bad, mind you. The mercenary cruiser was always a bit
overpowered for the design mission.
5) Best of all: the new system puts a premium on crew skill. The
PLAYER-CHARACTERS ARE BACK IN THE LOOP. Fr the first time since HG came out,
having a pilot-6 (or gunner-6, or whatever (well, actually, having the TNE
equivalent, which would be around Astrogator-12, or whatever)) is IMPORTANT
to the survival of OUR HEROES. I LIKE it!
---Steve Higginbotham