Here's where things get strange.
I typed a lot of words on the Safari Ship in Traveller in general. It started out as a mustering out benefit specifically for the Hunter career in 1979, it got dropped for the Yacht in 1993, then the Safari Ship came back in 1996 but the Hunter career was jettisoned. Hunter returned as a type of Scout with Traveller5, and ship shares are granted through careers, instead of actual ships.
So here I am, wondering why the Safari Ship exists as a class separate from the Yacht.
I am convinced that the ship's design and payload define the ship, and are in accord with the ship's mission. Thus, a Safari Ship should be designed with different criteria than a Yacht, or any other ship for that matter.
Traveller5 gives me tools to do this.
First, the hull is a Lifting Body. In fact we've all seen its manta ray shape, and what's clear in the picture is now clear in the design. P647 of the Big Black Book shows a big color picture of it.
We also have a re-imagined Yacht in the Big Black Book:
They're different frames... in fact the Safari is its own frame.
They're different performance. They're different range. Different size.
Now you can turn just about any ship into a Safari Ship. But, it's clear that there is plenty of room for an actual Safari that's not a subset of anything else -- and it was intended to be that way, and is still intended to be that way.
I typed a lot of words on the Safari Ship in Traveller in general. It started out as a mustering out benefit specifically for the Hunter career in 1979, it got dropped for the Yacht in 1993, then the Safari Ship came back in 1996 but the Hunter career was jettisoned. Hunter returned as a type of Scout with Traveller5, and ship shares are granted through careers, instead of actual ships.
So here I am, wondering why the Safari Ship exists as a class separate from the Yacht.
I am convinced that the ship's design and payload define the ship, and are in accord with the ship's mission. Thus, a Safari Ship should be designed with different criteria than a Yacht, or any other ship for that matter.
Traveller5 gives me tools to do this.
First, the hull is a Lifting Body. In fact we've all seen its manta ray shape, and what's clear in the picture is now clear in the design. P647 of the Big Black Book shows a big color picture of it.
We also have a re-imagined Yacht in the Big Black Book:
Yacht (y-eu42)
Built on a 500-ton TL14 unstreamlined hull, the yacht is a noble’s plaything for entertaining friends and undertaking political or commercial missions. It mounts drives giving it jump-2 and 4-G. Fuel tankage supports five months of power plant operations and allows two successive jump-2; it incorporates fuel intakes for refueling from a water source. Adjacent to the bridge is a Model/3 computer. Added to a basic sensor suite is a neutrino detector, stealth mask, and a standard proximeter.
...
They're different frames... in fact the Safari is its own frame.
They're different performance. They're different range. Different size.
Now you can turn just about any ship into a Safari Ship. But, it's clear that there is plenty of room for an actual Safari that's not a subset of anything else -- and it was intended to be that way, and is still intended to be that way.