And yet, it was kept in latter versions...
What is a Safari Ship?
- Thread starter robject
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And yet, it was kept in latter versions...
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
L-Hyd Tanks: Disposable fuel tanks which are fitted outside the ship, and drop
away before jump. The result is more interior space available for cargo and passengers. Cost: Cr 10 000 plus Cr1000 per ton of fuel. Usable only with jump drives if a special high capacity accumulator is installed (tech level 12; Cr500000).
Disposable fuel tanks may be added to the ship to increase its range. These
L-Hyd Tanks are fitted to the outside of the ship, and drop away before jump. The result is more interior space available for cargo and passengers. Such tanks must be replaced each time they are used, so they are practical only on runs to civilized areas, or to increase fuel capacity to allow several jumps. L-Hyd tanks are installed outside the hull, and increase the total tonnage of the ship; drives are reduced in their efficiency based on the total tonnage of the ship. With tanks retained, efficiency is decreased, and jump capability is reduced; when the tanks drop away, tonnage is reduced, and the drive efficiency is increased. L-Hyd Tanks cost Cr10,000, plus Cr1,000 per ton of fuel carried.
Drop Tanks: The disposable tank rule (Book 5, page 27) allows the construction of tanks which can be dropped from the ship. The reduced ship tonnage, combined with the higher resulting capacity of the ship's drives, can result in an increased jump number or maneuver drive number. Power plant number may increase, but its energy point output remains the same.
When a ship is produced with drop tanks, the total tonnage of the ship without drop tanks determines the number of weapons allowed.
Drop tanks may be built onto a ship when it is originally produced at a cost of Cr10,000; they may be added to an existing ship at a cost of Cr1000 per ton. In both cases the tanks themselves must also be purchased at Cr1000 per ton. Building time is 10 weeks; installation time is only a few minutes.
Drop tanks do not affect the streamlining of the ship carrying them.
Both drop tanks and exterior demountable tanks are very vulnerable to battle
damage. Whenever a battle damage die-roll, if unmodified by ship armor, would produce a fuel hit, all exterior or drop tanks are destroyed. For example, suppose a ship equipped with drop tanks and level 8 armor is hit by a factor 5 fusion gun.
After defenses are penetrated, damage is rolled; the unmodified die roll is 4. The modified roll for ship damage is 18 (+8 for the armor, +6 for a weapon code of 9 or less). The modified roll for the drop tanks is 10 (ignoring the armor), resulting in Fuel-1; the drop tanks are destroyed.
That seems to be the evolution of drop tanks.
If it costs a thousand credits per tonne, I doubt it would have the structural stability to embed anything, hardpoint or otherwise, inside or out.
away before jump. The result is more interior space available for cargo and passengers. Cost: Cr 10 000 plus Cr1000 per ton of fuel. Usable only with jump drives if a special high capacity accumulator is installed (tech level 12; Cr500000).
Disposable fuel tanks may be added to the ship to increase its range. These
L-Hyd Tanks are fitted to the outside of the ship, and drop away before jump. The result is more interior space available for cargo and passengers. Such tanks must be replaced each time they are used, so they are practical only on runs to civilized areas, or to increase fuel capacity to allow several jumps. L-Hyd tanks are installed outside the hull, and increase the total tonnage of the ship; drives are reduced in their efficiency based on the total tonnage of the ship. With tanks retained, efficiency is decreased, and jump capability is reduced; when the tanks drop away, tonnage is reduced, and the drive efficiency is increased. L-Hyd Tanks cost Cr10,000, plus Cr1,000 per ton of fuel carried.
Drop Tanks: The disposable tank rule (Book 5, page 27) allows the construction of tanks which can be dropped from the ship. The reduced ship tonnage, combined with the higher resulting capacity of the ship's drives, can result in an increased jump number or maneuver drive number. Power plant number may increase, but its energy point output remains the same.
When a ship is produced with drop tanks, the total tonnage of the ship without drop tanks determines the number of weapons allowed.
Drop tanks may be built onto a ship when it is originally produced at a cost of Cr10,000; they may be added to an existing ship at a cost of Cr1000 per ton. In both cases the tanks themselves must also be purchased at Cr1000 per ton. Building time is 10 weeks; installation time is only a few minutes.
Drop tanks do not affect the streamlining of the ship carrying them.
Both drop tanks and exterior demountable tanks are very vulnerable to battle
damage. Whenever a battle damage die-roll, if unmodified by ship armor, would produce a fuel hit, all exterior or drop tanks are destroyed. For example, suppose a ship equipped with drop tanks and level 8 armor is hit by a factor 5 fusion gun.
After defenses are penetrated, damage is rolled; the unmodified die roll is 4. The modified roll for ship damage is 18 (+8 for the armor, +6 for a weapon code of 9 or less). The modified roll for the drop tanks is 10 (ignoring the armor), resulting in Fuel-1; the drop tanks are destroyed.
That seems to be the evolution of drop tanks.
If it costs a thousand credits per tonne, I doubt it would have the structural stability to embed anything, hardpoint or otherwise, inside or out.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
HG 79 has you consider making the fuel tankage drop tanks during the fuel step. The bridge is the last thing you pay for before getting to the options and other considerations.
The final paragraph has passed me by for aver four decades, I don't have HG 79 electronically, my CT CD was an early version that lacks the 77 edition of LBB1-3 and 79 HG.
Anyone got it electronically that could quote the final paragraph of page 32 will save me a lot of typing.
The final paragraph has passed me by for aver four decades, I don't have HG 79 electronically, my CT CD was an early version that lacks the 77 edition of LBB1-3 and 79 HG.
Anyone got it electronically that could quote the final paragraph of page 32 will save me a lot of typing.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Presumably not what you mean?
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Starship hull costs MCr0.1 per ton for custom hulls (before modification for configuration).
Drop tanks cost MCr0.001 per ton ... plus a MCr0.01 additional flat fee.
How do I put this ...?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
That's it, thank you very much
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
The easiest solution is to give a smaller bridge a minus one disadvantage to bridge activities if way beyond designed limits.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
And there we have it.
The Referee does something "smart" to adjudicate the situation, rather than outsourcing all of their responsibilities to the rulebooks (which can't cover every situation/circumstance in exhaustive detail to begin with).
I was hoping that someone else would say it so I didn't have to.
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
Presuming that 1980 High Guard was used in this 1981 TCS tournament, this design fell short of legality in one area: at a tech level of C (12), the highest jump drive available is only capable of Jump-3. A jump drive capable of Jump-5 (per BA-K952563) requires a tech level of E (14) to construct.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Agreed, it can only be capable of J-3 at TL-12.
The J-5 rating is presumably there to show that the jump drive is oversized, so it can do J-3 with the drop tanks.
11100 × ( 5 + 1 )% = 666 Dt drive (hull only).
16650 × ( 3 + 1 )% = 666 Dt drive (hull + drop tanks).
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
That makes sense—thanks. I should have looked for the same pattern in the larger ships of Lenat’s squadron.
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
Here’s another possible problem with the Eurisko class:
I realize that the medical crew section was not part of 1980 High Guard, but the medical officer’s stateroom only accounts for four tons of the 209 ton deficit. If I’ve failed to account for interior tonnage correctly above, please let me know.
EDIT: Once I’d saved this post, the columns became unaligned, but when I edited it (both before and now), they become reäligned. I apologize if they remain unaligned once I press the Save button again.
Hull: buffered planetoid 11,100 tons
less 35% interior waste space − 3,885 tons
─────────────
usable interior space 7,215 tons
═════════════
Jump drive: 3, sized as 5 (6% of hull) 666 tons
Maneuver drive: 2 (5% of hull) 555 tons
Power plant: 5 (15% of hull) 1,665 tons
Fuel tankage:
Fuel for jump: (10% of hull × jump-3) 3,330 tons
Fuel for power plant: (1% of hull × p. p. 5) 555 tons
Bridge: 2% of hull 222 tons
Computer: model/6 7 tons
Meson screen: 1 90 tons
Nuclear dampers: 1 50 tons
Staterooms, individual and shared:
Command: 1 + (10 ÷ 2 =) 5 = 6
Medical: 1 + ( 0 ÷ 2 =) 0 = 1
Engineering: 1 + (15 ÷ 2 =) 8 = 9
Gunnery: 1 + (44 ÷ 2 =) 22 = 23
Service: 0 + (23 ÷ 2 =) 12 = 12
Ship’s troops: 1 + (34 ÷ 2 =) 17 = 18
┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ ┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
totals 5 + 126 = 131 crew; 69 staterooms 276 tons
Cargo 8 tons
───────────────────────────────── ─────────────
total interior space requirement: 7,424 tons
usable interior space: − 7,215 tons
─────────────
interior space deficit: 209 tons
═════════════
I realize that the medical crew section was not part of 1980 High Guard, but the medical officer’s stateroom only accounts for four tons of the 209 ton deficit. If I’ve failed to account for interior tonnage correctly above, please let me know.
EDIT: Once I’d saved this post, the columns became unaligned, but when I edited it (both before and now), they become reäligned. I apologize if they remain unaligned once I press the Save button again.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
The controversial "innovation" was to carry jump fuel not internally, but in drop tanks
See my recreation here (post #120, page 6):
https://www.travellerrpg.com/index.php?threads/what-is-a-safari-ship.42858/post-644648
HTML strips white space (blanks and tabs), use a CODE block to maintain whitespace, hence columns.
Start a CODE block from the menu in the post, paste the formatted text in the dialog.
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
After carefully reading the relevant sections on pp. 22 and 27 of 1980 High Guard and pp. 10–14 of 1977 Starships, if the tournament was held before 1981 Starships was released, then that “innovation” wasn’t explicitly forbidden. (1981 Starships notes that fuel tankage within the hull is required, but it doesn’t mandate that the interior fuel tanks must hold at least what the jump drive and power plant require for full operation; that is left to “ship fuel tankage”, which by the same “innovation” could have been mostly in drop tanks.)
In the Fuel section of 1980 High Guard on p. 22, the sentence “Fuel tankage must be sufficient to contain a full load for the power plant and the jump drive.” would have had less of this type of “innovation” if it had begun with “Interior fuel tankage […]” instead.
It looks like you’d used “Z” (33) missile batteries rather than “V” (29) of them, and have one extra crewman (132 vs. 131). Perhaps that “Z” affected the population of each of the crew sections, and thus the stateroom count?
I think that the hull armor was overbilled (the tonnage was right), since a buffered planetoid comes with a hull armor factor of 6 gratis.
Some computer programs for that model/6 probably need to be purchased as well.
Yes, I’d posted that just before going to bed last night. This morning, I realized that the HTML rendering was consuming the white space, and thought that I should have used a CODE block instead.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
It's explicitly allowed by TCS, and the example set by the Gazelle (JTAS#4):
I believe (without being able to prove) that the last few letters were redefined in the Eurisko fleet block. Filling all the hardpoints on the Eurisko fits better with the crew count, which gives 108 missile turrets organised into 54 batteries.
The Queller uses the letter Z for its presumably more than 33 sand turrets.
I can't explain the discrepancy in crew (131 vs 132). My crew calculations are in the stat block, the original isn't. Perhaps some rounding error?
Armour 6 for Buffered plus added regular armour 12 = Armour 18?
LBB5 doesn't deal with that trivia.
You'd want it for LBB2 combat, but with 75 Euriskos each with 111 turrets so a total of about 25000 individual weapons I wouldn't bother even thinking about it.
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Kakistocrat
SOC-12
Adventure 5 Trillion Credit Squadron was published in 1981, but was it published before Origins was held that year? (Did Lenat have a copy of Adventure 5 when he was programming his EURISKO program to compete in the tournament at Origins? A couple of EURISKO “concepts” (each about half of a printed page) were noted as being entered into EURISKO on June 4, 1981, a month before the tournament, in an article by Lenat in volume 21 of Artificial Intelligence, which was published in 1983.)
I’ll post an updated version of my “another possible problem” comment above (using a CODE block this time); even if the “innovation” was explicitly allowed at 1981 Origins, I think that 131 crew weren’t sufficient for the Eurisko-class ships when they were equipped with the drop tanks.
My comment on the cost of 12 armor points was mistaken; I’d transposed two digits when figuring the cost using paper and pencil.
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
Some of the numbers below are personal opinion (e.g. turret count for fire control equipment), but I think that it’s “in the ballpark” for the interior tonnage allocation of the Eurisko-class ships. I think that there aren’t enough crew when the ships are “laden” (i.e. equipped with drop tanks); rather than 131 crew, I think that 193 crew would be needed. As ever, please point out where mistakes exist.
(The CODE block didn’t work properly—perhaps due to the line-drawing characters?—so I had to resort to ICODE blocks to get a monospace rendering.)
(The CODE block didn’t work properly—perhaps due to the line-drawing characters?—so I had to resort to ICODE blocks to get a monospace rendering.)
Hull, unladen 11,100 tonswith H₂(l) drop tanks + 5,550 tons ─────────────Hull, laden 16,650 tons ═════════════Hull, buffered planetoid (armor factor of 6) 11,100 tonsless 35% interior waste space − 3,885 tons ─────────────Usable interior space 7,215 tons ═════════════Jump drive: 3, sized as 5 (6% of hull) 666 tons (4% of laden hull)Maneuver drive: 1, sized as 2 (5% of hull) 555 tons (3.3̅% of laden hull; 2% needed)Power plant: 3, sized as 5 (15% of hull) 1,665 tons (10% of laden hull; 9% needed)Fuel tankage: Fuel for jump: (10% of hull × jump 5) 5,550 tons (10% of laden hull × jump 3 = 4,995 tons needed) Fuel for power plant: (1% of hull × power plant 5) 555 tons (1% of laden hull × power plant 3 = 499.5 tons needed)Bridge: 3% of hull (2% of laden hull) 333 tonsFire control equipment for 65 turrets 65 tonsComputer: model/6 7 tonsMeson screen: 1 90 tonsNuclear dampers: 1 50 tonsStaterooms, individual and shared: Command: 1 + (10 ÷ 2 =) 5 = 6 (7 officers + 4 non-officers; 5 per 10,000 tons, minimum 11; medical officer has own stateroom) Medical: 1 + ( 0 ÷ 2 =) 0 = 1 (1 officer + 0 non-officers; 1 per 240 crew/ship’s troops) Engineering: 1 + (28 ÷ 2 =) 14 = 15 (3 officers + 6 petty officers + 20 non-officers; 1 per 100 tons of installed drives) Gunnery: 1 + (44 ÷ 2 =) 22 = 23 (5 officers + 14 petty officers + 26 non-officers [32: turret batteries; 8: screens]) Service: 0 + (10 ÷ 2 =) 5 = 5 (2 per 1,000 tons of ship; minimum 34 with laden hull) Ship’s troops: 1 + (34 ÷ 2 =) 17 = 18 (platoon: lieutenant + senior NCO + specialist + two squads of three fire teams each + one squad of two fire teams) (if present, minimum 3 per 1,000 tons, so 50 with laden hull) ┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ ─ ┄ ─── ┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ ── ┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄ totals 5 + 126 = 131 crew; 68 staterooms 272 tonsCargo 8 tons────────────────────────────────────────────── ─────────────Total interior space requirement 9,816 tonsUsable interior space in buffered planetoid − 7,215 tons ─────────────Interior space deficit in buffered planetoid 2,601 tons ═════════════Total interior space requirement 9,816 tonsless jump drive tankage in H₂(l) drop tanks − 5,550 tons ─────────────Total revised interior space requirement 4,266 tons ═════════════
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Adventure 5 was based on the rules from the two Origins tournaments, so I presume that those rules were sent out to participants beforehand.
Kakistocrat
SOC-12
Since the first TCS tournament was in 1981 at Origins, and Adventure 5 has a “Rules and Rulings” section, I wasn’t sure if the ruling that AnotherDilbert had mentioned was decided before, during, or after that tournament. It’s certainly possible that before the tournament, the participants could have received some portion of what would become Adventure 5, so it could have been a portion of TCS rules sent to the participants before the tournament, Lenat’s “innovation” being accepted as valid during the tournament, and Adventure 5 being published with the rulings that were decided during Origins after the tournament.
