Here's a tiny cross section of some of the more common small craft that appear in my game - frequently passed over, their individual stories unsung, but still necessary for the successful operation of ports, stations and larger starcraft.
All of these vessels are rated for space travel (Minimum MT armor of 40) and use thruster plates instead of grav plates or reaction thrusters - mostly for ease of design and story flow, though I do occasionally use COACC, and One Small Step/Hard Times rules for reaction based boats - usually for alien low tech spacecraft - or raw power fusion rocket drives, which can out-perform thruster tech if designed right.
TriOps - A small stealth craft used for covert ops, mostly surveilance. Though rated for deep space, its radio is only 500,000km range, and its Maser 5,000km range. It has 5,000km Active and passive EMS, and 1GW sensitive Neutrino Sensors. While useful as a small craft, it wasn't terribly comfortable, especially when fully crewed by 4 - usually an operator/pilot, and 3 analysts. Occasionally they were used under cover of night to deliver agents to remote locations on hostile worlds.
Leeds Miniboat DS An upgraded version of an older 1.4g Antigrav variant, the Miniboat DS was designed to provide a space excursion vessel to ships decent sized cargo bays that wouldn't otherwise have a vehicle bay. Because of this, the Miniboat has a relatively low ceiling in order to fit into cargo bays, provided the door was at least 4.5m wide (3 squares). Even so, incautious boat pilots end up scraping off the paint from both DS's top and underside and mother ship's cargo bay.
Lynx Dropship With the approval of construction of the Tisiphone, a star ship capable of transporting and providing C3 orbital support for a reinforced company and (attendant support staff) of Orbital Kommandos, the Directorate needed fast, reliable methods of getting its troops from orbit to ground as safely, as fast, and as inexpensively as possible. This was a really hard balance to manage, but the Lynx was the result, carrying just two fire teams, 10 Orbital Kommandos, per trip. The Tisiphone carries 20 Lynxes, plus 10 Panther attack craft - lookalike vessels carrying triple ship to ship grade missile launchers instead of a troop compliment. Both ships are more heavily armored than the others on this sheet, carrying 55 of MT armor (Equivalent of High Guard armor value of 5.)
Studebaker Deck plans of my econo belter design. Not comfy, not at all, but its about the only space-ship that can be financed by relatively 'average' income people willing to share stakes in it.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6997854/
Leeds L3A and L3B Launches Leeds Aerospace of Neu Samara essentially copied panel for panel, bolt for bolt, the Terran launch designs most often carried aboard the Starmada family of intersteller trade vessels - Toledo and Conquistador classes (Which in hunting for links, appear to have never made it onto FA - I may have to fix this at some point in the future.)
Leeds Flex or Thin Launch L3C Breaking away from Terran designs, this launch is designed to be a jack of all trades, though favoring cargo slightly over passengers. This is most commonly found on trade ships like the Galyeon http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7545119/ and military ships like the Penetrator http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8051270/.
Cheetah Fast Pinnace Another jack of all trades, but at 5 gee acceleration, a very popular one within the Schepehyrd system, where interplanetary trade is just starting to pick up, though still lagging behind interest in interstellar trade and exploitation. I can see, especially with the bunk, (and maybe the installation of a second or third) ships like the Cheetah being the Player Character's vessel in a more limited, barely interstellar Traveller campaign, plying between stations and worlds ala Firefly, or paying for jump-ferrying within the belly of some large freighter, or Dune style HiLiner.
All of these vessels are rated for space travel (Minimum MT armor of 40) and use thruster plates instead of grav plates or reaction thrusters - mostly for ease of design and story flow, though I do occasionally use COACC, and One Small Step/Hard Times rules for reaction based boats - usually for alien low tech spacecraft - or raw power fusion rocket drives, which can out-perform thruster tech if designed right.
TriOps - A small stealth craft used for covert ops, mostly surveilance. Though rated for deep space, its radio is only 500,000km range, and its Maser 5,000km range. It has 5,000km Active and passive EMS, and 1GW sensitive Neutrino Sensors. While useful as a small craft, it wasn't terribly comfortable, especially when fully crewed by 4 - usually an operator/pilot, and 3 analysts. Occasionally they were used under cover of night to deliver agents to remote locations on hostile worlds.
Leeds Miniboat DS An upgraded version of an older 1.4g Antigrav variant, the Miniboat DS was designed to provide a space excursion vessel to ships decent sized cargo bays that wouldn't otherwise have a vehicle bay. Because of this, the Miniboat has a relatively low ceiling in order to fit into cargo bays, provided the door was at least 4.5m wide (3 squares). Even so, incautious boat pilots end up scraping off the paint from both DS's top and underside and mother ship's cargo bay.
Lynx Dropship With the approval of construction of the Tisiphone, a star ship capable of transporting and providing C3 orbital support for a reinforced company and (attendant support staff) of Orbital Kommandos, the Directorate needed fast, reliable methods of getting its troops from orbit to ground as safely, as fast, and as inexpensively as possible. This was a really hard balance to manage, but the Lynx was the result, carrying just two fire teams, 10 Orbital Kommandos, per trip. The Tisiphone carries 20 Lynxes, plus 10 Panther attack craft - lookalike vessels carrying triple ship to ship grade missile launchers instead of a troop compliment. Both ships are more heavily armored than the others on this sheet, carrying 55 of MT armor (Equivalent of High Guard armor value of 5.)
Studebaker Deck plans of my econo belter design. Not comfy, not at all, but its about the only space-ship that can be financed by relatively 'average' income people willing to share stakes in it.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6997854/
Leeds L3A and L3B Launches Leeds Aerospace of Neu Samara essentially copied panel for panel, bolt for bolt, the Terran launch designs most often carried aboard the Starmada family of intersteller trade vessels - Toledo and Conquistador classes (Which in hunting for links, appear to have never made it onto FA - I may have to fix this at some point in the future.)
Leeds Flex or Thin Launch L3C Breaking away from Terran designs, this launch is designed to be a jack of all trades, though favoring cargo slightly over passengers. This is most commonly found on trade ships like the Galyeon http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7545119/ and military ships like the Penetrator http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8051270/.
Cheetah Fast Pinnace Another jack of all trades, but at 5 gee acceleration, a very popular one within the Schepehyrd system, where interplanetary trade is just starting to pick up, though still lagging behind interest in interstellar trade and exploitation. I can see, especially with the bunk, (and maybe the installation of a second or third) ships like the Cheetah being the Player Character's vessel in a more limited, barely interstellar Traveller campaign, plying between stations and worlds ala Firefly, or paying for jump-ferrying within the belly of some large freighter, or Dune style HiLiner.
Category All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 800 x 1044px
File Size 175.9 kB
*thankies softly, fennecheadbutting* Feel free to use any of my designs. Or suggest a ship class to suss out - though my ship construction mechanics options are limited to what I can scrounge up Traveller wise, and a few other spacer game systems, that I'd have to dig out of storage :>
Sure, I just might use 'em :)
I have a freighter coming up in my next comic which I may crib off your designs ... :D
Also, I'm going to have to come up with some pirate raiders. Don't know if you have any ideas there :D Smallish attack ships with a little bit of cargo space and decent mobility.
I have a freighter coming up in my next comic which I may crib off your designs ... :D
Also, I'm going to have to come up with some pirate raiders. Don't know if you have any ideas there :D Smallish attack ships with a little bit of cargo space and decent mobility.
I think I could swing such - What, singleships, or ones with a crew, boarders, etc? Thinking like Vargr Corsairs, ala old Traveller stuff, full of forward shark fins and intimidating angles - purely a cosmetic intimidation factor.
Either that or the junkyard brigade - cobbled together from scrap yard parts and bits and pieces of previous prey. Then there's always the surplus/mothball/relics that get dusted off, rewired and repurposed into cheap raiders.
Anything too fancy shiny or new would be outright would either be something stolen/hijacked/mortgage skipping, or letters of marque/subsidized privateer.
Either that or the junkyard brigade - cobbled together from scrap yard parts and bits and pieces of previous prey. Then there's always the surplus/mothball/relics that get dusted off, rewired and repurposed into cheap raiders.
Anything too fancy shiny or new would be outright would either be something stolen/hijacked/mortgage skipping, or letters of marque/subsidized privateer.
I picture that there's a small group (probably 4 total) of pirate ships that have set up an ambush in an asteroid field that they know is attractive to miners. These are frontier pirates, kind of in the middle of nowhere -- they could well be junkyard brigade as a result :)
It's probably 2 or 3 small ships, single-ships or minimal crew, and then a larger base ship that has the cargo holds and would probably do the actual boarding. That's probably a modified junker cargo ship in and of itself, maybe with some crude docking for the small ships like baby possums clinging to their mama :)
It's probably 2 or 3 small ships, single-ships or minimal crew, and then a larger base ship that has the cargo holds and would probably do the actual boarding. That's probably a modified junker cargo ship in and of itself, maybe with some crude docking for the small ships like baby possums clinging to their mama :)
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