In Traveller, players inevitably gravitate toward a ship of their own. However, I have always been dissatisfied with the ship classes traditionally available to players. The scout ship? Too small for most of my groups. The beloved Type A trader, or fat trader, or far trader? Again, too small, and Jump-1 seems much too limiting. And since I’ve never really gravitated toward mercantile games, all that cargo space feels wasted. And even the far trader’s Jump-2 seems a bit wimpy. From there the choices quickly become too weird, too specialized, or too large. Safari ship? Nope. Broadsword or AHL? Too military and too large.
A Type UF armed packet, from the Green List, “the casual user’s recognition guide, distributed by the Travellers’ Aid Society.”
Traveller5, though, introduced the Armed Packet, a 300 ton, Jump-3 ship providing “unscheduled passenger service for those in a hurry. The crew can be trusted, but these little ships still find themselves jumping in harm’s way.” This really is the Goldilocks ship I have waiting for all this time. It’s the right size, has got a nice Jump number, and a great mission type that matches up well with the type of Traveller games I like to run. Someone needs to get off planet, and quickly? Or deliver a high priority message? Or evade a blockade or two? An armed packet is the ship to look for.
The only problem? Traveller5 provides no ship stats for the packet. Luckily, Rob Eaglestone, who has done a great job fleshing out the Traveller5 rules, posted a nice version of the Armed Packet to RPGnet back in 2013.
Using Rob’s design for guidance, I created my own packet for Mongoose Traveller 2e using the High Guard rules. It was a good opportunity both to try out the revised HG ship design and to compare this to Traveller5 ship design. In general, there is a nice continuity between the systems. Traveller5 has a “airframe” hull configuration, which is basically streamlined but optimized for atmospheric operations. While there’s no match in HG2, MgT does have an “aerofin” option which more-or-less accomplishes the same thing.
Edit: The eagle-eyed poster AnotherDilbert over on the Mongoose Traveller forums spotted a couple of errors in my calcs, the most significant was in the costing of staterooms. I’ve fixed the math below, which brings the cost for the ship down considerably. He also offered some excellent suggestions, which I’ll eventually incorporate into a revised design.
Pemami-class Armed Packet
The TL12 Pemami-class armed packet is an Allied Prefabricated Ships and Vessels product, derived from the standard Type UF design used throughout the Imperium. The Pemami has proven a popular class in Magyar sector. Using a 300 ton hull, the packet is a secure transport ship for unscheduled passenger service for those in a hurry. Its drives and fuel tankage support one jump 3 and up to 3g acceleration for a month. It has scoops and processors allowing it to gather and purify fuel from gas giants and oceans.
The ship requires a crew of four: Pilot, Astrogator, and two Engineers. There are 5 crew staterooms and a barracks for the gunners, 12 passenger staterooms, and 5 low berths. On the bridge is a Computer 15. For armament, the ship sports two triple missile launcher turrets, and one triple beam laser turret. It has an air/raft, carries four tons cargo, and has a mail vault for express boat contracts.
Ship Details
TL12 | Tons | |
Hull | 300 tons, streamlined | - |
Armor | Armor 0 | - |
M-Drive | Thrust 3 | 9 |
J-Drive | Jump 3 | 27.5 |
Power Plant | Fusion, Power 240 | 16 |
Fuel Tanks | 4 weeks operation, J-3 | 92 |
Bridge | Small (DM-1) | 10 |
Computer | Computer 15 | - |
Sensors | Civilian grade (DM-2) | 1 |
Weapons | Triple turret missile rack x2 | 2 |
Triple turret beam laser | 1 | |
Systems | Aerofins | 15 |
Fuel scoops | 0 | |
Fuel processors (30 tons/day) | 3 | |
Air/Raft | - | |
Docking space (4 tons) | 5 | |
Mail vault | 1 | |
Medical bay | 4 | |
Staterooms | Crew x5 | 20 |
Passenger x12 | 48 | |
Barracks | 8 | |
Low berths x5 | 2.5 | |
Common Areas | 18 | |
Cargo | 4 |
Hull Points
120
Crew
Pilot, Astrogator, 2 Engineers
Running Costs
Maintenance Cost: Cr9918.75/month
Purchase Cost: MCr119.025
Power Requirements
Basic Ship Systems: 60
Maneuver Drive: 90
Jump Drive: 90
Sensors: 1
Fuel Consumption
Jump-1: 30 tons
Jump-2: 60 tons
Jump-3: 90 tons
Deckplans
Final Note: I received enough helpful feedback on this post that I was able to do a revised armed packet design.
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Nice article. Like the art, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Shawn! I see that T5.10 has a packet ship design, though it isn't armed and a bit different than what was described in T.09
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