The Type U Armed Packet

I was very happy that a Mongoose Traveller version of the Type U Armed Packet made it into The Deep and the Dark, and not just because this starship fits very well into the Buffer setting covered by the book. The Packet is, of course, a ship design that I’ve been tinkering with for going on five years now. The published version tweaks the math for the latest version of High Guard and sports new art and a two-level deckplan.

As I’ve written before, I think the Type U is a great ship for player characters: it’s got a little armor, some guns, decent maneuverability, and a relatively high jump range. But best of all, its mission—unscheduled passenger service into dangerous systems—is made for gaming. Clients who can afford to charter such a vessel usually arrive at the docks with an adventure in the making.

As far as I can tell, the Armed Packet is first mentioned in the in the Ship Recognition Guide of the 2013 draft of Traveller⁵. The text explains that the Armed Packet provides

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.

I’m not sure if Marc Miller or Robert Eaglestone conceived of the Armed Packet, but I suspect the ship was developed to either test or fill out a missing niche in the Traveller⁵ starship mission/modifer codes, a system that goes all the way back to CT High Guard. While the 2013 draft does not provide a detailed ship design, the Quick Ship Profile (UF-CA33) tells us that the Packet is a 300 ton (C) vessel with an airframe hull (A), 3g maneuver (3) and Jump-3 capability (3). The Deep and the Dark version conforms to these general specifications.

For my own Into the Interface campaign, the player characters operate a modified Type U, the I.M.V. Starjammer. So I was pretty excited to sign up for the Traveller RPG Starship Miniatures Kickstarter from 2nd Dynasty, which included a 3D model of the Armed Packet. While I thought at first I might invest in a 3D printer, in the end I opted to have a third party print me resin versions of the ship at both tactical scale (which fits on a 1-inch base) and 1:270 scale.

Painting the larger model really kicked my butt. Going in I was feeling relatively confident about my painting abilities and what I learnt working on this project, to my sorrow, was that model-making and miniature painting are two adjacent hobbies with an overlapping but largely different skill set. As this recent Reddit thread helps explain, the tools and techniques are different. With organic figures or natural materials like stone you are using washes and shading to introduce the illusion of small variations in the surface of the miniature. With inorganic, manufactured materials like a starship hull you are trying to eliminate variations, at least until the weathering stage, to create the illusion of smooth, machined surfaces.

The model was cast in several different pieces and when I started to assemble the parts I realized that some of the resin pieces were warped and didn’t fit very well together. Further, some of the pieces seemed to have poor print quality: some sides had many surface defects, and two of the three turrets had broken gun barrels. At first I thought some of this was just normal for 3D printers but after some more research I think these are just poor quality prints. Even lots of sanding and filing and plastic putty couldn’t completely address all of these flaws. 

I primed the model with Vallejo gray primer in the airbrush, then looked at some Ian Stead artwork of the Type U for reference on color schemes. I had picked up the Vallejo Star Fighter Colors set, which had a pretty good selection of base colors. I started laying down a base coat with the brush but quickly found the coverage looked uneven. I decided to switch over to the airbrush, but needed to do a lot of masking. Too late I realized that Tamiya makes lines of masking tape specifically made for models, which would have made this stage far easier.

With the base coat down, I then gave the entire model a coat of Tamiya Gloss Clear. I then applied Tamiya gray panel liner. It’s a pretty amazing product that quickly fills the gaps and unfortunately spreads into some of the flaws as well. In hindsight I wish I had gone with the black panel liner to create a greater contrast.

I wanted to try my hand at some custom decals to better resemble the Starjammer. The nature of the model is such that it doesn’t have many empty panels where a registration number or even hazard stripes would easily fit. I did find a couple of spots on the wings to place a Starjammer crest. I bought some custom waterslide paper for my aged inkjet printer, which didn’t have great resolution but did the job.

Applying decals is a tricky maneuver, even with the aid of microsol and microset. I probably should have found a spare model to practice on, but I was ok with the results. I definitely didn’t want to press my luck with more decals than the crest. Once dry I hit the whole thing with a layer of Testor Dullcote.

Overall, this project was frustrating and I’m not very satisfied with the results, which look a bit messy to my eye. But I certainly learned a lot and could probably do much better on my second model. My single biggest mistake was probably not appreciating the differences between painting a monster miniature and painting a starship model. My second biggest was not having a better plan for approaching this project: a more efficient workflow would have reduced the need for retouches and would have made the end result smoother.

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