Out of Out of the Abyss

We finished the Out of the Abyss 5e adventure last night on Roll20, and it was a pretty fine end to a fun campaign that took us all the way through the pandemic and back again. We began on January 28, 2018 but only got in a handful of monthly sessions before we went on hiatus. We picked the campaign back up at the very end of 2019 and then pretty much played weekly all through last year. In total, we completed 56 sessions and I’m going to guess a bit over 130 hours.

A total of 9 players and 17 characters cycled through the game, though we only had a few PC deaths. At the end, we had six PCs: Trent Purpling, drow necromancer; Jigme, gnome monk; Titus Basswood, elf ranger; Jhandor Jobis, half-orc barbarian; Jalen Stoutmantle, cleric of Pelor; and Leaf Woodcock, elf druid.

I need to collect my thoughts about the adventure in a future post—my overall feelings are a little complicated, but I do want to relate a bit about last night’s final session.

Serious Spoilers Follow!

The final chapter of OotA involves the characters planting a magical device that will draw in all of the demons rampaging across the Underdark to a single place, where—being demons—they will be induced to battle each other to the death. The characters are then expected to dispatch the weakened survivors.

My party elected to place the device directly in the drow city of Menzoberranzan. They had successfully banished Baphomet, Yeenoghu, Zuggtmoy, and Juiblex, leaving only the demon lords Orcus and Demogorgon for the final battle. The default script then has a weakened Demogorgon to fight the PCs.

Under the circumstances, I found the final battle to be rather wanting. Just from a time perspective, I couldn’t see a fight with a weakened Demogorgon lasting much more than 30 or 40 minutes. A bit anticlimactic, if you ask me.

I also wanted to integrate the final battle more fully into Menzoberranzan. After all, the PCs effectively dropped a WMD in the middle of a bustling drow city: I wanted to show the consequences of that choice.

So I greatly expanded the base script for the final battle. I also wanted to really amp up the epic factor for this last session. I pulled out my copy of the 3.5e supplement Hordes of the Abyss and added some additional demon lords from that excellent source into the scenes of chaos and destruction. I wanted to present a series of horrific, powerful demons without a lot of explanation or exposition; many of the descriptions I used were adapted straight from Hordes.

The following script of my final battle was intended to be just a baseline for improvisation. I ad-libbed a lot of description based on player questions and ideas. Some embedded notes indicate game-mechanical directions, and I was ready if the PCs wanted to interact with any of the scenes I described.

The waiting is the hard part. Time seems to drag as you remain alert, weapons drawn, every nerve singing with the tension in the air all around you.

On the street before you, a drow merchant haggles with a potential buyer over a spider-silk cloak. Two off-duty guards lounge about, passing a wine skin back and forth. Three drow thugs shake down another merchant, holding a knife to his throat. A shabby, destitute drow, a strange sigil carved into his forehead, staggers through the street, murmuring about a great double prince.

Finally, a swirling light begins to flare in the darkness. A barely audible humming shakes you to the core, rising and falling like a vast heartbeat in the depths. 

A hush falls over all of Menzoberranzan. All of you suddenly feel very . . . different: calmer, and somehow more hopeful. It is easier to focus. You realize that for months and months a certain part of your waking energies has been spent fighting off the demonic madness, and without this constant drag on your mind you are able to think clearly again. On the street, the merchant and his buyer shake hands in agreement. The two lounging guards stand up and straighten their tunics. The thugs pick up the merchant they were harassing, and apologize. The destitute drow stops, looks around, as if awakened from a dream.

Then the calm breaks and the press of madness returns, now even stronger than before. You hear a faint rustling whisper, growing louder and louder. A dark line of scurrying rats, scuttling spiders, and flapping bats stream across the streets and rooftops, away from the outskirts of the city.

The glow of faerzress gathers and brightens, creating swirling pools like holes torn in the air. A roar sounds from far away as shadows move in the depths of those pools of light. 

The demons are coming.

You hear, in the distance, screams. Bells ring. Flames jet up in the darkness several blocks away, some nearly reaching the ceiling of the great cavern. Screams are joined by smashing, splintering, roaring, and insane, wicked laughter.

A patrol of two dozen drow guards, accompanied by a dozen bugbear slaves, begins to form up in the streets. But although the captain calls out orders, the guards begin bickering and shoving one another. Suddenly, the bugbears attack their masters, and the guards are caught by surprise by the onslaught.

[Psychic wave of anger, frustration, and fear. Take 20 psychic damage, DC 16 Wisdom save for half.]

A monstrous, blue-faced parody of a mandrill, twelve feet high, with enormous black raven wings with rotting feathers [Mandrillagon] roars and lopes forth into view. It is accompanied by nine rampaging demons, looking like powerfully muscled orangutans with filthy, rusty-red fur [barlgura demons]. These demons seize and rip apart the guards and bugbears and eat them in the streets. 

[2 barlgura demons]

A rickshaw, pulled by a massive, scarred troll carries a haughty drow priestess. She is accompanied by an elite guard of twelve female drow fighters. The priestess consults with an officer, then points to a distant area and the group charges ahead, toward the chaos.

A bandy-legged, 24-foot-tall giant [Kostchtchie] strides through the streets with a thunderous roar, just as snow begins to fall and an unnatural chill rolls across the scene. He wields an immense maul crafted of cold iron, his malformed head jutting above his hunched shoulders. The giant swings his hammer back and forth, smashing several orangutang-demons, splintering and battering entire drow buildings to rubble. The towering mandrill demon sniffs the air, then swiftly clambers up to a rooftop and disappears.

[Each creature within 30 feet of a point you choose must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw, taking 3d6 bludgeoning damage and falling prone on a failure.]

A winged demon [Pazuzu] swoops down from the darkness above to attack the giant. The winged figure has the body of a tall, well-proportioned man, but its legs end in powerful birdlike talons and its four feathered wings shine with oil and writhe with smoke on his back. Its head combines the features of a handsome man and a feral hawk, its cruel, hooked beak filled with a forest of needle teeth. The giant roars and charges, but the winged figure vomits a swarm of buzzing locusts that envelop and devour the screaming giant.

A headless troll, carrying an empty, burning rickshaw, races through the streets away from the chaos, before tumbling into a heap in the streets.

A phalanx of five horned and winged fire demons [balor] marches down the street, driving a pack of burning giant spiders before them. The demons are fourteen feet tall, wreathed in fire, and bear whips and flaming swords. Behind them marches another fire demon, but even larger and carrying a greataxe [Belaphoss]. Its red flesh is covered with glowing black sigils. As these demons advance the buildings along the street alight on fire. 

[Each creature within 20 feet of a point you choose must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw. On a failure, the creature takes 3d6 fire damage, or half as much damage on a success.]

At an intersection the fire demons meet a strange shimmering in the air, announcing the arrival of a shape, little more than a billowing white diaphanous sheet [Pale Night]. Closer inspection reveals a lithe and seductive form beneath the sheet, a voluptuous feminine figure indistinct and hazy. Now and then the edges of the sheet rise a little too highly, yet never rise high enough to reveal the details that writhe beyond.

The fire demons roar in unison and charge the shimmering figure, which floats down to embrace one of their number. The fire demon cries out in terror, becomes insubstantial, and disappears. The remaining fire demons immediately fall back.

Lightning blasts play upon the roof of the great cavern. Somewhere something large and brittle shatters.

The great mandrill demon leaps from the rooftops upon the largest fire demon and rampages among the group while the shimmering figure hovers and watches. The mandrill demon rips two fire demons apart, tearing one’s arm clear off and breaking the horns off a second, before being cut down and destroyed by the surviving fire demons. The mandrill demon screeches as it burns. The fire demons suddenly rise up, as if heeding a silent command, and then hustle away as the shimmering figure watches.

[A character you choose must make a successful DC 13 Dexterity saving throw to dodge a stray attack. On a failed save, the character takes 3d6 bludgeoning damage.]

A darkly handsome, ebon-skinned man nearly 9 feet tall [Graz’zt] arrives with some two dozen naked, fawning drow in his wake. When the dark figure stops the drow fall to the ground, clutching and kissing his feet. The man’s slightly pointed ears, yellow fangs, and six-fingered hands mark him for the demon he is. 

The shimmering figure floats down to street level. Immediately, many naked drow rise and blindly rush the shimmering figure. They are easily destroyed each in turn but the dark man slashes the shimmering figure with an enormous, wave-bladed sword. Again and again the sword slashes through the shimmering figure until it flashes brightly and is gone. 

As soon as the shimmering figure disappears, a great, high-pitched wailing sounds and many drow hiding in the rubble are clearly driven mad, wandering dazed out from their shelters and into the streets.

A group of six drow warriors, bloodied and battered, come rushing through the streets. Their weapons are discarded, they run for their lives. 

[Sound of Demogorgon]

Dozens of terrified drow citizens rush through the street, headed toward the great cathedral of Lolth. Many are trampled. The dark man skewers one for fun and laughs.

In the vault high above the streets of Menzoberranzan, an aerial battle: on one side a massive demon, 15 feet tall, with the body of a grossly obese man, the head of a ram, leathery wings, a barb-tipped tail, and thick-furred legs ending in cloven hooves. This is dread Orcus, Demon Prince of Undead. He is accompanied by thirteen flying figures: pale, thin, wearing tattered black rags. On the other side, the four-winged, hawk-headed demon prince with dozens of vulture-headed demons. The pale flying figures dart and wheel until they break through the vulture-demon ranks, allowing Orcus to close and strike the hawk-headed demon prince with his skull-tipped wand. Black energy bursts from the wand and the hawk-headed demon prince is destroyed, tumbling down to smash in the city streets.

[3 vrock demons land]

Now comes Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons himself, accompanied by three large demons, six-armed women with the torsos and tails of great serpents, along with a dozen capering toad demons. Demogorgon and his guards clash with the three remaining fire demons back in the intersection. The snake-women and toad demons destroy the two smaller fire demons, but are themselves destroyed in turn by the largest fire demon. Demogorgon batters the largest fire demon with a series of tentacle blows, breaking its flaming greataxe and finally knocking it low.

[Roar of Demogorgon]

The dark man with the wave-bladed sword turns to face Demogorgon, and begins to speak.

But a 30-foot-tall wave of black, putrid water rushes down the street. An enormous black shape [Dagon] emerges from the roiling waters to swallow the dark man whole, destroying him. The water dissipates and the monstrous demon prince flops upon the street. The demon is immense, its glistening bulk heaving monstrously as a writhing storm of hook-suckered tentacles unfolds from its shapeless lower body. Its two longest tentacles terminate in immense five-fingered talons. Its head is that of a deep-sea fish, twisted with cruelty and leering with a primordial intelligence, its stiletto-like teeth immense and translucent. Its body is not quite sea serpent, not quite mollusk, and not quite shark, but somehow, horribly, a combination of all three.

[Wave of terror and revulsion. Anyone viewing Dagon takes 30 psychic damage, half on a DC 18 Charisma save.] 

Orcus and Demogorgon immediately close with the titanic fish demon, along with a mob of vampires and lesser demons. Buildings are flattened and scores of demons and vampires are extinguished before the giant fish demon is brought low.

Orcus and Demogorgon turn on each other.

The sounds of battle finally die away, the ground before you stained black and red with demonic blood and ichor. In the terrible grip of Demogorgon, even the mighty Orcus looks almost small. Tentacles hold the Demon Prince of Undeath in a crushing grip, slithering across the maggot-riddled flesh of the horned demon, as they tighten inexorably. A strangled gasp issues from the demon lord’s throat as a horrific crunching sound echoes throughout the cavern and his skull-topped wand clatters onto the floor.

Demogorgon casts aside the limp form, which melts away as Orcus returns to the Abyss that spawned him. The Prince of Demons throws back his two heads and roars his triumph. As he does, his nearer head turns, burning eyes raking across the battlefield. Filled with bloodlust and battle rage, the demon lord searches for another target.

[Roar of Demogorgon]

Betelgeuse Sector

I was recently reading Leroy W. L. Guatney’s archived Traveller site, IISS Stellar Cartography. In the 90s and early 2000s, Leroy did a lot of development work on the trailing and rimward regions of Charted Space, particularly the Hive Federation. Many of his names for sectors appear to have been incorporated into Traveller canon.

I noticed something I hadn’t before: Leroy had named a “Betelgeuse sector” four sectors rimward of Magyar. This sector, which lies roughly 135 to 180 parsecs from Terra, is currently unnamed on Traveller Map.

The star Betelgeuse is a M1 Ia red supergiant, the tenth brightest star in the Terran sky. It is located in the constellation of Orion, which lies roughly rimward/spinward-rimward from Terra—so Leroy’s Betelgeuse sector is in the right direction relative to Terra.

Betelgeuse is normally listed as 642.5 light years (197 parsecs from Terra), which would unfortunately put the star outside the boundaries of Leroy’s Betelgeuse sector.

However, the star’s distance has been notoriously hard to pin down. A recent study found Betelgeuse to be about 25% closer than currently understood: an estimated 548 light years (168 parsecs) from Terra. And happily, this finding would put Betelgeuse squarely within Leroy’s sector, in either subsectors I/M, N, O, or P, somewhere on an arc from hex 0130 to hex 3234, plus or minus a lot, due to the vagaries of projecting 3-D stellar data unto a 2-D jump map.

Given this serendipity, I propose naming the sector located at (-1, -7) Betelgeuse. And while we’re at it, let’s place the following system in hex 1632 of that sector:

Betelgeuse Sector (-1, -7)

Hex	Name	UWP	Remarks	{Ix}	(Ex)	[Cx]	N	B	Z	PBG	W	A	Stellar
1632	Ardra	X000000-0	As Ba Va	{-3}	(500-5)	[0000]	-	-	-	000	4	NaXX	M1 Ib

Betelgeuse sector lies directly rimward of Holowon sector, and is a wilderness area only eighty parsecs removed from the edge of Charted Space. Betelgeuse would be a bright star from almost any world in Magyar sector, as well as any of the rimward sectors of the Solomani Confederation.

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A Guide to New Sol

Revised Starjammer

Kline Control, this is IMV Starjammer. We’re clearing 100 diameters, on approach to the Grendel jump point. Preparing to jump outsystem, no estimated time of return.

Now that we’ve re-redesigned the armed packet (Type U) and discussed generating starship chrome to flesh out individual vessels, let’s revisit the Starjammer with these ideas. This level of detail wouldn’t make sense for any old ship, but is certainly appropriate for a ship owned or operated by the PCs.

The Starjammer Armed Packet

Starjammer crew patch, alternate Vilani text. The legend reads “IMV Shaanseri.” Not worn while on duty within the Solomani Confederation due to political sensitivities.

The I.M.V. Starjammer [Vilani: Shaanseri, lit. “sun-diver”] is a modified Type U armed packet, potentially the prototype for a TL14 redesign of the venerable TL12 Pemami class. The Starjammer appears to have been developed as a joint venture between the Magyar shipbuilding firm Allied Prefabricated Ships & Vessels and the Vegan engineering tuhuir Tsyasha Kwa.

The Starjammer had its keel laid down at the APS&V shipyard at Kugle (Magyar 2423 A522656-E) on 011-1082 and first flew on 295-1083. Its homeport is Kline (Magyar 3012 A642987-E). Based on the official registration data, the ship has had only a single previous owner, Three Sectors Exports, LIC, and one previous captain, Marko Shugilii, though no further information about either the company or captain is readily available from the standard databases.

The ship’s official log records only sporadic travel between Kline and Shululsish (Solomani Rim 0214 A584A52-F), with occasional jaunts to Dingir (Solomani Rim 1222 AA89A98-F) and Hsuishlesh (Solomani Rim 1120 A644986-E) in the Vegan Autonomous District. However, close examination indicates that the hour meter gages on major ship components have much higher runtimes than would be expected from the log entries. The Starjammer has an immaculate maintenance record, which is remarkable for any commercial vessel with 20 years of service.

The Starjammer is currently an Imperial flagged ship registered on Kline and assigned the registration number 338-C-2725. The owner aboard is the synthetic person 3185D31A, also known as “Sonny,” a Kline Synthetic Technologies Verisim-8 android designed to closely resemble a Human. The ship’s master and pilot is Captain Cryo, and the Executive Officer and astrogator is Wayne Masada. The Second Officer and chief engineer is Richy Jamoor, while the Third Officer is the medic and purser Howard. The Fourth Officer is the Starjammer’s sensor operator Ronald.

One of the Starjammer’s most notable upgrades over a standard Type U is JUNO, the primary on-board computer: a Tsyasha Kwa JN0 Model/6.3. JUNO runs a highly optimized Vegan operating system that utilizes an unusual architecture. The computer’s default display uses the Vegan language, though this can be changed to either Anglic or Vilani. This powerful Vegan-manufactured component has enough processing power to simultaneously run both Evade/2 and Fire Control/3 programs, giving the little ship a significant edge in any firefight. JUNO also runs Intellect and Jump Control/3 programs, as well as a Counselor program, which functions like a Digital Friend specialized for clinical evaluation and treatment.

While not a true Artificial Intelligence, the computer’s sophisticated programming provides a measure of self-awareness and responsiveness. In conversation JUNO appears both attentive and intuitive, exhibiting a self-assured and almost genteel personality. The computer is highly inquisitive with strong maternal impulses, closely monitoring the physical and emotional states of all crewmembers and passengers, and freely offering advice on nutrition, sleep patterns, physical activity, and interpersonal relationships. JUNO expresses reservations about most off-ship activities and readily volunteers library data about planetary crime statistics, environmental hazards, or any dangerous native organisms.

The ship’s secondary computer is a more conventional Shululsish Internetworking UDA Model/3. In contrast to JUNO, UDA presents an abrupt and rather cold personality.

JUNO maintains a patronizing and almost resentful attitude toward UDA, “that old busybody.” UDA, in an uncharacteristic flash of personality, sometimes refers to JUNO as “Her Highness,” and appears to actually enjoy questioning JUNO’s decisions.

Starjammer Details

The Starjammer is easily recognized as a Type U variant due to its sesquiplane airframe configuration, designed to improve handling in atmosphere without adding substantial weight to the craft. An armed packet utilizes two distinctive sets of wings: a smaller pair above a larger pair. In atmosphere the Starjammer can reach a maximum speed of 2,565 km/h and has a cruising speed of 1,924 km/h. Retractable landing pylons support the ship while on the ground.

Specifications

Ship Profile	Armed Packet (U-CA33).
Manufacturer	Allied Prefabricated Ships & Vessels/Tsyasha Kwa.
Hull	300 displacement tons (airframe). 4,200 cubic meters.
Dimensions	Length 50.7 m; Beam 50.2 m; Draft 11.1 m.
Mass	4,890 tonnes unloaded, 5,003 tonnes loaded.
Electronics	One Tsyasha Kwa JN0 Model/6.3 on-board computer and one Shululsish Internetworking UDA Model/3 backup computer.
Engineering	One Tsyasha Kwa Impetus-E 750 MW fusion power plant coupled to one APS&V Type E2X jump drive/governor unit and two Mark V 3G impulse maneuver drives.
Gravitics	Shuiwo Wuish inertial compensators and adjustable floor field.
Performance	One jump-3 (3 parsecs) and 3g constant acceleration for up to 30 days.
Armor	36 mm bonded superdense plating.
Armament	One dorsal triple turret mounted with Delgado M3C 250 MJ pulse lasers, two triple turrets mounted with Delgado S2A semi-automated missile launch racks.
Crew	Pilot, Astrogator, Engineer, Steward, Medic.
Accommodations	Sixteen staterooms (three luxury), four low berths.
Cargo	Twenty-four tons.
Ship‘s Craft	One Ling Standard Products Sirvaan four-ton air/raft.

The hull of the ship is smooth and strong. Penetrating the hull is possible only with anti-ship weaponry. While a standard Type U has a light armor layer of crystaliron, the Starjammer’s armor is composed of bonded superdense alloys, which provide better protection with only a fraction of the mass. Superdense alloys are created by compressing the molecular structure of crystaliron materials in extremely high gravity fields, while bonded superdense materials have electron bonds artificially strengthened by means of a field similar to that used in damper technology.

Air/Raft Doors: Sliding doors are located in the aft starboard section of C Deck for access to the air/raft docking space. These doors are normally closed. Suitable controls inside the bay and on the bridge can open the doors, as can a coded command from the air/raft itself.

Airlocks: The Starjammer has three separate airlocks, all sized for Humans. The airlocks protect the interior environment through a set of interlocking doors. On worlds with acceptable atmospheres, JUNO will allow both sets of doors to open at the same time.

Each cycling of an airlock includes routine decontamination for potentially harmful biologics, with x-rays, ultraviolet light, and as necessary temperature extremes, ultrasonics, or chemical agents. Additional equipment is available for decontamination from corrosive or radioactive environments.

Inside each airlock are four vacc suits and an emergency cabinet with a patch kit, fire extinguisher, and first-aid kit. Power sockets for the operation of tools are also available in the airlocks.

Emergency Airlock: This airlock is accessed from the passenger section in the stern of the Starjammer’s A Deck.

The Port and Starboard Airlocks: Twinned air locks allow controlled access to the Starjammer’s B Deck. Both airlocks are accessed from the lower wings of the ship. The Port Airlock is normally reserved for passengers, while the Starboard Airlock is used by crew.

Biometrics: JUNO uses biometric identification to distinguish between crewmembers and passengers and track their movements throughout the ship. Access to sensitive shipboard areas and systems is restricted to authorized personnel only.

Bulkheads: The major structural components of the Starjammer, the ship’s bulkheads are generally composed of either superdense or bonded superdense materials. Slug throwing weapons are ineffective against bulkheads.

Bulkheads form the outer hull and compartmentalize the ship for damage control and environment maintenance in the event of disaster. All deck floors and ceilings are assumed to be bulkheads.

Cameras: The Starjammer has security cameras in public areas, including the galley, infirmary, cargo bay, passenger lounge, and airlocks. Authorized personnel can view any camera from any terminal.

Cargo Doors: These large hinged doors, located in the bow of C Deck, fit snugly and are pressure-tight, allowing access to the cargo hold. Powered, with extendable ramps, these doors allow large cargo items to be loaded easily.

Computer Terminals: Computer terminals are available on the bridge, in the drives rooms, the lounges, all staterooms, and the cargo hold. These terminals allow access to the Starjammer’s library data, JUNO’s computational ability, and to other capabilities of the computer. Safety interlocks prevent these terminals from tampering with the main functions of the ship.

Interior Walls: These partitions are non-load-bearing panels firmly fixed in place. They are not pressure-tight and cannot withstand a concerted assault.

Iris Valves: These pressure-tight automatic portals are set in bulkheads. An iris valve functions much like the iris of a camera: many panels retract to leave an open passage or extend to block the portal with solid metal. Iris valves are operated by pressing a touchpad on the wall next to the valve. A valve may be locked from either side or by JUNO, and a red light shows on the panel to indicate this condition. Valves cannot be forced closed if already open.

Valves are very difficult to force open once fully closed. Gunfire and explosions simply block the valve tighter. Iris valves close automatically when a pressure difference is sensed between the two sides of the bulkhead and the ship’s power is on. They will not close fully until the valve is clear of any foreign objects such as legs, hands, etc.

Life Support: The Starjammer has a Kline Synthetic Technologies Khika-7 bioregenerative Total Life-Support System with variable environmental controls, 350 kg daily capacity. The Khika-7 includes the self-regenerating air supplies and filtration system, food and water stores, waste handling system, and other consumable supplies needed to keep the passengers and crew comfortable and healthy while aboard a ship in flight. The life support systems can produce edible food from algae and mycoprotein, though the product is a bland-tasting, dry, flaky paste or cake, often gray or brown. Flavor additives make the product more palatable.

Lift Shaft: The Starjammer has an elevator to lift personnel or goods between decks. This consists of a pressure-tight lift car and a shaft extending between all three decks. Ordinary sliding doors close the shaft when the lift car is not present. The lift car itself is sealed with a sliding door that is pressure-tight. Between decks, the lift shaft is sealed by pressure doors, maintaining integrity between the decks.

Maintenance Hatches: At some points, small, unobtrusive maintenance hatches have been placed in bulkheads to allow repair or service personnel access to machinery or equipment. Maintenance hatches normally stand closed and are generally ignored. Maintenance hatches are unpowered and lock with a common service key. All Starjammer officers have a key that fits all maintenance hatches.

Manual Hatches: These portals are hinged pressure doors secured by a handwheel and extending bars. They are not automatic, and are not controlled by JUNO; simple sensors will indicate to the bridge if a hatch is open or closed.

Ship’s Cat: The Starjammer has one Thinking Machines, Inc. J0NZ-E-model pet robot, designed to be an endearing, affectionate ship’s cat. This particular unit closely resembles a male tabby cat, though its fur is beginning to get ragged. J0NZ-E occasionally wears a white peaked cap with a tiny cap badge bearing the Starjammer’s insignia. The ship’s cat is able to use the lift and open all iris valves, even accessing spaces restricted to crew members. Occasionally JUNO cannot determine the robot cat’s location within the ship. J0NZ-E has an unsettling tendency to emerge anywhere, even behind bulkheads closed off with manual hatches.

Sensors: The Starjammer features a Shululsish Internetworking 774-A integrated electronics suite that includes communicator, sensor, and jamming components. The 774-A communicator is a basic multi-frequency broadcast communicator capable of sending and receiving radio signals over great distances to carry voice and image information. Transmissions may be scrambled (encrypted), but if continuous will be received by all radios within range. Lasercom is a tight-beam directional communicator using a modulated laser beam. Only another lasercom can receive its signal and only if directly in the path of the pencil-thin beam.

The 774-A contains a military-grade sensor suite to facilitate operations in frontier systems by using different sensor technologies to provide advance warning of potential threats. An array of infrared thermal imaging and low-light telescopic cameras gives the bridge crew a visual picture of objects within range in a 360-degree arc. The radscanner is a multifunction energy scanner that can detect and scan for various types of radiation, such as radio, neutrino, or radar emissions from all directions simultaneously. Neutrinos can reflect the presence of stars, starship or world fusion reactors, or nuclear activity. Radar/lidar arrays project focused radio pulses in sweeping scans of an area and interprets the returned signals (the echoes) for information about a physical object’s size, distance, and speed.

Finally, the 774-A includes a sophisticated electronic countermeasures system that scrambles or distorts the transmissions and readings of other sensors. This component contains a laser/radar detector, area radar jammer, deceptive radar jammer, infrared jammer, and batteries.

Signage: All passenger areas have dual language signage in both Anglic and Standard Vilani, which can be a source of consternation for Solomani Confederation officials and passengers.

Sliding Doors: These portals are set in interior walls. Sliding doors save space over more conventional swinging doors, and so are standard on most starships. They are not air-tight, and serve merely as privacy screens.

Sliding doors are powered, and when the ship’s power is on they open completely when a touchpad is pressed on the wall next to the door. Such doors may be locked (from either side or from JUNO) and a red light shows on the touchpad panel to indicate a locked condition. Shipboard courtesy considers locked doors a call for privacy, and they are respected except during emergencies. When the Starjammer’s power is off, sliding doors will not open automatically, but can be manually overridden with brute force.

Staterooms: These cabins support four basic functions: sleep, personal sanitation, privacy, and storage of personal items. For sleep, the stateroom provides a large bed adapted to Human dimensions. When not in use, the bed folds into a wall storage niche, allowing more space for other functions during non-sleeping periods.

For personal sanitation, the stateroom includes a wash basin, toilet, and a shower. All fold into niches in the wall when not in use. Privacy is a major function of the stateroom; long periods of travel in jump make it essential for everyone that a place be available for personal privacy and solitude.

Personal possessions can be stored in the large number of built-in shelves, drawers, and compartments in the stateroom. Bulk equipment not needed while in flight often remains stowed in the cargo hold, but personal clothing, equipment, or even hobby materials are kept in the stateroom for easy access.

All staterooms contain an inconspicuous emergency locker with rescue balls.

Vertical Shafts: Ladders leading through portals between decks are present at vertical shafts. Each portal is sealed with a hatch. One shaft, located in the forward starboard section of the ship, connects all three decks. A second shaft, located aft, connects the quarters and operations decks.

Interior Conditions

Normal interior conditions on the Starjammer generally approximate those of a livable world surface.

Atmosphere: The interior of the Starjammer will normally be pressurized to one standard atmosphere with an oxygen/nitrogen mixture. Each compartment can be set to different settings; the default setting is 0.55 atmospheres with very low humidity, consistent with a thin breathable atmosphere. Recycling equipment maintains the atmosphere and removes waste gases. Airlocks may be pressurized or in vacuum, depending on the last use of the facility.

JUNO monitors atmosphere pressure and quality, temperature, and other conditions. Alarms will sound if the gas mixture strays out of certain limits, if atmospheric pressure drops too low, or if a fire is detected. Air and water quality is also monitored for known pathogens, and for any condition that threatens the health of anyone aboard.

Gravity: Deck flooring includes integral grav plates. Sections of the internal grav plates can be turned on or off, adjusted from 0.1 to 2.0g, or even reversed, locally or by JUNO. The Starjammer’s default gravity setting is 0.5g, though the ship is normally set to one standard gravity. The negative grav field is used on the cargo deck to assist in loading and positioning cargo.

Shuiwo Wuish inertial compensators negate the effects of high acceleration and lateral gee forces while maneuvering. A ship’s passengers cannot normally tell whether they are moving through space or grounded on a planet surface unless they look at a viewscreen. Notwithstanding the use of grav plates, personnel are normally confined to their staterooms or to acceleration couches in the lounge when the ship is taking off or landing.

Light: Most areas have full intensity lighting available, sufficient for reading with ease. The intensity of lights can be varied by a simple wall switch positioned in each room. JUNO can also be used to vary lighting and to monitor its levels. Emergency lights are also set into the ceiling, ready to activate using internal battery power should the ship’s power grid shut down.

Some areas of the ship have special lighting capabilities. The bridge and corridors can be lit in red light to preserve night vision.

Plumbing: Standard, but simple, sanitary facilities (including toilet, sink, and shower) are available in each stateroom, as well as on the bridge and in the drive rooms.

Power: The Starjammer’s Tsyasha Kwa Impetus-E 750 MW fusion power plant provides power for heat, light, and other essential services within the ship. As long as the power supply is operational, life support, ventilation, and recycling continue on a constant basis. Wall outlets situated throughout the ship provide connections for most uses. Such connections are Imperial standard.

Temperature: The interior of a normal ship is about 20 degrees centigrade. The temperature in each room in the ship can be individually adjusted either by JUNO or through local controls. The default temperature is 35 degrees centigrade, which is rather hot for most Humans.

Inside the Starjammer

The Starjammer is typical of the armed packets, built with three decks parallel to the direction of acceleration. Fuel tankage is carried on both sets of wings.

Starjammer Deck Plans. Click to inspect.

A Deck (Quarters)

The uppermost, or quarters, deck holds the staterooms, lounges, infirmary, low berths, and access to the dorsal turret, as well as attachment points to the upper wings. During flight passengers are generally restricted to this deck and encouraged to remain within the passenger compartment in the stern unless they need to visit the Galley or Infirmary.

A. Lift. See Ship Details, above.

B. Vertical Shaft. See Ship Details, above.

C. Ship’s Locker. The Starjammer carries the following items in its locker:

• Five TL14 emergency skill wafers (Astrogation, Engineer (M-drive), Engineer (J-Drive), Medic, Pilot)
• Twelve vacc suits
• Three hostile environment vacc suits
• Four submachine guns, each with 50 loaded magazines
• Four autopistols, each with 50 loaded magazines
• Three mobile comms
• One survival kit
• One field medical kit

D. Galley. A variety of preserved foods are available from this computer controlled kitchen. Most meals are stored in a condensed state until selected by a crewmember or passenger.

E. Dorsal Turret Access. A retractable ladder provides access to the dorsal triple turret, which mounts three Delgado M3C 250 MJ pulse lasers. A rechargeable power cell provides power for each shot while Fusion+ components generate the power required to maintain the rate of fire. This weapon system can be operated manually by a gunner from within the turret, or remotely from the gunner’s station on the bridge, or automatically by JUNO.

S1. Captain’s Stateroom. This stateroom is slightly larger and better furnished than the other crew staterooms, with wood paneling.

S2–S6. Crew Staterooms. These staterooms represent standard accommodation. The furnishings fold into the wall in order to save space. Each room has a computer terminal and doubles as an intercom, and some sort of shelves, cabinets, or racks for storing personal possessions. An armed packet with a full complement of gunners requires the crew to double up with bunk beds.

Crew Lounge. This area is where most crew members spend their time when not sleeping or on duty. The lounge has tables, chairs, entertainment consoles, and exercise gear as well as an attached kitchen area.

S7–S16. Passenger Staterooms. These staterooms are standard accommodations but better equipped than the crew cabins. The walls of each stateroom can be adjusted to display a variety of color schemes or murals and passengers can adjust the appearance of their quarters to suit their individual tastes. Staterooms 11 and 12 are slightly larger than the others and assigned to passengers travelling High on a first come, first served basis.

Passenger Lounge. This area is where the passengers take their meals and spend most of their time when not in their staterooms. This lounge has been plushly carpeted and lavishly furnished. The lounge decor includes walls finished in a fine wood paneling, various exotic plants scattered about, and fine art on the walls. The dining area includes two tables with chairs. A foldable game table and an entertainment holo-projector can be deployed as desired.

Infirmary. The sickbay provides workspace for medical personnel to treat wounds and illnesses on an outpatient basis. The Starjammer’s infirmary has facilities for treating up to five patients, including four beds, one diagnostic table, and one operating table.

Low Berths. This area contains the low berth units, medical supplies used in awakening passengers, and a fresher.

Fuel Scoops and Processor. This equipment allows for the collection and purification of raw fuel from a gas-giant atmosphere or planetary ocean, turning this material into refined fuel. Fuel processors use catalytic grids and molecular filters to extract the hydrogen from gas-giant atmospheres.

Fuel Tanks. These are ultralight self-sealing internal tanks for storing liquid hydrogen, with cryogenic equipment. These tanks are not normally accessed during flight.

B Deck (Operations)

The middle, or operations deck, contains critical areas and is not normally accessible to passengers while in flight. Bulkheads divide the operations deck into several distinct compartments: the bridge, the power plant, jump drives, and maneuver drives. B Deck also contains the attachment points for the lower wings.

Avionics. This area is crammed with electronics, including the Starjammer’s military grade sensor suite as well as transmission jamming equipment. Access is available through two small maintenance hatches from the bridge.

Bridge. The bridge is the nerve center of the Starjammer. It contains consoles for the pilot and astrogator, as well as separate stations for the chief engineer, a sensor operator, and a gunner. Any of the ship’s turrets can be operated from the gunner’s station. The bridge is outfitted with holographic displays.

The port bulkhead contains an iris valve leading to the port airlock and the lift. As the bridge is a critical area, this iris valve is usually locked at all times. The hatch in the starboard bulkhead leads to the starboard airlock and the vertical shaft that connects to the quarters and cargo decks. The hatch in the aft bulkhead opens directly into the power plant compartment.

C. Computers. Although JUNO and UDA, the ship’s primary and secondary on-board computers, are distributed throughout the Starjammer and can be accessed from any of the ship’s consoles, particularly vital or sensitive electronics are housed in this specially shielded and protected compartment located just off the bridge. This area also contains reference manuals and spare components.

D. Port and Starboard Turrets. Each turret mounts three Delgado S2A semi-automated missile launch racks. Each turret holds twelve Delgado XS-7 250mm high explosive anti-ship missiles. The port turret has evidently been replaced, though this is not detailed in the ship’s log or maintenance records. Examination of the area around the new turret shows signs of extensive blast scoring.

These turrets can be manually operated by controls within the turrets, by the gunner’s station on the bridge, or automatically by JUNO.

E. Utility Space. This small area has a refreshment station that dispenses drinks and snacks, and contains fire extinguishers, two emergency lockers with vacc suits and emergency gear, and storage cabinets with spare parts and tools.

F. Fresher. These facilities are provided for bridge crew use.

G. Captain’s Office. This small space is used for administrative and planning activities.

Power Plant. This compartment houses the Tsyasha Kwa Impetus-E 750 MW fusion reactor, a very advanced TL12 power plant able to produce more energy with a much smaller footprint. This area, along with the drives compartments, contain wall-mounted tool racks, diagnostic equipment, and repair and spare parts compartments.

Jump Drives. This compartment contains the APS&V Type E2X jump drive/governor unit, another very advanced TL12 design able to generate jump fields using less energy and with less drive tonnage. The E2X allows the Stajammer to make jump-3. Engineering functions that cannot be controlled by JUNO, such as the tuning of the drives or making repairs, must be undertaken by the engineer in the drive room. A small access corridor within the drive room allows most parts of the drives to be inspected and repaired.

Maneuver Drives. Each of these two compartments contains a single APS&V Mark V impulse maneuver drive unit. These advanced drives are compact and require less energy. Together, these two Mark V units allow the Starjammer to achieve continuous 3g acceleration.

M. Fabricator. This compartment contains a Tsyasha Kwa Sutler 1100, a TL14 Maker device that uses nanotechnology to fabricate temporary tools, parts, and equipment from raw materials. The maker requires detailed specifications of the item to be manufactured as well as suitable feedstock. The Sutler 1100 unit is capable of printing TL12 items up to one displacement ton in volume. The Fabricator compartment also contains stores of common feedstock.

This compartment also contains a ladder up to A Deck.

C Deck (Cargo)

The bottom, or cargo deck, consists of two main compartments: the cargo hold and a docking bay for the air/raft.

Cargo Hold. The flooring of the hold is bare plating marked with guidelines for the placement of cargo containers. The ceilings are lattice-work with lighting panels well inset so that mishandled cargo will not crush them. Several mechanical fixture points permit cargo containers to be firmly locked to the deck or walls. The cargo hold shows fairly recent damage from small arms fire, including at least one laser blast in the ceiling.

The cargo doors have an unsightly weld patch from recent battle damage. Since there is no airlock, the entire cargo hold must be evacuated before the outer doors can be opened.

Panels in the cargo hold port and starboard bulkheads provide narrow access to landing struts.

Air/Raft Docking Bay. The Starjammer has a four ton, Ling Standard Products Sirvaan open-topped air/raft, a standard grav vehicle used to run small errands while the ship is in port planetside, loading and unloading cargo. Massing four tons, the air/raft is capable of lifting the pilot and five passengers plus 0.25 tons cargo. It has a 100 kph cruise speed and endurance up to 1,500 km. A Sirvaan can reach orbit if required.

The entire docking bay is a close fit for the air/raft and is an air lock with interior iris valves leading to the cargo hold.

Starjammer Design Details

Hull Points 120

Crew Pilot, Astrogator, Engineer, Steward, Medic, Gunner x3

Maintenance Cost Cr7,797 per month

Purchase Cost MCr187.125

The Starjammer, Armed Packet

TL14		Tons	Cost (MCr)
Hull	300 tons, Streamlined	–	18
Armor	Bonded Superdense, Armor: 5	12	7
M-Drive	Thrust 3 (reduced size, energy efficient)	8	20
J-Drive	Jump 3 (reduced size, energy efficient)	24	45
Power Plant	Fusion (TL12, reduced size, energy efficient), Power 153	8	10
Fuel Tanks	4 weeks operation, J3	91	–
Bridge	Standard, Holographic Controls	20	1.875
	Sensor Station	1	1
Computer	Computer 30 (Primary)	–	40
	Computer 15 (Secondary)	–	2
Software	Library	–	–
	Maneuver/0	–	–
	Intellect	–	1
	Jump Control/3	–	0.3
	Fire Control/2	–	6
	Evade/2	–	2
Sensors	Military Grade	2	4.1
	Countermeasures Suite	2	4
Weapons	Triple Turret (missile) x2	2	6.5
	Triple Turret (pulse laser)	1	4
Systems	Fuel Scoops	–	–
	Fuel Processor (100 tons per day)	5	0.25
	Medical Bay	4	2
	Maker Workshop	2	0.1
Craft	Docking Space	5	1.25
	Air/Raft	–	–
Staterooms	Standard x13	52	6.5
	High x3	18	2.4
	Low Berths x4	2	0.2
Common Areas		17	1.7
Cargo		24	–

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2021 Far Future Enterprises. Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises. Far Future permits web sites and fanzines for this game, provided it contains this notice, that Far Future is notified, and subject to a withdrawal of permission on 90 days notice. The contents of this site are for personal, non-commercial use only. Any use of Far Future Enterprises’s copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In addition, any program/articles/file on this site cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author who contributed it.

Materials produced by Digest Group Publications (DGP) are copyright © Roger Sanger. Any use of Digest Group Publications’ copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this Web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights. Usage is intended to follow the guidelines announced by Roger Sanger on the Traveller Mailing List for preserving the overall Traveller milieu.

Starship Chrome for Traveller

I’ve written previously about how setting greebles—small bits of detailing—can help lend fictional settings the appearance of complexity and depth. The Terran Trade Authority books were particularly good at working in these greebles: each entry in Spacecraft: 2000 to 2100 (1978) has a brief technical synopsis in the style of Jane’s Fighting Ships that are loaded with such details. For example, here are the Specifications for the CAM 130 Cyclops:

Manufacturer	Consolidated Aerospace
Classification	Long-range Missile Carrier
Main Drive	Nuclear/chemical CACE 43 Skymaster 850,000 lb thrust
Personnel	4 human crew
Armament	Vulcan’s Hammer space to surface missile
Defence	14 mm Plastisteel WCRC Type 18A Defence Shield

This little table is doing a lot of worldbuilding in just a few lines! There’s an advanced material (“plastisteel”), a future corporation (“Consolidated Aerospace”), and just enough details to foster an illusion of realism. We can readily puzzle out what these unfamiliar terms mean, but their strangeness and specificity are intriguing. Is 14 mm of plastisteel a lot of armor, or too little? Is 850,000 lb a lot of thrust? Is CACE a manufacturer, a model line, or a type of propulsion drive? In the end, it doesn’t really matter but with relatively few words these little greebles help Cowley convey a setting with history and scope.

As Traveller has evolved the general tendency has been to describe things in gamist, rather than setting terms. Part of this is due to the increasing complexity of the game. CT, with relatively simple mechanics, could use formats that cleverly worked simultaneously as setting artifacts as well as game mechanics. The Universal Personality Profile, for example, is both a statblock and setting detail: an NPC can be neatly represented as “3BA865, SMG.” But by the time we get to MgT, high or low characteristic scores have modifiers and the old UPP is not as useful a statblock as STR 3 (-1), DEX 11 (+1), END 10 (+1), INT 8 (+0), EDU 6 (+0), SOC 5 (-1); SMG (25m, 3D, Auto 3). Less elegant, certainly, but more convenient to work with at the game table.

Also, Mongoose has established its edition of Traveller as a generic science fiction game, keeping the setting lines separate from the pure game supplement lines. There is a tradeoff to this approach: on one hand, it’s much easier for a referee to create their own Traveller universe, but on the other hand it limits the ability of designers to seed supplements with little Third Imperium setting greebles.

I think a little something gets lost here—as a referee who runs games in the Third Imperium, I enjoy discovering the strange little setting nuggets scattered across the Traveller canon. And I particularly miss these details the most when I’m reading about starships. A generic class or type of starship probably doesn’t need a lot of extra fluff, but to my mind such treatment is certainly welcome when it comes to individual ships. Any ship that the PCs will be associated with for a long time should be treated like a very important NPC with an individual history, quirks, and perhaps, mysteries. Here are some thoughts on how to add these little non-mechanical details to the starships in your own game.

Ship History

Several CT supplements, including Leviathan and Kinunir as well as Supplement 5, Lightning-class Cruisers, provide brief histories for a whole suite of individual starships. This information, while having no game mechanic value, is extremely helpful in establishing the ship as part of the larger setting.

Details to consider include builder and shipyard: a Type A built in Core sector is likely going to have a very different story than one built in the Marches, just as one built by Ling Standard Products will be different from one built by a small start-up subsidized by a planetary government on the Imperial fringe.

When was the hull was first laid down and, and when did the ship make its first flight? Anything important happening at that time? Was the ship built as part of an economic boom in the subsector, or during a time of war between neighboring systems?

Is the ship a unique design or but one iteration of a larger class? If the latter, is this an early build or a later build? What is the ship’s tail number? Where is the ship registered?

Is this a brand new ship? (Sometimes new ships present all sorts of complications of their own.) If the ship had a prior owner, who was it and how did they use the ship? If it was a trader, what routes did it work? What was the maintenance history? Have any major components been damaged or replaced?

Any accidents, legal disputes, battles, or mysterious gaps in the service record? Ships, like people, can acquire reputations—for reliability, profitability, speed, luck. Or the reverse. The TAS Green List database probably works like a 57th Century form of Yelp, incorporating passenger and broker reviews.

Ship Chrome

I was reminded of the Terran Trade Authority books when I recently re-read Classic Traveller Adventure 1, The Kinunir (1979). Under “General Specifications” we have the following data for the titular Kinunir-class of battle cruiser:

Tonnage	1,200 (standard). 16,800 cubic meters.
Acceleration	4G constant.
Dimensions	73.5L × 52.5W × 15.5H (fin adds 11 H).
Crew	10 officers, 35 men. 35 troops.
Jump	4
Powerplant	4
Engineering	2 Deltic Mk1827 JK Fusion power plants, driving one Shva type r3-55 jump drive (with integral r2-55 backup), and 2 Dupree 734 impulse maneuver drives.
Gravitics	Standard inertial compensators, plus 1G floor field.
Range	Unlimited maneuver. One jump. 200 days.
Armament	Dual ventral missile turrets, each with semi-automated missile launch racks. Charged/neutral particle accelerator tip turrets (port and starboard). Anti-boat laser batteries along dorsal surface.
Electronics	ISMM Model/7.3 on-board computer with multiple input stations and limited AI. Integral fire control and on-line storage. Fibre optic back-up network.
Ship’s Boats	One 22.5m pinnace. One 7.5m grav APC with limited sub-orbital capability.

Some of this information, such as Tonnage, Acceleration, and Jump, should look familiar to any Traveller player. But some of these line items, such as Gravitics, might not. And take a look at that Engineering line: it reads like something pulled straight from a TTA book! None of these details have any real game meaning, but they do work extremely well as setting greebles. We learn of at least three different manufacturers/brands/models (Deltic, Shva, Dupree) as well as component specifics like “Mk1827 JK.” Same with the electronics entry.

For discussion purposes, let’s call these little non-mechanical bits of color starship chrome.

In looking through my Classic Traveller books, this same specification format appears to be used again in Adventure 5, Leviathan (1980) and again, but inconsistently, in Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats (1980) before being dropped forever from GDW products. 

But the format did not immediately die away! Across the pond the designers at Games Workshop used this in their IISS Ship Files (1981) supplement.

But the writing was certainly on the wall. The last published use I could find of this format was by the indefatigable Andy Slack in “Assignment: Survey!” from White Dwarf 40 (April 1983). His Explorer-class scoutship features such lovely details as “One Malvatnikov 27F fusion power plant driving one NovZem Motors Q4 impulse manoeuvre drive and one TCS Drives type 15 Mk II series Jump drive.”

Rob Eaglestone has been one of the few Traveller writers who remembers and still uses these old pieces of starship chrome. For example, the Edwards Far Trader from Xboat 2 (2020) features a “Shaava type A1-gx jump drive.” (Is Shaava related to the Kinunir’s Shva?)

I’ve compiled a spreadsheet of all the interesting starship chrome I found in published Traveller sources. Almost all of the examples are ships from the Spinward Marches and it’s unclear if the manufacturers would be exclusive to the Marches, or are perhaps subsidiaries or subunits of megacorporations.

In any case, I find this spreadsheet a useful model for generating additional bits of chrome for my own games. I also find that looking at deckplans can be helpful: if the plans show the maneuver drives in two separate masses, then it’s natural to describe those as “two coupled M-drive units.” And so on and so forth.

Because this data is untethered to game mechanics, a referee can really go wild here. But some restraint is desirable: you want to provide just enough starship chrome to create the illusion of depth and complexity, and not actual complexity itself. Ideally, you are mixing unfamiliar and familiar elements together to keep the reader engaged and not overwhelmed by technobabble.

Physical Details

Among the General Specifications from the Kinunir are the basic physical dimensions of the ship: length, width, and height. This data is not generally provided in MgT, even though it is exceptionally useful to visually imagine the ship.

In all editions of Traveller, ships are categorized by volume in displacement tons, also known as dtons. This is a game specific unit of measure, supposedly equal to 1 ton of liquid hydrogen, roughly 13.5 to 14 cubic meters or kiloliters. Dtons are a convenient game mechanism, as one square of deckplan, 1.5 × 1.5 × 3 meters, converts to ½ dton.

A few editions of Traveller have fairly detailed ship design systems that try to inject more realism into ship builds, using actual material densities, strengths, and masses. These systems usually output specific ship dimensions based upon the overall configuration and construction materials. For many referees, the additional realism and detailing is simply not worth the headaches, and I think Mongoose was wise to drop back to much more streamlined ship design for High Guard.

That said, several helpful design spreadsheets have been developed for the more intensive design systems. I particularly like the ones built by the poster AnotherDilbert and hosted over on the Citizens of the Imperium forum. He has tackled some of the most complex, errata-riddled systems and produced spreadsheets that even a hack like myself can pick up and use. If I need to develop ship dimensions for a new design, I generally turn to either his MegaTraveller or Fire, Fusion, and Steel spreadsheets to generate this data. The two systems often diverge, but I treat them as a helpful range for spitballing numbers for my MgT game. For our purposes, close enough is plenty good enough.

Given the explosion in high quality digital models of Traveller ships, I find that referring to these can be another way to estimate starship dimensions. For the Starjammer, both MT and FFS agree that an airframe starship of 300 dtons should have an approximate length of 50 meters. By referring to Ian Stead’s excellent renderings of the armed packet, I was able to calculate the height and wingspan for the PC’s ship.

These detailed design systems can also output loaded and unloaded masses, as well as maximum and cruising speeds for ships in atmospheres. While these details have no direct game relevance, they do help ground the starship in the real world.

Similarly, these detailed systems generate power plant and energy weapon outputs in real world values. These tend to vary a great deal between systems. My understanding is that CT High Guard developed an abstract Energy Point economy for balanced game use. The CT Striker supplement then equated 1 EP to 250 megawatts (MW) for a separate vehicle design system. Then MegaTraveller extrapolated that Striker conversion to starship design, resulting in extraordinarily high energy needs. TNE, in contrast, has greatly reduced energy needs but also assumes a different sublight propulsion system.

Based on reading through the older gearhead discussion boards I get the sense that there’s a Goldilocks number somewhere between these two systems for CT or MgT ships. Assuming an MgT starship power plant outputs 3–5 MW per Power Point does just that—you get power plant numbers that are generally higher than TNE and lower than MT.

Similarly, laser weapons tend to be rated from 100 to 500 megajoules (MJ), with the standard laser weapon having a 250 MJ output. Much more powerful plasma and fusion weapons might range from 400 to 900 MJ for an Adventure Class Ship.

By carefully mixing and matching these physical details with starship chrome we can produce specifications that look “realish,” as long as you don’t have a physicist or electrical engineer in your gaming group. A “Fusion-14 power plant” is fine, a “750 MW fusion power plant” is better, but a “Tsyasha Kwa Impetus-E 750 MW fusion plant” is even better still.

Starship Quirks

Finally, each starship should have at least a few distinctive traits or quirks. These might have been present from creation or picked up over the years. MgT has a decent system for detailing older starships complete with a table of quirks, and I’ve used this system for my own games.

That said, the list of MgT quirks is a bit short and the results tend to have game-mechanical effects. I think it’s also worth establishing smaller, non-mechanical quirks. If you own a car or a house, think about all those small peculiarities that make your purchase unique, both the good and the bad, and apply these ideas to a starship. Things like “She may be ugly, but a Magyar ship is built like a grav tank,” or “General Products can’t make a jump drive worth installing, we’re always fighting to get that Gee series tuned,” or “Ag jobs might easy to find, but we‘ve never gotten the smell out of the scrubbers from that one shipment of livestock.”

Quirks provide a concrete way to show, rather than tell, the ship’s history, chrome, or physical details. In a future post I’ll apply many of these ideas to my PC’s Starjammer.

Copyright Information

The Traveller game in all forms is owned by Far Future Enterprises. Copyright © 1977 – 2021 Far Future Enterprises. Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises. Far Future permits web sites and fanzines for this game, provided it contains this notice, that Far Future is notified, and subject to a withdrawal of permission on 90 days notice. The contents of this site are for personal, non-commercial use only. Any use of Far Future Enterprises’s copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights or trademarks. In addition, any program/articles/file on this site cannot be republished or distributed without the consent of the author who contributed it.

Materials produced by Digest Group Publications (DGP) are copyright © Roger Sanger. Any use of Digest Group Publications' copyrighted material or trademarks anywhere on this Web site and its files should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights. Usage is intended to follow the guidelines announced by Roger Sanger on the Traveller Mailing List for preserving the overall Traveller milieu.

Revenge of the Revised Armed Packet

I am an inveterate tinkerer. About two years ago I became fascinated by the armed packet, a new type of starship introduced in Traveller⁵. The more I looked at it, the more I liked it: its basic mission of unscheduled passenger service really fits the kind of Traveller game I like to run: a little political intrigue, a little combat, and a little skullduggery.

So I started playing around with Mongoose Traveller ship design, doing first one iteration and then, with helpful feedback, a second. I even used a simplified ship design sequence from Traveller⁵ to check the basic parameters. The PCs for my Into the Interface game have even fallen into their own modified armed packet, the Starjammer.

In the last two years I’ve continued to tinker with ship design for various editions of Traveller and even had a few chances to use the armed packet in play. All of these experiences have greatly enhanced my understanding of Traveller starships in general as well as the armed packet specifically.

I’ve been particularly influenced by the work of the digital artist and modeler Ian Stead. Ian does spectacular work for Traveller and I’m a proud supporter of his Patreon. Ian has done several different renderings of the armed packet that have greatly helped me think through the layout of the ship.

All of these influences have been kicking around in my head for a few months now, and I’m finally ready to unveil the third iteration of my armed packet design. I think this latest version is much improved: simplified, with a cleaner and more logical layout. Give it a spin!

The Armed Packet is found throughout the Imperium but is particularly popular along the Imperial fringe.

Armed Packet (U-CA33): Using a 300-ton streamlined hull, the Type U Armed Packet provides unscheduled passenger service. The standard design specifies a performance of jump-3 and 3g acceleration. Fuel tankage for 91 tons supports the power plant and one jump-3. Adjacent to the bridge is a computer Model/3. There are 16 staterooms and 4 low berths. The ship has three hardpoints. Installed on the hardpoints are two triple turrets armed with missile racks and one triple turret armed with beam lasers. There is one ship's vehicle, an air/raft. Cargo capacity is 25 tons.

The ship requires a crew of five: pilot, astrogator, engineer, medic, and steward. Up to three gunners and additional personnel may be added. One of the crew will serve double duty as a pilot for the air/raft if carried aboard. The ship can carry ten passengers and four low passengers. The ship costs MCr116.595 (including 10% discount for standard design) and takes fourteen months to build.

The armed packet comes in many shapes and sizes, and under many names: the one described here is typical.

Performance: A packet lacks the armor and firepower to last long in a stand-up fight: its greatest assets are speed, agility, and range. The armed packet has a moderate jump rating of 3 with 3g acceleration capability. Its fuel tankage allows it to handle three successive one parsec jumps, and to cruise at 3g, maintain life support and environment, and generally operate with efficiency for about four weeks.

Special Features: A Type U is easily recognized due to its sesquiplane airframe configuration, designed to improve handling in atmosphere without adding substantial weight to the craft. The packet utilizes two distinctive sets of wings: a smaller pair above a larger pair.

Operations: The armed packet is an itinerant passenger ship specializing in safe passage off the main routes. Much of its business is corporate charters transporting executives to dangerous worlds and bringing them back safely.

Refueling: The armed packet has interior fuel tanks totaling 91 tons capacity. It requires 90 tons of fuel to support one jump-3, 60 tons to support one jump-2, and 30 tons to support one jump-1. One ton of fuel is sufficient to operate the power plant and maneuver drives for up to four weeks. The ship is equipped with fuel scoops and routinely refuels by skimming gas giants. The ship is also capable of refueling by processing water from local seas on the worlds it visits.

Finances: The monthly payments for a ship of this type amount to Cr485,813. Further expenses for crew salaries, life support, maintenance, and berthing fees amount to Cr93,969 per month, assuming a jump every two weeks. Fuel is free for the skimming, but could add another Cr45,000 per jump when its purchase is required. An armed packet can gross approximately Cr218,000 per month, assuming a full manifest of middle and low passengers and a full cargo bay at Cr1000 per ton of cargo.

Obviously, even with a full load, this ship would be unable to make its payments; therefore many member worlds subsidize these ships to encourage communication and commerce. The government makes the monthly payments, and also takes 50% of gross receipts. The owner pays all expenses, and thus is responsible for paying the overhead of Cr93,969 per month. The owner also receives half of the gross of up to Cr218,000 per month.

Charters of armed packets are common. The cost of such a charter is computed based on passenger staterooms (10) and on cargo tonnage (25). Total charter cost for the ship for two weeks is Cr116,100. Depending on the passengers and their destination, the price may be subject to a multiplier of anywhere from x2 to x6 to reflect associated risks.

Ship Model Variants: A common variant incorporates a 1 ton mail vault for mail delivery contracts. A much less popular variant packet (U-EA42), larger and with less range, is occasionally seen.

Manufacturers: Most shipyards can produce armed packets, and the quality of the ship varies with the manufacturer. Probably the best armed packets belong to the Iishillek-class, produced by Geschichtkreis Sternschiffbau AG for nobles and corporate executives. The worst are produced by General Products, LIC, which while serviceable exhibit only adequate workmanship and detail.

The Allied Prefabricated Ships & Vessels version of the Type U is a TL12 ship designated the Pemami-class. APS&V specializes in the construction of small to medium-size merchant vessels using standard designs, and its armed packets are fairly common along the Confederation border in Daibei, Magyar, and spinward portions of the Solomani Rim. The Pemami exemplifies APS&V builds: a blocky, utilitarian design matched with sturdy, durable construction.

Variants of the Type U are used throughout the Solomani Confederation. Transstar builds and operates an armed packet service exclusively for high level members of the Solomani Party. Iouo Interstellar Yards builds a particularly attractive armed packet, with sleek, graceful lines clearly inspired by Aslan design. This Yeao-class is very popular in Solomani-held territories in Dark Nebula sector.

Hull Points 120

Crew Pilot, Astrogator, Engineer, Steward, Medic, Gunner x3

Maintenance Cost Cr9,700 per month

Purchase Cost MCr116.595

Armed Packet (Type U)

TL12		Tons	Cost (MCr)
Hull	300 tons, Streamlined	–	18
Armor	Crystaliron, Armor: 4	15	3.6
M-Drive	Thrust 3	9	18
J-Drive	Jump 3	27	41
Power Plant	Fusion (TL12), Power 150	10	10
Fuel Tanks	4 weeks operation, J3	91	–
Bridge	Standard	20	1.5
Computer	Computer 15	–	2
Sensors	Civilian Grade	1	3
Weapons	Triple Turret (missile) x2	2	6.5
	Triple Turret (beam laser)	1	2.5
Systems	Fuel Scoop	–	–
	Fuel Processor (60 tons per day)	3	0.15
	Medical Bay	4	2
Craft	Docking Space	5	1.25
	Air/Raft	–	–
Staterooms	Standard x16	64	8
	Low Berths x4	2	0.2
Software	Library	–	–
	Maneuver/0	–	–
	Jump Control/3	–	10
Common Areas		21	2.1
Cargo		25	–

This is the fourth iteration of the armed packet. Previous versions: First, Second, and Third.

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