Travel Ship Construction - Devil Fish Warship

I dug out my set of Traveller rules. They seem to be a combination of the Classic Traveller quick start rules and some portion of the original Traveller rules. The person who gave them to me made photo copies of the original rule set, but didn't staple them so it's a mess. 

Instead of creating a characters, I went right to the ship construction rules. I like them. They make ship construction fun and easy. I came up with an idea and was able to spec it out in short order. 

This is an old warship refitted for cargo duties. It's a "Devil Fish" class ship. The rules allowed me to have a really out there design which made sense on a couple of levels AND the whole process lends itself to quick memorization of statistics. 

Tonnage: 400 tons
Crew: 5
Main Compartment: 335 tons, Engineering: 65 tons. 
Bridge: 20 tons
Staterooms: 5
Jump Drive: C
Maneuver Drive: J
Power Planet: J
Computer: 4 (Launch, Target, Jump 1, Maneuver/Evade, Library, Navigation, Generate, ECM.) 
Fuel: 120 tons.

Standard Equipment: Laser Turret (1), Lifeboat, One empty hardpoint. 

Non-standard Equipment: Nuclear Missiles (10) on two hardpoints. 

Even while deviating from the standard rules by adding nuclear missiles, the system works. It even hints at why this ship would survive a couple of wars before being refitted as freighter. 

The ship has just enough fuel to make two jumps and maneuver. It's a hotrod with those J type power plants and engines. However, the fuel load is worrisome. You have one jump to the target, one to return home and a good amount of fuel to maneuver. However, if any thing goes wrong it probably can't complete it's mission. Contaminated fuel, a hit to the fuel tank or a bad jump and the ship doesn't hit the target or doesn't come home. 

This ship is a dream to fly, but not the best warship. Given that it's supposed to bomb the snot out of planets, it's not the first ship selected for a mission. The Devil Fish is a nuclear deterrent ship which could be displayed and flown but not used before it outlived it's usefulness. 

Later, I'll be looking at the civilian freighter version and talk about mechanics. 

The Tek - August 2020

 My stats for DriveThruRPG were fine. 

 AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 4

 Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 2

 Kobold's Folly: 1

 Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 5

 These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 5

 Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 7

August marked two years since Zero to Hero launched. 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana  113
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 152

Kobold's Folly: 140

Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 104

These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack:123
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 279   

Unfortunately, spending was greater than DriveThruRPG income for August. :) I picked up some great books, though. 

In August, I got back up on the horse and brought my webstats back up. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,693

Google Analytics Sessions - 1,034

Pageviews per Session - 1.63

I participated in #RPGADAY2020 which was big help. 

Devil Fish Freighter - Background Information and Crew Notes

Yet, another ship, this time based on the 1977 Traveller rule set. This is a 400 ton freighter. The Devil Fish is a converted warship. As a warship, it was horrible. It was meant for planetary bombardment, but it lacked the fuel pods shown on this refit. It had just enough fuel for 2 jumps and 2 hours of operations. You could end up trapped in a system you just bombarded. None of these ships saw combat, thankfully. 

This freighter version is outfitted with larger fuel tanks which is slightly more practical. The two long beams are where the missiles used to be. In the refit, these long tubes were simply sealed up. The crew calls them "Industrial Accident Site, Port and Starboard", because they lack the funds to put anything in there. It's a long open chamber, completely devoid of any safety features. There is a brass sign with the names of 5 crew members who have been killed and a longer list of names of people merely injured. 

While creating the files for this ship, I made a typo that made me think of an interesting crew feature.

The current crew likes to gamble and won big at the table. It turns out the other gambler didn't actually have all of the funds to support his bet. In lieu of cash, he had a guy who could get the crew name plates for the ship, matching leather jackets and jumpsuits plus some extra patches, complete with names and logos for the ship.

Unfortunately, the crew thought he was faking an accent but he wasn't. Instead of logos with a manta ray logo and the name "The Devil Fish" they got a green devil's head and the word "Devilish". 

Since the ship is registered as "The Devil Fish", mistakes have been made in the crew's favor. Such as escaping security and not paying for goods loaded on board. The name plates are visible only when the airlocks are closed. They objected at first, but once they realized what was happening, the merely hate these details with a passion. It doesn't stop them from using them to run hustles and scams.  

It's such a strange detail, it sounds like it could actually happen. 

Edited - to add the Military variant, with no tanks. 

#RPGADAY2020 31. Experience

#Experience.

Well, this year's RPGADAY was quite the experience. I got to revisit the forest where my kids and I camped and hiked. I now understand the connection between my love of roller coasters and D&D, and finally wrote down my table rules for magic weapons, in three parts. (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.) 

It's been great. 

#RPGADAY2020 30. Portal

#Portal

My first blog was a Myst fan site. Nothing says portal more than Myst. Except for maybe the game ah... Portal, which I have never played. 

Anyway, I was fascinated by MYST, both the games and the books. I bought all the hard covers and read them to my kids. 

One day, my son Paul got into some trouble online. He must have been seven or eight at the time. He jumped on my online account and ordered himself copies of all three Myst novels in softback. We were short on cash, as always and this was kind of a headache. 

At first, I thought it was a computer glitch because they were the same titles I had already ordered in hardcover. While my wife and I talked it over, he happily chimed in that he ordered them on my account. I told him we was welcome to have or read my copies any time he wanted and he didn't need to order new ones. 

He said, "Dad, they're linking books," and held up up soft covers next to the full sized novels. 

My wife was baffled by this statement, so I had to show her this video from the game.  

I can't say she understood, but she at least understood our son was reading. And from that year forward, we struggled to find him enough books to read. He was consuming books almost weekly. Myst was his portal into fantasy and reading. 

When I was a child, I felt the same way when I saw the D&D cartoon. Yet another portal. 

I love both D&D and roller coasters and never made the connection until this prompt.