Re: [FT] Tug/Tender Rule Question

based on real world examples as a basis, the tender is a ship that
carries extra supplies - generlly ammunition and repari parts, armour
plating, structural rienforcment materials -and can do battle damage
repair (limitedly) on another ship and generally rearm them alas the
missile using ships.
 
The tug generally tows other ships or in the FT example STL barges.  I
in fgact had most of my civilian commerce based on the use of STL barges
and used tugs to m ove them from system to system.  Considering the
campiagn used travel time from FTL 'jump points' to planetside was a
matter of days, It was more feasible to have barges waiting at the Jump
point than for a FTL freighter to go from planet to jump point to
planetside.
 
Just my thoughts.

On Sun, Dec 12, 2004 at 09:39:15AM -0600, Doug Evans wrote:

>Actually, it differentiates between tugs and tenders. Battle riders are
>normally thought to use tenders, and FB1 sez 'any ship can be made into
a
>TENDER by having internal bay space allocated to carry other ships'. On
the
>other hand, TUGS have to have hugely increased FTL systems.

The approach I have taken is that a tender is a ship with hangar bays;
the hull is made larger to accommodate them, and the FTL drive is
correspondingly larger to account for the increased ship mass.

A tug could either use a hard connection (as in Battletech) or "extend
the jump field". My preference is for the former, since it tends to
downplay the possibility of the jump field as a weapon; it also implies
that a tug could move ships around in normal space if necessary, which
seems to me a good idea. (Of course, one needs to recalculate available
thrust on the basis of the extra mass being hauled.)

But one could certainly argue either way.

R

		
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