Traveller

I haven't played Traveller in the past 15 years (!), and our ships were
just
original Book 2 stuff, so this is just burbling on my part.  I like the
Megamass idea a lot (and think it would also be a good approach to Iain
M.
Banks' "Culture" vessels.  As an alternative though, here's another
approach
which reduces the number of systems on each ship- I'm a firm believer in
combining systems to increase speed and playability.  

	I suggest that the FT Mass scale is nonlinear, and can be
approximated to Traveller using this formula:

	Traveller Mass =2.3*(FT Mass cubed)

assuming that ~100 tons for a scout ship and ~75000 tons for a heavy
cruiser
are reasonable figures.  

Notes			FT Mass 	  Traveller Mass
			  1		       2.3
Courier 		  2		      18.4
Scout			  4		     147.2
Destroyer		 14		    6311.2
Maximum Escort		 18		   13413.6
Heavy Cruiser		 32		   75366.4
Maximum Cruiser 	 36		  107308.8
Battlecruiser		 40		  147200.0
Battleship		 48		  254361.6
Battledreadnought	 60		  496800.0
CVL			 70		  788900.0
Superdreadnought	 80		 1177600.0
CVA			 98		 2164742.0
Maximum Capital 	100		 2300000.0
5 Megaton ship		130		 5053100.0
10 Megaton ship 	164		10145171.0
20 Mt(ish!) ship	200		18400000.0

	I suggest giving ships "Kra'Vak Armour" (Level 1 for cruisers,
Level
2 for capitals) but thinking of it as an assortment of standard
defensive
systems.  I would also suggest a rule of doubling the mass points for A-
and
B- batteries on escorts, and A-batteries on cruisers, to increase the
definition between hull sizes.	An exception would be made for spinal
mounts; I suggest letting them fire into the forward arc with a -1
penalty
unless the target is directly ahead.

Any thoughts?
Rob

Rob Paul
NERC Institute of Virology 
Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3SR	  Tel. (01865) 512361
rkp@mail.nerc-oxford.ac.uk
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
			 "Auld an' bald!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--