Shipbuilding Wonkery
Cobbled together a new ship for my solitaire trader game: our boy struck it rich on a couple runs, and can now blow his wad on a brand new ship that he can own outright; his old crew can just about put a down payment on the old ship with their company shares, so that'll be taken care of.
As for the new ship, I figured I'd build it on a standard 600 ton hull - an economizing measure - and that I wanted it to achieve Jump-3. I decided I didn't need it to be particularly fast, and I liked the idea of an unstreamlined vessel. What resulted, from an engineering section standpoint, was virtually identical to a Subsidized Liner; I went with a D drive for the maneuver drive, instead of the Type M's C, mainly for its resilience. The rest of the ship's rather different: many fewer staterooms and low berths: the notion is that it's optimized for spec trading. About a hundred tons of cargo, to which can be added some 64 tons aboard the ship's 95-ton shuttle.
I don't intend on the ship ever using unrefined fuel (still civilian specs.) For its maximum jumps, she'll only be going to safe, established ports. For C, D or E ports, the plan is to get there via short jumps that allow for return trips without refueling. I suppose that the Shuttle could be fitted with collapsible tanks to allow for frontier fueling, but I'd as soon avoid that.
The ship can be heavily armed, though: six hardpoints will allow for sufficient armament to contend with most hostiles. The price fell just a bit on top of 285 MCr.
The Subsidized Liner would have been fine, if it weren't for that ships heavy focus on passenger transportation and its puny little Launch. I wanted at least a Pinnace, and I like the additional cargo capacity offered by the Shuttle.
As for the new ship, I figured I'd build it on a standard 600 ton hull - an economizing measure - and that I wanted it to achieve Jump-3. I decided I didn't need it to be particularly fast, and I liked the idea of an unstreamlined vessel. What resulted, from an engineering section standpoint, was virtually identical to a Subsidized Liner; I went with a D drive for the maneuver drive, instead of the Type M's C, mainly for its resilience. The rest of the ship's rather different: many fewer staterooms and low berths: the notion is that it's optimized for spec trading. About a hundred tons of cargo, to which can be added some 64 tons aboard the ship's 95-ton shuttle.
I don't intend on the ship ever using unrefined fuel (still civilian specs.) For its maximum jumps, she'll only be going to safe, established ports. For C, D or E ports, the plan is to get there via short jumps that allow for return trips without refueling. I suppose that the Shuttle could be fitted with collapsible tanks to allow for frontier fueling, but I'd as soon avoid that.
The ship can be heavily armed, though: six hardpoints will allow for sufficient armament to contend with most hostiles. The price fell just a bit on top of 285 MCr.
The Subsidized Liner would have been fine, if it weren't for that ships heavy focus on passenger transportation and its puny little Launch. I wanted at least a Pinnace, and I like the additional cargo capacity offered by the Shuttle.
posted by Jwarrrlry at 12:16 PM
2 Comments:
Looking good, and your captain keeps going like he is I foresee a fleet in his hands soon. Keep up the good work.
Well! Even with my efforts to harden customs (http://festeria.blogspot.com/2010/09/revising-trade-chrome.html) he's still basically able to print money. If I were to give his notional competition any teeth at all, he probably should have been banished to dangerous fringe-planet trade long ago...
As it is, he could be starting a fleet. I don't want to be bothered with administering one... which actually fits the character, whose career was actually with the Scouts before he went a-merchanting. It's why he's investing in an expensive long-jump ship, instead of buying up a couple more used Subbies and making truly insane money. 'Course, he'll be receiving payments for the old ship from his old crew, so that'll be good business.
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