Corsairs Session 6: Discovery

 Session 6 got a bit explosive and we had some action this time around. Sleve & Sinnea spy on the miners a bit, then the group regroups to decide on their next step.

They send the runner back through the caves, intending to have a two pronged attack on the now verified repellium mining operation. Waiting was a nail biting experience, or should have been - being a game it magically happened in a few minutes while I rolled a couple of agility rolls for the cabin boy for his solo return trip. Over sink holes and past pissed off fire imps. The players never saw that part and there were enough successes that I went with that. Otherwise, Ordo, Ylervan and Sleve may still be waiting for some sign of the attack.

Finally, the Fools Errand comes round and fires off a fulisade against the moored Dancing Crester and doing a hull and gun deck hit. The attack made the sailors and miners rush to the front of the mine, and that's when our group set up the dynamite. I use the sailing skill as the general purpose engineering roll, and Ylervan made a fantastic roll for the placement of the pony keg of black powder. Setting a short fuse, they light the keg and charge out, yelling about a cave-in in the back of the mine. The Lady Grysby is shouting orders to free the Crester while the captain is also yelling out orders to return fire. At this point, the explosion happens and the miners are running for their lives down the mountain, while our group heads up the mountain to get a better vantage. Except for our brute sailor fighter who charge the Lady. Which ended up being a huge mistake as she is really good between the Steady Wind bonus plus the well-balanced sabers she carries. The dread fighter sailor was no match and was cut down in a single round of combat. Wonder if he was wearing a red shirt?

Ordo at this point is cutting down the sailors attempting to release the final mooring line. Being a crack shot, he kills the first sailor on the docks in a single shot. He also manages to kill off two more as they attempt from the deck to cut the line. By this time there is a second ship combat round (a ship combat round is 15-20 minutes, and I did not see a personal combat round, but going with a vague "something a lot less than 15-20 minutes to just use the timing for plot advancement). The Crester manages to get a shot off and hits one of the sails and the gun deck. The Errand manages to hit the sails, another gun deck and a crew. So they are doing a lot better as I was cutting the gun rating in half for the Crester as half her guns are facing the dock and unable to fire. Finally the Lady Grysby cuts the line herself as Ordo maims the captain, leaving the first mate Rey now in charge. Still feeling as though they have a good fighting chance, the Crester finally moves off the dock and starts to turn about for combat with all guns being available. 

Seeing her ship leave, the Lady starts running down the mountain as well, knowing she is out-numbered from our small group. Ordo manages to actually maim her despite her athleticism as opposing dice. So she falls on the ground and almost bleeds out before our group can get down there to administer first aid. Which did nothing but at least did not kill her - the healing rules when a person is maimed can actually kill the patient. Realistic and terrifying for our resident slacker healer Sleve. 

The final round of ship combat had the Errand take out the last sail and rudder of the Crester. Being unable to steer, the Alderil sailors give their word to stop hostilities. And this was the end of session 6.

There was more adventure this time, and I think we handled the ship and personal combat a lot better (see, practice does pay off!). I still need to get better organized, but I did print out a ship sheet to track the battle there. I do like the ship combat mechanics: simple and while pretty random in some ways, it makes for a fast combat which the point for this RPG. Some of the game may have been faster had I the printed copy, which is in the mail at this point. But I'll have it for the next time we play!

Next session we'll wind up a few things, then I believe we'll be playing another game with another game master. I'll post my feelings about the game once we get our first adventure completed, but after a couple of rough starts I do enjoy the game.

And just had a thought: I could bring this game into my Fantasy Trip world: sudden magical portal created by a mad scientists. I've had Traveller characters end up in D&D. These characters would not be your 32 point starting characters though, but probably at least 35 or 36. But as always, I digress...

Next Traveller Game?

If the group wants to continue from where we left off, I have ideas...and I think this is the 4th game I will have lead since getting back into gaming. Lets see: played with two friends at my house [1], then did a game with part of the gaming group [2] then did the Big Wreck [3]. So yep, this would be the 4th game, and perhaps a continuation of the 3rd if people want to do that.

 

I also have deck plans for this salvage ship which is lurking behind the Big Wreck. George has been keeping an eye on it.

We're about to probably finish the Corsairs game next week, and I get to play for a few weeks. For some reason I can only lead a game for so long, but I need to practice to get better (so true of well, everything). 

I may try & bring one of the first people I refereed with a few years back, just need to help him a bit with his Skype so we can talk. We could even just use new people entirely and do something else, but as I do have those giant maps of the Rift (which don't do a whole lot of good over the internet exactly!) I do want to use them a bit more. And all the far-too-many minis I keep getting.

Finally - as a personal note this pandemic / working from home / loss of a lot of contact / worries about things I have no control over have been starting to drag me down a bit. Gaming is supposed to help me get out of that, so perhaps I just need to game more! Hopefully North Carolina will lift the gym ban as I think that may help as I can only do so much with the equipment I have. Just have to wear a mask and wipe things down before and after. Going to be a different experience for sure.

Sunday Painting

 Spent a little time painting today, and brought out some old minis to see if there has been much of an improvement. In some cases, yes, others no. I tend to rush too much sometimes and then the paint goes in places it should not get to. I've bought a couple of the learn to paint series from Reaper, and if I actually pay attention and follow the directions, I do well enough. I just have to learn to not be impatient. 

I also noticed that yes, minis are getting bigger. There are several blog posts out there indicating that, but if I take out my old 80's D&D minis, it looks like I now have a bunch of halfling warriors and things. And the centaurs will not really scale well with the new ones I am getting. The one in the middle is from an 80's set, the one on the left a Reaper Dwarf and the one on the right a mini from Heroic Townsfolk from Ryan Borgeson (and I followed the next as well as he produces some interesting characters you are not likely to find in other places. And Kickstarter). So the warrior in the middle is either a child playing dress up or a halfling now :)  

Fortunately I don't really care too much about the scale. And until we get back to a table, probably next year, these only see my desk top. 

I do see I have a lot of minis that, once painted, I do need to figure out how to store and get access to later. I did, as recommended by a good friend and excellent painter, get a bunch of tubs. So for those are for the scenery: I have a bin for the connectors, one for SF walls and SF floors and one for the large set pieces I seem to be accumulating (and must stop until I see if I actually use the things!). I also use fish lure boxes for the minis, and while I've got one for my Traveller ships and most of the 15mm minis from way, way back, the fantasy stuff is a mixed bag. Going to have to get a label maker, and start sorting them by groups so I can find things. 

Sort of reminds me of what I keep telling myself but apparently do not pay attention to: too much of a good thing often means you actually use it less. My wife & I spoiled our child (who fortunately knows he was spoiled) with so many toys that he never wanted to play with them. Growing up, while my siblings and I had a fair number of toys, it was not the sheer quantity my son had. We played with what we had with a lot more imagination. Not to be too self analysing here, but I often fear I am doing the same thing now. Surrounding myself with too many of these means I may not want to use my own imagination and just let a mini be what I need it to be: I need to have the exact right mini. And that leads to a slippery slope. And as for painting, I just don't know where to start as there is a sheer overload of plastic and metal already here, not to mention that in the next 8 months there will be a veritable mountain between the next Heroic Townsfolk set, the 200+ characters in the Fantasy Set 1, and the few hundred in my massive overbuy of Reaper minis in their last Kickstarter (and I was not the worst as I did not get one of everything but I do go back & check out the pledge manager, thinking maybe one more thing. Then I slap myself and shut down the browser).

Corsairs Session 5: Into the Secret Tunnels

 The next morning, our group gets up good and early to look at the cave entrance and decide what to do. There was a fair amount of discussion as to who to bring, and whether this was to be an invasion force or more of a scouting missions. They finally ended up with the main characters: Ordo, Sleve & Ylervan were leading the crew. The player for Miss Baudelaire has dropped out for a bit, so the quartermaster is staying aboard the ship to keep an eye on things there. Along with our characters, Sinea the Grassrunner is tagging along as are 4 of the crew. We have the light bearer, the armsman, one carrying a pony keg of dynamite and the cabin boy, who is fleet of foot in case they need to have a message run back to the Dwarf mine entrance. 

The entrance is large enough for almost two across, and Ordo does not need to stoop. Following the map, the first off-branch they can smell something burning, and via several good observation rolls, notice dragonette droppings. As noted in the rules, dragonettes are used widely by corsairs but need to be trained from birth. Finding eggs is hazardous but can be richly rewarding. They passed the side tunnel on the way in, but perhaps they have noted it for their return trip: having a pet dragonette could be interesting, and if they manage to collect some eggs, rewarding financially!

Continuing, they encounter a sink hole in the tunnel. Not being a leaper, Ylervan scales the walls which were dry at this spot, and using his sailing skill fastens a rope to help with the others. The rest use their acrobatics and successfully cross the first obstacle. The tunnel narrows around a bend, and Ylervan is leading the way. An impetuous fire imp is apparently quite angry and attacks our crew shortly thereafter. I only rolled for one to show up despite a nest around the corner. It was also in a tight bend in the corner where the imp attacked Ylervan. It took a couple of rounds to kill the squirmy beast, and Ylervan took a few fiery scratches in the rapid battle. Some first aid from the resourceful Sleve and Ylervan is back in full fighting trim. They also notice natural repellium deposits starting to show up around them when they look carefully. 

They continue on and we finally come to the end of the natural tunnels and the start of what looks to be a mine. It is blocked by some broken columns and timbers that appear fairly old, and looking into the mine they see yet another large sink hole, about 15 feet across.

And this is where we left session 5. It was a bit shorter: we started late and ended early because people have real lives outside of the game. I know, shocking! And there was a fair amount of discussion as to what to wear inside the tunnels in the event they run into the Alderal Empire miners or crew. They finally ended up in corsair style clothing, nothing to indicate that they are anything official or threatening. 

While not quite a hex crawl, I did have several things planned out that seemed to basically work. After I finally found the map with notes: I actually put it in the notebook I am using so it took me longer to find as I was looking all around my far too messy office area (office/computer/gaming stuff. I am surrounded by Lego, games and usually a cat or two. It can be a bit chaotic). I think the combat went pretty well, though I want to start describing things better, to make it more interactive with the players and give us at least an internal visual display. Theater of the mind works well over Skype if we can describe things well enough. And we do share images on the chat channel. So there is some shared visual media, and occasionally even audio. 

The mechanics for fighting I think went pretty well, though we've been having someone else roll the difficulty dice. I think at an actual table the player would roll them all, but being remote we're trying to get everyone a chance to roll some dice I think. We did not discuss that, it just started organically.

The map is using some of the Loresmith tiles I've bought just to goof around with. I've been showing them just the section they are in, which is actually easier on a computer than having the map on the table as I just cut & paste the section of the moment. 

Next session will have contact with the other side of the mine, and we'll see what happens there. If they had brought more of the crew I may have tried using the boarding combat process, but as they only have 8 people along, of which only 4 count as crew, if we do that I fear unless they get really good rolls they will get decimated. We'll see what happens next.

And yes, there was a bit of a gap between sessions. We've had a few real life things, and for us, family is more important than gaming (how much may vary depending on who, and when, you ask!). And while we've played with 1 person out, when we hit 2 or more, as that is half the group, we either skip or do something else. I almost got a one shot in to test the Lamia's Labyrinth but we decided not to do that. I am still working on that, bringing in bits and pieces of Kickstarter zines I seem addicted to. How that will play will be interesting as well. 

Secret Tunnels, Part 2

 Made a Dwarf map though not entirely happy. I may end up hand-drawing next time, then scanning in for an actual hand-made looking map. But I do have a few things of note on this version.

One, there are general Dwarf runes (actual Tolkien-based according to the place I downloaded that font from) for some of the major areas. But then I think each clan or group would have their own private symbols indicating ore and whatever else Dwarves look for in various caverns. Sort of like sports symbols where each team had their own set (going from what I've heard as I don't watch sports and m volleyball days are now far behind me. Though I did dust off my bike and did a short bike ride last weekend - I may start that up again as it may not hurt my ankle with the burst achilles. Which really hurt when it snapped a few years ago - I fell flat on my face in the gym). And the final part - a small wyvern image in one spot and a larger dragon in another, woodcut style (had to set the background to transparent but looks okay). I also feel Dwarves, like most fantasy races, like to embellish the maps.

A series I am reading has a really nice map. The Tales of Pell are similar to Terry Pratchert in that they use fantasy to poke fun of fantasy as well as the real world. Regardless, the map in front has a nice sea dragon and a note that "Here there be dragons. No, really, they are here" and next to the wyvern is a hand-written note to please feed the wyverns. And the map is nice - I really like books with maps in them. 

I'm also working on the encounters. Right now there are only 2 animal encounters and a couple of "traps" that are not really traps but rather natural mine conditions. Then we have to see about the miners. Depending on the size of the group that goes into the mine, we may just try it with the boarding action rules. Which means I need to re-read those rules again to see if I can get it all straight in my head. Just too many game systems!

I also forwarded the map to our one Dwarf (and they make fun of me as I can never pronounce the name correctly for poor Ylervian (and not sure that is even the correct spelling but too lazy to go back & recheck. Maybe later). 

Speaking of game systems, as a blurb here one of my players ran a Delve game last year and it was a blast. Finally broke down and bought the 2nd edition deluxe color hardback (I tend to want the good stuff when I can, though lately I've just been doing PDFs as the pandemic has pinched my finances more than I like). I've glossed over most of the book and really want to play another game. The rules are fun and it is a bit more dire than most fantasy games, more collaboration between players and the GM. Though we've had a good bit of collaboration in our Corsair game as well!

Secret Tunnels

 Doing a bit of game prep for the next chapter of Corsairs - Secret Tunnels!  Of course, getting carried away playing with some of the Loresmith tiles. They don't exactly scream steampunk mining operations. However, I am going with some natural cave tiles then there are the wildgrowth tiles which will be the repellium mining areas. Perhaps repellium is that greenish hue before processing.

Of course, the players won't get that exact map - I'll see if I can make a more hand-drawn style, perhaps with some Dwarvish runes, to share with the group. And it may not map 100% correctly despite the Dwarves reputation for engineering prowess in the world of Teboa. 

I'm also backing a Kickstarter for some more tiles for the hex mapping software I have. Not as fancy as Campaign Cartographer, but it does make nice dungeon crawl style maps, or hex crawls really. It is more of an overland style mapping system. I did not follow the 1st Kickstarter but got that package in a Humble Bundle for world building - lots of stuff I need to actually go back & read to hopefully make a better world! As I really enjoy world building :)

It is Secret Tunnels as one of the players is basing his character (very accurately as well!) from a character in the Last Airbender series. I did not realize that until I was re-watching the 1st series to get my son & I back up to speed to be able to watch the 2nd series, Korra. I like to start from the beginning when I can.

The map below probably needs some notes: a couple of sections are probably a LOT longer so this is not entirely to scale. And Corsairs is not a dungeon dive type of RPG, but I will stick a few encounters in there, mostly natural ones but somewhere along the line they will meet up with the miners. 

But it is fun making pretty maps. The tiles are really more oriented to making battle maps. While the squares are pretty standard for most RPGs, I can probably stick a hex layer on top to make it compatible with the Fantasy Trip.

And I've been doing a bit of painting and cheap dungeon crafting. I really want to get back to face to face gaming and move minis on the table and roll dice with friends. Printing up stone walls and wrapping around baking soda and small cans makes for nice turrets or curved walls. Or lay flat for the floor. Most of the stuff is (badly but getting better!) painted by me except for those 4 columns with the torches - those are WizKids pre-painted columns. I seem to be making small scenes at my desk. And huh - seems like cat hair gets everywhere! My cats tend to sit on my desk a lot when I am trying to work. Because cats.

Corsairs Session 4: At the Mountains of Coastone

Hearing that the Dancing Crester had left port a couple of hours earlier, our crew loads up and with a good sailing roll, start to the north towards the marked mine and hopefully where the Alderil Empire's ship is heading. A few hours into the journey and our man Sleve just manages to catch sight of the larger ship far ahead. From her post in the crows nest, the newest companion Sieag MacGill'Oig barely sees them. Sailing nonchalantly as possible our crew pursues the ship flying much lower than the other ship. At one point the captain of the Crester, feeling something on the wind perhaps, turns to starboard, but another good sailing roll and the Fools Errand is apparently not seen and the larger ships returns to her former bearing. Below the ships the terrain turns more mountainous and the winds start getting more turbulent between the cooling air and the mountains spilling air through the valleys and peaks. The occasional mountain road is visible below, with a few small towns and hunters huts.

Getting to early dusk, the larger ship furls her sails and docks into a sky pier hanging off the mountain. The Fools Errand moves to a higher altitude and watch as barrels and crates are off-loaded, a tall woman in black apparently giving the orders.

Deciding that a closer observation is needed, and with a really good draft for sailing, our two nomad climb nimbly down the the swaying rope ladder to spy upon the mine entrance, the ship sailing back off around the peak and out of sight of the mine. 

Young Sineag and Sleve watch a couple of hours, seeing mine carts leave the mine and their loads transferred to the ship. Too far away to see enough detail, the quarried ore does seem lighter than it should. A good portion of the ships crew is helping move and load the ore on board the large ship.

Seeing that there is not much more to be seen, Sleve signals to the ship with a flat of his blade, somehow managing to convey a tune with the knife flashing. With not quite as good a sailing roll from our Dwarf, young Sineag does succeed in climbing the twisting rope ladder, but loses here change purse in the process. Sleve managed an almost miraculous catch and snags the purse from the air,  returning the coins to the little grass runner. 

Back on board, the decide that they will go to dock at the Dwarf mine, perhaps an hour's flight from where they are. Staying aloft near mountains at night is not, in the captain's opinion, a good choice to having a ship stay intact. Flying in, they are greeted by other Ironbound from the Anvil Aerie, and food and drinks are exchanged. The mining chief has heard of secret tunnels that may connect the old repellium mine to various other mines. A female Dwarf's grandfather mined and knows a bit about the tunnels and draws a map of what she believes will aid our crew to getting into the no longer deserted repellium mines from a different direction.  They retire for the night, a restful night for Ylerva, to reset in a sound Dwarf bed under the earth, Sleve and Sineag comfortable wherever they are, and Ordo pulling two beds together to get some restless sleep.

While this session seemed to go okay, it was not quite as exciting as the previous session. A few key discoveries were made: the old repellium mine is being used, the Alderil Empire ship at least is beingused, and that ship has twice the gun decks of the Fools Errand so our group is being cautious, much to the Captain's delight. Looks like there may be a bit of a mine exploration after all, though no treasures or goblins. However - there very well could be dragonettes or other small creatures that live in the mountains. Or even some not so small. But I'll have to see why a creature would be living in there as this is steam punk, not fantasy, and creatures don't just live in caverns waiting for adventurers to feed their bellies!

One thing that came up and is not addressed in the rules are height rules. Corsairs is not a tactical game, so ship combat and pursuit is fairly abstract, designed to let you play a swashbuckling sort of game (which we've only had one such swashing, so need to add more!). We just allowed that watching for a smaller ship flying below you was less likely to be seen as you are not looking below as much for ships. And they were way out yonder. The other captain almost saw them at one point, but despite good observation skills, and also due to the good sailing roll on the ship, he dismissed things as just something in his eye or a flying animal. I did read the pursuit rules, and while I think they will work when they are in active pursuit, following a flying ship and trying not to be seen is more complicated (and brings up the similarities to the whole Traveller ships are giant heat sources and can't hide in space). We winged it and it worked well enough. 

And my son & I are rewatching the Avatar so we can watch Korra (I like to start at the beginning, and even though we've seen the show a few years ago, it was a few years ago and we don't recall all the specifics). Regardless, I now want to bring in flying lemurs and 10 ton six legged flying bison. I've a feeling the Cahill Grasslands may be a good place for flying bison, but lemurs do seem more forest or jungles. May be some of the forests surrounding the mountains will have flying lemurs.

Of Spaceships and Volume

As I back every one of Ryan Wolf's Kickstarters (I did not do the first, but his second, was the Grendel, which is really the classic Beowulf. And so started one of my few auto-backs! And I did go back & get the 1st one as well I believe) I have quite the stash of starship posters, PDFs and minis. For the longest time I was guessing at the tonnage based on squares. Never a good thing, and it turns out I was usually way off. 

As he supplies the standard tonnage, it is actually a pretty simple calculation to go from his displacement to Traveller displacement tonnage.

First, 1 ton is 100 cubic feet. This is 2.831685 cubic meters, and when dividing by 13.5, gives you .2098 Traveller tons per 1 "standard" ton. So simply multiply his tonnage by .2098 and you get Traveller displacement.

dTons = 0.2098 x tonnage

So looking back at the Cygnus from a few games back, I have to adjust everything as the tonnage went from 1000 tons to 1800 tons. That affects the base cost as well as the monthly costs. I'm going to see if I can still manage to get through Classic High Guard (though it does not have an 1800 ton ship, 2000 is what I'll work the components on), Mongoose 2e High Guard (which I bought and briefly read over but have never deigned a ship with) , Cepheus and T5 which will require quite a bit of page flipping. Though there is this T5 ship builder spreadsheet over on COTI if I can figure that out. Though I really prefer going through the actual printed books.

And the general information based on all versions is this is a TL 13 Lab Ship with jump 3 and maneuver 3 and 8 weeks worth of power plant fuel. With fuel scoops and a fuel purifier this ship can last months without having to be at a port to purchase fuel. At that point, each version has its own layer of things, from various armors to specifically having med and science labs. The hull is probably a close structure which is partially streamlined. 

And after walking through the Mongoose version. I think I'll do the Cepheus and T5 in their own post as well. Cepheus I think is more LBB 2 style, but could be wrong. And I am not entirely sure I have those rules: I did a bunch of PDFs in a bundle and I know the core rules are there as I've used them to play with character generation, but do not recall if ship building rules are part of that.

Classic High Guard

Probably not perfect but good enough for gaming. Minor updates to the tonnage for fuel and all that. The classic High Guard does not really give a lot of options for things like labs and medical bays, but it was for running ship battles more than role playing. I just like making custom ships!

This graphic was done, by the way, via Google Draw. A few tables getting formatted just so. Tried to recreate one of the many classic ship forms. If anyone asks, I could make a blank drawing that I could share so you could fill in the blanks yourself. That was one thing Classic really had going for it: lots of forms. While not for everyone, I really like them and use them often as handouts and chrome while playing. Old school paper!

T5

Using the T5 spreadsheet these are the initial results. What is missing is the armor info which I added in the 2nd paragraph coming from the spreadsheet.
Using a 1800 Dton streamlined hull, it has a J Drive N2, a M Drive C9, and a P Plant N2 giving performance of jump-3 and 3 g acceleration. There is fuel tankage of 583.2 Dton, enough for 8 weeks and 1 jump-3.
Controls consists of eleven control consoles, nine operating consoles, and a m/3 computer with Ergonomics 2.
There are seven sensors: a communicator, a commplus, two EMSs, a scope, a neutrino sensor, and a grav sensor.
Crew accomodations consists of 4 staterooms with a Comfort of 4 and two crew barracks.
There is a carried craft: a Shuttle in a hangar.
Cargo capacity is 722 Dton. The ship requires a crew of 14: a pilot, an astrogator, an engineer, a maintenance, five specialists, and a flight crew. The ship costs MCr 446.65.

Using a charged frame, we have an armor value of 52. Coated with reflec we have 1300 vs Heat/Beam. The outer armor is an anti-radiation layer (AV 26, 260 vs bast, 260 vs H/B, 1300 vs Rad, 0 vs EMP) and we have another anti-EMP layer of armor (AV 26, 260 vs Blast, 260 vs H/B, 0 vs rad and 130 vs EMP). This ship is designed to get up close to potentially hazardous areas. 

Now I may go back through this by the book just to see just how complicated the T5 rules are. There were several discussions as I recall over on COTI (my main source of Traveller outside of the few blogs I do read). T5 uses fill-forms to help. And I want to say there is an iOS ship builder out there. I'll devote another post to the book, step by step, creation of the Cygnus class lab ship.

Mongoose 2e

Having yet another spreadsheet, we get something as below. This spreadsheet does not generate a nice blurb. And I think I broke it, so a quick walkthrough of the 2nd edition High Guard Book.

First, the hull. A close structure hull displacing 1800 tons gives us +10% hull points and a -10% cost. So Cr50K/ton = MCr90 but with our 10% discount, MCr81. Armor is always good as this ship will be exploring strange new worlds. Using the standard Crystaliron armor available at TL 10 it requires 1.25% of our ship or 13.6 tons and costs MCr4.05/armor point. Lets put 2 armor points on there for 27.2 tons and MCr8.1 added to our costs. There are some additional hull options available. The emissions absorption Grid sort of sucks in electronic emissions, and stacks with stealth (and we won't get into the whole giant heat source is sort of hard to hide in space discussion). While not directly something a lab ship needs and interesting, I think we'll pass on that. Heat shielding, on the other hand, would allow us to get the ship closer to stars and other hot phenomena. It also helps us crash land safer if our grav drives go out. Cost is 0.1MCr per ship so MCr180 to add our heat shield. Same for radiation shielding. At MCr.25/ton this is MCr450. This is pretty expensive! The remaining options, stealth, improved stealth and reflect do not seem to apply to our ship mission.

Next, our drives. We want Man3 which will take 3% of our hull or 54dTons and cost MCr104. Our Jump 3 drive takes 7.5% of our ship or 135dTons and costs us MCr202.5. Using a TL12 fusion power plant we will need to have at least the following power points:

• basic ship functioning 20% of tonnage: 360
• maneuver drive is 10%: 180
• jump is 10%: 180

As it is unlikely we'll be using the jump and maneuver drives, that gives us a minimum of 540 energy points. At TL12 we get 15 points per ton, so a 36 ton power plant would cover that. As I want extra for the various sensors and bays (and not sure if they technically take energy points) I'll just round to 40dTons for the power plant at a cost of MCr40. 

The drives of course need fuel. Manuever drive fuel is part of the power plant fuel, so nothing there. Jump is still the classic 10% per jump, so 30% is needed. Power plants need 10% per size for 4 weeks, and as I want 8 weeks that would be 4 tons for 4 weeks and 8 for 8 weeks for a total of 548dTons for fuel. 

Our bridge based on its size requires 40dTons at a cost of MCr20. 

We need a computer for all this, and being a lab ship, it probably has more that are specific to the labs. But our central computer is a TL 13 Computer/25 at a cost of MCr10. It takes no direct tonnage. There are options for a hardened core or one that specializes in jump to coordinate fleet jumps. Neither is required for our lab ship. 

Sensors are next on the list, and this is where our shopping trip may get even more expensive! We'll go whole hog and get the Advanced. Though this is a TL 15 sensor suite, the original story behind the ship is that it is a Navy/Scout joint operation and the Navy runs at TL15 as much as possible. It also requires 6 energy points, which as I bumped up means we can run the full suite while maneuvering about and still have the full ship functions. MCr5.3 and includes densomiter, jammers, Lidar, NAS (Neural Activity Sensors - I've got Grand Census and the portable version is described in there) and radar.

No weapons though we have 2 50 ton bays and several hard points. This is a decommissioned ship released for private use via some high-standing political influence and has no weapons. 

Optional systems. Though not sure how crew is optional! At a minimum, we'll need a pilot, an astrogator, 3 engineers (I like to "over-engineer" and one may be for the shuttle as well). a medic. There are also specialists as this is a lab ship. Our minimal crew is 6 with room for several specialists depending on the mission. The staterooms are defined by the deck plans, and has 6 big staterooms and two barracks-style that can contain 4 each. Plus what looks to be 2 brig cells but could be repurposed as small staterooms. 

All the rest is cargo. So, let's tally up and see what we have.

Cost: MCr 1,100.4. Just over a billion credits!

Tonnage: 1800 - (armor) 27.2 - (man) 54 - (jump) 135 - (power) 40 - (fuel) 548 - (bridge) 40 = 955. 

Now there are several more options left to add. Being a science ship, we'll add a sensor station for MCr0.5 and 1dTon. There will be a cargo crane x2 (one per side) for about 1dTon and MCr1. We have an advanced drone bay for 1Dton and MCr 0.8. Throw in the advanced signal processing that also takes 2 energy points, MCr8 and 2Dtons. Our very Star Trek like Life Scanner Analysis Suite requires 1 EP and takes 1dTon and MCr4. Technically the TL14 version is not available but refer back to the Navy/Scout program above.  The hanger is technically a full hanger so takes 60dTons and costs MCr12, We have 3 labs on board at about 15dTons each by counting the squares, so total of 45dTons and MCr12, The med bay is part of the biology lab. There is also a gym that looks to be about 15dTon but that cost will be minimal. There is actually another 30dTons for common areas at least

So the new tally:

MCr 1,100.4 + MCR40.3 = MCr1,140.7

Remaining displacement = 955 - 154 = 801dTons. Which still seems way too high - looking at the cargo bay areas, we have 7x9 squares so about 30 tons, plus an upper area. We'll just make those 6 meter ceilings and double height, plus there is more cargo area on the platform above. And the shuttle bay is definitely taller than your 3m ceiling. 

Probably more storage areas throughout the ship but this is close enough for us.

Next post or two, I'll see if I can muddle through the T5 process and see if I even have the Cepheus version.