It’s a Sex Thing
This Traveller session was a break from the normal adventuring since I allowed the players to work out what ship they had. During character generation, Zanobia had managed to obtain a rather nice Lab Ship, but given the nature of the first adventure (got pick up a ship) it didn’t make much sense for them to be using a ship of their own. So I simplified things and let them pick the ship up later after the first adventure was complete, and ignored all the questions of mortgage payments and other upkeep costs.
Though they liked the Lab Ship, it was expensive and the mortgage payments could have been crippling. So have some going through what was available, they traded it in for a Type A2 Far Trader. With a Jump-2 drive, and enough cargo space to hold more Jump fuel for an extra three parsecs it would be ideal for pottering around the Islands.
Of course, they also wanted a few modifications to it – changing some of the staterooms into a Laboratory and a Medic Bay for example, and upgrading the computer systems to they could run a few more programs.
They also had a triple turret added – with two beam lasers and a sandcaster, and upgrading the sensors to military grade. We went through the various other sensor options, but though they could be useful if they want to be explorers, they were expensive and took up space.
Along with collapsible fuel tanks for extra long trips, they also had some hidden compartments fitted, just in case they ever wanted to smuggle anything. I was reasonably flexible in allowing them to just sell their shares in the previous ship at cost and swap it for what they wanted, also allowing them to customise it – as long as they paid the money, and it was within the rules, I was happy for them to have something that they’d enjoy flying around the galaxy in.
One thing we did note was that the power supply for the Far Trader wasn’t sufficient for it to run life support and use the jump drive. We weren’t certain whether this was an error, or a call back to comments in the background where it used to be common for ships to have limited power and needing to dim lights and things when making a jump. Since I haven’t been able to find any rules on reducing power to life support, and the consequences thereof, it was easier to add another tonne to the power plant so that they had enough power.
This gave them a ship which had much lower mortgage payments, have some defensive capability and also give them better ability to make long distance trips around the Islands.
Finally, came the most important part of the whole exercise – naming the ship. After going through various Culture ship names, and Monty Python references (And Now For Something Completely Different was a favourite for a while), they settled on It’s a Sex Thing. It was definitely less aggressive than some of the other candidates, and less likely to get them shot at.
Obviously, they also wanted it painted pink.
Today, I’ve spent some time on putting together a crude mock-up of what they have in Blender.
Starting with a basic layout of the rooms from the ship deck plans, then wrapping a hull around it. It’s noticeable that the deck plans don’t really match the hull shape very well, and there’s a lot of spare space (even when I’ve included the fuel tanks in the room layouts). It’s probably close enough though.
The ship will undoubtedly get updated over the coming weeks, as I figure out better ways to design it. Parts of the hull are a bit ugly in the way that they join up, and I need to link the interior rooms to the hull to match airlocks and windows for example.
For now though, it’s a close enough approximation of what their ship looks like. Next week they can decide on who has which room, and maybe decide whether they’re still happy with the name. Then they can go hunting the Deepnight Endeavour.
