Ken Pick wrote a fantastic article for Freelance Traveller talking about using external mounts for cargo ships in Classic Traveller. I make heavy use of this in my own small ship settings. Ken’s rules for external cargo are fairly simple – special attachment points are added to the ship when it is built at a cost of MCr 0.01/ton of ship, and that’s it. I like the flexibility of this, but it does give large traders carrying external cargo a huge advantage: Bridge sizes. Book 2 specifies a ship dedicate 2% of its tonnage (minimum 20 tons) to the bridge and avionics, at a cost of MCr 0.5 per 100 tons of hull.

This means that a 2000 ton ship designed to carry 3000 tons of external cargo carries a 20 ton bridge at a cost of MCr 10, while a 5000 ton cargo ship carries a 50 ton bridge at a cost of MCr 25. Sure, the 2000 ton ship also spends an extra MCr 20 on external fittings, but it gains 30 tons of space!

I wanted to balance this out a bit, without getting too complicated, so I decided that in addition to Ken’s cost of external fittings, a ship that carries external cargo needs to have a bridge sized appropriately for the total tonnage it will carry. This makes small ships with external attachment points somewhat more expensive than a dedicated cargo ship of the appropriate tonnage, which seems an appropriate trade off for the added flexibility.

A cheap and easy example: The Duchamp class Scout/Courier

This is one of my favorite ships from my current setting. This is a small ship, small universe set in the year 2552. The standard 4-stateroom Type-S didn’t make a huge amount of sense, but a Scout/Courier equipped for a more flexible mission did, and this is what came out of that:

The Duchamp class Scout/Courier is an older TL A design that is still commonly seen. Designed in 2448 for long duration missions with little support, the ship is well suited for communications, survey, and exploration work. The Duchamp and all its variants feature large staterooms and comfortable living spaces, as well as convenient cargo holds with large belly lifts.

It’s pretty simple – a Type-S with only 2 staterooms, with the rest of the space as cargo. The cargo bay is split into two connected sections, with the idea that the ship can accept a 5 ton multi-mission payload specific for whatever mission it is on (which can include additional living space, if that is needed for the mission).

The two things to note on this is the addition of the external cargo fittings, and the increased cost of the bridge. This allows the ship to carry a 100 ton external module, reducing its performance to Jump-1 and 1 G acceleration.

The Traveller universe is a dangerous place. Pirates haunt trade routes; skirmishes and wars leave shattered hulls and bodies; and even in the absence of a living enemy, space itself is an unforgiving foe. What happens to the remnants of these losses? Enter the salvager.

What is salvaging?

Salvaging is a potentially lucrative profession relying heavily on luck, planning, and excellent sensors. Being hired by patrons to salvage a lost ship is a classic hook for a Traveller adventure. However, even in the absence of connections, salvaging can be done. Not that it will be easy.

Legality

This is the trickiest bit. Historically (and currently) on earth, an arrangement must be made with the owner of a ship in order to salvage it, typically under a “no cure, no pay” clause. The salvager contracts to recover the ship and return it to the owner, in exchange for money. Even when things may seem clear cut, these contracts may get caught up in court for years before the salvager gets their money.

Things can be looser in your Traveller universe, however. In my current setting, for instance, there are several areas where wars were fought during the past couple of years. The victors were pretty good about salvaging their own losses, but enemy losses can be found. Legally, those are considered free to the finder, though the salvager is required to bring along a sealed, untamperable recorder with which to determine the identity of the ship.

Finding your wreck

It’s important to understand that space isn’t simply swarming with wrecks waiting to be salvaged. Wrecks will cluster around trouble spots: War zones (or areas where wars were recently fought); areas of heavy piracy; areas with dangerous environments. A prospective salvager needs to keep their finger on the pulse of the subsector, so that they understand where the likely wrecks are. This, of course, is a fantastic hook for adventure: If wrecks destroyed by pirates are in an area, then there should be an increased danger of piracy in that area. If heavy radiation around a gas giant sometimes wreck ships that are trying to refuel, then that danger lies in wait for the salvager, as well.

Once a likely spot is identified, then the salvager needs to start looking. Wrecks are effectively running silently, so ships are at a disadvantage when scanning for them. Standard civilian shipping normally has a 0.5 light second sensor range. When trying to find salvage, they will be unable to detect a wreck out past 0.25 light seconds. This is an area where a scout ship operating on detached duty has an advantage – their superior sensors can still detect a wreck out to 1 light second.

In my settings, a ship with civilian sensors that is actively looking for a wreck in an appropriate area has about a 2% chance per week of finding one. A ship with scout or military sensors has about a 4% chance per week of finding one. In 2d6 terms, a civilian ship needs to roll a perfect 2, while a ship with scout/military sensors needs to roll a 2 or 3.

Both the 1981 and 1977 ship encounter tables in book 2 result in ship encounters on high rolls. They are both somewhat vague about how often the roll should happen, simply stating that it should happen when a ship enters a system. Since most starships will go straight to the starport, or another planet, I rule that a ship that remains in space will make a roll once a week. Since finding a wreck happens with a low roll and a ship encounter happens with a high roll, the same roll can be used for both. Third party tables, likewise, tend to follow the same pattern. For instance, I personally am a huge fan of the encounter tables in Zozer’s SOLO – the tables go a long way towards establishing motives for encountered ships, and they provide a wide spread of ships in various situations. The tables in SOLO all generate encounters with high rolls, so I’m still able to use the same roll for finding salvage as well. Once salvage is found, simply determine the ship type randomly – I use the same ship encounter table, and just roll again until I come up with a ship type.

Condition of the wreck

A wreck is a wreck because it’s not a functional spacecraft. However, that doesn’t mean that everything on the ship is ruined. Once I know what sort of ship the wreck is, I’ll roll for each major component on the ship – jump drive, power plant, computer, turrets, weapons, small craft/vehicles, etc – using the following table:

In addition to the condition of the components, I also roll for the condition of the hull. Roll 1d6. 1 = swiss cheese, 6 = wholly intact. This really only comes into play if the players wish to repair the ship and fly it.

Salvaging the wreck

Once I’ve identified a wreck and determined the conditions of its’ components, my players can begin salvaging. Computers, turrets, and the like can all be salvaged in one week, while larger components (drives, etc) require at least a week each. Roll 8+ on 2d6, applying the most skilled salvagers’ engineering skill as a positive DM. If the salvager is alone, apply a -2. Failure allows the salvager to try again in another week, but a natural 2 results in the component being destroyed. Note, too, in the table that if a turret is destroyed, then any weapons carried in the turret are also destroyed.

Normal salvaging of small components (computers, turrets, etc) can be done with the standard toolkits normally carried on a starship. In Book 3 terms, this is the electronic, mechanical, and metalworking toolkits. Salvaging large components (drives) requires a laser cutter to cut into the hull, as well as thruster packs to maneuver the component out of the ship. Once the component has been removed, it can be loaded into the salvager’s cargo bay.

Gear

Laser Cutter: (TL 10) Cr 10,000. A heavy duty laser designed to be powered by a starship power plant. Cased cutter weighs 50 kg.

Thruster Pack: (TL 9) Cr 100,000. A set of thrusters designed to move a 1-10 dton object over short distances in space. The thruster pack cannot move anything quickly. Massier objects may be moved using multiple thruster packs. Powered by integral power packs, recharged from a ship’s powerplant. Cased thruster set weighs 200 kg.

Pay me my money!

Legal salvage can be sold to a shipyard, scrappers, or other resellers of used components. The sale price for components is based on their condition, and the new price of the component. Disabled but repaired parts may be repaired to increase their value, while (at the referees discretion) components may be scrapped for spares to repair similar components. For instance, a beam laser that is salvageable for spares may be used in an attempt to repair a beam laser that is disabled but repairable.

Having a disabled component repaired costs 10% of the new price of the component. This makes it economically unviable to have a component repaired to sell – you will spend 10% of the price of the component in order to make 5% of the price of it. However, a skilled engineer can attempt to repair a component at a cost of 2.5% of the price of the component. Roll 8+ with appropriate DMs, the attempt takes a week. If another similar part is salvageable for spares, roll 8+ to find the parts needed. Failures can be re-attempted at an additional cost in parts.

Selling the location of the wreck

If other salvagers are working an area, they may pay a finder’s fee for the location of a wreck. Depending on the condition of the wreck, its location, and the nature of the other salvagers, expect to be offered between 1 and 5% of the new value of the ship as a finder’s fee. A hull with at least one salvageable drive (not necessarily repairable, just salvageable) should always be worth at least 1% of the new value of the ship. A hull with at least one repairable or operational drive is worth more.

Star system generation in Classic Traveller favors creating shirtsleeve worlds. The majority of systems that the rules generate are the sort of places you can walk around on. Sometimes you need a filter mask, sometimes you need specialized clothing, but in general they are very livable places. This is all very well understood.

I want to talk about some variant rules that generate systems that don’t fall into this pattern. These are rules that I developed for my own games, to fit the sort of maps that I wanted to play around in. In general, I don’t like to see a lot of shirtsleeve worlds. I like to see hostile systems, and I like games that largely occur in space and in space habitats. I’ve been using the Book 6 expanded system generation rules for decades, so all of these rules are based on that. If you don’t have a copy of Book 6, these rules also exist in similar forms in MegaTraveller, T5, etc.

Expanded System Generation

Book 6 provides a set of rules for generating a complete star system, filled with planets. There are a couple of methods of doing this: the Continuation Method, and the Expanded Method. The Continuation Method starts with a pregenerated main world, and generates the rest of the system around it. The benefit of this is it lets you use an existing subsector. The Expanded Method, on the other hand, generates the star system from scratch. There are some statistical differences between the two, the big one being that the expanded rules are slightly less likely to give you a shirtsleeve world. They still do favor generating shirtsleeve worlds, and they fit very nicely into the feel of a standard Traveller map.

Stellar Class Tweaks

Book 6 generates stellar classes for stars, so you might have a class B star that’s bright and blue in a system, or a planet might huddle close to a dim class M red star. However, the same tables are used for both the continuation and the expanded method, and so they are biased towards sunlike stars set up for shirtsleeve worlds. I’ve come up with a variant table that favors the class M stars that are far more common in the galaxy.

Note that this table will never generate class O or B stars. Those are rare, and should be hand-placed.

Atmosphere Tweaks

The expanded system generation rules apply a small negative DM to the atmosphere type of words outside of the habitable zone of their star. However, they still generate a lot of breathable atmospheres all over the system. One of the things I wanted to address is this. Since I was effectively redefining the atmosphere rules, I wanted to make sure I understood what the various atmospheres meant to me.

Vaccuum and trace atmospheres: These are the familiar class 0 and 1 atmospheres. They are, effectively, what they say on the tin. In terms of survival, both effectively require you to wear a vacc suit.

Shirtsleeve worlds: Atmosphere class 2-9. Some of these require filtermasks, some require compressors, some require both. Yet, breathing apparatus aside, you can walk around in ordinary clothes. There is an implication that the temperature is sufficient to allow someone to survive in ordinary clothes, though “ordinary clothes” might include things like stillsuits, cold weather clothing sufficient for Antarctica, etc.

Exotic: Class A. Exotic atmospheres are unbreathable, but otherwise these are still shirtsleeve worlds. You might have to wear heavy insulative clothes to deal with temperatures, but otherwise you can get by with what are effectively scuba tanks.

Corrosive: Atmosphere class B. Corrosive atmospheres require the use of protective suits or vacc suits. Protective suits are closed environment suits with their own breathing systems, and are basically vacc suits for use in atmospheres. I used to believe corrosive atmospheres were literally corrosive – acid droplets in the air, that sort of thing. In retrospect, looking at them from simply a game-rules point of view, they are merely environments which are so hostile that you need a protective suit. The moon titan, for instance, has an atmosphere that’s largely nitrogen, which is not corrosive at all. I would call it a class B atmosphere, though, because it’s so cold that you couldn’t survive on the surface without a protective suit.

Insidious: Atmosphere class C. Insidious atmospheres are akin to corrosive ones, but they will defeat any personal protective measures in 2-12 hours. The surface of Venus, for example, is hot enough to destroy every lander that made it there within a matter of hours. No matter how good your protective suit, eventually that heat will seep through it and bake you. I would call that a classic insidious atmosphere. But imagine a world with a thick atmosphere of hydrogen – a failed gas giant, perhaps. Hydrogen gets everywhere. It will seep through any material by osmosis. An explorer in a space suit will eventually start seeing hydrogen seeping into their suit, forming a flammable mixture with their breathing air. Because of that, I would categorize that atmosphere as insidious, as well.

All of that, along with my desire to avoid shirtsleeve worlds outside of the habitable zone, led me to develop these tables for the inner and outer atmosphere:

Inner planet atmosphere

Outer planet atmosphere

Brown Dwarfs

This is the easiest variant rule to make. The Book 6 expanded system generation rules creates star systems with stars of class O-M – stars that shine by fusion. Adding brown dwarfs allows you to add additional star systems, typically without shirtsleeve worlds. To add brown dwarfs, just decide on a ratio of brown dwarfs to regular stars – anything from 1 brown dwarf per 6 stars all the way to 1:1. This makes it easy to determine which systems have fusing stars and which have brown dwarfs. For the most part, brown dwarfs don’t have a habitable zone, so all planets generated should follow the “outer planets” rules.

Brown Dwarf Stellar Class

Reducing Atmospheres

My current Traveller game sets up a universe that draws a lot from C.J. Cherryh’s Alliance-Union universe, and one of the big things about that setting is that planets with breathable atmospheres are rare. This variant simply says “roll a die for any breathable atmosphere to see if it’s actually an exotic atmosphere.” With my current setting, I made 90% of the breathable worlds into class A atmospheres.

Putting it all together

And lastly, here is a subsector that uses all of these rules. None of the planets have been populated, but you can see how there is only a single world with a breathable atmosphere in the whole subsector, and that atmosphere still requires a filtermask. The rest of the planets either have exotic or no atmosphere, and no shirtsleeve world exists around any of the brown dwarfs.

#Hex Name             UWP       Remarks          {Ix}  (Ex)    [Cx]   N     B  Z PBG W  A  Stellar
#--- ---------------- --------- ---------------- ----- ------- ------ ----- -- - --- -- -- -------
0103 all-0103         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         000 6     FVI VI 
0104 all-0104         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         000 3     MVI VI 
0105 all-0105         X5A7000-0 Ba                                               004 9     GV V   
0108 all-0108         X4AA000-0 Ba Wa                                            003 6     KVI VI 
0203 all-0203         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         004 11    GV V   
0204 all-0204         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         003 7     MV V   
0205 all-0205         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         011 8     LDD    
0301 all-0301         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         020 6     MV V   
0303 all-0303         X5A3000-0 Ba Po                                            003 10    FV V   
0306 all-0306         X5A0000-0 Ba De Po                                         004 9     GV V   
0308 all-0308         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         012 9     GDD    
0309 all-0309         X5A7000-0 Ba                                               014 10    GIV IV 
0310 all-0310         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         003 9     YDD    
0401 all-0401         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         000 1     MV V   
0402 all-0402         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         002 9     GV V   
0403 all-0403         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         000 1     MDD    
0409 all-0409         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         000 1     MV V   
0502 all-0502         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         002 8     MV V   
0504 all-0504         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         003 9     YDD    
0506 all-0506         X6A7000-0 Ba                                               004 10    MV V   
0508 all-0508         X5A9000-0 Ba                                               003 10    MII II 
0510 all-0510         X6A3000-0 Ba                                               003 8     MV V   
0601 all-0601         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         000 4     YDD    
0609 all-0609         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         002 6     GV V   
0610 all-0610         X553000-0 Ba Po                                            005 10    MV V   
0703 all-0703         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         004 10    AV V   
0704 all-0704         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         000 1     KVI VI 
0802 all-0802         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         001 3     MV V   
0805 all-0805         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         013 11    TDD    
0807 all-0807         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         000 1     MDD    
0808 all-0808         X000000-0 As Ba Va                                         021 7     MV V

Ken Pick wrote a fantastic article for Freelance Traveller talking about using external mounts for cargo ships in Classic Traveller. I make heavy use of this in my own small ship settings. It’s fairly easy to do with large ships – loading up the 2000 ton Type TJ with a few thousand tons of external pods – but it gets more difficult with smaller ships. A 400 ton ship, for instance, that can carry 400 tons in pods is easy to make, but a 400 ton ship that can carry 800 tons in pods runs afoul of the Drive Potential Table, because it doesn’t have a line for a 1200 ton ship.

Rather than using Book 5 High Guard rules for ship construction, I wanted to stick with simple Book 2 ship construction, so I extended the Drive Potential Table, adding entries for 300 ton, 1200 ton, 1600 ton, and 6000 ton ships. For the 300 ton line, I divided the 600 ton line by 2. For the others, I multiplied the performance of the “half” entries by two, so 1200 ton performance is based on the 600 ton line, etc. The 6000 ton entry doesn’t include a build time, because it’s intended more to provide a line for a Type TJ with 4000 tons of external pods.

There are some oddities in the table, especially when you get into the heavier hulls, and I didn’t try to change those. They’re part of the character of the original game, and I wanted to stick close to that.