The Armstrong Class Void Scout (or 'Void Skippers'), was used extensively in the early to mid Frontier Wars era. Before the advent of Jump 3 technology, these little scouts probed J-3 and J-4 systems, carrying enough fuel to make 2 consecutive J-2's in a row, wilderness refuel, survey a system or spy out fleet movements, then carry on before anyone's the wiser.
In times of war they were often deployed in 'feints', stirring up a system's defenses before jumping to a different locale. Because they could enter a system and get their bearings, and jump out as soon as an exit referent could be resolved. The ability to scoop and refine all fuel within 12 hours also made them one of the fastest turnaround elements of the late 22nd century Terran Navy. Their only limiting factor was their overall expense - with near the best computer systems for the tech of the time, though these assets increased the survivability of the Armstrongs, offsetting the expense considerably.
Map Key
1. Gunnery Node - includes Missile storage forward, the triple missile rack itself, a manual gunnery station, and the ship's central elevator. Early engagements resulting in the extensive missile magazine being hit and destroying the whole scout outright, while rare, did lead to a laser based variant - sacrificing most of the cargo deck to a dedicated powerplant and the resulting fuel required to power the weapon system. Only a handful of this variant were ever built - while the ship isn't exactly economic enough for merchanting, the extra cargo -does- become a necessity when these ships go deep behind enemy territory, for extra food, spare parts, and other elements enabling a mission to be extended. One Armstrong, deployed at the outset of the 4th Interstellar War, the Huntington, managed to map gather intel as deep as Zarushagar, not returning until the tail end of the 5th Interstellar War.
2. Bridge
3. Computer Backup Access
4. Common Room
5. through 8. Crew Staterooms. Several scouts assigned to fleet courier duty have combined 5 and 6 into a single large stateroom for the convenience of high ranking officers being relocated to or from fleet elements.
9. Ship's locker. Just outside is access to the cargo deck, and across from the locker is the ship's elevator.
10. Port Engineering. The ship's third Computer Backup is located here.
11. Starboard Engineering. Several crews have reported peculiarities with the Armstrong's starboard - sounds, shadows, odd feelings of unease, that have led to stories of gremlins or the ghost of the Architect haunting his creations. Investigations over the years have reported that as the port engineering tends to get more attention overall due to several important backups being present, the starboard engines tend to get slightly 'out of tune'. Its generally not enough to notice outright, but to the ears of trained engineers, it seems to have led to feelings of unease giving rise to superstitions. A properly tuned Armstrong after an annual overhaul is properly 'purged' of this phenomenon.
12. Jump Drive.
13. Cargo Bay - complete with extendable ramp. Some crews, especially forward observer mission specialists, will sometimes put extra vehicles in the cargo bay - motorcycles and other small off road personal vehicles were the most popular. A few captains with discretionary 'detatched' missions have even been known to do a little speculative trade. The ship's stealth capabilities have even allowed the Armstrong to function as a blockade runner on occasion, delivering a modest amount of supplies posts and positions behind enemy lines. Small science missions will sometimes be assigned an Armstrong by the Terran Navy, and will often carry prefab bases and portable laboratories.
14. Cargo Lock. Blast doors on either side separate this corridor from the vehicle and cargo bays, allowing it to function as an airlock if necessary. Some more lax crews travel with the doors both open by default, just to be able to load the back end of vehicles directly from the cargo bay easier, though this goes against Naval regulation.
15. Vehicle Bay - complete with extendable ramp. Most Armstrongs saw extensive use of wheeled or tracked auxiliary vehicles for exploration/excursion/courier work.
Void Skipping and Void Outposts
Though the Vilani eventually became aware of these ships and their tactics (and detested them), very little was done to counter them other than expend resources to guard all possible gas giants within their known areas of operation - a tactic that quickly becomes untenable for proper force distribution.
Less well known, if at all, was the extensive use (and original purpose) of the Armstrong for jumping to empty regions of space and powering down everything but life support and sensors for a good two or three weeks, then jumping back to refuel and repeat the process. Via this method, tens of thousands of deep space objects were located, their trajectories mapped, and later directly jumped to by an Armstrong for assessment.
Icy bodies were major Naval finds, setting up deep space refueling depots where strategically advantageous or where necessary to expand -away- from the Vilani altogether, toward the rim. Deep space refueling stations were given 'chain designations', such as 'Blackout Base 4' (Hanstone Hex 2608), Blackout Base 5 (Hanstone Hex 2415) or 'Slumber Base 2' (In Aldebaran Sector) with the number afterward being the link distance out from Terra. These refueling bases allowed Jump 2 ships of that time to travel much farther than would be possible otherwise, all thanks to the deep space surveying of hundreds of Armstrongs over many decades.
Blackout Bases extended well past any concerted effort to actually colonize - they were kept as 'back doors' in the case of a Vilani overrun of Terran civilization. Though considered 'top secret' for decades, a few institutions made use of them for special projects or even secret Terran Civ colonies, with the blessing the Terran Navy.
Well before the Long Night fell, even before the Rule of Man came into existence, most of these Void outposts had been long abandoned - the focus of expansion had turned strongly toward the core and established worlds with existing populations and infrastructure - the crumbling Vilani Imperium, making the bases both unnecessary and uneconomical to maintain.
Location references were taken from https://www.travellermap.com, though this map reflects the area some three millenia -after- the Armstrong scouts were actively used.
Just something I've been doing for my gaming campaign, posting here and on Citizens of the Imperium galleries.
In times of war they were often deployed in 'feints', stirring up a system's defenses before jumping to a different locale. Because they could enter a system and get their bearings, and jump out as soon as an exit referent could be resolved. The ability to scoop and refine all fuel within 12 hours also made them one of the fastest turnaround elements of the late 22nd century Terran Navy. Their only limiting factor was their overall expense - with near the best computer systems for the tech of the time, though these assets increased the survivability of the Armstrongs, offsetting the expense considerably.
Map Key
1. Gunnery Node - includes Missile storage forward, the triple missile rack itself, a manual gunnery station, and the ship's central elevator. Early engagements resulting in the extensive missile magazine being hit and destroying the whole scout outright, while rare, did lead to a laser based variant - sacrificing most of the cargo deck to a dedicated powerplant and the resulting fuel required to power the weapon system. Only a handful of this variant were ever built - while the ship isn't exactly economic enough for merchanting, the extra cargo -does- become a necessity when these ships go deep behind enemy territory, for extra food, spare parts, and other elements enabling a mission to be extended. One Armstrong, deployed at the outset of the 4th Interstellar War, the Huntington, managed to map gather intel as deep as Zarushagar, not returning until the tail end of the 5th Interstellar War.
2. Bridge
3. Computer Backup Access
4. Common Room
5. through 8. Crew Staterooms. Several scouts assigned to fleet courier duty have combined 5 and 6 into a single large stateroom for the convenience of high ranking officers being relocated to or from fleet elements.
9. Ship's locker. Just outside is access to the cargo deck, and across from the locker is the ship's elevator.
10. Port Engineering. The ship's third Computer Backup is located here.
11. Starboard Engineering. Several crews have reported peculiarities with the Armstrong's starboard - sounds, shadows, odd feelings of unease, that have led to stories of gremlins or the ghost of the Architect haunting his creations. Investigations over the years have reported that as the port engineering tends to get more attention overall due to several important backups being present, the starboard engines tend to get slightly 'out of tune'. Its generally not enough to notice outright, but to the ears of trained engineers, it seems to have led to feelings of unease giving rise to superstitions. A properly tuned Armstrong after an annual overhaul is properly 'purged' of this phenomenon.
12. Jump Drive.
13. Cargo Bay - complete with extendable ramp. Some crews, especially forward observer mission specialists, will sometimes put extra vehicles in the cargo bay - motorcycles and other small off road personal vehicles were the most popular. A few captains with discretionary 'detatched' missions have even been known to do a little speculative trade. The ship's stealth capabilities have even allowed the Armstrong to function as a blockade runner on occasion, delivering a modest amount of supplies posts and positions behind enemy lines. Small science missions will sometimes be assigned an Armstrong by the Terran Navy, and will often carry prefab bases and portable laboratories.
14. Cargo Lock. Blast doors on either side separate this corridor from the vehicle and cargo bays, allowing it to function as an airlock if necessary. Some more lax crews travel with the doors both open by default, just to be able to load the back end of vehicles directly from the cargo bay easier, though this goes against Naval regulation.
15. Vehicle Bay - complete with extendable ramp. Most Armstrongs saw extensive use of wheeled or tracked auxiliary vehicles for exploration/excursion/courier work.
Void Skipping and Void Outposts
Though the Vilani eventually became aware of these ships and their tactics (and detested them), very little was done to counter them other than expend resources to guard all possible gas giants within their known areas of operation - a tactic that quickly becomes untenable for proper force distribution.
Less well known, if at all, was the extensive use (and original purpose) of the Armstrong for jumping to empty regions of space and powering down everything but life support and sensors for a good two or three weeks, then jumping back to refuel and repeat the process. Via this method, tens of thousands of deep space objects were located, their trajectories mapped, and later directly jumped to by an Armstrong for assessment.
Icy bodies were major Naval finds, setting up deep space refueling depots where strategically advantageous or where necessary to expand -away- from the Vilani altogether, toward the rim. Deep space refueling stations were given 'chain designations', such as 'Blackout Base 4' (Hanstone Hex 2608), Blackout Base 5 (Hanstone Hex 2415) or 'Slumber Base 2' (In Aldebaran Sector) with the number afterward being the link distance out from Terra. These refueling bases allowed Jump 2 ships of that time to travel much farther than would be possible otherwise, all thanks to the deep space surveying of hundreds of Armstrongs over many decades.
Blackout Bases extended well past any concerted effort to actually colonize - they were kept as 'back doors' in the case of a Vilani overrun of Terran civilization. Though considered 'top secret' for decades, a few institutions made use of them for special projects or even secret Terran Civ colonies, with the blessing the Terran Navy.
Well before the Long Night fell, even before the Rule of Man came into existence, most of these Void outposts had been long abandoned - the focus of expansion had turned strongly toward the core and established worlds with existing populations and infrastructure - the crumbling Vilani Imperium, making the bases both unnecessary and uneconomical to maintain.
Location references were taken from https://www.travellermap.com, though this map reflects the area some three millenia -after- the Armstrong scouts were actively used.
Just something I've been doing for my gaming campaign, posting here and on Citizens of the Imperium galleries.
Category All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 785 x 1024px
File Size 244.3 kB
Well, been sketching out deckplans with varying detail for ages, way back since when I thought Star Frontiers was the only Scifi RPG out there - (I made some -ridiculous- ships back then, both in scale and pointless exuberant over-complication).
So, I'd had a lotta practice by the time I got my first 'little black books' of Traveller. The original Traders and Gunboats for Traveller had the biggest influence on the practicality (and sometimes intentional impracticality for design quirks and 'character') of ship layout.
Megatraveller, and really anything by Digest Group Publications, got me into appreciating all the little nurnies and components that might be neat to know where they are. In TV or in the movies, location of important components happens where necessary for dramatic purposes, but tabletop, a lot of players like to know where stuff actually is - to gage how far it is from their stateroom, from the weapons locker, from the airlock, etc, in case stuff goes wrong. The narrative is different, and deckplans like these help.
So, I'd had a lotta practice by the time I got my first 'little black books' of Traveller. The original Traders and Gunboats for Traveller had the biggest influence on the practicality (and sometimes intentional impracticality for design quirks and 'character') of ship layout.
Megatraveller, and really anything by Digest Group Publications, got me into appreciating all the little nurnies and components that might be neat to know where they are. In TV or in the movies, location of important components happens where necessary for dramatic purposes, but tabletop, a lot of players like to know where stuff actually is - to gage how far it is from their stateroom, from the weapons locker, from the airlock, etc, in case stuff goes wrong. The narrative is different, and deckplans like these help.
Very, very nice little Scout variant. I should show this to my Star Wars Saga refs; my character in our Old Republic game served with the era's equivalent of the Traveller Scout Corps, and that kind of jump-to-nowhere-and-listen duty you describe is exactly what he was doing before he got pulled into the Plot.
I may have asked this before, but what Traveller edition are you using? I fear I really only know Classic Trav/High Guard and GURPS Traveller ship-building.
I may have asked this before, but what Traveller edition are you using? I fear I really only know Classic Trav/High Guard and GURPS Traveller ship-building.
That's way too cool :>
I'm using -mostly- Megatraveller rules (ship design, combat, task roll system), but I have smatterings of Mongoose, T4, GURPS (mostly for reference) and Classic Traveller stuff popping up where appropriate. I'm pretty fast and loose with the rules - my current players barely bother to learn any of them anyways - they're just there for the story.
I'm currently running a game set in the era of this ship (2182 AD - during the Interstellar Wars era), but the second game (on hiatus, but coming back as soon as this one winds down somewhat), is set in 1100 in Foreven sector - meant to be a Skiltaire's eye view of the politics of the frontier colonies beyond the Spinward Marches, the lead up to the Fifth Frontier War, and an attempt to carve out a little buffer zone that Impies and the Zhos won't feel obliged to fight within.
I'm using -mostly- Megatraveller rules (ship design, combat, task roll system), but I have smatterings of Mongoose, T4, GURPS (mostly for reference) and Classic Traveller stuff popping up where appropriate. I'm pretty fast and loose with the rules - my current players barely bother to learn any of them anyways - they're just there for the story.
I'm currently running a game set in the era of this ship (2182 AD - during the Interstellar Wars era), but the second game (on hiatus, but coming back as soon as this one winds down somewhat), is set in 1100 in Foreven sector - meant to be a Skiltaire's eye view of the politics of the frontier colonies beyond the Spinward Marches, the lead up to the Fifth Frontier War, and an attempt to carve out a little buffer zone that Impies and the Zhos won't feel obliged to fight within.
Hot damn, this is nice. Have I ever told you that I love you forever? D:?
Detail is fantastic. Fabulous. It's good to see another who puts so much work, effort, and quality into their projects and designs.
Though I'm not running a game myself, I've gotten into Battletech sourcebooks, and then took up working on a fictional world involving mechanoids, skirmishes, and character drama. Though don't think I'm at your point of refining and detailing (envious D: ), I've been having fun doing skematics and such for the things that appear in my (prototype) works.
Very, very impressed with the detailing put into the "complete package" here, if you will. You have the illustration, a layout of the ship, a listing of its parts and systems, description of the layout, and a historical background of sorts.
Very, very, VERY awesome jazz.
Detail is fantastic. Fabulous. It's good to see another who puts so much work, effort, and quality into their projects and designs.
Though I'm not running a game myself, I've gotten into Battletech sourcebooks, and then took up working on a fictional world involving mechanoids, skirmishes, and character drama. Though don't think I'm at your point of refining and detailing (envious D: ), I've been having fun doing skematics and such for the things that appear in my (prototype) works.
Very, very impressed with the detailing put into the "complete package" here, if you will. You have the illustration, a layout of the ship, a listing of its parts and systems, description of the layout, and a historical background of sorts.
Very, very, VERY awesome jazz.
Nice! She's a sleek little beauty, mind if I take her for a spin? ;)
I looked at her, and thought there were some Vargr stylings, but she's a Terran ship? The Interstellar Wars are a fun period of the background; I love the GURPS:T supplement that covers them. My only problem is having to pick one theme for a game!
I looked at her, and thought there were some Vargr stylings, but she's a Terran ship? The Interstellar Wars are a fun period of the background; I love the GURPS:T supplement that covers them. My only problem is having to pick one theme for a game!
Its Traveller tech, so basically once you're at least 100 diameters from a gravity source, your navigator (or system or program) plots your target destination. Your engineering team coordinates (if its a big enough ship), and you rev up the Jump Drive - which is a combination lanthanum grid built through the skin of the ship, and a high power, super-fast fusion drive variant that burns insane amounts of fuel in a very short amount of time, stores the 'patterned energy' in Zucchai crystals (this always sounded like Dilithium to me) until everything's perfectly synched, then distributes the energy throughout the lanthanum grid.
If the calc is correct, your ship kinda looks like its Tron de-rezzing as the grid glows up and laces about the skin of your ship. There's an increased burst of light, then the ship dissappears (vantage point of an external watcher) like an old style TV - compressing down to a single point of light.
From the inside, you've folded into one of at least 36 dimensions of Jump Space - each one representing about a parsec's worth of total distance the jump can bridge. In Traveller, various tech levels breach jumps 1 through 6 - higher tech levels though don't seem capable of breaking the J-6 limit. The other dimensions of jumpspace can only be reached by accidentally mis-jumping - from using unrefined fuel, from getting the calc really wrong, from unmaintained jump drives, or from battle damage compromising the ship's grid being the most common cause.
In anycase, a regular jump always takes about a week, during which your ship is in a pocket of ripply grey dimensional space just a little bigger than the ship itself. Staring at it tends to drive people a little crazy, so most ships that have viewports LCD them out, or use shutters or something to keep from being disturbed by that grey 'nothing'. Leaving the ship is ill advised in jumpspace. Leaving jumpspace before the field spits you out is technically impossible, though GURPS Traveller added 'jump shadows', which are essentially the gravity shadows thrown by intervening bodies directly between you and your target - though this could lead to all kinds of workarounds to the canon system - ie. targetting another starsystem, but intersecting a local moon or something in the path and getting around the time-restriction, etc, by precipitating out locally and earlier - Most GM's rule that jumpspace itself ignores gravity wells, its the getting -into and coming out of- jumpspace that counts.
Misjumps can also be ~temporal~ as well as distance, with shorter or longer durations spent in jumpspace, and the initial lurch of folding into jumpspace will usually be an indicator that something's wrong - the harder the lurch, or the sicker your passengers get from the fold being 'wrong', the worse the effects of misjump.
If the calc is correct, your ship kinda looks like its Tron de-rezzing as the grid glows up and laces about the skin of your ship. There's an increased burst of light, then the ship dissappears (vantage point of an external watcher) like an old style TV - compressing down to a single point of light.
From the inside, you've folded into one of at least 36 dimensions of Jump Space - each one representing about a parsec's worth of total distance the jump can bridge. In Traveller, various tech levels breach jumps 1 through 6 - higher tech levels though don't seem capable of breaking the J-6 limit. The other dimensions of jumpspace can only be reached by accidentally mis-jumping - from using unrefined fuel, from getting the calc really wrong, from unmaintained jump drives, or from battle damage compromising the ship's grid being the most common cause.
In anycase, a regular jump always takes about a week, during which your ship is in a pocket of ripply grey dimensional space just a little bigger than the ship itself. Staring at it tends to drive people a little crazy, so most ships that have viewports LCD them out, or use shutters or something to keep from being disturbed by that grey 'nothing'. Leaving the ship is ill advised in jumpspace. Leaving jumpspace before the field spits you out is technically impossible, though GURPS Traveller added 'jump shadows', which are essentially the gravity shadows thrown by intervening bodies directly between you and your target - though this could lead to all kinds of workarounds to the canon system - ie. targetting another starsystem, but intersecting a local moon or something in the path and getting around the time-restriction, etc, by precipitating out locally and earlier - Most GM's rule that jumpspace itself ignores gravity wells, its the getting -into and coming out of- jumpspace that counts.
Misjumps can also be ~temporal~ as well as distance, with shorter or longer durations spent in jumpspace, and the initial lurch of folding into jumpspace will usually be an indicator that something's wrong - the harder the lurch, or the sicker your passengers get from the fold being 'wrong', the worse the effects of misjump.
FA+

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