Bryns 2320 Ship Design System

Notes: This is really a working document, as I’m having trouble with the rules at the moment. I keeping dtons, and I’m going to ignore mass.

I’m going to allow more leniency in hull design. I’ll stat standard 10m long cylinders and make the same assumptions as NAM.

For volume, I’ll probably round a lot of stuff up.

Always round dTons up.

TL-12 has been stated by GDW staff to be the NM tech level. Ergo I’ve assumed OC is TL-10 and OM/NC is TL-11. I’ve done a few interesting bits with the drives and warp efficiencies and don’t buy into Gerry Harris’s argument due to the fact that the formula is completely different in TNE. I’ve used the TNE formula as a baseline but altered it to fit back into 2300.

Really, given the homogeneity of TL in 2300 compared to traveller, this is more an indicator of availability. A TL-10 MHD Turbine is really what’s currently available on the commercial market, while TL-12 is what is available to the military of advanced nations.

Concept

Select a concept, as per usual.

Power Plant

The most important choice in any starship design. There are essentially 4 methods of producing power:

MHD Turbines: These burn LHyd and Lox to produce power. They’re essentially jet engines with the exhaust going through a series of induction turbines before out the back of the ship, so they also produce thrust (in system thrusters are a simply variant where you don’t extract the energy). Since they are pushing mass out the back they have no issues with any kind of heat build up and so are favoured by vessels which require medium speeds over a long period such as couriers and frigates.

All MHD Turbines require 10 dTons of fuel per MW per week (Note, this is a slight increase in efficiency over 2300, but still well within the possible). Their output is selectable, and the size only dictates the maximum power used. The minimum power output for all MHD Turbines is 0.5MW. Fuel use is based upon the power produced, not the maximum, so most vessels often run at reduced power to save fuel.

Fuel Cells: These also react LHyd and Lox, but are more efficient and more expensive. They don’t have an exhaust and so have some heat build up issues, but they are generally low out. They are much more expensive, more so than even nuclear and so are generally only used when a volume and mass are real issues, such as missiles. However, they can collect the water produced in the reaction and crack it back to fuel using solar power, so smaller long range explorers often use these. Like MHD Turbines, their power is selectable but there is no lower limit.

Fuel cells use 8 dTons of fuel per MW per week (this is a slight decrease in efficiency over 2300) (costs in 2300 NAM are off)

Nuclear: Standard fission plants using Uranium. These are less efficient than fusion, but are much cheaper and the lack of a need for containment means that they can be produced much smaller. Some Manchurian civilian vessels have nuclear plants, as they are much less restrictive, but no one else uses them for civilian applications, being the main power source for small and medium sized warships (those of less than 500 dTons), and the large warships of less advanced nations.

Fusion: Large, bulky and expensive, but very efficient. Fusion plants are only used in larger ships where speed is required or power for the weapons systems. Almost all fusion powered ships are military in nature.

Power Plant	TL	Tons per MW output	Minimum Power Output	Cost per MW output (MLv)
MHD Turbine	10	2	0.5	0.1
	11	1.5	0.5	0.2
	12	1	0.5	0.4
Fuel Cells	10		0.01	5
	11		0.01	10
	12		0.01	15
Fission	8	6	15	0.25
Fusion	11	3	150	0.5

Solar Panels: These catch the energy emitted from the sun and convert them to energy. 500 square meters of panels produces 1 MW in the life zone of a star or nearer. Further out the power produced is less. Divide the distance from the star be the distance of the life zone and square it. Multiply the maximum power output by this number. 500 Square meters of panel uses 1 dTon and costs MLv5.

Fuel Processing Plants: A fuel processor uses 1MW of power (from any source, but bear in mind that MHD Turbines and Fuel Cells will use more fuel than is made). It takes 2 dTons and manufactures 5 tons of fuel per week from water or ice.

Thruster conversions: The above all include basic manouvering jets to alter position, but for interface work or real insystem reaction drive work they must have a conversion. This adds 10% to the size of the power plant (round fractions up) and 20% to the cost. The engine still functions normally but it may also be switched to reaction drive mode. In this mode it produces no real power, and uses a lot more fuel but produces thrust.

Multiple power plants: More than one power plant may be installed, and they may be of different sizes or types. For example, a warship may have a MHD turbine for sustained low speed cruising and a nuclear plant for the tactical systems. Installing multiple plants increases the size needed for both by 10% without increasing their hits.

Fuel Tankage: Is simply designated into the design at this point.

Stutterwarp

The stutterwarp drive is the heart of a starship, and its only means of moving between starsystems. There are three defining variables are its rating (the maximum power it can use) its tech level and its type: Commercial, Basic Military or Advanced Military.

The latter stat requires some explanation. Commercial is the bog standard drive available to merchants etc. Basic Military is the more advanced drives used on cheap military starships and Advanced Military are the top of the line units used on the line ships.

TL and type define the warp variable. The basic warp variable is equal to TL-6, so the earliest drives (TL-10 commercial) had a WV of 4. Basic military drives add one point to WV and Advanced drives add 2 points. So TL-12 (NM) Advanced Military Drives have a WV of 8. This includes factoring out the change from real tons to dTons.

The size of a drive is unaltered by it’s type, and is always equal to the cuberoot of power rating rounded up (so a 150MW drive masses 6 dTons). Before rounding up though you must determine cost. This is equal to the size (in dTons) times:

Commercial: *4

Basic Military: *10

Advanced Military: *17

Crew

Crew requirements are:

Bridge Section: There are a number of shifts on a ship. Some commercial ships may run with only one bridge shift and simply take turns at being officer of the watch. Military vessels keep the bridge fully manned at all times and have multiple shifts.

The bridge personnel are one Commanding Officer, one Navigator, one Communications Operator, one Helmsman and one Computer Operator. Shifts also require an Engineer on the bridge for every 50 MW (or part of) of power plant. Shifts may have additional Communications Officers, and generally have one communicator and may have additional Computer Operators, making upto 1/3^rd of the total Bridge crew. These personnel may replace wounded personnel.

All Bridge Shifts require 1 workstation per person.

Some vessels are squadron flagships. These have an additional flag bridge with 1 Officer, one Communications officer and one Computer Operator per ship in the squadron, excluding the flagship. Vessels operating in Divisions of 2-3 tend to have sufficient comms to set up a combat net between them.

Tactical Action Centre: Armed ships or ships with tactical sensors also require a TAC. In some smaller ships TAC stations are actually on the bridge and are sometimes manned by additional off-duty bridge crew as appropriate.

The positions in the TAC are:

Fire Control: One required for every fire control system (TTA or UTES equipped turret). These people are responsible for controlling a tight beam radar and keeping it dwelling on a target. Actual engagement of the target is automatic and computer controlled, and uses the gunner skill of whoever is manning that FCS.

Remote Pilot: One required for every remote object (missile or drone) controlled by a remote communicator.

Flight Control: One required for every stutterwarp equipped vessel launched from the vessel. Their duty is to keep their flight communicator dwelling on the vessel and so keep it in the combat net.

Sensor Operator: One required for every tactical sensor installed. This includes DSS and gravity scanners.

Engineering: There are three types of engineer required, drive, electrical and mechanical. The ship requires one of each, plus extras depending on power plant size.

Vessels equipped with fuel cells simply require one of each type.

For other vessels use the following chart, always rounding numbers up:

Type	Mechanical	Electrical	Drive
MHD Turbine	1 per 50MW	1 per 40MW	1 per 40MW
Fission	1 per 5MW	1 per 4MW	1 per 4MW
Fusion	1 per 30MW	1 per 20MW	1 per 20MW

So a 25MW fission driven ship requires 1 plus 25/5 mechanics (6), 1 plus 25/4 electricians (8) and the same number of drive engineers (8).

Half of each one of the three sections will be on duty at any one time, and so workstations for half of each section must be provided, rounding up.

Shipboard vessels: Each carried manned craft requires an additional engineer. In addition, crew for the vessel must be carried (or designated out of the existing crew). One workstation is required for the engineer.

Ship’s Security and Ship’s Troops: If these are being carried then one workstation per 20 personnel (round up) is required.

Stewards: It is a requirement that a ship carry at least 1 steward per 10 passengers, and they must have a workstation. It is normal practice for military vessels also to carry stewards, especially if they are to be deployed away from a base.

Science: Any scientists carried must have a workstation. Scientists are those who use the survey sensors.

Medical: For every 30 personnel the ship is designed to carry, there must by one medic, and they must have a workstation.

Small vessels: Vessels such as fighters and landers, meant for short duration operations have a much reduced crew complement. They require cockpits instead of workstations.

A small craft requires a command pilot, who performs all of the bridge functions. Since such multitasking is really impossible they can’t maintain comms locks etc. and the mothership must do this.

If equipped with tactical sensors or weapons then a TAC officer must be carried, one per FCS. Since again multitasking is impossible, once the TAC officer has locked the FCS on a target, they may not make additional sensor scan attempts without losing the lock.

Workstations and cockpits

Each workstation is 0.5 dTons and costs MLv0.03

Each cockpit is 0.5 dTons and costs MLv0.05 (but can perform more functions)

Accommodations

At least 2 dTons of accommodations space must be allocated per person. Passengers pay more for better accommodations, and ships without spin gravity frequently compensate by allowing extra living room. Each extra 2 dTons per person raises the comfort level by one (from -2 for 2 dTons).

Accommodations cost MLv0.05 per dTon.

There are a few ways to generate spin gravity. All add 2 points to the comfort level

Spin Hull: Simply spin the ship around its lateral axis. This requires no machinery (but a ship must be designated as such on design) but causes problems. The gravity is only effective beyond 18m from the centre of the axis.

Double Hull: An outer spinning hull surrounding a non spinning inner hull. Requires basic machinery and a hull over 18m in diameter.

Hamster Cage: This is a pair of counter rotating hulls, at least 18m in diameter, generally set at a right angle to the drive axis (and usually the long axis of the ship). It requires basic machinery.

Spin Capsule: The most common type of spin, the accommodations are one the end of boom arms and spun around at least 18m away, without the need for a broad beamed hull. The size of the machinery is however larger.

Two body spin: TBC (I’ve never used it, and it requires some strange rules)

The basic spin machinery (for double hulls and hamster cages) is 1% of the size of the accommodations to be spun (round up) and for spin capsules it’s 2%.

Spin gravity costs MLv0.1 per dTon of spin machinery.

Life Support: The life support machinery is included in the cabins and power plant, but supplies (food, water, oxygen, carbon dioxide scrubbers etc.) aren’t. 1 dTon of life support supplies provides 500 man-days of life support and costs MLv0.5.

They must be replaced, and this is an ongoing cost.

(Note: SC NAM only included oxygen in its life support, this includes everything at very basic levels. Passenger ships are advised to carry a lot more than this as luxury foods, bathing water etc.)

Sensors

Navigation and Operational Sensors: Ships require to see what is around them and must have at least one of the following sensors installed.

Navigation Radar: This is a whole shy scanning low power radar that looks for objects in the immediate vicinity of the ship. It’s range is less than one combat hex and it is essentially useless for any purpose other than its designed purpose of looking for debris etc. in the vessels path. The ships navigator is also the navigation radar operator.

Navigation Radar takes 1 dTon and costs MLv0.02

Deep System Scan: This is a whole sky looking passive system, and the main way of finding your way around. It can see a planet a 1 AU and spots ships at roughly 1 light minute, making this “black globe range”.

DSS takes 1 dTon and costs MLv0.1. They are operated by either a dedicated DSS Operator, or the passive operator.

Gravitational Sensors: These detect gravity waves. Their range is system wide (150AU+) but they offer no directional information whatsoever. A Grav scan will also detect operating stutterwarps, and their size, but offer no positional information.

A typical Grav scan might return the fact that there a class G sized star, 5 gas giants, 4 planets, 40 assorted low power rating drives and a 200MW drive corresponding to the Kafer warship Beta-21 “Ascension of Glory”, but not tell you where any of them were.

Also grav signatures mask each other, and a ship near a planet is often masked.

The other use is in communications. The only reliable systemwide broadcast comms system is the simple expedient of turning the stutterwarp on and off in a prearranged code. Since it takes minutes for a signal to dissipate, the bandwidth is low, taking 20 minutes to send a standard 3 letter group.

Grav scanners take 2 dTons and cost MLv0.13.

Tactical Sensors: These are active and passive sensors used to resolve black globes into targets, so the fire control system can track them.

Install them from the tables:

Active/ Range	Cost (MLv)	Power Required (MW)	Radar Cross Section
5	0.2	1	35
7	0.3	1	41
10	0.4	3	33
10	0.6	2	0
13	1.0	5	53
13	1.5	4	0
15	1.6	8	66
15	2.0	7	0
16	2.0	7	31
16	2.3	6	0

Passive/ Range	Cost	Radar Cross Section
0	0.1	10
1	0.1	34
3	0.4	18
3	0.5	4
5	0.6	10
5	0.8	0
6	0.4	36
6	0.7	6
10	0.9	38
10	1.2	1
12	3.0	41
12	5.0	10

All take 1 dTon of space each.

Survey Sensors: For scientific use.

Cartographic: 1 dTon, MLv 0.02 for a basic model, 0.03 for a standard model and 0.06 for an advanced model

Life: 1 dTon, MLv0.1 for a basic model, 0.3 for standard and 0.8 for an advanced model.

Communicators

Communicators must be installed, one per bridge communications workstation and one per TAC flight control or remote pilot station (or one per small craft). They take no space, but cost MLv0.1 each.

Hardpoints

Surface area is not directly modelled, but a military hulled ship has 1 hard point per 100 dTons or part thereof. Each turret, missile pack or magnetic sling for a drone or small craft takes 1 hardpoint up. The missile bay (if one is installed) takes up one hardpoint, if more than one is installed, then multiple hard points must be taken up.

Small craft in hangars do not take up hardpoints.

Fighters may mount a “free” beam weapon in their nose, in addition the another in their hardpoint, but this has other limitations.

Ships with civilian specification hulls (see below) only have 1 hardpoint per 400 tons or part thereof.

Weapons

Weapons mounted externally do not take up any space in the vessel, and so add no dTons. Weapons mounted internally (such as jack mounts) do take up space, and also hardpoints.

Fire control systems: These are generally external, and take up no space. A TTA costs MLv0.04 and is independent of a mount it adds 10 RCS points. UTES costs MLv0.2 each and is actually on the weapons mount and adds 4 RSC points. TTAs are more flexible but less stealthy, UTES is stealthier, and mainly used by France and America, although other nations have access to the technology. On FCS is needed per fire control station.

Targeting Computers: These are added to the FCS and add a bonus to any weapon using that FCS. A +1 Target Computer costs MLv0.7 per FCS and a +2 costs MLv2.8 per FCS. They take up no space (being add-ons to the TAC workstation).

Turret weapons: A hardpoint may mount a turret. In a turret may be installed 1 or 2 weapons (of the same type). There are four kinds or turret. External and Masked are the same, but masked is stealthier and more expensive. Jack mounts are internal and use the amount of space indicated on the table. They have smaller arcs of fire but do have the benefit of the protection of the ships armour.

Gun towers are weapons situated well away from the hull. They add no mass, are not protected by armour but do have a larger arc of fire. They are extremely unstealthy, and are often used to mount the larger weapons of a ship.

Type	No. of Arcs	Cost (MLv)	Radar Cross Section
External	4	0.01	10
Masked	4	0.035	4
Jack	3	0.12	10	Internal, uses space
Gun tower	5	0.2	100

The weapons which may be installed include:

Weapon	Type	Damage	Accuracy	dTons for Jack mounts	Price (MLv)	Power (MW)
LL-98	Laser	x1	0	*	0.097	1
LL-88	Laser	x1	-1	*	0.058	1
EA-122	Laser	x1	+1	*	0.105	1
EA-1000	Laser	x2	+1	*	0.174	2
BMZ	PBWS	x2	-3	1	0.212	2
ALS-22	PBWS	x3	-2	1	0.146	1

*1 dTon for single or double mount

Submunitions launchers

These are installed externally (taking a hardpoint) or internally (taking a hardpoint and space), the latter being protected by armour.

Weapon	Ammo	ROF	Armament	dTons if internal	Radar Cross Section	Price of launcher	Price of submunition
LHH-637	4	4	2x4	2	25	0.1	0.8
LL-2	5	5	3x1	1	15	0.12	0.3
Grapeshot	24	6	1x1	3	30	0.23	0.1
Big Clip	3	3	5x2	2	20	0.175	1.0

Missile launchers

There are four types of missile launchers; bays, packs, slings and the cargo hold..

Bays are missile carried internally in automatic launcher. They may launch several missiles per turn, generally about 4. Ships which launch more, such as the Richelieu have more than one bay installed. Bays take up space, and cost MLv0.1 per dTon, exclusive of missile costs.

Packs are external launchers, and have no limit on their ROF. They do not take up space but cost as per the table.

A sling may simply carry a missile instead of a fighter or lander.

Missiles may be launched out of the cargo bay. The vessel must not be warping at the time and it takes a crew of men a considerable period of time to launch the weapon. It takes 5 men 1 turn to launch a weapon per dTon of bay space that weapon would have occupied.

Missile	Bay Size	Missile Cost
Ritage-1	2
Ritage-2	3
EM-1	6
EM-5D	2
AAS-2	18
AAS2B	18
AAS-4	3
AAS-5	3
SR-9	2
SR-10	2
Fantan	3
Glowworm	2
SIM-14	3
Silka	2

Missile Pack	No. of missiles	Radar Cross Section	Cost
Ritage-1	4	15	0.15
Ritage-2	4	25	0.203
EM-1	2	25	0.42
EM-5D	4	15	0.376
AAS-2 and 2B	N/A
AAS-4 and 5	4	10	0.236
SR-9 and 10	3
Fantan	2	25	0.159
Glowworm	2	15	0.12
SIM-14	1	15	0.4
Silka	2	15	0.12

(Note: Investigation into the missiles held per pack showed that some held more missiles than there was room for. The volume was left constant and the number of missiles reduced)

Screens

These are essentially Travelleresque sandcasters. Use the following table

Rating	Space (dTons)	Cost (MLv)	Power (MW)
1	2	1.5	2
2	3	3.0	8
3	4	5.0	18
4	5	7.0	32
1	1	2.0	1
2	2	3.5	4
3	3	6.0	9
4	4	8.0	16
5	5	12.0	25
6	6	15.0	36

Hangars

All craft carried internally in hangars take up hangar space. A cramped hangar takes up 3 times the space of any carried vessels while a roomy one takes up 6 times. Intermediate volumes are possible.

A Hangar deck costs MLv0.1 per dTon.

Vessels may be carried externally in slings (taking up a hardpoint), a sling costs MLv1.

Masking

Vessels must be rid of heat, and radiate through their hull. Nuclear powered vessels generally can’t dump it all and can only run at full power for a limited period of time. Some military ships carry additional heat storage to minimise their heat emissions and enable them to run at high power levels for longer. This is called masking.

There are three levels of masking, basic, intermediate and advanced.

Level	dTons per MW of power plant output	Cost per MW (MLv)
Basic	0.25	0.01
Intermediate	1.0	0.05
Advanced	1.2	0.1

Hull

At this stage the hull is designed. It consists of a number of 10m long cylinders connected end to end in any fashion you desire. Remember, we still need to include streamlining and cargo capacity.

Diameter	dTons	MV	RCS of radial section	RCS of lateral section
3	5	1	7	30
6	20	2	28	60
9	45	3	64	90
12	80	4	113	120
15	125	5	177	150
18	180	6	254	180
21	245	7	346	210
24	360	8	452	240
27	405	9	573	270
30	600	10	707	300

The hull does consume space. Add together the MV of all the hull segments (which is measured approximately in 100 square meter units) and multiply by the material modifier below. This is the space taken for a reinforced military hull. Civilian vessels do not reinforced hulls and their hulls take up half of this space (but have only a quarter of the hull hits).

Cost is worked out from the space taken.

Material	Material Multiplier	Signature Multiplier	Cost per dTon
Metal	2.0	1.0	0.5
OC Synthetic	1.0	0.6	1.0
OM/NC Synthetic	0.75	0.3	2.0
NM Synthetic	0.4	0.1	3.0
OM/NC Composite	0.4	0.6	3.0
NM Composite	0.25	0.2	4.0

(Note on “armour” – this version does not include armour, but allows additional hull reinforcement which increases structural integrity)

Streamlining

Partial streamlining (“as shuttle”) consumes 5% of the hulls space and increases the cost of the hull by 10%.

Full streamlining (“as spaceplane”) consumes 10% of the hulls space and increases the cost of the hull by 20%.

Cargo

Any remaining hull space may be designated cargo space at a negligible cost. Each dTon of cargo space normally carries about 4 real tons of cargo.

EVALUATION

In this stage 2320 statistics are generated.

Heat Stress

Divide the material value of the hull by 6. This is how many MW of waste heat the hull can bleed off and so hence the sustained operating power of any non-MHD ship. Ships with masking may store heat. Each dTon of masking can store 10MW-turns of heat.

The ship itself adds extra storage. Divide the ships size (in dTons) by 100. This is the ships heat factor. This many MW-turns not stored or radiated raises the ships temperature by 1 degree.

Warp Efficiency

Take the cuberoot of the power to the drive divided by the ships size (in dTons), and multiply by the Warp Variable. Do this for any obvious operating power levels.

Reflected Signature

Take the radial RCS of the largest section and add the sum of any fixture RCS and compare to the table below. Remember to account for any sections which are not in the main hull such as spin arms by adding their RCS too.

Take the sum of the lateral RCS of all the sections and add the sum of any fixture RCS. Compare to the table below.

Points	Signature
1	7
2	26
3	63
4	124
5	215
6	342
7	511
8	728
9	999
10	1330
11	1727
12	2196
13	2743
14	3374
15	4095
16	4912
17	5831
18	6858
19	7999
20	9260

Radiated Signature

Take the power plant output at various levels and compare to the table below:

MW	Signature
1	1
2	2
3	3
10	4
30	5
100	6
300	7
1000	8