Quick Vrusk sketch

While finally doing some other Travellers of the Frontier -stuff (more of that later), I needed to take a break, and felt like I needed some freeform after all that meticulous design work I had been doing. While going through my files for the spacecraft re-design project, I came across some of my early drafts for converting - or rather, re-imagining, the insectoid Vrusk species (as well as the rest of the major alien races) from TSR's Star Frontiers RPG to Mongoose Traveller, and felt like trying my hand in drawing one. I've previously done some miniature conversions of the Vrusk in 28mm scale, and the image is loosely based on those figures. I ran out of space on the sketchpad, and thus the abdomen/leg section is quite a bit contracted here, as the Vrusk should stand as tall as a human.

The draft seriously needs some expanding and editing, but I think I can get something out of this. And I think I might try the other species as well. Yazirian, most likely, as I have the the miniatures for those as well.

Traveller Reskins: Scout. Type S PDF

The finalised version of the Scout, Type 1 can be found from the right sidebar, under Downloads (PDF). The PDF file contains 3 layers, one with the basic plan, one with 1,5 m grid, and one with some definitions. The file is restricted to print only. At least in my computer, the Dropbox preview redraws the file a bit funkily, but the downloaded file seems okay.

Traveller Reskins: Free Trader

Whew! Somehow, cranking this one out took inordinate amount of time. I had a clear idea of what I wanted, the basic shape, the cargo bay that was two decks high with multiple loading ramps, but getting everything mesh nicely took way too many trials and errors. Especially the 'wing' sections drove me nuts, it took maybe six or seven tries to get the shape just right, all the time counting the fractional fuel cell squares on the graph paper, over and over again... maybe I just should learn to cheat, but what would be the fun in that? (And I'm pretty sure if someone would take the time and count all the dTons, the results would be slightly 'off' from what they're supposed to be, anyway.)

But on the whole, this design much moreso than the previous ones made me refine the basic 'blocks' of the layout style. Most of the elements work well enough, and I was able to refine those that did not quite cut it. There are, however, still a couple of 'overflow' issues that have to be sorted before I can do the PDF's exactly as I want.

In my mind, the 'silhouette' of the ship, the side view, is always secondary to the top down design, and I do that one last, when I'm mostly satisfied with everything else. However, this time as I was designing the silhouette, the rear cargo hatch was originally perpendicular, and somehow that made the whole ship look clumsy as hell. With a small angle, it looked much better, but then it had to make adjustments in the original plans as well. I'm pretty sure I lost a couple of dTons there, as well ;-) Also, the 'outcrop' between the rear cargo hatches was originally just that, a design quirk, but only during the side view drafting I realised that it would be a great place for a turret; a place to oversee loading procedures and to keep the hostiles at bay.

It appears that I've hit a snag with the Far Trader plans, and there are a couple of minis that cry for attention, so I guess there will be a brief pause before the next design gets finalised. Then again, if I have trouble sleeping, going through these plans seems to be a good way to doze off, so who knows what my subconscious conjures up.

Traveller Reskins: Seeker Mining Ship

"Oh, that one's easy. Just a slight modification of the existing Scout design." Yeah, right. Making it look good, that was the hard part.

This time, I gave the crew bigger personal quarters, as there really would not be space for a lounge. The drones, well, I can see some sort of struts extending from their bay when the hatch are open, for easy deployment and recovery. And I just had to put airlocks for the ore bays, in case there was need for some manual supervision of the loading. One thing I could not fit into the design was some sort of drone repair facility, but I guess a drone could be brought in from the frontal airlock, and the relatively open space there used for such purposes.

One thing I did for just aesthetic reasons was to slant the walls of the ore bay. Originally, they were more rectangular, but that just did not look right.

Next up: The Free Trader, I think?

Traveller Reskins: Scout, type S

Kicking off my redesigns of the Mongoose Traveller spaceships, here's my version of the iconic scout ship. Now, I know that in it's original incarnation, the scout ship was wedge-shaped, much like the Imperial Star Destroyers, so I did not want to use that. Also, I'm not quite sure what the sublight propulsion of the Traveller ships is supposed to be, but whatever it is, in my book there should be some sort of reverse thrusters, unless you want to turn the whole ship around in order to slow down. Hence all of my designs will have engines in back and front. Sure, there should also be some smaller navigation thrusters, but I guess they are too small to be significant on the deck plans.

Other than the thrusters, I also deviated from the 'standard' plan by making the individual staterooms much smaller, so that I could get larger common area (washroom and a kitchenette) for the crew. I also introduced a second airlock at the bridge, 'cause that just seemed to make sense. The Scout is all about utility and redundancy, and having a second airlock in case the primary one malfunctions was a no-brainer.

One thing that also bugged me about the Mongoose plans that it was not always clear how the decks related to each other. Hence the cut-out section, to show the decks and the vertical shafts align.

Just one final note: These are just the previews, the final files will have grids and whatnot. But that will have to wait until I have all the designs I initially planned to do ready.

Mongoose Traveller: Spaceship reskins

The other day I was re-reading Mongoose's Traveller Core rulebook, and it occurred to me how - well, uninspiring, the designs for the iconic spaceships were. And not only that, but most of them are in a scale that is of little use for a gamer. Also, although I only have the physical book, I've come to understand that even in the PDF version, the plans are in low-resolution raster images, and therefore unscalable even there.

So, here then is my mission: to present good quality, scalable (meaning: vectorized) deck plans of the various Traveller ships. At the very least, my intention is to cover the Scout ships, the three Trader ships, the Yacht and some of the various Small Craft -class vessels: Fighters, Ship's Boats etc. The attractiveness of the designs will of course be in the eye of the beholder, but I at least try to make the designs feasible, interesting and functional. And of course, the designs will follow the numerical descriptions and tonnages of the ships in question. And if I'm able to grok it, I will try to publish each design as a layered PDF, so the grids and legends can be switched on and off when needed.