Space travel for the Traveller TTA setting.

 What follows is the STL/FTL rules I created for my Traveller game in the Terran Trade Authority setting. Ultimately I designed this stuff to be as easy as possible to use. Speed abstraction is due to the “I’m not doing that level of math for a game.” rule.

Maneuver drives

Maneuver drives or STL (slower than light) Sub-Light drives are how a ship moves thru normal space.

The Sub-Light drives operate on fuel. Fuel is stored in fuel cells. Fuel cells weigh 1 ton each.

Sub-Light fuel is rated by the hours of flight time 1 ton of fuel will provide at thrust 1. To Calculate how long fuel lasts at speeds greater than thrust 1, take the total hours of flight time and divide by the thrust rating of the sub-light drive to get total number of hours of flight time available. i.e. 1 ton of H3 fuel provides 7500 hours of flight time. At thrust 2 the fuel last 7500 divided by 2 is 3750 hours. Divided by 24 gives you 156 days of flight time.

Fuel Types Table 1

Fuel                    Flight hours             Cost per ton

H3 Metallic Helium	7500	200cr
Cx5 Coaxium	15000	1000cr
Ry9 Rydonium	45000	5000cr

 

H3 Metallic Helium: H3 is a readily available Sub-Light fuel, easily refined and available is just about any gas giant or Starport/Spaceport.

Cx5 Coaxium: Cx5 is only available planetside as the ore is too unstable to ship very far. Cx5 is available at most Starports of Class c or better. Average price is 1000cr per ton.

Ry9 Rydonium: Ry9 is a highly energetic Sub-Light fuel usually only available at Class A Starports and Military/Scout bases within regularly patrolled space. Average price is 5000cr per ton.

*Regularly patrolled space in within a 9 sector radius of Terra.

 

Fuel Refining – A ship may scoop Helium from a gas giant and refine it on board. 1 ton of fuel processing equipment can refine enough to fill a fuel cell in 25 hours. For every addition ton of processing equipment reduces the refining time by 5 hours. A ship under 5000 tons may not mount more than 5 tones of fuel processing equipment.

DeVass Warp Generators

In 1994 Miguel Alcubierre proposed a warp drive, but his idea remained unrealized until 2023 when Henri DeVass made it a reality. DeVass had discovered a way to amplify existing energy generation methods in order for the warp generator to warp space. The DeVass warp generator works by stretching space in a wave, causing the space ahead of the craft to contract along the axis the craft wishes to travel in and the space behind to expand. The Spacecraft then essentially rides this wave inside a region, known as a “warp bubble”, of flat space.

DeVass Generator Table 1

Rating            Tech Level         Wt. as % of Hull    Speed: 1 parsec per

Mark I	17	15	23 hours
Mark II	18	16	15 hours
Mark III	19	18	7 hours
Mark IV	20	19	3 hours
Mark V	23	24	57.3 minutes
Mark VI	25	26	23 minutes
Mark VII	27	28	7 minutes
Mark VII	??	??	???

Tech Level is the level at which the drive becomes commercially viable.

Determining Energy Requirements

Multiply ship’s tonnage by the Generator rating to get total power points need to move 1 parsec.

A ship must have enough capacitance to supply the total amount of power points needed to move 1 parsec all at once.

Capacitors

Capacitors store the massive charge needed to establish and maintain the warp bubble. Discharging the capacitors to the warp generator is an Easy (4+ Engineer <Power> check)

 

Capacitors Table 1

Type	Capacitance per ton
Standard (Liquid Mercury( II) Hydride)	100
Liquid Metallic Hydrogen	250
High Frequency Tritonium	500

Power Plant Table 1

Type                       Tech Lvl    Power per ton

Fission	6	8
Chemical	7	5
Fusion	8	10
Fusion	12	15
Fusion	15	20
Fusion - 3Aj*	16	25
Fusion – Nx*	18	30
Low Yield Anti-Matter* MPhAm*	24    28	500    ????

*3Aj = Ajaxium/Nx = Neutronium

*Low Yield Anti-Matter and MPhAm (Multi Phase Anti-Matter are both theoretical.