Archive for 2026 week 14

• Drive formulas - 30 Mar 2026

I've circled right back around to having formulas for drives, but eliminating the weird lower-left of the Trav drive chart: drive function is linear. And, interestingly, j-drives plus fuel is actually the same size across hull sizes. For instance: Type C plus fuel is 80 dTons. In a 100-ton hull, that gets you J-6, in a 200-ton hull, that gets you J-3, in a 600-ton hull that gets you J-1. (In a 400-ton hull it gets you J-2, but you can drop back to a Type B for more efficiency there.)

• The Drive Formula - 31 Mar 2026

Replacing the drive letters with N of 1-24 (25, actually), and assuming the ratings (R) are the same across the board (a J-6 ship has 6G thrust) the Traveller formula looks like:

• Ship classes - 01 Apr 2026

The only problem with the drive formula is that it's recursive, and I can see why Trav just goes with overall hull size.

• Payloads - 02 Apr 2026

Okay, I have poked a half-dozen CTrav ships into the spreadsheet, and the payload is consistently 87-91% of the non-drive portion of the ship, except for the 100-ton Scout which is slammed by the "bridge minimum 20 ton" rule, and the Mercenary Cruiser, which comes out a smidge high because I think I am interpreting the fuel reserve wrong.

• Payload options - 03 Apr 2026

"Payload" is not quite the right word, since I'm using it to refer to "things the ship designer has options to swap around" and that's going to include crew accommodations. But it'll do for now.

• Welp - 04 Apr 2026

I guess I made a starship design system after all.

• The Zhdez economy - 05 Apr 2026

I've been trying to figure out how (and if!) Zhdez economy works if everybody is just "oh, you need something? here you go" but at scale.