Through the years the sizes and jump capabilities of Traveller ships have changed, and I feel a lot was lost or just ignored along the way in pursuit of universal design systems that were more percentage and math based than design based.
Classic Traveller
With just Book 2 Starships , the largest jump-6 and 6G ship was 2,000 tons. At 3,000 tons the best you could do is jump-4 and 4G. At 4,000 tons, jump-3 and 3G. At 5,000 tons we can only manage jump-2 and 2G. And this is putting the largest engine possible in the ship. And there were no ships above 5,000 tons.
That is how we started playing the game, and that is all we thought existed in the universe. No ships were larger than 5,000 tons. If a planet went to war, it had to be close to send in larger 5,000 ton battleships, or they made due with a number of lighter ships in a task force.
This was different than Star Wars or Star Trek (it was the early 80's at the time), and frankly, it was cool. We never knew about High Guard, so yeah, we were in for a huge surprise. This was a universe built around the physics that smaller ships mattered, and that was it. It felt sort of like the wooden sailing ships of old, there is a point where they can only get so big before they either get too heavy to sail, or structural issues with wood start appearing and the ship is too heavy to hold itself together. Here, the limits of technology can only do so much and an entire galaxy has to deal with building and exploring with vessels under 5,000 tons.
To go fast, you went small. Large cargo ships were these jump-2 haulers that needed to carry 2,000 tons of fuel and engines and could at best haul about 2,000 tons of cargo for only 2 parsecs. A military ship of that size could only do jump-2 and 2G, so you did not see them everywhere.
Small ships were where it is at. And the players' ship had a chance.
When High Guard came in, 50,000 ton battleships could do jump-6 and 6G acceleration. The formulas were math based, and there were no limits built into the game. We lost interest in the game and went to Star Frontiers, which did have that "larger ships are slower" assumption.
Also, the first edition of the open gaming Cephus Engine has the classic Traveller 5,000 ton jump-2 and 2G limit built in as well.
Mongoose Traveller 1E
The maximum ship size has dropped to 2,000 tons with jump-4 and 4G being the limit of the game's ships. This is actually a bit of a downgrade from classic Traveller in both size and performance. The ships have gotten lighter and a little slower. The engine table still exists, and performance is tied to those standard engines. The M1E version of High Guard goes percentage and allows maximum performance for all ships, so you can have the 50,000 ton 6G jump-6 hotrods (and have little space for other stuff, but it is possible).
Mongoose Traveller 2E
This gets rid of the performance limits based on size and goes to a straight percentage to a limit of 2,000 tons. With High Guard this tonnage limit can go into the hundreds of thousands. All ships can do jump-6 and 6G, provided they pay the tonnage and fuel costs.
The newer Cephus Deluxe also does away with the table of engines and drives, and goes straight percentage for everything as well.
The old size and engine limits are gone, and this was a huge part of the attraction of the original Traveller game for us. Even though High Guard existed it could be ignored, and that base game felt like how we remembered it. With everything so math- and percentage-based, designing ships doesn't feel like working inside tight size and speed limitations anymore, and everything becomes possible. When everything is possible, nothing is interesting.
There Were Physics Here...
The concept of there is some sort of hard-science limit to how heavy a ship could move and jump based on tonnage in the older editions, and without High Guard. There was a sweet spot for ship size and performance based on role in the middle. Not all ships needed jump drives, if a system had a lot of planets you could have a militia with ships without jump drives defending the world and performing space patrol duties in-system only.
But there was a size limit in the original game, basic game only, that sort of continued into later editions before it was dropped. Without High Guard, Traveller was a different game. It was a game we liked better because the ships were not so open-ended. Smaller ships meant something. Often times, they were all a system had to get the job done.
Knight Hawks & Star Frontiers
Only Star Frontiers' Knight Hawks brought this back with G-acceleration of larger ships being slower, and that was fun for us. Small ships meant something again. You could not outrun star fighters in a freighter, they were going to catch you depending on the time, fuel, and distance between the sides. The slow-lumbering capital ships could be out flew and outrun, but they were dangerous up close. Swarms of faster fighters could weaken a larger ship, but it was very dangerous and they had to get close. Assault scouts were the ultimate adventure ships, and could become the subjects of legends. The on-map hex combat game was very fun.
Most importantly, that feeling of space physics was back, not in jumps but at least on the combat map. We would have loved the jump-game to be factored in, but we made up our own rules for that. As a result, we stuck with that game for decades and enjoyed the ride, and Traveller was kind of left in the dust between the stars.
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