Putting Humpty Dumpty back together again...

Wolfen said: In going over the Ares' Ship Specs, I noticed that many of the features that we've added to the ship over the basic Broadsword model had been counted against the ship's overall tonnage and  then added into the cargo tonnage, effectively counting as twice their actual displacement tons. I think this may be why nothing added up previously.  Edit: Straightened this out in the Company Docs. We once again have the correct tonnage and have room for cargo. I think the initial problem is that we were treating the ship as if it had 77 tons for cargo. It actually doesn't. 60 of those tons are eaten up by the two additional cutter modules. The base Broadsword really only has 17 tons of spare space available. The two additional state rooms, luxuries and escape pods totaled 29.5 tons - above the 17 tons available.  EDIT: Initially I thought we still had 4 modules, and I figured that our cargo was in an "open" cargo module. You may notice that  one of the modules has been removed from the doc. Each time I ask folks keep saying that we only have three. I wasn't 100% sure about this, but I went ahead and removed it. So now we have cargo space in the empty "module well". Not sure how it gets moved around. It may have been a better idea to just keep it in a module? 

We do indeed have three. One ATV Module with an ATV in it, and one without (?!), and an "Open" Module that has most of the cargo that we're about to sell in it. The empty ATV Module is on the chopping block, too. Likely, we'll be selling the ATV Module with the ATV as well, and then we can decide whether we're going to ditch the cutters altogether or pick up new modules.

Wolfen said: ... and then we can decide whether we're going to ditch the cutters altogether or pick up new modules. Yeah that seems to be the big question at the moment.  Right now folks seem to want Cargo Modular groove for ground missions Cooler ships to fly around in.  If we can find a way of delivering all of the above I think we're on a winner. 

Yeah, and a bag of chips...

Maybe this will help the decision making process? If it's good it gets a ♥. Best it gets ♥♥. Bad gets an X No different   -  BIG GIRLS BLOUSE IDEA (downgrade drives to make more room) Folks who want cargo ( 25 tons ) ♥ Folks who want modules ( same ) - Folks who want cool smallcraft  ( same ) - NEUTER IDEA (remove cutters. replace with shuttles/fighters) Folks who want cargo (4 shuttles, 280 tons! 70 tons per shuttle) ♥♥ Folks who want modules (no more modules)   x Folks who want cool smallcraft (90t gunships or fighters) ♥♥ OR... (keep cutters, but make shuttles carry extra fuel needed for jump) Folks who want cargo (4 shuttles, 160 tons. 40 tons per shuttle ) ♥ Folks who want modules (still only 4 modules) - Folks who want cool smallcraft ( 4 shuttles, or 90t gunships or fighters ) ♥♥ HUMP BACK IDEA (attach a 300ton craft that holds modular cutter modules. Could also add a shuttle/fighters) Folks who want cargo ( up to +180t in modules, another 70t in shuttle if one is attached. ) ♥ Folks who want modules ( 10 modules all together ) ♥♥ Folks who want cool smallcraft ( 1 shuttle or fighters ) ♥

A few more: ( Vic ) Replace a cutter with a pair of 20ton fighters.  Replace one or both cutters with a +3TL weapon bay (30tons) and 20 tons of fuel/ammo/cargo.  With Neuter idea, replace one or more 90t shuttle with 90t gunship or 2x 50ton fighters. 

So, as your Referee, I have a simple question concerning new refit configurations for the Ares.   Which character is drafting all these proposed changes?  I know that we are toying with ideas as players, but eventually it has to precipitate into the character level who will then put in such a finalized order for the agreed-upon project.  The appropriate skill is Trade (Space Construction), which covers orbital facilities, spaceships and starships.  It's a stickler question to be sure, but one that will validate this entire thread.

8X5 ton weapon barbets will increase our fire power more than 2 fighters

Sebastien has a 0 in all the Trades (except for Salvage, he has 1 in that), so with his Ed bonus and some software, he'd end up with a +5 bonus.

I love Barbettes. Each one displaces 5 tons. The current turrets displace 1 ton. So for each barbette we need to find 4 tons from somewhere. Seeing that staterooms displace exactly 4 tons and we probably have more staterooms than we really need maybe we could sacrifice one stateroom and turret per barbette? The main reason I like the idea of fighters is not really for firepower so much. It's more to have them act as scouts. The range of the Ares' weapons is further than the range of her sensors. So if we had scouts up ahead spotting targets and beaming that info back to the ares we could be pulling out some groovy long range strikes and getting a "head start" on most engagements in space.  The way I understood it, Space Construction skill is really for the actual construction of objects in space using the designs drafted by folks with the Engineer (naval) skill.  Space Construction: Building orbital habitats and megastructures ( Rule Book p59) Engineer (naval) This speciality of the Engineer skill covers the design and construction of starships. ( High Guard p38 ) So far I think we've just been kicking ideas around out of character. In character we could probably be doing the same without any real skill, or maybe relying on our engineering skills ( at zero unless someone has naval ). None of us "in real life" have Space Construction or Engineer (naval) skill but we can still imagine what we need. In game it guessed that it  would be a matter of commissioning a "naval architect" to draft up plans for us. "The architect’s fees are usually 1% of the final cost of the ship." ( p105 Main Rule Book ) Designing an entirely new ship seems pretty tricky though. According to High Guard It's an Engineer (naval) task.  Designing a new class of starship: 1–6 years, Education, Hard (–4 "1-6 years"! That'd take a bit of down time! I guess if you're using a modification of an existing design you're not really "designing a new class of ship"? EDIT: mind you, the list of examples under the Trade skill are just examples. It doesn't include Trade (hairdressing) or Trade (candy fabrication), so it guess it could include a kind of Trade (starship design)? EDIT of an EDIT: As much fun as it is kicking ideas around, maybe the player of a boss character could step up and make some executive decisions concerning ship mods? 

Ok, well if Engineering (naval) is a thing, then Crow would have 0 in it. Time frame for design/respec and construction/refit would probably be a Ref call.

Wolfen said: Ok, well if Engineering (naval) is a thing, then Crow would have 0 in it. Time frame for design/respec and construction/refit would probably be a Ref call. For sure.  There seems to be a basic guide of 1 day per 1Mcr. But maybe you'd have to include the Mcr/day value of stuff you have to remove too?

Stuff it sell this ball and buy a 1000dt strike cruiser hahahah, no cargo lots of bang

as for the extra 40 dton, we could loose 1 cutter and mod, end up with prob another 10 dton cargo. as for scouting out targets for the ares would that be a forward ob's skill or is that skill gone now? i have recon no forward obs. also we still have 1 cutter if we loose 1 am unsure what G's it pulls but i think if if has no modules it would at least get an agility bonus if not a g bonus as without the module its less than half weight.  

Recon has pretty much replaced Forward Observer. But I think in space Sensor Op is the skill we'd want.  Back in the old days ( according to the Classic Broadsword adventure ), a cutter could skip along at 6G if she wasn't carrying a module. If you check out the drive against 20dtons in High Guard, they can travel at 12Gs! I'm kinda thinking that may be exploiting things though.  One problem I have with High Guard is that Maneuver Gs have a TL limit, with 6Gs available at high TLs. (15 I think?). But TL only comes half way into the construction rules in High Guard. The small craft creation system seems to totally ignore TL limits on how many Gs of acceleration are available to a small craft.  6Gs is supposed to be the limit for a grav plate maneouver drive. 

Any idea that has "shuttle" in it could have "Heavy Cutter" in it's place.  Can carry 2x 30 ton modules. A variant can carry a single 60 ton module. Would let us run with Charoux's idea of being able to haul 4 modules in one trip without having to retrofit a 90 ton shuttle. And it looks cool. 

Sadly i dont think it could fit into our beast with out almost building a hole new ship, trying to fit 100 cutter into an area 50 tone( and that looks to be a snug fit looking at all the deck plans.you not only would need to double one of the launch tubes volumes and the the width would be an issue, every deck would need a remap, cargo state rooms fuel tanks, and the the module bays would prob need to be moved around.

OH no no no ... we'd attach them to the outside of our hull using Docking Clamps ( High Guard p 45 ). So the addition of clamps is the only real modification to the ship we'd need to make. That and maybe sealing up the existing cutter wells and using that space for fuel.  You see, our original Jump drive was bigger than a ship this size actually needed. Class M drives can move a 1200ton ship 3Gs and J-3. But our ship is only 800tons. So we can haul another 400tons without any loss of performance. We do need extra fuel to jump with the extra weight though. 30 extra tons per 100 ton Heavy Cutter. Easiest way to get that extra fuel tonnage is to ditch the existing cutters and modules and use that room for fuel. Either that or make each of the heavy cutters carry a 30 ton module full of fuel. 

go to bed lad its almost 2 am

Alby, does Docking Clamps allow for fuel to transfer from smaller ship to larger ship during jump?  Or is it just for holding extra fuel exclusive of jump?  This is a "book says" versus "book doesn't say" issue.  Let us be careful in what we wish for.  I have seen Jump Carriers and Tenders description say there is no transfer from clamped to mother vessel during the docked state.

Also guys, remember what I said about priorities. Artemis is not a straight-up merc or military group by any stretch. We're a business, and we really do make a lot of our income by hauling cargo and passengers. In our experience, space combat is rarely cost effective, so we generally try to avoid when possible.  Don't get me wrong, we like to ready for a rumble in the big black. A big part of what we do is getting important people and cargo to - and through - dangerous areas safely and relatively quickly. Just keep in mind that unless the owners agree to a significant change to our priorities as a company, any option that significantly downgrades our cargo or passenger capacity probably won't fly.

It’s important to note that, while moving equipment around would require ship redesign changes, merely changing cabin dimensions would not . I prefer the idea of rebuilding two quarters of the ship’s hull around having shuttles dock there. The shuttles can be modified to carry our Cutter Modules. That should leave the Ares streamlined enough to do its fuel scooping; at least while we can safely reattach the shuttles, anyway. Worse comes to worse, we dump the Cutter Modules, have the shuttles scoop the fuel, and fill up the Ares enough to limp back to a starport for repairs.

Pakkrat said: Alby, does Docking Clamps allow for fuel to transfer from smaller ship to larger ship during jump?  Or is it just for holding extra fuel exclusive of jump?  This is a "book says" versus "book doesn't say" issue.  Let us be careful in what we wish for.  I have seen Jump Carriers and Tenders description say there is no transfer from clamped to mother vessel during the docked state. Yeah ... I dunno? I assumed that if clamps can allow people to move between ships then they would also allow fuel which seems like a much easier thing to set up. I don't remember reading anywhere about tenders not being able to refuel their ships. Seems silly that they wouldn't be able to.  Refs call I guess? If docking clamps don't allow for a fuel connection maybe we can pay a little extra for one that does? Things like drop tanks show that on some level fuel can be transferred between a ship and a foreign object. Maybe we could take some tips from that? If there's no way we can get fuel to the clamped ships it's not too much of a hassle. It' just forces us to get rid of the smaller cutters for extra jump fuel. The shuttles/hvy cutters would then have to detach and find their own fuel when they need it.  Also guys, remember what I said about priorities. Artemis is not a straight-up merc or military group by any stretch. We're a business, and we really do make a lot of our income by hauling cargo and passengers. In our experience, space combat is rarely cost effective, so we generally try to avoid when possible Fully. If its the guns on that heavy cutter that bother you there is a civilian version with no guns. P11 of Merchants and Cruisers. But cargo haulage is what makes the Heavy Cutter such a winner. Each one gives us the potential to haul an extra 60t of cargo. They can also haul something else if we need them to - like a module with a bay weapon! They could also allow for slightly better haulage than having 4 shuttles if we could have two heavy cutters and use docking clamps for modules. So if we went with the 60t modules instead of the 30t ones we could have 2x hvy cutters with an additional 3x 60 ton modules clamped. That would give us 5x 60 ton modules all together. 300 tons! Maybe we could be hauling 3x 60t cargo modules (+180t of cargo), 1x 60t VIP passenger Module, and 1x 60t "Military Madness!" module.  Avoiding combat is also something that is made possible with good scout craft. Spotting stuff early so that you can take the long way around is really the only way to avoid anything.  EDIT: AWWwwww ... bummer. I just noticed that the Heavy Cutters may not work as well as I was hoping. The Docking Clamp to carry a 90t shuttle weighs 5t. The Docking clamp to carry a ship 100t or more is 10t. So between the Shuttles and the Hvy Cutters we're right on the line between a small clamp and a chunky one. Could still go with it if we juggle things. Just a bummer about needing the heavier clamps. From p 46 of High Guard. Clamp Tonage Max Haul Mcr Note 1 10-30 0.5 Fighters or modules 5 40-90 1 90t Shuttles 10 100-300 2 Hvy Cutter :( 20 400-2000 4 50 2000+ 8   

I'm finally getting around to really going through the Ship Design and Construction rules, and I found this: "Using nuclear weapons near an inhabited planet or orbital is forbidden by Imperial law."                                                                             Main Rule Book, p. 111 Is this the law that people have been telling me means its illegal to own nukes? Because that's not what it says. Or is that somewhere else?

Ugh ... I'm pretty sure it was on one of those grey side pannels. Searching for it now. While we wait, here is something from the old Traveller Library data: One prohibition is clear and firm: use or possession of nuclear weapons, if discovered, and regardless of size or type, will almost certainly trigger Imperial intervention. The Imperium alone retains the rights to such weapons, because of their extreme destructive powers and the relatively low tech level at which they can be manufactured. For similar reasons, certain other weapons (chemical and bacteriological agents, and meson accelerators, for example) are strictly controlled, although they are not subject to the sweeping restrictions placed on nuclear weapons P22 Central Supply Catalog  Prohibited Items Some items are subject to a blanket prohibition. Special permits are required to possess such items and stiff penalties are in place for those who break these laws. In the Imperium, even governments are subject to these laws and must account for all prohibited items. The Imperial Bureaucracy conducts random audits to ensure compliance. Examples: Nuclear weapons. Antimatter power systems. Chemical and Biological weapons other than non-lethals (tranquilisers and tear gas). Starship-grade meson guns and particle accelerators. Electromagnetic Pulse weaponry capable of large-scale effects EDIT: Here it is! P176 Main Rulebook: Imperial Rules of War The rules of war are an accumulation of unwritten concepts established on a case-by-case basis. They have not been officially codified to prevent formal precedent from preventing Imperial intervention. The main aim of the rules is to maintain the economic and military well-being of the realm. The Imperium tolerates the use of force as a necessary outlet for built-up political and social pressures beyond the opponents’ ability to mediate. A short war is deemed preferable to continuing tension, sabotage, political agitation, etc. However, attempts by extra-planetary forces to seize control of a world’s affairs are beyond the scope of the “safety valve” rationale. Recognizing that often some community of interest exists between a faction or state on a planet and some off-planet organization, the Imperium tolerates ‘assistance’ as long as it is deemed appropriate to the level of legitimate interest in the affairs of the world held by the extraplanetary organization. When it has appeared that the primary burden for the conduct of the war has been carried by an extra-planetary power, the Imperium has intervened. One prohibition is clear and firm: use or possession of nuclear weapons, if discovered, and regardless of size or type, will almost certainly trigger Imperial intervention. The Imperium alone retains the rights to such weapons, because of their extreme destructive powers and the relatively low tech level at which they can be manufactured. For similar reasons, certain other weapons (chemical and bacteriological agents, and meson accelerators, for example) are strictly controlled, although they are not subject to the sweeping restrictions placed on nuclear weapons.

Hunh. That's just weird. 

Wolfen said: Hunh. That's just weird.  Yeah I know right!? Darn big government taking away our 2nd amendment rights to own weapons of mass destruction! In one published Mongoose adventure they lump fusion weapons in with the Imperium's ban on nukes. Can't even own an FGMP for home defense Gag NAB'T!

right to bear arms or arm bears,

Question for Pakkrat: I'm a big fan of Tenacious' idea of using 90t shuttles to haul 30t cutter modules somehow. Being able to haul 4 modules at once would be great for both grunty military actions as well as for regular cargo and fuel haulage. Making shuttles modular would be a great way to get more use out of them. It also makes them look like Thunderbird 2. Who doesn't love Thunderbird 2!? So I'm wondering how you'd read this. It's from High Guard p 41 Modular Hull: Up to 75% of a ship’s internal tonnage may be designated as modular, allowing it to be swapped out easily. This tonnage may not include the bridge, power plant, drives or any structural or armour options. Different modules can be installed for different tasks. Making a modular hull increases the cost of the overall hull by the percentage designated as modular Would you say that this option is something that we could retrofit onto our 90t shuttles? Or would it be something that you'd have to add during the design stage?

The shuttles have been sold off. Sorry. We would have to haul them another two or more jumps to bring them somewhere where they could be retrofitted.

Good call. Mkay. Swap that "our shuttles" with "regular shuttles" then. Just wondering if it's an option. 

Pakkrat really isn’t into gearheaded stuff; it might be better to ask if anyone would want to veto it for any reason. If we’re buying new craft anyway, it might make sense to go with the Military Heavy Cutter, and find a way to sink that into the hull. Anything using a docking clamp without a hull modification for streamlining purposes would probably be considered “distributed” while the clamped ship is attached. Anything using a docking clamp with a hull modification for streamlining purposes would be considered “unstreamlined” while the clamped ship is not attached.

Seems to me, Alby, you have a legal concept.  Now , future Referee caveat included, this could be done after significant Structural changes on the Ares, docking clamps, or an entirely new vessel.  As a Referee, I think it's sound, but also tedious to swap out modules and the like. As Gevaudan, the concept is distasteful to him - a speed demon Vargr.  As a Scout ( Courier ), it is a configuration requiring patience and plenty of operational spare time.   Your mileage may vary. I did enjoy looking at that drop ship gunboat.  Gev does like piloting for hot LZ insertion.  Get yer mind outta the gutter, Runt....

Tenacious Techhunter said: Anything using a docking clamp without a hull modification for streamlining purposes would probably be considered “distributed” while the clamped ship is attached. Anything using a docking clamp with a hull modification for streamlining purposes would be considered “unstreamlined” while the clamped ship is not attached. Yeah you brought this up before. It doesn't specifically say so, but I think you're right. Trying to fly around with a large ship clamped onto your hull would be horrible. I guess we need to make sure everything can detach before we try to land? The Ares is already "unstreamlined". So we just need to avoid becoming "Distributed". 

I think it would be better to get the hull mod; I suppose we would treat it as doing a streamlining job that overcomes penalties rather than improving the overall smoothness.

OK, having finally caught up on my homework re: ship design, I finally feel informed enough to make some more substantial contributions to this discussion. It leads me to agree that we should: Dump the cutters Go back up to a class M JDrive Get a couple either of shuttles or heavy cutters w/4 modules Install 2 sets of 100 ton docking clamps for Heavy Cutters or Military Cutters And maybe a single 200 ton one for a hvy system craft or trader or a for a second small starship (yacht, trader, gun boat, whatever) that could detach and make its own way when we pick up clients who have a vessel to be towed. I'll crunch the numbers later and work out the costs and final cargo/fuel numbers. Oh, and I think while we're getting the Stealth coating, I suggest we consider spending another 8 MCr for a Reflec coating (+5 Armor vs Lasers, no mass).

Hate to break it to you, Wolfen, but, per the rules , you can’t have Reflec and Stealth, the argument being, because otherwise they’d just do active-sonar with lasers; at least, in theory . In practice , so long as your hull has one of those “highly angular surface” stealth jobs, as seen on the F-117 and even modern warships, reflections aren’t a problem... at least, without some elaborate multi-point sensor net, like the Darrians would have. Another argument is to apply a layer of Ablative Stealth over your Reflec; sure, when you get hit, it blasts off a patch of Stealth coating, but, realistically, you were losing that anyway, and underneath is some Reflec to keep the ship from taking some actual damage. I would argue that all Stealth coatings are ablative anyway, up to a certain TL, at least... take enough hits, and they have to do the whole job over again. One exception might be my Darrian Guard Armor, for which the surface is bioengineered ... just feed it and water it, and it will be all sneaky again in no time. This is another one of those blasted cases where Traveller hasn’t caught up to modern technology. :P

While Gevaudan has to think on the refits above, he certainly advocates for both Stealth and Reflec coatings.

Damn. Well, if the rules specifically say no, it's not doable. Ah, well.

Re docking collars, Make enough of the hull modular so as to fit the "collars" , dam u cant do the hull as modular. should remember b4 typing hahaha

Pretty sure "structural or armour options" is tonnage used up by things like a reinforced hull or points of armour. This stuff can't go into modular space. I think the collars could be made modular ... but unless we want to regularly change them we probably wouldn't need to.  Just to clarify, making parts of a ships hull modular means you can swap a section of the ships tonnage out with different things. Docking Collars allow you to attach things to the outside of your hull.  So lets just say we made our cutter wells "modular" space. If we had a base where we could swap things out, the space could be for a cutter one mission, for a 50t bay weapon the next, or for fuel the next. Would need a base somewhere where we could store modules though. Not sure if that's really what we're looking for. Having modular space on a shuttle would be cool on the other hand. If the spare modules could be attached to the hull too, a shuttle could swap what module she was carrying each flight. So let's just say a shuttle returns to the Ares with a module full of cargo. She could pull up to the Ares to attach the module to a clamp, float away and attach herself to an empty fuel module, and then fly off to a starport or gas giant to refuel. Or maybe load up a weapon module holding a 50t torpedo bay. Or a VIP passenger module ... or whatever. 

You need to click on it to see it dance. 

na i was thinking it could be retractable docking clumps using the modular rules, but they say the hull cant be modular. I think any major changes like what we are considering might fall under the realms of sell Merc cruiser and buy another ship more in line with what we want to do. And if wandering tours and cargo speculation are what we are doing maybe be a liner, with a 2-300 dt  escort. Major changes take time and and money. also maybe we could custom build it, put order in then com back for completed ship.

Installing docking clamps is a pretty minor thing really.  Making sections of the Ares modular ... that'd be more of a drama. Should probably avoid.  But docking clamps seem like an easy add. 

In order to facilitate this process, I've added a tab to the Artemis Company Docs, "Updated Specs." This tab shows a copy of the main version of Ares Ship's Specs, with comments and inconsistencies noted. If you look at it, you'll see that there are a couple of items highlighted in bright yellow and commented upon. These include a couple of general notes and some issues. The issues are in regards to some extras that we've been acting as if we have, but they're not figured into the ship's cost or displaced tonnage. Unless somebody knows something I don't know, we'll need to either strip these items out, or at least allocate the tonnage as we move forward. We can then add additional tabs with specs for different build-outs of our competing designs, determine the differences in cost, tonnage and  utility and make some concrete decisions. Here's the  Link to the Company Documents .

Wolfen said: Here's the  Link to the Company Documents . WOAH! We have a lot of extra candy there! Love it.  Just a few notes: Enhanced Signal Processing provides a +2DM for others trying to jam us. Up side is that we can spot stuff, down side is we can be made blind more easily.   So with current clamps we could attach 2 ships up to 90tons, and 1 ship up to 300tons. Nice. So a theoretical limit of 480 tons. Going over 400tons reduces our performance to J-2 and 2Gs however.  I couldn't see where the 120tons worth of cutter modules were located. If we can't make them fit then maybe we need to give up on the idea of being modular and go for shuttles? Either that or we will need 4 more 1 ton clamps to attach them to the outside of the hull. I could see external pod bays, but wasn't really sure how you saw them working.  She still only has 312tons of fuel. We're going to need more. As it is means that any craft attached will have to carry their own fuel to help the Ares jump.  To figure out the required fuel, we need 10% of our total tonnage per parsec jummped. So to make J-3 with a full load (800tons + 400tons) will require (3x(1200/10)) 360 tons. We also need 24 tons of fuel per two weeks for the power plant. 

The Cutters and Modules are usually accounted for as two 50 dTon Cutters and two 30 dTon Modules, for 160 dTons total. I think it would make sense to more or less eliminate the Cutters and their Modules, and instead put in two Shuttles capable of carrying two 30 dTon Modules each, some docking clamps, some arms for manipulating modules between Shuttles, and some hull modification cost associated with keeping the Shuttles from making the Ares too “distributed”y.

I was probably still working on it while you were looking. " Enhanced Signal Processing: (TL 13, 2 tons, MCr 8) As for Improved Signal processing except that it has a +4 DM, the range band increase is two and the susceptibility to jamming has been overcome. High Guard p. 45." I think you were maybe thinking about Extended Arrays? Yeah, I was more or less planning on limiting the usage of that larger collar to 200 tons, except maybe in an emergency. I'm throwing ideas around a 200 dTon vessel. Maybe a stealthy Scout vessel that could make its way in its own, maybe scout systems before we go in, etc? Preferably something that could take at least one module in a bind. The Two Fuel Modules will go in the truncated original cutter wells, so that we can use them to hold and process additional fuel (+60 tons), and two modules each will go in two 95 ton Shuttles.  I may have to actually need to trim some of the sugar off, though, unless we want to drop our operational time after a jump down to three weeks.  It's a work-in-progress

I don't think we can reasonably expect to avoid the "distributed" thing unless we throw off all of our outriders before we need to land or maneuver in atmosphere. I was actually hoping that we could pick up two streamlined shuttles (they're not normally streamlined, which surprised me), and let them do our fuel-skimming, or maybe to use that additional 200 ton clamp for some other vessel that can do that job and then plug the module into the Ares' pod bays. To be honest, when I was actually reading through what it meant even to be "standard" or "nonstreamlined" I realized really we shouldn't be skimming in her anyway, and certainly not trying to land her except in an extreme emergency. Technically, she needs extensive facilities and support to re-launch after landing. Pakkrat's been nice so far, the couple of times we had to land, but it's really not something we want to put passengers or even our elder crewmates through.

With regards to the “distributed” thing, it depends on how well the shuttles can be integrated into the aerodynamics of the hull. Obviously, there’s a tradeoff between “either smooth with shuttles, or smooth without”; you can’t really have it both ways, in spite of how they roll on “Agents of Shield”. Pick one, modify the hull accordingly, if necessary. With two Shuttles, we can have one be the “scout-y” one and one be the “gunship-y” one. Not really sure how well doing “Forward Observer” in space works, though. I don’t really see the need of going past 100 dTons or so for scouting in space purposes... The Broadsword Class has landing legs for a reason, so it can land as a big-ass Dropship and spew out troops, with fire support from the turrets... But there’s a lot to be said for doing orbital strikes instead, and using smaller craft to drop Cutter Modules as base-camp units.