Freelance Traveller - The Shipyard - Classic Traveller Designs

Type AH Express Freighter

When it absolutely, positively, has to get there at Jump-4

Baseline Type AH Heavy Freighter (Traveller Adventure, c. 1980). 5000 tons. Jump-1, 1-G. 510 tons fuel.
Model/2bis. 15 staterooms.
4 hardpoints. Pinnace. 2911 tons cargo.
Streamlined. 15 crew, no passengers.
MCr 985.2; 36 months; CER 2.95.

Transport customers have always paid a premium for speed. Throughout history, there has always been a niche for ships that sacrifice cargo capacity for speed; the most famous were the clipper ships of sailing days (for high-value perishable cargo) and the trans-Atlantic express liners of steamship days.

This "fast ship" tradition has now extended to Traveller starships. These ultra-fast freighters are intended for express service over major trunk routes and/or cross-rift service where speed and range is vital. Streamlined hulls and fast maneuver drives allow surface loading/unloading and cut the time needed to boost to jump distance in half.

Such fast ships are normally subsidized by the government with an eye to commandeering them for use in wartime; because of this requirement, the hulls pack the maximum number of hardpoints for a large civilian ship. All that is needed to convert the ship to an armed merchant cruiser or naval fast replenishment ship is to drop in the turrets and bunk the gunners in the passenger staterooms.

The Commercial Efficiency Ratio (CER) is a relative cost/benefit ratio indicating how well a ship will perform in commercial service. The higher the CER, the more profitable the ship will be to operate.

To calculate the CER for a ship:

Total the Net Tonnage ("revenue space") of the ship in tons, counting each passenger stateroom as 4 tons, each passenger low berth as 1/2 ton, and cargo tonnage as straight tonnage. (Do not count crew staterooms, sickbay/ emergency low berths, or vehicle bays unless the vehicles are part of the cargo; Net Tonnage is only the part of the ship that can be used to carry passengers and cargo.) Multiply this net tonnage by the Jump number, then divide by the ship's cost in MCr.

CER = NetTonnage * JumpNumber / MCr

A CER of 3 is considered minimum for practical commercial service; below this, the ship cannot pay its own way.
If the ship is primarily a passenger ship (passengers pay more per ton), the CER can get down to around 2.5.
A CER of 5 or more can turn a profit even at the common carrier rate of Cr 1000/ton.
The CER assumes that the ship will operate at or near its maximum jump number. Generally, it is not practical to operate a ship much below its designed jump speed.

Such fast ships normally charge a premium for their speed, allowing practical CERs below 3.0.

AH3 Fast Freighter (TL12). 4000 tons. Jump-3, 3-G. 1230 tons fuel.
Model/3. 44 staterooms, 20 emergency low berths.
20 hardpoints. Shuttle (or two cutters). 2126 tons cargo.
Streamlined. 20 crew, 24 passengers.
MCr 968; 35 months. CER 6.7(!) @ J-3, 4.5 @ J-2.

Using a 4000-ton hull, the Fast Freighter is a "shrunken" version of the Type AHL Superfreighter, trading off capacity for speed. It mounts jump drive-Z, maneuver drive-Z, and power plant-Z, giving a performance of jump-3 and 3-G acceleration. Fuel tankage for 1230 tons supports the power plant and allows one jump-3. Adjacent to the bridge is a computer Model/3. There are 44 staterooms and 20 emergency low berths. The ship has 20 hardpoints and 20 tons allocated to fire control. There is one ship's vehicle: a 95-ton shuttle that can be fitted as a lifeboat. (Alternatively, two 50-ton cutters may be carried for redundancy.) Cargo capacity is 2126 tons; the cargo bay is plumbed with fuel manifolds for collapsible or demountable fuel tanks. The hull is streamlined.

The AH3 requires a crew of 16-20: captain, pilot, navigator, 8 engineers, medic, 3 stewards, and shuttle pilot(s); maximum life-support capacity is 88. The ship carries up to 24 high passengers in private staterooms or 48 middle passengers in shared staterooms. The ship costs MCr 968 (including 10% standard-design discount) and takes 35 months to build at Tech Level 12.

The AH3 is also found in military service as a logistics/replenishment ship and/or skim tanker, able to keep up with a Jump-3 task force.

AH4 Express Freighter (TL13). 3000 tons. Jump-4, 4-G. 1240 tons fuel.
Model/4. 44 staterooms, 20 emergency low berths.
15 hardpoints. Shuttle (or two cutters). 1140 tons cargo.
Streamlined. 20 crew, 24 passengers.
MCr 874; 34 months. CER 4.3 @ J-4, 3.2 @ J-3, 2.1 @ J-2.

Using a 3000-ton hull, the Fast Freighter is a "shrunken" version of the Type AH3 Fast Freighter, smaller but with still greater speed. It mounts jump drive-Z, maneuver drive-Z, and power plant-Z, giving a performance of jump-4 and 4-G acceleration. Fuel tankage for 1240 tons supports the power plant and allows one jump-4. Adjacent to the bridge is a computer Model/4. There are 44 staterooms and 20 emergency low berths. The ship has 15 hardpoints and 15 tons allocated to fire control. There is one ship's vehicle: a 95-ton shuttle that can be fitted as a lifeboat. (Alternatively, two 50-ton cutters may be carried for redundancy.) Cargo capacity is 1140 tons; the cargo bay is plumbed with fuel manifolds for collapsible or demountable fuel tanks. The hull is streamlined.

The AH4 requires a crew of 16-20: captain, pilot, navigator, 8 engineers, medic, 3 stewards, and shuttle pilot; maximum life-support capacity is 88. The ship carries up to 24 high passengers in private staterooms or 48 middle passengers in shared staterooms. The ship costs MCr 874 (including 10% standard-design discount) and takes 34 months to build at Tech Level 13.

Basically similar to the TI frontier transport but with twice the performance, the AH4 can take on "deck cargo" in the form of up to 1000 tons of conformal external cargo pods, cutting performance to Jump-3/3-G but increasing capacity to roughly that of an AH3. The AH4 is also used by the military as a high speed troop transport; with modular barracks filling the hold and up to 900 tons of landing craft on an external dorsal rack (cutting performance to Jump-3/3-G), an AH4 can haul and assault-land a reinforced batallion.