Lore and Legends of the Dezzyverse

She’s Fast Enough for You, Old Man.

Traveller and Star Wars both came out in 1977. It took very little time for players to design all the ships in Traveller stats. Book 5: High Guard was published in 1980, the same year that Empire Strikes Back was released into theaters. And the adaptation of starships from that Galaxy Far, Far Away “made the jump to Lightspeed” (to misuse and abuse the famous quote.) For 50 years, there have been countless versions of the Millenium Falcon designed. Just look at the Empress Marava A2 Far trader design. Point being, what I’m doing in this essay ain’t nothin’ new.

My idea is not to build a smuggling ship from the ground up. Instead, I’m refitting an Empress Marava A2 Far Trader to fit the description of the Millenium Falcon as Han Solo brags about her. Thus, all the misplaced Star Wars quotes. There will be more.

I’ve Made a few Special Modifications Myself

This ship is not a Trader, as Traveller defines “Trader”, we’re sacrificing almost all the Cargo Space for bigger engines, some Armor, and Hull modifications. The logic is that this ship mainly smuggles contraband and takes on passengers. If it tried to operate on a legal trade, it just doesn’t have the room to deliver the cargo volume to break even (to say nothing about turning a profit).

The key to a smuggler is the Concealed Compartment. But it’s limited to 5% of the Ship’s Hull tonnage, in this case 10 tons. Added to that is Enhanced Stealth built into the Hull and a Grav Screen. Contraband can slip past most checkpoints, a Streamlined hull allows her to land planetside to deliver her cargo while minimizing risk of interdiction or a customs inspection.

She’ll Make Point Five Past Lightspeed

The biggest refit is in the drives. I’m interpreting “point five past lightspeed” as an increased Jump distance, in this case, Jump 3. Han also mentions that the Falcon can outrun Cruisers, and not the locals, but the “big Correllean Ships”. For this, I started comparing the Maneuver Drives of cruisers in High Guard. Maeuver 6 seems like the speed we’re looking for. This allows the smuggler to outrun and outmaneuver most military ships, which gives her the ability to run out to minimum Jump Distance. Or speed in-system before Patrol Corvette’s can effectively react.

Jump 3 lets the ship cross 1.5 times the distance of a standard Far Trader, and 3 times the distance of a standard Free Trader. When smuggling, this extends the reach of black markets deeper into the regions. The footprint of the market can reach consumers that would take unmodified traders weeks to reach, even the larger traders like the Type R Subsidized Merchant. This refit can reach places hard-to-get-to by normal ships in the same class.

Compromises Must Be Made

This refit makes the ship very specialized. As mentioned, with 10 tons of cargo, it can’t turn a legal profit. Between the Drive upgrades and the increased Fuel capacity, 35 tons of cargo space had to be filled. Adding Armor, Improved Sensors and a Grav Screen takes up another 14 tons of cargo. 2 Standard Staterooms and the Loading Ramp were removed. With the small amount of space left over a Gaming Space for 4 people and an extra ton of Common Area was added (you know, just in case anyone wanted to pass the time in Jump Space playing holo-battle-chess or practicing with a lightsaber.) The small Fuel Processor (40 ton/day capacity) and the 4 Low Berths were retained.

The refit is made at TL 12 so to keep the options to repair and maintain her as open as broad as possible. Furthermore, an A2 Far Trader coming into port sporting TL 12 components draws less curiosity and attention than one that has been refitted with TL 14 or 15 gear. Some meta reasoning, since this is a ship a Referee has designed, rather than a player is to leave the option open for the palyer-crew to install the high-tech gear they discover over the course of the campaign.

Type A2 Far Trader – Empress Marava Class “Magpie Harlequin”

Hull: 200 Ton Streamlined
M-Drive: Thrust-6
J-Drive: Jump-3
Power Plant: Fusion (TL-12) Power 255
Bridge: Standard
Computer: Model/20 bis
Sensors: Improved Sensors
Fuel Tanks: one Jump-3, four weeks of operation (62 Tons)
Weapons: 2x Triple Turrets, 3x Beam Lasers each
Docking Space: 4 Tons, Cargo Air/Raft
Systems:
4x Low Berth
Fuel Processor (40t / day)
2x Cargo Airlock
Improved Stealth (TL-10)
10t Concealed Compartment
Staterooms: 5x Standard
Gaming Space -4 Players
Common Area -12 Tons
Software:
Maneuver
Intellect
Jump Control/ 3; Bandwidth-15
Evade/ 1; Bandwidth -10
Fire Control/ 2; Bandwidth -10
Cargo: 0

Refit Cost: 206.856 MCr
Maintenance Cost: 28,417 Cr
Refit Time needed: 65.25 days

Financing Available!

Compared to a showroom-model new Empress Marava Far Trader (54.1582 MCr), this refit is expensive! Worse, with 10 tons of cargo space and only 5 standard staterooms, there is no business plan that could possible convince a Bank to finance a ship like this. Furthermore the 40 year Mortgage monthly payments of 1.088 MCr would be about 5 times as much as a standard Empress Marava.

Which brings us to the institutions that would build a ship like this. The first, possibly easiest, option is to just refit the ship outright on your own credits, or leverage a bank into a 200 MCr personal loan (I mean with enough Noble backing, most banks can be “convinced” to float a personal loan). More likely, an institution can pay for the refit and assign the crew to the ship. Institutions in this case are closer to governmental intelligence agencies, or corporate espionage divisions. But those are “working for the Man” and no self-respecting Traveller wants to work for a noble or a corp. Han Solo didn’t smuggle spice for Ling Standard Products.

Crime Syndicates however, (like Jabba the Hutt) are happy to float a big ol’ refit bill, especially for a crew with a good reputation for delivering profits on time. Just pay ’em back with a bit o’ vig for their good time and trouble and you’ll have your own hot little Millenium Falcon inspired smuggling vessel. Just don’t skip out on the payments to the Syndicate, they don’t use legally-licensed skip tracers, they use bounty hunters. Folks who run on a Syndicate debt could find themselves a wall decoration in the crime lord’s palace of sin.

Agamemnon’s Far Trader

Refits this extensive don’t necessarily happen all at once. Normally each component is refit on it’s own, in pieces and parts, as the ship owner can afford the time and expense. (Or as the owner can negotiate a new loan from the loan sharks). the Magpie Harlequin as described above is the result of years of tinkering and refits. Just like the ship which inspired her.

If we were to have been playing this out over the course of a campaign. It would start most likely with a used A2 Far Trader. On average (according to the Core Rulebook 2022 Update), used ships would be 26 to 50 years old and would have 4 quirks.

Finally, a refit ship like this could be an NPC ship-for-hire. With a shady scoundrel for a captain and a loyal Aslan co-pilot/engineer. A ship like this could be hired to get a band of Travellers to a high Law Level world with “no Imperial entanglements” so to speak.

But that’s the trick isn’t it?