Not the biggest project on my list, but here is the start of my build of the nice sized 400-ton Subsidized Merchant from classic Traveller. I'm building it at the common 1" squares for modern figures as opposed to the original 1/2" squares for 15mm. It has 2 decks: the lower cargo deck and the upper Passenger and Crew deck. Engineering is split between both levels (as well as on either side the central cargo bay). Final size is 31" long by 22" wide at the wingspread.

The cargo flooring is from First Flight's Containment room. The walls are from the 3x5 Room. Both were chosen because they have the look of being heavy-duty (and subject to abuse).

I resized the bulkhead man-doors (pressurized) to fit totally within the 1" size rather than having a 1" opening with the door structure outside that space. Why? Because Traveller has any doors at the end of a 1" corridor - and wrapping the door frames onto the side walls didn't look right. I took similar steps with the cargo door frames. Both door styles also are from First Light.

I have more done - just need to take more pics and post. I'm including the links for my Photobucket view of the project.

The laying of the keel - pasting the cargo floor (before trimming to final shape):


First Hull walls:


The black foamcore still seen are inaccessible portions of the ship within the wings.

Yes, the deck plans do call for 1/2-square sizing for portions of the ship, and I'm trying to be faithful to that. I've GIMPed some half-square floor tiles which are not yet installed. There were spots where the doors to engineering were set back a half inch from the cargo area and into the engineering bays, but I streamlined those little alcoves with the main cargo wall for simplicity and appearance. The little 'walkways' are crawlspaces within the wings ending with a exterior service door under the wing.


Teaser: next time structural support girders and maneuver drives!

That looks very familiar... I had started an identical project about four years ago (but in 15mm scale,) sadly interrupted by an occupational head injury. I never really got my Traveller cardstock mojo back after that.

Yours is looking good and I can't wait to see more!

As a former traveller player, I approve! I look forward to seeing this project proceed!

How tall will the current deck be? It is hard to tell from the pictures. 3 inches?

What a beauty. Takes me back to Traveller games in the 80s...
Alex

Wow, you really are doing this seriously, grey.

I've just been playing round with FirstLight on my new printer and was thinking about throwing together a 400T equivalent. But your mission to create a true Fat Trader is putting my far more casual ideas to shame.

Looking forward to your next pics.

p.s. The first build on the new printer was Chris Roe's great little as an air raft. Does your Fat Trader have room for one of those?

@ T-G: standard 2" height. Other shots will be more oblique to show depth; here I was just trying to show the full layout.

@ ZenGuy: I do, in fact, have all of Chris' Utility Floaters and have built 2 (I think). There's no Air/Raft in the official plans for the Subsidized Merchant - but that doesn't mean they might not carry one in addition to the 20-ton launch (which I'm basing off Chris' Utility Shuttle) - they'd just have to stow it by sacrificing space on the cargo deck. Unfortunately, even for the Scout/Courier - which does provide for an air/raft - it won't fit there "as is" because the physical size is larger than the 2x3 size allowed (due to the outward sloping angled sides). I suppose I could just resize it a bit smaller for when I get to doing the Scout. ["Print-to-Fit" theme?]

@ punkrabbit: sorry your build got interrupted - hope this inspires you to have another go at it.

This is not meant to criticize your work, but I'm tying to wrap my head around the scale of this massive ship. I thought the cargo deck of the ship was 6 meters tall. So would that translate out to 1 square = 3 meters on this build?

Um... T-G, you caught me. (And I'm glad you did!) I did the layout straight from the deck plans illustration and did not catch the fact that number of pairs of squares didn't equate to the cargo capacity. Nothing in the Supplement 7 description indicated the oversize cargo deck size. But, heck, even the cargo templates to fit through the doors are 3 squares high. I just did not notice that! So I'll make "patches" for the walls. My bad!

Given that, I think I'll install a catwalk halfway up on either side. (That should give some drama potential!)

Thank you, again.

Oh, and Zenguy, I think you might have been thinking of the Empress Marava " Far " Trader which *does* have an air/raft.

Don't know how I'd get it through customs safely - they'd probably probe the rear rear cargo hatch and then disallow it as being a weapon of Mass Destruction... course if I could make the manuever drive really work I could ride it over the Atlantic to Europe and an hour drive east of the mighty Mississippi River - and I'd expect some mighty fine Austrian beer to be on hand while we played!

Thanks to T-G for keeping me honest, I did some research regarding the cargo deck size and came up with a few ship views, a couple of which I'll share here. Bear in mind that neither are exactly as I'm building mine.

The first was done by Andrew Boulton (RIP) a big time Traveller guy:


Another:


So you can see that the cargo deck is in fact double-heighth. ... Work continues on creating the wall patches.

Somewhere in the Traveller books, there is a written reference to the double-height cargo bay. I know it is there, I just don't know where.

Yes, guys, the Fat Trader cargo deck is 6 meters high (each square 1.5 m, thus 4 squares high = 2 standard deck heights - and I don't know exactly where either; it would have been nice if it had been plainly set forth as such in the Supplement 7 (at least) - but there seems to always have been much hand-wringing and tongue-wagging on the various Trav forums concerning TRAVELLER errata (and still to this day). And to further confuse matters, there is at least one standard CT (Classic Traveller) deck plan where the deck is 3 squares high = 4.5 meters (I don't recall which ship off the top of my head). As I recall AHL (Azhanti High Lightning) had some really offbeat fuel deck heights as well. ... Okay, back to the build itself.

Now, a pic of a long view of the cargo deck looking through the stern hatch forward.


The braces are derived from FL's interior props "Console Dress". Note: I have not yet installed the wall 'patches' to bring the hold up to the 4" height.

A comparison of the original First Light 3-inch wide Reactor (bottom half only) with the construct I developed to be 2+1/2 -inch wide (reduced by 1/6):

And, no, they won't be installed in the middle of the cargo hold - lol.

Very nice!

Looking great so far!

This is so impressive! Wow! I love it. Makes me want to post my Traveller pictures. I should go do that.

Quick Update: The Cargo Hold is almost complete (but not the entire Cargo Deck which includes parts of the Engineering) -
- wall extensions to bring it up to full 4" height - Done
- catwalks with railings at mid-height - Done
- cargo doors (working) - Almost Done (3 out of 4)
- wall top braces - Almost Done

special adds:
- small cargo racks in bow section with anti-grav lift plates for upper level storage access - on drawing board
- cargo handler "Handyman 350" - printed, ready for knife

I should have pics this weekend.

And I just realized I had mispelled the title of this thread as "Subsized" instead of "Subsidized", so I'm hoping my fix there works.

Okay, sorry I didn't get pics done this weekend - went shopping this weekend out-of-town. But got the shots done after work today and posted.

First up: the stern entry from character's POV.


Once in, you see the new version of the Cargo Hold with the corrected walls.

You see up in the Bow the anti-grav cargo lifts in their 'up' position. More on those below.

Another view about hafway up the Hold. You get a better view of the anti-grav Lifts; also the Top wall braces.

I cut the top wall braces down the middle so they wouldn't extend outside the ship. This made them very thin and fiddly to work with. But I wanted them for three reasons. One, they'll help stabilize the very long walls which otherwise have next to no crossways support. Two, they'll add a bit more ledge support for the upper Crew/Passenger deck. Three, they just look COOL!

What with the constant 'rehabbing' of the build by going back and adding extra walls and stuff, I did not cut out the rung-holes on the ladders in order to keep them more secure.

View looking in the Port Cargo Hatchway, with ramp/door down.

Note I have not finished designing/installing the forward Small Cargo Racks, which would have otherwise been seen from this viewpoint. Said Racks will eventually be in the empty spot next to the smaller Lift here:

Here both of the Lifts are in their 'raised' positions. The nearest one is the 'elevator' Lift to stow and access those smaller shipping crates and canisters. The Lift to the left and just inside the Bow door is a mobile deck plate - essentially a moving floor where goods are placed on it then raised to allow late loadings beneath it.

I got the idea for these Lifts when I was pondering how to make an elevator to access the upper cargo Racks. Then I thought - duh! we have anti-grav, don't we? Just make an anti-grav floor section. To my knowledge, no one has used this technique of tech application in their games - leastwise that I was in on.

And here's what it looks like underneath from the character POV:

Yes, those are the grav-node access covers on the underside.

Of course, I had to make both Lifts in both lowered and raised positions:


The legs are made from transparency sheets which I whipped up a simple 90-degee bend with a pair of triangles at each end to hold them and attach to the bottom of Lifts. I had quite the time getting those glued with the standard white glue. It took forever for the glue to cure so it would hold. If someone has a better experience with keeping transparencies glued, please let me know!

Finally, a view looking rearward from the Bow. Here the Lifts are lowered. That little rectangle is the control stand for Lift (both have one). It doubles as a place to hook your safety line while operating the Lifts.


While the Stern, Port and Starboard doors double as loading ramps, due to the curvature of the Bow this is not possible. Eventually there will be a 'tongue' style loading ramp which will extend / retract from the under deck. The Bow doors themselves will be of the horizontal 'clamshell' style.

That's it for this installment. Next I'll finish the cargo doors and racks, then print and build the Jump Drives (already designed). With the Cargo Hold and Lower Engineering finished, I can get back to the Crew/Passenger Deck upstairs.

That is more than a little impressive. It makes me feel like I should buy some modern/future minis. Well done, sir.

You did a great job in the cargo hold with the detailed bits you added!

I did get something done this weekend, just not what I had originally intended. I finished the second pair of landing legs, the galley and 17 [!] bathroom units (called "freshers" in Traveller parlance). I only need 13 - one for each of the staterooms - but the others will be able to be used in another build, I'm sure (maybe even a modern house or apartment - they are that nice). I created a page with 4 of them to conserve cardstock and evidently miscounted how many I had printed.



The next new problem I've discovered was that in setting the upper deck atop the cargo deck, it doesn't align properly with the cargo walls, trying to slip down into the cargo hold. I now do have to make a couple of cross braces to keep the walls from slanting outwards. Nothing major - just one more thing to stop and do. Then I can get those Jump Drives with their capacitor coils finished. [Tonight's project right after supper - might even have another post with pics before midnight, but don't hold your breaths just yet!]

Looking Good!

Today after work I finished gluing up the pair of Jump Drives for the ship.
For those who are not familiar with Traveller, the Jump Drive(s) allow the travel across the distances between the stars. Energy is poured into large capacitors, building up to the necessary amount which is then quickly dumped into the "lanthanum" core "circuit" which opens the tunneling effect. The ship spends the next week traveling to its destination - that distance being between one and six parsecs depending on the navigation and strength of the jump drive compared to the ship's tonnage - all the while totally cut off from the rest of the normal universe (there is no combat at 'warp speed' as in Star Trek, nor communication).

So I constructed the paired Jump Drives as seen here:



[... And, I believe this is my 600th post and I've gained my next gear medallion and status!]

Nice work! This thread is really making me want to start designing a capital ship. Luckily I don't have anywhere to store one.

Thank you for the update. I had been tempted to abuse my Moderator status and demand one!