Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 13

And we're back to the Engineering Section. There's a note that not all power plants and drives will fit into various hull sizes. There's also a very good point to consider: Don't take up too much room with your drive and power plant, or you won't be able to fit other important pieces like life support or fuel. Remember, hull sizes are a maximum tonnage, and the drives and plants take up quite a bit of room.

Oh, and the power plant has to be at least as big as the maneuvering drive. That certainly makes sense; you wouldn't expect to run a semi-truck on a 9-volt battery, after all.

Next up, the main compartment. It's not really worth bolding that, I don't think. Now, when we're talking about The Bridge, that's a different story. The main compartment holds everything that isn't in the Engineering Section. So, that's your fuel, computer, bridge, cargo, weapons, etc.

The Bridge takes up 20 tons of space just for the basic package. And it costs half a million credits for every 100 tons of starship. The bridge doesn't include the ship's computer, though, which gets its own space next to the bridge. There are seven models of computer (cleverly named Model/1 to Model/7), with two variations. There's a nice table that lists them all, including the price in millions of credits (as high as 60 million for the Model/7), their mass in tons, the CP--

Wait. Tons? As in, tons of mass? The Model/7 weighs 5 freaking tons? That's insane! That's 10,000 pounds! My son's truck can barely pull that weight.

Ahem. Sorry.

The CPU is rated for how many programs it can process. Simultaneously? It doesn't say. The Model/1 can handle 2 programs (and store 4). The Model/7 can take on 20 programs, with 50 in storage. I'm assuming that these programs can be run simultaneously; they might not have had Windows in 1977, but multitasking was certainly on the horizon.

The computer software list (page 12) is given a mention. It also tells us that the list gives the contents of the basic software package...which it doesn't. We just get a 2-million credit package that we can customize, I suppose.

A lot of ships also hold tonnage in reserve for later; that's a subtle hint that adventurers might not want to fully trick-out their ships right away, because you never know what might come up while traveling the space lanes.

Oh, fire control. That's always fun. It's also adjacent to the bridge, and a turret costs one ton of space just for the control equipment. Turrets are mentioned as something that is held in reserve instead of automatically being installed. Ooh, what if the PCs find a strange new weapon of some sort? That would be fun to install on their ship. Who knows what it might do? Who knows what side effects it might have? The possibilities are as endless as space itself.

And, that wraps up another page. Tune in net time when we explore the wonders of Page 14. I'll see you when I get there.

Our move is almost complete; the lawyers have the paperwork now, and as of Friday we're off. If there's internet available when we camp along the way, I'll add some more pages to this Let's Read.