Sorry I'm late to the party 🙂Â
The System Defence Boat from CT had a jump shuttle, or was that just from MegaTraveller onwards? Anything that has combat riders or even the Subsidized Merchant with its external shuttle (and similar designs) must have some way for the jump grid/bubble
to extend around the externally-carried vessels/vehicles, and G:T had the Oshkosh salvage vessel that could grapple and transport wrecked or damaged vessels - there's bound to be others but I can't remember them at the moment.
I'm thinking the term "Battle Rider" (and if I recall there was a game by that name) applies somewhere here. Non-jump capable SDBs and a jump capable strategic carrier vehicle.
Â
Of course, for those of us who don't mind T:TNE there were the various Clipper-class ships of the Reformation Coalition but I know some people aren't too fond of that ruleset ;-) - the Clippers had various modules (fuel, cargo/freight, passenger, fuel processing,
small craft hanger etc) that clipped to a central spine that had drives at one end and cockpit at the other (in case anyone doesn't know this already - apologies to those who do).
Modular ship parts (esp in the Empire) just make sense. Even on a military ship - the ability to have a destroyer sized vessel that could load modules as diverse as: Ship to ship batteries, ortillery and sensors, cargo, extra fuel, a jump capsule module with marines, a boarding module for customs enforcement (heavy shuttle w marine BPs), missile batteries, missile storage, medical bay (portable hospital), VIP module (for muckety mucks who want a full stateroom... wimps!), survey or EW (different electronics), etc.
To me, the way to build a jump tug or battle tender (for the battle riders to be carried by) was to build a spine with fuel capacity, computers, and jump drives and a minimal M-drive. This also works for containerized shipping that can drop and pickup containers (loading done ahead of time and cleared before attachment). I suspect the major routes in the Imperium would have a lot of that sort of transit for cargo. It's just more efficient.
The problem (from the 'tech babble') is that a lanthanum grid is built into the ship's hull and that is energized in specific patterns to cause the entry into jump space on a particular vector. How do you do that with any sort of jump module or net? It isn't rigid. You can remove that requirement of course, but to me that's an interesting thing to do.
Of course, all a ship would need is bays designed to fit standard cargo modules - open the bay door, dock the module, close the door, the door and the thin outer skin of the ship has the lanthanum mesh in it.
I suspect big cargo carriers with large clamshell doors exist (salvors). I'm guessing one of them would be ideal for just floating down and over your space shuttle thing and closing the clamshells and then lashing everything down.
Side Gripe: There's a steward skill which is reasonable. There's not a ship's security skill (well in the version of the game I own) unless it came form a 3rd party. More importnantly, given the 3I's sole raison d'etre is trade, it is amazing that we have trader, legal, admin, broker, steward, medics for the coldsleepsickles, etc. but *we do not have a cargo handling skill*.
Think about that. Given all of the different sorts of cargoes, many with special handling requirements, many with special stowage and cushioning requirements, that may be delivered into differing gravity wells and atmospheres, and that may react significantly to fire, heat, cold, explosion, decompression, radiation, maybe psionic use, maybe EM fields, and the list goes on.... and your ships are supposed to carry these.... and some get shot at and damaged.... and there is no skill for dealing with how to correctly identify, protect, store, secure, etc. that stuff.
To me, Cargo Handling should be a skill for merchants but also for military support branches (hello, logistics.... amateurs talk tactics, experts talk logistics). A supercargo (small ships maybe one or it may be someone's second hat) or even a cargo handling staff might well exist on bigger ships.
In my games, I included:
Steward
Security
(A Purser's role is kind of a mix of Security, Steward, Computer, Admin and maybe some Streetwise and/or Legal)
Cargo Handling
Damage ControlÂ
Why DC? Well, ships can have fires, decompressions, spills of all sorts of cargo, radiation incidents, jump drive malfunctions, damage from missiles, lasers, particle batteries, fusion and plasma turrets, probably railguns, and the list goes on. And fires break out. And noxious fumes end up filling the ship. And how do you save the ship's balance or control if this happens in or entering atmosphere?
DC is a skill naval personel learn to deal with and to some extent, well qualified civilian merchants from bigger lines do as well. It's not fixing stuff like the trade skills (electronics, gravitics, etc). but it is more general - what do I need to do to make the ship and its load and embarked life forms safe? How do I do this quickly if the captain needs the broken computer linkage from the bridge to the jump computer bypassed?
This is jury rigging and preventing more damage to the ship and making it safe enough to continue until you can get proper repairs by the tech/engineer types.