Trillion Credits of Space Opera

Back in the day, Traveller supported wargame style play. One supplement in this line was Trillion Credit Squadron. Players designed their own fleets, using the High Guard big ship rules. Then they lined them up, got out the ship combat rules. Then slugged it out. It was the only way to find out who was the best designer and fleet commander.

The results were very interesting. Douglas Lenat ran hundreds of simulations using an AI Program .The fleet he created won the national contest two years running. Look it up.

Space Opera’s shipbuilding rules never included the ‘secret’ military design rules. In their absence, we can use published examples. (And indulge in the time-honored Gamer Pastime: Make Shit Up)
Eight sample fleet lines were published in Seldon’s guides 2 and 3. The compendiums had Stats for Destroyers, Cruisers, and other space warships. In the fiction, Battleships designed according to each fleet’s capabilities and cultural preferences. Four more or less human cultures, four more or less alien cultures.

Every Starnation’s culture was reflected in their ship designs. The UFP built the best ships they could; the expense was no object. In comparison, the Mercantile League kept a close eye on the bottom line. Both had to protect hundreds of allies and colonies scattered over hundreds of lightyears. The oppressive Azurich Imperium built big nasty attack ships manned by their relatively few chosen crews. Azzie ships were not designed to defend broad areas of space, but for destruction.
The Galactic People’s republic had more manpower. They built many cheaper ships to utilize this advantage.

Each ship classification came in several varieties t different levels of technological sophistication. Each ship had a price, fixed to the ‘hard’ credit of the Federation and League banks. Prices ranged from a few megacredits for cheap starfighters, to hundreds of Billions for ttop of the line Battlestars.
Zoe the cat and I spent a productive Sunday afternoon perusing the Starships of War for Space Opera. I started a spreadsheet of ship statistics, intending to do some "Trillion Credit Squadron" fun. My spreadsheet model lists out the classes and their prices. I can pick and choose and compare. Like fantasy yacht wishlist shopping on-line, only with nova guns.

Start with the most expensive ships in the books, Federation Concordant Battlestars. Over a kilometer long, a crew of thousands. Carries thousands of marines, hundreds of fighters. Cargo capacity of tens of thousands of standard twenty-foot shipping containers. Big bad mama-jammers.

Each Battlestar mounts over two dozen of the most powerful ship to ship weapons, with armor and shields to match. A Battlestar can wreck a destroyer in less than five minutes. UFP Battlestars are not super-fast, but they can cross between stars faster than GPR or Imperial battleships.

With a trillion credits we can afford three Battlestars. And we get change. Nearly a hundred billion left over to buy full fighter groups, ten destroyers, and thirty scout/couriers. That’ll make some pirate lord or galactic tyrant soil their pants.

Or what the heck, let's stock up on destroyers. For a trillion, we can get 200 destroyers, ten destroyer leaders, and full fighter load outs – nearly 1,700 fighters. They’re lifting over 38,000 Space Marines.
A trillion credits of Fleet corvettes and Scouts yields 2,400 ships. None of their guns will even scratch the Battlestars’ paint. But they can launch ten times as many missiles as the Battlestar’s fighter groups. And they can be spread across thousands of systems.

C is for Credit

The Credit is the standard unit of currency for Space Opera. It is issued in setting by the largest league banks, Headquartered on the planet Augusta, and the great Federation central bank of Earth.

League and federation credits are pegged each to the other. The currencies of the Azurich Imperium. Galactic Peoples Republic, Mir,  Rauwoof republics, Blard and Mekpurr star kingdoms and of several IRSOL star cities are freely exchanged by those League and Federation banks, abet at floating exchange rates.

The Imperium is well aware the Space Commies Committee for Galactic Security, the Federation Bureau of Intelligence, Blards, and Rauwoof are sending genuine imperial currency to anti-imperial rebels. The banks of Augusta trade with all. There is not much the azzies can do about it, without shutting down all their international trade.

Sucks to be a space Nazi.