Have Spaceship, Will Travel

Venture Class Frontier Courier
by Dave Blalock and Arthur Pollard

Recently, I met Dave Blalock through the wonders of the Intertubes. Dave has been steadily publishing Traveller and Traveller-related material for a number of years now, under either his D. B. Gamesdesign imprint, or as part of Hell Creek Sanitarium. Talking to him reminded me that I had actually bought one of his products a couple of years ago, the Venture Class Frontier Courier and deck plans.

Statted for Mongoose Traveller, the Venture Class Frontier Courier is a 150 ton, Jump-2, Manoeuvre-2 vessel. Used mainly as a courier or mail ship in backwater frontier regions, it’s designed for endurance, cost-efficiency, and ease of maintenance.

The bulk of the booklet consists of two very nice deck plans and accompanying descriptions. There are also several very nice exterior drawings that give the reader an idea of what the ship looks like, as well as how large it actually is. Three adventure hooks complete the presentation.

The deck plans are also available separately, which is a bonus if you like to use miniatures during your gaming session.

Being 50 tons larger than the Type-S Scout Courier, though with similar performance parameters, makes this ship design just that more viable as a PC owned vessel – 47 tons of cargo space goes a long way towards paying the bills. With cabin space for three crew and three passengers, a standard PC party can be accommodated aboard easily. At a squeeze, the life support system will support up to fourteen passengers and as well as three crew. This extends the vessel’s potential usefulness into the realms of small-scale striker mercenary actions. Finally, you have got to admire a ship design that includes a garden and pool with full height view ports giving the patio area impressive views of space.

I really like this supplement. It is cleanly presented and nicely illustrated. I noticed a couple of typos but I understand that these were corrected in the pdf. If you haven’t seen the Venture Frontier Courier, then check it out.