Subcraft

Line Combatants (Primary - Capital)				Escort Combatants (Secondary - Subcapital)				Military Auxiliary (Tertiary)
B- Battleship	C- Cruiser	O- Ortillery	V- Carrier	D- Destroyer	E- Escort	F- Fighter	H- Defense/Security	I- Combat Transport	Q- Combat Support	S- Scout	U- Utility	X- Commo	Z- Special

Mercantile Commercial Ships (Trade & Profit)				Non-Mercantile Commercial Ships (Industry & Profit)					Non-Commercial Ships (Nonprofit)			System Craft (Intrastellar)
A- Tramp	M- Freighter	R- Liner	T- Transport	G- Industrial	J- Prospector	K- Expedition	P- Corsair	U- Utility	L- Science	N- Medical	Y- Private	WB- Barge	WA- Satellite	WO- Space Station

A Subcraft is a smaller ship carried within a larger ship.

• Most subcraft are boats and smallcraft, although larger FTL-capable bigcraft are possible, but used much less often.

Library Data Referral Tree

Please refer to the following AAB Library Data for more information:
Starship:

• Starship User Types
  • Civilian Ship
  • Military Ship
  • Non-Commercial Vessel
  • Paramilitary Ship

• Advanced Ship Classifications
  • Ship Mission Code / Supraclass
  • Ship Type Code / Superclass
  • Ship Class Code / Class
  • Model (TL)
  • Bloc (Lot)

• Basic Ship Classifications
  • Adventure Class Ship
  • Battle Class Ship
  • Capital Ship
  • Fleet Class Ship
  • Size-Role Classification
  • Subcapital Ship
  • QSP
  • USP
  • World Class Ship

• Ships by Function
  • Bigcraft
  • Boat
  • Capital Ship
  • Largecraft
  • Non-starship
  • Smallcraft
  • Spaceplane
  • Spaceship
  • Starship
  • Subcapital Ship
  • Subcraft
  • System Craft
  • Warship

Speed of Travel

• Astronomical Unit (AU)
• FTL
• Light Speed (c)
• Light-week (lw)
• Light-year (ly)
• NAFAL (STL)
• Parsec (pc)

Description (Specifications)

The terms subcraft and smallcraft have semantic overlap in meaning. Subcraft can come in any size. Smallcraft cannot. Smallcraft always weight less then one hundred tons.

And there are similar issues with subcraft carriers.

• Militarized subcraft carriers are known as Carriers or Tenders.
• Civilian subcraft carriers are typically known as Ship Transporters or Tenders.

It is possible to have subcraft that carry subcraft, such as a Ship Transporter carrying a scout ship (subcraft to the transporter) that has drones (subcraft to the scout ship). Even this single recursion is rare, as most ships that carry subcraft have no need of a larger ship (though in this example, the scout ship's jump drive may have been damaged and the transporter sent to rescue it). Going beyond one recursion is extremely rare.

Naval Ship Synopsis by Size-Role

These vary in tonnage and in their intended function or role.

Ship Classification by Size
#	Type	Tonnage	Examples	Remarks
1.	Smallcraft	0 to 99 tons	Shuttle Gig Fighter	Smallcraft are typically Subcraft, designed to be carried by carrier craft.
2.	Spacecraft	100 tons or larger	SDB Rider Monitor	Spacecraft are in-system vessels, lacking interstellar drives. Some Spacecraft are Subcraft, designed to be carried by carrier craft.
3.	Adventure Class Ships (ACS)	100 to 2,499 tons	Merchant Escort Mercenary Cruiser	Adventure Class ships are usually jump-capable. They serve many roles including customs, patrol, planetary defense, tramp freighters, etc.
4.	Battle Class Ships (BCS)	2,500 to about 1,000,000 tons	Cruiser Bulk Trader Battleship Sleeper Ship	Battle Class ships are warships. They are usually jump-capable. Such ships require major investment and only service major roles including megacorporate interstellar trade, warships, Capital Ships, and major endeavors.
5.	World Class Ships (WCS)	Larger than 1,000,000 tons	Loeskalth planetoid generation ship.	World Class ships are beyond expensive and represent suprapolity-level investment. They take many years to build. This class represents immense World-Ships, very large Super Dreadnoughts, Superweapons, etc. Operational staff are typically residents as much as crew. These ships are interacted with as worlds or events, rather than ships.

Ubiquitous Subcraft Usage

However, practically speaking, almost any craft can dock a subcraft to an airlock, docking point, or in a hangar. And when it comes to drones, they can be deployed from a standard missile rack or tube as well. In this sense, a vast variety of craft can deploy subcraft of varying sizes and types.

Design Tradeoffs

However, most starships are finely balanced for maximum jump performance with just their own tonnage, and would experience problems taking subcraft through jumpspace. Further, spacecraft of any stripe accelerate more slowly when carrying subcraft beyond their drives' rated performance. These are the main disadvantages keeping subcraft from being used more widely in practice.

In order to overcome this hurdle, the subcraft must perform some function the carrier either can not perform at all or can only perform at a significanlty lesser level. The most famous example is battle tender/battle rider pair, where the subcraft do not have to take jump drive machinery into battle and the tender can hang back, or the military carrier/fighter paradigm, where the subcraft also do not have staterooms or other long-term necessities either (their crews returning to the carrier for that). However, by sheer number produced, the most common example is drones which are sent off to "dangerous, dirty, or dreary tasks" (as has been a common Anglic phrasing since the language was first established, imported from English), in particular tasks that require continual on-duty performance without a break (such as patrols and surveys) or are inherently hazardous (such as mining). There are countless other more specialized tasks.

Thousands of years of bad fiction on this specific point has made this into one of the commonly taught ways to spot ill-thought-through works: the presence of some extremely capable starship that carries subcraft, but can do everything its subcraft would do, as well as or (often) better than the subcraft. While it is possible to have a specific ship design that can outperform specific subcraft designs, few naval architects would waste space on hangars in this case without good reason, instead just making more of the ship that can do so well, or reducing the overall tonnage so as to get the same high performance for less cost. (The Fightercraft of the Vestige series explores and underscores this point, being about a carrier and fighter squadron that were designed and built for political reasons and not at all for actual military use - though critics have noted it undermines its point, as the fighters are of political value that the carrier Vestige could not deliver by itself, such as by being able to be in - and thus, show the Imperial flag to - a number of separate locations at once.)

Impromptu Subcraft Carriers

Larger cargo vessels typically can transport entire ships, vehicles, subcraft, bigcraft, largecraft, and other forms of craft in vast numbers. Under the right conditions, many can launch and/or recover them as well. Almost any container ship can be converted into an impromptu subcraft carrier in times of need.

Dedicated Subcraft Carriers

The primary difference is that a dedicated carrier, tender, or ship transporter possesses dedicated facilities to launch, recover, track, coordinate operations, communicate, support pilots, support service personnel, and otherwise maintain subcraft operations over vast distances, time durations, and areas of influence.

There is a tremendous difference between a top of the line launch tube and a simple cargo airlock. A dedicated hangar space is vastly superior to an unpressurized cargo bay. A dedicated subcraft carrier will vastly outperform an impromptu subcraft carrier the vast majority of the time.

History & Background (Dossier)

Almost as soon as engine-driven vehicles are first invented, smaller sub-vehicles or subcraft follow. Smaller craft typically use less resources is it's more resource-efficient and often far more convenient to use.

TL:4-6 Epoch Carriers

Most sophont societies achieve flight with powered aircraft in this technological epoch and the first aircraft carriers are born. On many worlds these are wet navy, maritime vessels, but on others they may be land ships or even more exotic carriers. The aircraft deployed on these carriers tend to be the first dedicated subcraft that reach mass manufacture.

TL:7-9 Epoch Carriers

Most sophont societies achieve spaceflight during this technological epoch. The earliest spacecraft are very dangerous and the cost of lifting mass out of gravity well is horrendously expensive so few spacecraft deploy subcraft during this period. Personal mobility units for individual sophonts in the vacuum are deployed instead. By the end of the epoch, a transition from spaceplanes to dedicated spacecraft occurs and a wider variety of spacebourne subcraft are deployed and manufactured. the first sleep ships and generation ships all use an array of subcraft and ship's vehicles. The first vessel using FTL jump drives do as well.

TL:10-12 Epoch Carriers

This technological epoch is the first to have achieved mastery over gravity control technologies, which massively lower the cost of bringing mass out of a gravity well. The G-Drive replaces conventional reaction drives on many vessels and makes it vastly easier for larger interstellar trade vessels to move goods and freight. The air/raft becomes a favored ship's vehicle on any vessel that can afford it. G-Carriers are larger and perform most of the same missions. A whole variety of spacegoing smallcraft fill in the gaps as interface craft. Military subcraft become a part of interstellar navies, not just fighters, but an array of bigcraft and largecraft as well as battle riders are experimented with.

TL:13-15 Epoch Carriers

Great bounds are made in the advancement of gravity control technology and air/rafts and G-carriers grow more capable. Improved G-Drives also are developed. Miniaturized craft grow in new technological directions as nanotech and microtech are advanced. Drones become more commonplace. Military subcraft use newly developed naval weapons and electronics to become even more vital parts of interstellar navies.

References & Contributors (Sources)

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Marc Miller. T5 Core Rules (Far Future Enterprises, 2013), TBD.
• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science