Traveller Illustrated

I thought about a mechanism to deploy the Horronon ATV and stick as close to the vehicles description as possible. Accoding to CT Adventure 3 the ATV featured collapsible tracks. For this reason rolling onto the module was ot of the question.

So i came up with the heavy duty hoist mechanism attached to a rotating boom. The Horronon gets parked beneath the rotated boom under the module. The crew attaches the lifting hooks and lifts the Horronon, so the tracks can savely collapse. After rotating about 90 degrees, the Horronnon is lifted so that its rear gate can be opened to the cutters front compartment and that the tracks clear the path of the telescopic or clamshell gates of the module. After closing the gates the module is ready for pickup. Depending on the vehicle the hoist mechanism can mount clamping adapters that safely secure the vehicle during transport.

Above (1): The 50ton Modular Cutter as it would aproach with a module

Above (2): Touched down with main langing gear extracted

Above (3): The modules supporting landing gear will be extracted prior to the actual setout.

The Pilot might opt to land with both the cutter’s and module’s gear extracted.

Above (4): After unclamping the module (autoreleasing support circuity inside overhead spine of the cutter), the cutter lifts straight up from the module and turns onto its new course only when clear from the module.

Above (5): The Modular Cutter leaves the module and heads off again to fetch the next or to park away in the distance…

Setting out the ATV above (6): The open grounded ATV-Module

Setting out the ATV above (7): The open Module, with ATV rotated 90 degrees but tracks still collapsed

Setting out the ATV above (8): ATV hoist mechanism rotated by 90 degrees, ATV tracks deployed

Ready for exploration or action: ATV trundling away from the empty module

This is a work in progress, so changes are very likely.

I might go ahead and design a few variants of these small craft using these rules on CotI:

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=29680&highlight=cutter