Small Ship Universe

In the original form of Traveller, ships were limited to 5000 tons (each ton equalling 14 m3, the volume of 1 ton of liquid hydrogen), but with military ships practically limited to about 2000 tons.  Most ships players could get their hands on were 100-800 tons.

When High Guard, book 5, came out, the limit was raised to about 1,000,000 tons.   In additon to the adventurer sized ships, now all the militaty main fighting vessels were 10's of thousands of tons, up to a million tons.

Apparaently, people fought huge battles using gigantic ships in tournaments and set-pieces.  But for me, this took the focus away from PC level action.   In original Traveller, if you got a mercenary cruiser, it could potentially stand up to any naval vessel you'd meet, but once High Guard ships were in play, it went from a useful naval vessel to something that really didn't qualify even as a naval escort.

In various interweb discussions, the Big Ship people claim that if the worlds aren't building huge expensive ships, they'd just be swamping the PC's in hordes of smaller ships.  I say, phooey.   I find the small ship universe much more appealing.  I prefer a loose, distant, corrupt imperium that cobbles together everything on the frontiers, to one that is omnipresent, tight and is aware and invincible.   THe small ship universe means the stuff players do iin their ships can actually count for something.