Star Frontiers vs Traveller ships

Star Frontiers rates vessels by a game stat called Hull Size. One-man fighter craft are Hull Size 1 while battleships are rated Hull Size 20. The Star Frontiers Knight Hawks campaign book gives the length and diameter (in meters) of each Hull Size of vessel. Assuming, as the rulebook does, that starship hulls are generally cylindrical, it's a snap to calculate the total volume of each Hull Size. This makes comparing Star Frontiers ships to Classic Traveller easy as pie.

HS	Length	Diameter	Cubic Meters	Tons
1	10	2	31	2.24
2	30	5	589	42
3	50	8	2,513	180
4	75	12	8,482	606
5	100	15	17,671	1,262
6	130	20	40,841	2,917
7	150	25	73,631	5,259
8	180	30	127,235	9,088
9	210	35	202,044	14,432
10	240	40	301,593	21,542
11	270	45	429,416	30,673
12	300	50	589,049	42,075
13	340	55	807,782	57,699
14	380	60	1,074,425	76,745
15	420	70	1,616,349	115,454
16	450	75	1,988,039	142,003
17	475	80	2,387,610	170,544
18	500	85	2,837,251	202,661
19	540	90	3,435,332	245,381
20	600	100	4,712,389	336,599

I found these results completely unexpected. Because of the way Star Frontiers uses Hull Size in construction, ships increase their capabilities on a roguhly linear basis. A Hull Size 20 battleship has roughly 33% superior weapons than a HS15 cruiser. Based upon what I knew about Star Frontiers warships I was expecting the charts to indicate that it operated on a roughly even footing with Traveller's Book 2 small ship rules. Instead we find that most PC vessels in Traveller are equivalent to Hull Size 3. The Kinunir class is HS 5, the size of a Star Frontiers frigate. In a big ship universe where Kinunirs are 'colonial' ships, that seems about right. The Azhanti High Lightining class comes in at HS 13 or 14, which means that a set of AHL deckplans ought to work pretty well for a Star Frontiers light cruiser.

Cruisers and capital ships in Star Frontiers and High Guard are pretty much equivalent in size, but the Star Frontiers vessels are woefully under-armed. Hardcore Star Frontiers fans have complained about this for years. Take a standard battleship from the game. The energy weapons for a BB are one disruptor cannon (essentially a particle weapon spinal mount), 3 laser batteries (each very similar to a single Trav double or triple laser turret), and 3 particle batteries (again, the term battery is not correct in Traveller terms, these are more like single weapon mounts). And the disruptor cannon only does about four times as much damage as a laser battery. Basically, a single 200 or 300 kton vessel from Supplement 9 - Fighting Ships could probably outshoot the entire Spacefleet of Star Frontiers.