Stutterwarp and Beyond

[Solo]

Ok, my question. Ways to advance the Stutterwarp Drive to break the 7.7 light year limit. Please comment and advise!

1) Increase the cycling speed of the drive and double the abosorbtion ability of the Tantalum in the drives. Maybe double the speed and double the amount of radiation the drive can absorb before meltdown. Effectively allowing the ship to go 15.4 light years?

2) New metal found, replacing Tantalum, that absorbs the hard radiation more efficiently. Ships can now go x amount futher than they previously could. This new metal is scarce and would open up a new commodity base for 2300AD. Competition and possible open war might happen?

Other ideas? Completely change the way Stutterwarp works?

-S.

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Solo:
Ok, my question. Ways to advance the Stutterwarp Drive to break the 7.7 light year limit. Please comment and advise!

1) Increase the cycling speed of the drive and double the abosorbtion ability of the Tantalum in the drives. Maybe double the speed and double the amount of radiation the drive can absorb before meltdown. Effectively allowing the ship to go 15.4 light years?

2) New metal found, replacing Tantalum, that absorbs the hard radiation more efficiently. Ships can now go x amount futher than they previously could. This new metal is scarce and would open up a new commodity base for 2300AD. Competition and possible open war might happen?

Other ideas? Completely change the way Stutterwarp works?

-S.

Given that stutterwarp, or more specifically the 7.7ly, is an artificial limit GDW appear to have formulated on the basis of creating (along with the NSL data they were using) a particular feel, I'd advise extreme caution about altering the limits of stutterwarp. Changing the range on stutterwarp radically affects the astrography of the setting - doubling to 15.4ly IIRC pretty much eliminates the arms as defined in GDW's material, removing all the choke points and radically altering the nature of conflict and trade in the setting.

Having said that, if you are prepared for that degree of change (or that's what you wanted!) then go for it. One obvious "canon" way is to have the Eber Stutterwarp modifiable so that it is useable by humans. Equally, using the mineral idea could work, allowing conventional stuterwarp drives to go longer before discharge. Or you could keep the limit the same, but boost the warp efficiency - astrography remains the same (you still have to discharge after 7.7ly) but response time changes radically (messages that took months now take weeks or even days...)

I have personally always like the feel that the standard stutterwarp gave the 2300AD setting, but as one of the more arbitrary of the settings enabling assumptions, its one of the simpler ones to alter to arrive at variant settings.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[TKalbfus]

Well you can simply advance the date of the 2300 campaign to say 2350, and have a new and improved stutterwarp developed. I also think they should update the starmap, new stars have been discovered and the starmap should reflect the latest data, including the new red dwarf star 8 light years away that was discovered recently. I have the old boxed edition. I recently read about a new extrasolar planet that was discovered within 50 light years, but the star itself wasn't listed in the 2300 near star list. I think all the newly discovered extra solar planets within 50 light years should be mentioned in any new edition of 2300.

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
Well you can simply advance the date of the 2300 campaign to say 2350, and have a new and improved stutterwarp developed. I also think they should update the starmap, new stars have been discovered and the starmap should reflect the latest data, including the new red dwarf star 8 light years away that was discovered recently. I have the old boxed edition. I recently read about a new extrasolar planet that was discovered within 50 light years, but the star itself wasn't listed in the 2300 near star list. I think all the newly discovered extra solar planets within 50 light years should be mentioned in any new edition of 2300.

Then, to be blunt, why bother with a new edition of 2300? Why not just come up with a new hard SF near future game (e.g. bolt Stutterwarp onto Transhuman Space)? The NSL and 7.7ly limit are _fundemental_ assumptions of the 2300AD background as published - why (potentially) invalidate all previous material in a new edition, especially in a way which will change the feel of the setting to something radically different from the original? If it doesn't feel like 2300AD, and it doesn't use the 2300AD rules, then it isn't 2300AD. Why can't we have a new edition of 2300AD that, like QLI's T20, respects the previous editions continuity and doesn't impose any one persons pet fixes for percieved problems on the rest of us?

Ahem, can you tell I'm touchy about this topic? Sorry, but whilst I sympathise with the appeal for including accurate data, I really do think it is a mirage and will do a disservice to 2300AD. Nothing against ref's doing their own thing, but to do a 2nd edition (whatever the rules) that departed so far from the original would IMO turn it into a different setting (and IMO a less inteersting one). YMMV.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton.

[TKalbfus]

What's wrong with updating the 2300 Near Star Map? Does working with obsolete data make it more authentic? So you want the 7.7 LY limit to be the second speed of light limit that no one can pass, or is it the assumption that technological innovation in the 2300 universe has come to a halt and no one can do any better. Well its possible their may be two speed barriers, but I don't understand why the Near Star List should reflect only 1980's data. New stars are being found all the time. By failing to update the star map, you make it less of a hard science Fiction setting. People who start playing now will wonder why their are missing stars. Are the stars deliberately left out so that starships can't cross in that direction, why is that so vital to 2300? I'm sure their are other gaps that still can't be crossed. I just think that in Hard Science Fiction its more important to have all the known stars within 50 light years than it is to artificially maintain the barriers to navigation by leaving them out. Transhuman space by the way is a one solar system setting

[kafka47]

I think if T20: 2300AD is being touted as an alternate milieu for T20, the 7.7 ly barrier is to prevent the Earthlings overwhelming the Kafers too soon and see that the Yili are merely puppets of a larger game lying behind.

So I applaud efforts at updating the Starmap, and encourage more alien worlds (read: hostile environments) in a more Hard SF exploritory mode but what limits humanity from taking the whole of the Stars for itself. Ok, national rivalary but, as I find that prospect unrealistic in 2300AD, as I dismiss the Twilight War, what remains?

So the shuttlewarp limits are there to keep a certain balance. Start tampering too much and you will have to develop a game like Traveller, worlds in every system which goes against the Hard SF emphasis.

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
What's wrong with updating the 2300 Near Star Map? Does working with obsolete data make it more authentic?

Umm, no, I never said it did. I said that using different data to that which GDW used when writing 2300AD and it's published supplements alters the setting. In ways I think are a bad idea, although I obviously didn't explain why very well [img]smile.gif[/img] .

So you want the 7.7 LY limit to be the second speed of light limit that no one can pass, or is it the assumption that technological innovation in the 2300 universe has come to a halt and no one can do any better.

No, I want one of the other fundemental underpinnings of how the setting worked (that ships could only make journeys up to a certain length before they had to seek a gravity well) to be retained as it is essential to the setting as published. And light speed in 2300AD remains a limit no-one can pass...

Well its possible their may be two speed barriers, but I don't understand why the Near Star List should reflect only 1980's data.

Because with more modern data much of what was written for 2300AD becomes innaccurate. There may be (multiple) 'backdoors' in to Kafer Space, routes to the arms that seriously alter the balance of economic power in the setting. And once we decide that we can alter the NSL, why should we stop at 2003 data? Why not wait until 2005. And what happens in 2006? It's a game setting: we have to take a snap shot at some point and given we already have a large body of material (soon to be republished) based on the existing NSL, why not stick with it?

New stars are being found all the time. By failing to update the star map, you make it less of a hard science Fiction setting.

Pardon? We obvioulsy have radically different ideas of what constitutes 'hard SF'. To me what makes 2300AD a Hard SF setting is the absence of human genitcally compatible triple-breasted aliens and the fact that there is no sound in space. And IMO adherence to sciences current best guess about the stars near Earth won't automatically make a game a Hard SF setting: it'll just tie everyone in knots trying to keep up with those guesses.

People who start playing now will wonder why their are missing stars. Are the stars deliberately left out so that starships can't cross in that direction, why is that so vital to 2300?

Did we play the same game? The whole nature of space exploration and the economic, politcal and military structures of the setting were determined by the fact that some journeys required more steps than others, that there were choke points at key positions on the arms...

I'm sure their are other gaps that still can't be crossed. I just think that in Hard Science Fiction its more important to have all the known stars within 50 light years than it is to artificially maintain the barriers to navigation by leaving them out. Transhuman space by the way is a one solar system setting

The gaps are in different places though, so the choke points move, and changiing the stutterwarp limit has a similar effect... My point is that it's like saying that adding reliable GPS systems to a game of 15th Centurey ocean exploration wouldn't change the nature of the setting in fundemental ways... What gives 2300AD it's unique feel (part 18th/19th Centurey Age of Empires, part CJ Cherryh, part unique) IMO opinion is that absence of FTL communication faster than a ship, the need to stop frequently on long journeys, the fact that insiginficant way stations can be come crucial in military strategy. These things arise from the NSL data and the Stutterwarp drive, change those two and you alter fundemental aspects of the setting. For new 2300AD material to be accessible to the maximum number of people, it needs to build on what has gone before, not contradict it, IMO.

Now having said all that, I do think (and may have suggested before here) that any _new_ edition of 2300AD should include notes to enable referees to apply some of the more obvious tweaks (Stutterwarp II, changing the Stutterwarp for Jump2 and melding the 2300AD and OTU timelines etc). But they should be OPTIONS, not baseline assumptions IMO.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[BMonnery]

Nick, you're not on Channel 4 by any chance?

Certainly, altering S/W range makes a huge difference (like when TDs invasion fleet jumps straight to Earth via backwater systems).

I've no problem with altering the nature of warp (quite good in some ways) but it'd kill the history of 2300.

Bryn

[TKalbfus]

Can we like make a general version of 2300 AD, that is separate from any specific setting? In other words keep the stutterwarp or how about just a warp drive? I don't think it matters whether it stutters or not. Keep the 7.7 Light year rule, and the need to dissapate its energy in gravity wells. The General assumption remains that the world is still split into various nations and their is a Kafer Menace out there, we include an up to date starmap and just indicate which stars aren't supposed to be their for the original setting, but we include all the known stars for the Referee to use if he wants. It other words we first describe the game and the general setting assuptions without getting too specific. Later on we elaborate and describe the original 2300 setting in another section. In a third section we describe how the Referee can generate his own 2300 setting, this is for the new players who don't remember the original 2300 AD and who would have trouble swallowing the concept that World War III occured in 1997. I think the setting and the game can be separated into two different sections. The game has all the rules, how starships work, system generation etc, the setting section is for people who wish to recreate the setting.

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by BMonnery:
Nick, you're not on Channel 4 by any chance?

You mean have I been trouping off to some of the most inhospitable places on earth recently? No, although I _have_ been to Milton Keynes...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton