Liam Devlin
SOC-14 5K
Jumping into Empty Hexes:-Has been around since A3 Twilight's peak of course..
recently we entered one such star hex looking for a derelict on a Mayday call ( and incited all kinds of mayhem about lawful salvage/ piracy/ rights of salvors & salvees rescued, which was lost in the reset of this entire forum ).
In this instance, the player Captain ( and we the rest of the crew )had enough fuel to jump away. We did our best estimate with an astrogation roll from our best astrogator skilled person, and still to find the ship took 70-72 IG "hours" after we'd arrived--space is BIG.
After we'd rescued and saved what could be, we jumped out for a star system with gas giants to refuel (we have a J-4 (my engineer's baby!), and had 2 parsecs+ some manuever fuel remaining, we used 1 parsecs worth to get to this derelict)
Now as for finding iceballs and other things from which to refuel from--GM's call I say. We know more today than when the game Traveller was first cast 20-odd years ago.
Gravity well in an empty hex? Only if a Brown Dwarf were present--and they exert some awesome pull.
Sigg Oddra mentioned the Brown Dwarf in the empty hex. We didn't know much about BD's 20 years ago, but yes, they can appear in such hexes--and according to some of our astronomer-Playyers of these boards, more common than thought five years ago apparently.
THAT being said, Innskip --Traveller has been added to since that time, and so things once canon may now not be seen so ( see the above for examples, Like the Annic Nova alien ship's jump drive ).
Deep space refueling points in otherwise empty hexes have been utilized to cross gulfs, and make those short-legged merchant ships go further than otherwise expected.
Carrying internal fuel bladders to pump out into the ship's main tanks while it eats up cargo space, have also been done ( and to death might I add ).
An idea I saw ( admittedly TNE-TML fandom, thus not "canon" ) by Peter Gray, was of a technique he attributed back to the Solomani Nth wars (in his TU) called "icing".
For you jump field/ bubble believers, and those not--this was a series of "radiators" designed to hold deuterium Lyhyd "iced" onto the hull (surface external area) of a ship.
Naturally this was refined fuel and had to be done at B-class starport system or better.
These 'radiators' also then took said "iced" fuel off said hull, into said powerplant and left the internal tanks free for either a second jump without refuleing as ship jumped away.
Militarily, if you jumped into a bees nest, you could escape on your internal tanakge. Commercially, it allowed his Imperial Regency to extend the range of older commercial ships without serious affect to shipyards, at a cost cheaper than adding BIGGER jump drives to already existing ships behind the Viral Quarantine for trade into the Spinward States.
I thought it an elegant solution commercially and militarily myself, but its Pete's idea, not mine. Nor is it canon.
But scientifically, It could be done!
Never forget, if you're the GM you're the boss of what "is", and "isn't" in your Traveller Universe. Due to the nature of the game's evolving into a bigger and bigger stage, the retcons, add-ons, and so forth have become part and parcel of countless discussions..
Great shtuff guys.. moving on now, we've a runaway hulk headed for a small world to stop and 40 "game hours" to do it in
recently we entered one such star hex looking for a derelict on a Mayday call ( and incited all kinds of mayhem about lawful salvage/ piracy/ rights of salvors & salvees rescued, which was lost in the reset of this entire forum ).
In this instance, the player Captain ( and we the rest of the crew )had enough fuel to jump away. We did our best estimate with an astrogation roll from our best astrogator skilled person, and still to find the ship took 70-72 IG "hours" after we'd arrived--space is BIG.
After we'd rescued and saved what could be, we jumped out for a star system with gas giants to refuel (we have a J-4 (my engineer's baby!), and had 2 parsecs+ some manuever fuel remaining, we used 1 parsecs worth to get to this derelict)
Now as for finding iceballs and other things from which to refuel from--GM's call I say. We know more today than when the game Traveller was first cast 20-odd years ago.
Gravity well in an empty hex? Only if a Brown Dwarf were present--and they exert some awesome pull.
Sigg Oddra mentioned the Brown Dwarf in the empty hex. We didn't know much about BD's 20 years ago, but yes, they can appear in such hexes--and according to some of our astronomer-Playyers of these boards, more common than thought five years ago apparently.
THAT being said, Innskip --Traveller has been added to since that time, and so things once canon may now not be seen so ( see the above for examples, Like the Annic Nova alien ship's jump drive ).
Deep space refueling points in otherwise empty hexes have been utilized to cross gulfs, and make those short-legged merchant ships go further than otherwise expected.
Carrying internal fuel bladders to pump out into the ship's main tanks while it eats up cargo space, have also been done ( and to death might I add ).
An idea I saw ( admittedly TNE-TML fandom, thus not "canon" ) by Peter Gray, was of a technique he attributed back to the Solomani Nth wars (in his TU) called "icing".
For you jump field/ bubble believers, and those not--this was a series of "radiators" designed to hold deuterium Lyhyd "iced" onto the hull (surface external area) of a ship.
Naturally this was refined fuel and had to be done at B-class starport system or better.
These 'radiators' also then took said "iced" fuel off said hull, into said powerplant and left the internal tanks free for either a second jump without refuleing as ship jumped away.
Militarily, if you jumped into a bees nest, you could escape on your internal tanakge. Commercially, it allowed his Imperial Regency to extend the range of older commercial ships without serious affect to shipyards, at a cost cheaper than adding BIGGER jump drives to already existing ships behind the Viral Quarantine for trade into the Spinward States.
I thought it an elegant solution commercially and militarily myself, but its Pete's idea, not mine. Nor is it canon.
But scientifically, It could be done!
Never forget, if you're the GM you're the boss of what "is", and "isn't" in your Traveller Universe. Due to the nature of the game's evolving into a bigger and bigger stage, the retcons, add-ons, and so forth have become part and parcel of countless discussions..
Great shtuff guys.. moving on now, we've a runaway hulk headed for a small world to stop and 40 "game hours" to do it in
