Imperiallines' Calibration Points
- Thread starter robject
- Start date
Hans,
Reconciling Imperium and Dark Nebula wasn't neccessary. They're wargames and therefore a different catagory of canon, Imperium especially.
Imperium originally stated that the Imperium consisted of about 70 systems centered on Capella. No one ever tried to reconcile that canonical 'fact'. It was dropped instead like Leviathan's jump torpedos as a wargame that predates the CT and the OTU was 'massaged' or 'retconned' to fit the rules written afterwards.
There is canon and then there is canon, wargames are special cases. FFW states that a squadron uses all of it's jump fuel when it jumps no matter how far it jumps. Are we to read that and say jump fuel regulators somehow don't exist or are not used between 1107 and 1110? The answer, of course, is that we are not.
The jump fuel rule in FFW is a play mechanic, a metagame artifact meant to streamline record keeping and definitely not a canonical description. The jump lines in Imperium are the same as FFW's jump fuel rule, a metagame artifact used for reasons of play.
As for the Vilani 'suppressing' the technique, a copy of AotI or a look at any on-line map site will reveal many three parsec gaps within the confines of the Ziru Sirka. Either the Bureaux have a way of routinely crossing those gaps or the acknowledged economic masters practicing 'Just in Time' manufacturing techniques across 15,000 systems at jump2 speeds are unaccountably accepting detours that can add months to trip times.
You always point out that "Canon must make sesne" and rightfully so. Which is it then? Are the Bureaux crossing those three parsec gaps or are they detouring? If you choose the former, you've just retconned more brown dwarfs into Traveller astrography. If you choose the latter, do the detours make any sense?
There was another solution suggested during the playtest and I didn't suggest it. I supported it true, but I didn't come up with it. Instead of retconning in brown dwarves or suppressing knowledge, a minor tweak would say deep space jumps (DSJs) of the period were of little utility for military operations because certain techniques hadn't been developed.
The exact reason why DSJs were of limited military utility could have been worked out, if the thread in question hadn't been hijacked by various morons fixated on mass precipitation requirements. The effort and time spent dealing with that topic most likely put the DSJ thread on most playtester's mental 'ignore list' as the actual nature of the thread got lost while trying to explain AGAIN to the usual suspects that mass is not a requirement of jump precipitation.
I keep bringing up 'military utility' in conjunction with DSJs because the real reason DSJs needed to be limited in GT:IW has nothing whatsoever to do with Imperium. The jump lines in Imperium are the excuse for the decision made and not the actual reason.
The reason happens to be the Sirius Gap. Specifically this question:
If the USSF could cross the two parsec gap between Terra and Barnard, why didn't the Ziru Sirka and Confederation later cross the three parsec gap between Terra and Sirius to attack each other directly?
That's the real reason why brown dwarves were retconned in and suppression suggested. It has nothing to do with Imperium's jumplines at all.
GT:IW's solution is a weak one and one for which the ramifications were not fully examined. Does this mean GT:IW is a poor product? Hell no. IMHO it ranks with GT:FI. The Regency Sourcebook, and Path of Tears. It does, however, mean that a mistake was made.
We're dealing with that mistake already. The subtle nature of GT:IW's solution doesn't come across to some readers. With the book out less than two months, mass precipitation has already reared it's head both here and at SJGames. You know as well as I that we'll be dealing with people using GT:IW as canonical justification for mass precipitation years from now, just as we'll be dealing the flawed T5 UWPs years from now.
Have fun,
Bill
Hans,
Reconciling Imperium and Dark Nebula wasn't neccessary. They're wargames and therefore a different catagory of canon, Imperium especially.
Imperium originally stated that the Imperium consisted of about 70 systems centered on Capella. No one ever tried to reconcile that canonical 'fact'. It was dropped instead like Leviathan's jump torpedos as a wargame that predates the CT and the OTU was 'massaged' or 'retconned' to fit the rules written afterwards.
There is canon and then there is canon, wargames are special cases. FFW states that a squadron uses all of it's jump fuel when it jumps no matter how far it jumps. Are we to read that and say jump fuel regulators somehow don't exist or are not used between 1107 and 1110? The answer, of course, is that we are not.
The jump fuel rule in FFW is a play mechanic, a metagame artifact meant to streamline record keeping and definitely not a canonical description. The jump lines in Imperium are the same as FFW's jump fuel rule, a metagame artifact used for reasons of play.
As for the Vilani 'suppressing' the technique, a copy of AotI or a look at any on-line map site will reveal many three parsec gaps within the confines of the Ziru Sirka. Either the Bureaux have a way of routinely crossing those gaps or the acknowledged economic masters practicing 'Just in Time' manufacturing techniques across 15,000 systems at jump2 speeds are unaccountably accepting detours that can add months to trip times.
You always point out that "Canon must make sesne" and rightfully so. Which is it then? Are the Bureaux crossing those three parsec gaps or are they detouring? If you choose the former, you've just retconned more brown dwarfs into Traveller astrography. If you choose the latter, do the detours make any sense?
There was another solution suggested during the playtest and I didn't suggest it. I supported it true, but I didn't come up with it. Instead of retconning in brown dwarves or suppressing knowledge, a minor tweak would say deep space jumps (DSJs) of the period were of little utility for military operations because certain techniques hadn't been developed.
The exact reason why DSJs were of limited military utility could have been worked out, if the thread in question hadn't been hijacked by various morons fixated on mass precipitation requirements. The effort and time spent dealing with that topic most likely put the DSJ thread on most playtester's mental 'ignore list' as the actual nature of the thread got lost while trying to explain AGAIN to the usual suspects that mass is not a requirement of jump precipitation.
I keep bringing up 'military utility' in conjunction with DSJs because the real reason DSJs needed to be limited in GT:IW has nothing whatsoever to do with Imperium. The jump lines in Imperium are the excuse for the decision made and not the actual reason.
The reason happens to be the Sirius Gap. Specifically this question:
If the USSF could cross the two parsec gap between Terra and Barnard, why didn't the Ziru Sirka and Confederation later cross the three parsec gap between Terra and Sirius to attack each other directly?
That's the real reason why brown dwarves were retconned in and suppression suggested. It has nothing to do with Imperium's jumplines at all.
GT:IW's solution is a weak one and one for which the ramifications were not fully examined. Does this mean GT:IW is a poor product? Hell no. IMHO it ranks with GT:FI. The Regency Sourcebook, and Path of Tears. It does, however, mean that a mistake was made.
We're dealing with that mistake already. The subtle nature of GT:IW's solution doesn't come across to some readers. With the book out less than two months, mass precipitation has already reared it's head both here and at SJGames. You know as well as I that we'll be dealing with people using GT:IW as canonical justification for mass precipitation years from now, just as we'll be dealing the flawed T5 UWPs years from now.
Have fun,
Bill
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
So, Bill, would that special category be cannon canon?
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
So, Bill, would that special category be cannon canon?
Plankowner
SOC-13
OK Bill, I will try to explain... Really, I'm on your side here.
I haven't figured out how to do the internal quoting thing yet so forgive me for not including those here.
The three most important things you need to make a successful interstellar jump (other than a working Jump Drive) is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
A simple jump of 1 parsec (3.26 light-years) is a HUGE distance. If a ship is going to emerge where it wants to within a few thousand km like you would need to be at the 100D limit (only about 1MKm), it has GOT to know EXACTLY where it is AND where it is going, EXACTLY. I'm thinking ten to twelve significant figures, minimum.
How, if a ship jumps out into deep space, can it determine it's location to the kind of accuracy needed to make that next jump and end up where it wants to be? It would be very hard without a lot of astronomical measurements and calculations and a LOT of computer time.
BUT, if the IISS did it's job right, the exact position (and velocity) of every star within the Imperium is well documented and updated. I figure this is one of the biggest jobs of the IISS and the main reason there are all those Seekers flying around all the time.
So, if I am going to use a calibration/refueling point, I will want it to be somewhere that I know EXACTLY where it is. The easiest and fastest way to do that is to use a star. Hence my "nice big star to aim at" comment. I wasn't thinking of it in terms of a gravity well, I was thinking of a star as a very big target, that I know the exact location of, for me to aim at as an intermediate stop on my way to my real destination. Also, if I am off on my jump calculations an miss my target by a couple AU, I can still find the cache pretty easily, because it is in a known orbit of this star, not just floating in some unknown direction at an unknown distance from my ship.
In the situation where you have a deep space cache of fuel, how did the people who put it there figure out EXACTLY where it was, so that they could jump in and out accurately? I figure a star is the logical place for a calibration point for that reason.
I am a BIG fan of CJ Cherryh's Merchanter and Chanur books, and she uses Mass Precipitation as a plot point, but that is NOT traveller.
And I ALWAYS have fun (some days more than others).
I haven't figured out how to do the internal quoting thing yet so forgive me for not including those here.
The three most important things you need to make a successful interstellar jump (other than a working Jump Drive) is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
A simple jump of 1 parsec (3.26 light-years) is a HUGE distance. If a ship is going to emerge where it wants to within a few thousand km like you would need to be at the 100D limit (only about 1MKm), it has GOT to know EXACTLY where it is AND where it is going, EXACTLY. I'm thinking ten to twelve significant figures, minimum.
How, if a ship jumps out into deep space, can it determine it's location to the kind of accuracy needed to make that next jump and end up where it wants to be? It would be very hard without a lot of astronomical measurements and calculations and a LOT of computer time.
BUT, if the IISS did it's job right, the exact position (and velocity) of every star within the Imperium is well documented and updated. I figure this is one of the biggest jobs of the IISS and the main reason there are all those Seekers flying around all the time.
So, if I am going to use a calibration/refueling point, I will want it to be somewhere that I know EXACTLY where it is. The easiest and fastest way to do that is to use a star. Hence my "nice big star to aim at" comment. I wasn't thinking of it in terms of a gravity well, I was thinking of a star as a very big target, that I know the exact location of, for me to aim at as an intermediate stop on my way to my real destination. Also, if I am off on my jump calculations an miss my target by a couple AU, I can still find the cache pretty easily, because it is in a known orbit of this star, not just floating in some unknown direction at an unknown distance from my ship.
In the situation where you have a deep space cache of fuel, how did the people who put it there figure out EXACTLY where it was, so that they could jump in and out accurately? I figure a star is the logical place for a calibration point for that reason.
I am a BIG fan of CJ Cherryh's Merchanter and Chanur books, and she uses Mass Precipitation as a plot point, but that is NOT traveller.
And I ALWAYS have fun (some days more than others).
Plankowner
SOC-13
OK Bill, I will try to explain... Really, I'm on your side here.
I haven't figured out how to do the internal quoting thing yet so forgive me for not including those here.
The three most important things you need to make a successful interstellar jump (other than a working Jump Drive) is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
A simple jump of 1 parsec (3.26 light-years) is a HUGE distance. If a ship is going to emerge where it wants to within a few thousand km like you would need to be at the 100D limit (only about 1MKm), it has GOT to know EXACTLY where it is AND where it is going, EXACTLY. I'm thinking ten to twelve significant figures, minimum.
How, if a ship jumps out into deep space, can it determine it's location to the kind of accuracy needed to make that next jump and end up where it wants to be? It would be very hard without a lot of astronomical measurements and calculations and a LOT of computer time.
BUT, if the IISS did it's job right, the exact position (and velocity) of every star within the Imperium is well documented and updated. I figure this is one of the biggest jobs of the IISS and the main reason there are all those Seekers flying around all the time.
So, if I am going to use a calibration/refueling point, I will want it to be somewhere that I know EXACTLY where it is. The easiest and fastest way to do that is to use a star. Hence my "nice big star to aim at" comment. I wasn't thinking of it in terms of a gravity well, I was thinking of a star as a very big target, that I know the exact location of, for me to aim at as an intermediate stop on my way to my real destination. Also, if I am off on my jump calculations an miss my target by a couple AU, I can still find the cache pretty easily, because it is in a known orbit of this star, not just floating in some unknown direction at an unknown distance from my ship.
In the situation where you have a deep space cache of fuel, how did the people who put it there figure out EXACTLY where it was, so that they could jump in and out accurately? I figure a star is the logical place for a calibration point for that reason.
I am a BIG fan of CJ Cherryh's Merchanter and Chanur books, and she uses Mass Precipitation as a plot point, but that is NOT traveller.
And I ALWAYS have fun (some days more than others).
I haven't figured out how to do the internal quoting thing yet so forgive me for not including those here.
The three most important things you need to make a successful interstellar jump (other than a working Jump Drive) is LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
A simple jump of 1 parsec (3.26 light-years) is a HUGE distance. If a ship is going to emerge where it wants to within a few thousand km like you would need to be at the 100D limit (only about 1MKm), it has GOT to know EXACTLY where it is AND where it is going, EXACTLY. I'm thinking ten to twelve significant figures, minimum.
How, if a ship jumps out into deep space, can it determine it's location to the kind of accuracy needed to make that next jump and end up where it wants to be? It would be very hard without a lot of astronomical measurements and calculations and a LOT of computer time.
BUT, if the IISS did it's job right, the exact position (and velocity) of every star within the Imperium is well documented and updated. I figure this is one of the biggest jobs of the IISS and the main reason there are all those Seekers flying around all the time.
So, if I am going to use a calibration/refueling point, I will want it to be somewhere that I know EXACTLY where it is. The easiest and fastest way to do that is to use a star. Hence my "nice big star to aim at" comment. I wasn't thinking of it in terms of a gravity well, I was thinking of a star as a very big target, that I know the exact location of, for me to aim at as an intermediate stop on my way to my real destination. Also, if I am off on my jump calculations an miss my target by a couple AU, I can still find the cache pretty easily, because it is in a known orbit of this star, not just floating in some unknown direction at an unknown distance from my ship.
In the situation where you have a deep space cache of fuel, how did the people who put it there figure out EXACTLY where it was, so that they could jump in and out accurately? I figure a star is the logical place for a calibration point for that reason.
I am a BIG fan of CJ Cherryh's Merchanter and Chanur books, and she uses Mass Precipitation as a plot point, but that is NOT traveller.
And I ALWAYS have fun (some days more than others).
Robject,
Could be.
Then again, I could want to see things done correctly. Much like your selfless and tireless involvement in the very odd T5 'pre-playtest'.
All in all, quality control, quality assurance, procedural compliance, and all that flows from those have been how I earn my keep since the Carter Administration. I loathe avoidable mistakes. I especially loathe identifying mistakes, trying to prevent those mistakes, and then seeing them happen anyway.
GT:IWs' 'brown dwarf/suppression' solution was a mistake waiting to happen. T5's well meaning attempt to hand correct over 25 sectors of corrupted Genii UWPs is another mistake waiting to happen. (Save that last bit somewhere and leave yourself a note to look at it in 2010. I'll say I told you so now in case I'm dead then.)
Does wanting things to come out as well as possible make me a tetchy old poop? It sure does. The fact I am a tetchy old poop doesn't mean that things shouldn't come out as well as possible however.
Have fun,
Bill
Robject,
Could be.
Then again, I could want to see things done correctly. Much like your selfless and tireless involvement in the very odd T5 'pre-playtest'.
All in all, quality control, quality assurance, procedural compliance, and all that flows from those have been how I earn my keep since the Carter Administration. I loathe avoidable mistakes. I especially loathe identifying mistakes, trying to prevent those mistakes, and then seeing them happen anyway.
GT:IWs' 'brown dwarf/suppression' solution was a mistake waiting to happen. T5's well meaning attempt to hand correct over 25 sectors of corrupted Genii UWPs is another mistake waiting to happen. (Save that last bit somewhere and leave yourself a note to look at it in 2010. I'll say I told you so now in case I'm dead then.)
Does wanting things to come out as well as possible make me a tetchy old poop? It sure does. The fact I am a tetchy old poop doesn't mean that things shouldn't come out as well as possible however.
Have fun,
Bill
Plankowner,
Marc Miller's JTAS Jumpspace article says jumpdrive's accuracy is 3000km per parsec jumped. Apparently, the accuracy you're talking about is done all the time.
The positions of a deep space fuel cache must be plotted with equisite precision. A navigation error of only a few AU could result in a very long search, especially if the cache doesn't have a beacon(1). Deep space fuel caches are, oddly enough, called 'calibration points' for this very reason. However, jumping into 'empty hexes' and locating fuel caches is relatively routine.
I'll point you to the 'Trade War' section of The Traveller Adventure. The players aboard their elderly Type-R 'subbie' and an Oberlindes scout/courier blithely jump to an Arekut calibration point and capture ships for two weeks. The only concern in this operation was bribing the location of the calibrations out of some Arekut employee. Once the location was known, the March Harrier jumped to the claibration point with about as much concern as she did jumping between Zila and Pysadi.
Making deep space jumps and finding calibration points are no big deal. Never have been either.
Have fun,
Bill
1 - It seems most caches don't have beacons. The agencies or organizations that placed the cache don't want someone else using their fuel understandably.
Plankowner,
Marc Miller's JTAS Jumpspace article says jumpdrive's accuracy is 3000km per parsec jumped. Apparently, the accuracy you're talking about is done all the time.
The positions of a deep space fuel cache must be plotted with equisite precision. A navigation error of only a few AU could result in a very long search, especially if the cache doesn't have a beacon(1). Deep space fuel caches are, oddly enough, called 'calibration points' for this very reason. However, jumping into 'empty hexes' and locating fuel caches is relatively routine.
I'll point you to the 'Trade War' section of The Traveller Adventure. The players aboard their elderly Type-R 'subbie' and an Oberlindes scout/courier blithely jump to an Arekut calibration point and capture ships for two weeks. The only concern in this operation was bribing the location of the calibrations out of some Arekut employee. Once the location was known, the March Harrier jumped to the claibration point with about as much concern as she did jumping between Zila and Pysadi.
Making deep space jumps and finding calibration points are no big deal. Never have been either.
Have fun,
Bill
1 - It seems most caches don't have beacons. The agencies or organizations that placed the cache don't want someone else using their fuel understandably.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Exactly. Just because I'm a curmudgeon doesn't mean I'm wrong.
)Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Exactly. Just because I'm a curmudgeon doesn't mean I'm wrong.
)Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Another Cranky Old Obdurate* Traveller - A COOT. 
* Obdurate - stubborn and unyielding
* Obdurate - stubborn and unyielding
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Another Cranky Old Obdurate* Traveller - A COOT.
* Obdurate - stubborn and unyielding
* Obdurate - stubborn and unyielding
