Is Hop Space the same as Jump Space?
- Thread starter Barrel
- Start date
Silverhawk
SOC-12
It's a good question. The thought that came to me when I first read T5 was that of an onion.
Normal Space - Surface of the onion
Jump Space - One layer just below the surface. The distance is shorter but not by that much
Hop Space - Two layers.
Skip Space - Three layers
Closer you get to the core of the onion the shorter he distance between the points
At least IMTU thinking
Normal Space - Surface of the onion
Jump Space - One layer just below the surface. The distance is shorter but not by that much
Hop Space - Two layers.
Skip Space - Three layers
Closer you get to the core of the onion the shorter he distance between the points
At least IMTU thinking
Canonically they are NOT the same dimensional spaces (or spacetimes) but then, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are entirely independent or entirely unrelated to one another or to normal spacetime either. Or that the have the same 4+ dimensionality and curvature.
Is each "hyperspace" an entirely independent multidimensional spacetime with at least 3 spatial dimensions and some number of temporal dimensions, or are some of the dimensions of a given hyperspace our own "normal" dimensions while others are "rotated" or "swapped out" with alien ones? Remember that our spacetime has some type of projection into all of the various hyperspatial configurations, since a gravity well will dump a ship out of them or otherwise interfere.
Since the hyperspaces apparently have a "time-constant", perhaps they partake of multiple temporal dimensions of which one is the one which we normally experience.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
My pert theory is, that the hexagonal maps are actually accurate, and jumpspace is the second dimension.
Badenov
SOC-12
I'm still hung up on the fact that the first 3 FTL drive types are hop, skip, and jump. I'm fine with so much other shenaniganery and hijinks.
But regardless of what it's called,
But regardless of what it's called,
seems totally reasonable. I'll call it an Onion drive or an Ogre drive or anything. I'm sure some backronym will present itself.
Based on the above description, it is simple enough to call them 1st thru 9th Order Hyper/Jump Drives. (Or Quantum I thru IX).
Hop, Skip, etc are really no more bizarre or tongue in cheek than modern physicists calling subnucleons "quarks" after a line out of Finnegan's Wake, or Strong Force carriers "gluons". It happens in real science.
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I think this makes a lot of sense. Our 4d universe is reduced to a 2d jump space with different rules, with 2d jump spaces stacking like pancakes granting different jump numbers.
I am not a fan of hop and skip, nor the decimalisation introduced in T5 and MgT. I think more could have been made of the known misjump potential, the next tier of drives being capable of 1->36 initially.
| advanced drive | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| TL | 20 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| range | 36 | 72 | 108 | 144 | 180 | 216 |
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Alternatively, keep the Higher Order Hyperspaces as-is, but use base-6 instead of base-10.
Jump: 0-6 x 60 = 0-6 pc
Hop: 0-6 x 61 = 0-36 pc
Skip: 0-6 x 62 = 0-216 pc
etc.
Or use the Hieronymous Nexus concept:
Jump Nexus: Additive
Hop Nexus: Multiplicative
Skip Nexus: Exponetiator
Another thing you could do if you wanted to keep both base-6 and base-10, in a sense, is keep the base-10 concept as an "unstable resonance" of two hyperspace field-spaces, and allow Hyper/Jump Drives to be configured to utilize it to "push" the limits of the drive, but with a higher chance of mis-jump in that regime.
Normative:
- Jump: 0-6 x 60 = 0-6 pc
- Hop: 0-6 x 61 = 0-36 pc
- Skip: 0-6 x 62 = 0-216 pc
- Leap: 0-6 x 63 = 0-1296 pc
- Bound: 0-6 x 64 = 0-7776 pc
- Vault: 0-6 x 65 = 0-46,656 pc
- Jump: 7-9 x 60 = 7-9 pc (with double the mis-jump chance for Jump 7-9)
- Hop: 7-9 x 61 = 42-54 pc (with double the mis-hop chance for Hop 7-9)
- Skip: 7-9 x 62 = 252-324 pc (with double the mis-skip chance for Skip 7-9)
- Leap: 7-9 x 63 = 1512-1944 pc (with double the mis-leap chance for Leap 7-9)
- Bound: 7-9 x 64 = 9072-11,664 pc (with double the mis-bound chance for Bound 7-9)
- Vault: 7-9 x 65 = 54,432-69,984 pc (with double the mis-vault chance for Vault 7-9)
- Jump: 0-9 x 100 = 0-9 pc (with double the mis-jump chance for Jump 7-9)
- Hop: 0-9 x 101 = 0-90 pc (with double the mis-hop chance for Hop 3 and triple the mis-hop chance for Hop 4-9)
- Skip: 0-9 x 102 = 0-900 pc (with double the mis-skip chance for Skip 2 and triple the mis-skip chance for Skip 3-9)
- Leap: 0-9 x 103 = 0-9000 pc (with double the mis-leap chance for Leap 1 and triple the mis-leap chance for Leap 2-9)
- Bound: 0-9 x 104 = 0-90,000 pc (with double the mis-bound chance for Bound 0 and triple the mis-bound chance for Bound 1-9)
- Vault: 0-9 x 105 = 0-900,000 pc (with triple the mis-vault chance for Vault 0-9)
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
So it would end up like this:
| hop drive | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| TL | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| range | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 | 36 |
| skip | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| TL | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| range | 36 | 72 | 108 | 144 | 180 | 216 |
Actually, like this (if you are keeping the progression paradigm - the Drive developments overlap at the low and high ends):
- It also depends upon whether or not you want to keep the "fractional jump" idea)
| Hop drive | Early Hop 0/1 | Hop 1 (1.5) | Hop 2 | Hop 3 | Hop 4 | Hop 5 | Hop 6 | |
| TL | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | |
| range | ≤ 6 | 6 (9) | 12 | 18 | 24 | 30 | 36 | |
| Skip drive | Early Skip 0/1 | Skip 1 (1.5) | Skip 2 | Skip 3 | Skip 4 | Skip 5 | Skip 6 | |
| TL | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | |
| range | ≤ (18) 36 | 36 (54) | 72 | 108 | 144 | 180 | 216 |
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But I think in the end it's moot, as ships interacting in jump space isn't really a thing.
Not more than once, anyway.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Well there is this T4 adventure where...
Of course. Ultimately it just advances the Campaign storyline to the next world, no frills.
But if you want to get flavor and details from the "nitty-gritty" of the supposed "science", sometimes those details can lead to interesting ramifications in the campaign, depending on the situation and the predilections of the GM.
That's not to say there isn't some interesting ground to be plumbed there.
I for one wish there were more Jump based adventures.
I can only think of a couple, usually it's "Fix the ship before it comes out of jump space and explodes!!!"
But repelling jump-space alien boarders, performing a jump space rescue, trying to retrieve a ship stuck in a "Jump loop"
Or escaping a star system stuck in a jump pocket could all be interesting adventure ideas.
I for one wish there were more Jump based adventures.
I can only think of a couple, usually it's "Fix the ship before it comes out of jump space and explodes!!!"
But repelling jump-space alien boarders, performing a jump space rescue, trying to retrieve a ship stuck in a "Jump loop"
Or escaping a star system stuck in a jump pocket could all be interesting adventure ideas.
Indeed. Or even just building upon or exploring the mystery of the nature of the jump space environment and/or what jump space actually is (e.g. the Abyss Rift in Lanth Subsector and the "strange phenomenon" reported - Bermuda Triangle-like - by supposed reputable sources (but always difficult to find the original report or provenance of):
- Patterns in sensor readings that should not be there (why would you be monitoring the sensors anyway, except perhaps certain detectors by the engineers?). The bored token bridge watch-stander needs something to do after all . . .
- Scratchy barely discernable transmissions being received over the comm, when there can be/should be none.
- Knocking/Scratching sounds coming from outside the hull, like something trying to get in.
- Ghostly barely discernable image of another vessel out the viewport (which you shouldn't be looking out of anyway), with a configuration or markings over 3000 years old, but nothing recorded/recordable on sensor logs.
- Patterns in the jump field out the view port (again, why are you looking?), that seem to mean something or be trying to say something but are remembered or were perceived differently by another observer who was sitting right next to you (so there are two idiots on the crew . . . )
I once had the PCs notice a ship following them in jump space. Further examination of the sensor returns showed that it was, as far as any and all sensors could tell, identical to their own ship. Was it real? Was it some kind of sensor ghost? A sensor malfunction (of all sensors at once)? They couldn't tell, and it was gaining on them... collision was calculated to be at jump emergence, plus or minus a few seconds...
It's a natural fit for "locked room mystery" or "closed circle (of suspects) mystery" scenarios. (Both links to Wikipedia)
TheDS
SOC-13
I contend this was not originally true. Until LKW redefined Jump in GT (which I didn't catch until Thrash put it in Far Trader, and by then MWM decided it sounded cool, so he blessed it), every description of Jump mentioned that nothing could affect a ship while in jumpspace, and that the ship could not do anything at all to cause itself to emerge even one second sooner or one inch different from where its entry moment would put it. This is because the ship is not going through space, it is going through jumpspace. So the only time there is an intersection between space and jumpspace is the two moments a ship creates the jump holes: at the beginning and the end of the jump. The exception to this is if the emergence hole would be in a gravity well, in which case it "moves" to the nearest possible place it can form. The entry hole "tries" to do this, which is why initiating Jump within a gravity well tends to cause misjumps.
The important thing to remember is: You are NOT traveling through the intervening space. You are in a different space entirely. Either a wormhole or a different universe or whatever.
The whole idea of jump-masking (not to be confused with jump shadow) completely destroys the game. If jump-masking was real, all it would take to capture pirates or enemy fleets that jumped out of the system would be to move a large ship onto the space they jumped from within a week, and they would be forced to precipitate back there at the end of the jump. Or put some big masses in the outer system between two stars and you can force ships to precipitate far away from any hope of rescue and rob them (if you're a pirate) or destroy them (if you're an SDB) at your leisure. Furthermore, it would become possible to communicate with a ship in jumpspace by use of gravity waves.
A thought experiment: Get piece of paper and put two dots in opposite corners. Train an ant to walk from one dot to the other. Now, draw all kinds of obstacles (planets, flytraps, whatever) between those two points. Now, simulate Jump drive by folding the paper so that the two dots touch each other, and get your trained ant to walk from one dot to the other. Did it touch any of the obstacles? Of course not, because it "jumped over" them.
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