Jump from aground
- Thread starter Carlobrand
- Start date
THIS.
The "answer" to Carlobrand's original question is "What happens is whatever the GM wants/needs to happen." The results of Abri's act of suicide are going to be as varied as the many GMs who use the event and the many needs of their many campaigns.
There's going to be a catastrophic explosion or there's going to be a fizzle induced by safety interlocks. There's going to be a release of plasma or quarks or gluons or steam or custard cream pies. Passersby are going to be immolated or electrocuted or parboiled or knocked down or inflicted with weird mental powers. The ship is going to disappear or melt or be blown to atoms or sold for scrap or need a new jump drive. What's going to happen is what the GM needs to happen.
We're dealing with a make-believe technology which has been described in vague and contradictory terms. Anything you want to claim can happen can happen and you can make a good argument for anything you claim.
I totally agree.
The posts that give the "logical" and detailed explanations of what happens are also IMO trying to explain why the what happened.
Though I do like the thought of the ship emitting custard cream pies as I can envision a starport wide pie fight ensuing at a radius of 1km per J#.:rofl:
I've seen computers, and vacuum tube/valve radar equipment do things that violated everything i knew then about physics and electronics.
Its like watching a biology experiment. It does what it pleases. And you get to explisn to the captain, or your boss, what happened... even if there is no logical explination.
Like the time a high voltage power supply started acting up. The output meter would twitch for a few seconds, then stop. We worked on it for 3 days. Replaced some parts. Put it back together. It acted weird again, then stopped. And never did that again. The other guy helping me, who had a first class FCC commercial license and a bachelors degree in physics, was just as puzzled as me. He got to tell the captain, its working now Sir. But we're not sure why it went wonky in the first place.
High Guard states that the jump drive includes capacitors equal to 0.5% mass times jump number, so 1 ton for a scout or free trader. It states that the capacitors can store 36 EP per dTon. It states that a ship must generate EP equal to two turns output from a power plant rated equal to the jump being attempted, so 4 EP for the free trader on a jump-1 or the scout on a jump-2, and the scout can manage a jump-1 with 2 EP in one turn. It states that if a ship has a black globe and absorbs enough energy to satisfy jump requirements (in this case 4 EP, if one can imagine a free trader with a black globe) and also has sufficient jump fuel, it may jump. (This kinda muddies the "jump drive is a fusion plant" paradigm, but that's a discussion for another day.)
High Guard does not say the jump capacitor must be filled to capacity to engage the jump drive - that would take the free trader 18 turns, which would make disengaging by jump pretty much impossible for that little ship. Neither does it say that ships generally run around with the capacitors nearly full except for the 2 or 4 or whatever EP needed for a jump; such an interpretation would make the jump capacitors pretty much useless as a reserve for the black globes on warships.
Ergo, at the point the drive is triggered, we're looking at about 4 EP, yes?
Starship Operator's Manual describes the capacitors as Zuchai crystals, very good at storing immense power but nonetheless with limits: "...the crystals will begin to decompose and break down after two or three hours if not discharged. In extreme cases, the crystals can explosively decompose and do significant damage to the ship." It was a TNS news item that had a ship blowing up due to a "jump capacitor discharge," related to a delay in jump after charge-up, caused by the failure of a drop tank to separate on time. Interestingly, that one had a few survivors. Book 5 has the ship destroyed if the jump capacitors are full and the black globe takes in more energy. However, CT errata makes clear that the capacitors are reasonably resilient: no particular limits on how long the capacitors hold charge, capacitors don't blow if the jump drive takes damage, and it doesn't seem that you're at any risk if you lose the power plant and can't discharge the capacitors - you just don't want the black globe to pump in more power than they can hold. Same model seems to hold over in MegaTrav. So, it's one of those "pick-and-choose" canon conflicts, where canon says both and you can rationalize whichever option you like best - or both, if you're really good at rationalizing.
I think I'm liking the "pop into the jumpspace" paradigm, myself, maybe with a wee bit of collateral effects to make it more dramatic. Saves me having to come up with elaborate starport interventions to prevent or minimize massive explosions, and there's a certain eerie mystery about people disappearing into jumpspace. I'll save the big boom for other jump-related accidents.
Please do not rain on my parade. I made the post to solicit ideas from others on how they see it and how they explain it. I'm well aware that the options are as varied as the gamemasters imagining them, but it is precisely that imagination that I'm looking for. If that troubles you - well, sorry about that, but please don't stomp on the thread.
I'm sorry. I didn't intend to piss on anyone's parade with my post. I only wanted to point out that every idea presented was equally valid.
Several good ideas were presented and explained. The discussion has since devolved into mutual incomprehension festival as posters using different descriptions of jump drive technology from different versions of Traveller talk past each other while waving spreadsheets.
Are there other published sources that describe a normal jump? AFAIK Starship Operator's Manual is the only one which that does.
Well, I don't have T5 or access to JTAS over at sjgames.
Well, I don't have T5 or access to JTAS over at sjgames.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
Sorry if this was covered, but I don't have the time at present to read through every post.
Maybe the suicidal jumper has disabled all alarms and sensors so that the crew doesn't know what is going on but energy for jump, whatever the amount, is beyond what should/would be used in port and this is probably something monitored by any starport above a certain size and could be noticed by other ships and installations in the vicinity.
So alarms go off, ship is being contacted then boarded if necessary, people are being evacuated from the area if necessary, and so on...
Just my thoughts.
Maybe the suicidal jumper has disabled all alarms and sensors so that the crew doesn't know what is going on but energy for jump, whatever the amount, is beyond what should/would be used in port and this is probably something monitored by any starport above a certain size and could be noticed by other ships and installations in the vicinity.
So alarms go off, ship is being contacted then boarded if necessary, people are being evacuated from the area if necessary, and so on...
Just my thoughts.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Marc's Jumpspace article in JTAS 24 is the definitive text for CT.
The folks at DGP took some liberties with it.
They based the MT jump rules on CT '77 edition for one thing rather than the HG1/HG2/'81CT revision. All your jump fuel is used regardless of the distance jumped.
In order to make ship power plants compatible with Striker they increase power plant fuel requirements to such ridiculous levels that they had to reduce the 10% hull volume per jump number for ships (big mistake - it would have been better to just scrap power plant fuel altogether).
They moved the lanthanum coils from the inner workings of the jump drive and put the lanthanum in a hull grid.
They invented zuchai crystals to do the job that the lanthanum coils did in CT
A very good point. It takes at least 20 minutes in High Guard to power up the jump drive. It takes about that on average to prep the jump drive in MegaTrav, and that much again to activate it once coordinates are fed in. Either way, the starport authorities are likely to detect a sudden burst of neutrinos associated with powering up the drive and will have about 20 minutes or more to take some sort of action - up to and including firing a laser through the ship's engine compartment, I guess, if they're really motivated to stop it. At the least, there's plenty of time to get folk off the ship.
Marc's Jumpspace article in JTAS 24 is the definitive text for CT.
The folks at DGP took some liberties with it.
They based the MT jump rules on CT '77 edition for one thing rather than the HG1/HG2/'81CT revision. All your jump fuel is used regardless of the distance jumped.
In order to make ship power plants compatible with Striker they increase power plant fuel requirements to such ridiculous levels that they had to reduce the 10% hull volume per jump number for ships (big mistake - it would have been better to just scrap power plant fuel altogether).
They moved the lanthanum coils from the inner workings of the jump drive and put the lanthanum in a hull grid.
They invented zuchai crystals to do the job that the lanthanum coils did in CT
Which is one reason we have multiple different views on what might happen.
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