Jump gates

[Grav_Moped]

That very much depends on the edition of the game you are using.
In CT to enter jump you need
a jump drive and fuel
the correct computer programs
distance from large objects
Not a lot of rules to change at all

Ships would have more room for other stuff without jump drive and fuel - more passengers, cargo, etc.
Not exactly game changing.

In 1st Edition LBB2 and Mongoose, there is no additional energy requirement during the time in Jumpspace, so the idea doesn't break that specific part of the rules. LBB2'77 doesn't, technically speaking, even require a power plant (see the original XBoat). Mongoose only needs a power plant that covers baseline (starship or nonstarship) power usage, and nothing extra for the Jump Drive after Jump initiation.

Second Edition LBB2 and High Guard require Pn=Jn fuel burn (and presumably also the associated energy output) during Jump, because non-starships have the same fuel consumption rate as starships -- starships don't get to reduce their power plant fuel burn because they spend a week in jump*. Thus, in order for that idea to work in accordance with the rest of the rules, ships would still need a jump drive and power plant of Pn=Jn, and at least a week-plus-10% supply of power plant fuel to establish and sustain the jump bubble/field during the Jump transit. Which means you can accomplish the same objective as the proposed jump gate just by using drop tanks...

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*It's not clear whether you can throttle back the power plant for jumps of lower than the rated maximum Jn using the TCS/JTAS#14 power-down rule (either directly by staying at the lower Pn for a whole month, or breaking fuel consumption down to a weekly basis).
[Example without pro-rating by weeks: LBB2 Type T Patrol cruiser (J3/4G) needs 40Td fuel for 1 month, but if it never went over 3G during that month (and thus, never over Pn-3) it could stretch out its 30 days of power plant fuel to 40 days even if it did a Jump-3 somewhere in there, using the power-down rule.] I'd allow it, though in most cases it wouldn't matter that much. The edge cases where it would, are going to generate a lot of argument!

 

[Rupert]

MegaTraveller and TNE/FF&S jump drives do not require power, so you only need to provide enough for whatever systems you plan to run during jump.

 

[Marcatlas]

Not really.

Yes, really.

 

[Carlobrand]

...

The T4 announcement reminds me - there is at least one secret jump gate network in the Third Imperium.

Wait, what???

 

[warwizard]

The first reading of the gate is that the 30 min to hour wait brings out an economic issue: The jumping of a single 10 or 20 DT represents the usage of the time of a very large pile of jump equipment. There is a cost per hour of operation and financing that large pile of jump drive. I would say that that would drive a jump bus application where all the small craft and small ships wait for slots in a large framework that carries the maximum displacement the gate is capable of sending. (the jump bus has no or negligible power, no crew, the grapples provide no power or other amenietes and take up 5% of the volume to be jumped. and are jumped only to a system with a gate.)
Next issue is a given gate designed for a specific destination system or existing trade volumes? For example in the Spinward Marches there are two A HI IN worlds J-1 apart one TL-F the other perhaps TL-9 or 10. The low tech world is only able to reach the TL-F world as that is the only world within J-1. There is an enormous raw material trade between the two systems that would support a J-1 gate with jump busses to take containerized raw material shipments between the systems, and is scaled to handle the annual traffic. The TL-F system would have a second gate for general traffic going elsewhere. The TL-F system would NOT allow outside traders to use the dedicated gate, and the general trade gate does not connect to the TL-9 world as official policy is to maintain a trade monopoly with them.

 

[warwizard]

Next idea: The gate has mulitple power plant and jump capacitors the plants are large enough to charge capacitors in 30 minutes and there are 10 sets of these to enable a jump every 3 minutes, and the gate orbits a gas giant, some 110 diameters out and has a fleet of scoop ships refuelling the gate. (jump gates are not volume constrained, and can do stuff that ships are totally unable to contemplate) This would make the rift 1 million DT capacity gates able to jump 20 million DT/hour of ships or jump busses.

 

[Spinward Flow]

This would make the rift 1 million DT capacity gates able to jump 20 million DT/hour of ships or jump busses.

Trick question.
Is there sufficient "demand signal" for that volume of interstellar traffic?

In other words ... if you build it ... will they come?

 

[Enoki]

The first reading of the gate is that the 30 min to hour wait brings out an economic issue: The jumping of a single 10 or 20 DT represents the usage of the time of a very large pile of jump equipment. There is a cost per hour of operation and financing that large pile of jump drive. I would say that that would drive a jump bus application where all the small craft and small ships wait for slots in a large framework that carries the maximum displacement the gate is capable of sending. (the jump bus has no or negligible power, no crew, the grapples provide no power or other amenietes and take up 5% of the volume to be jumped. and are jumped only to a system with a gate.)
Next issue is a given gate designed for a specific destination system or existing trade volumes? For example in the Spinward Marches there are two A HI IN worlds J-1 apart one TL-F the other perhaps TL-9 or 10. The low tech world is only able to reach the TL-F world as that is the only world within J-1. There is an enormous raw material trade between the two systems that would support a J-1 gate with jump busses to take containerized raw material shipments between the systems, and is scaled to handle the annual traffic. The TL-F system would have a second gate for general traffic going elsewhere. The TL-F system would NOT allow outside traders to use the dedicated gate, and the general trade gate does not connect to the TL-9 world as official policy is to maintain a trade monopoly with them.

The alternative might be that depending on configuration, size, etc., of the ships more than one could be jumped at a time if that's possible. Of course, a gate specifically for small traffic, say 200 dtons and under might also be present. This would make it cheaper to build and operate.

 

[warwizard]

Trick question.
Is there sufficient "demand signal" for that volume of interstellar traffic?

In other words ... if you build it ... will they come?

I am expecting that this is a power projection capacity build, send 4 core fleets across the rift to well and truly put the smak down on the pesky Zhodani & friends. There may even be a class of ships built that hooks into the power grid of a jump gate to enable the three minute per activation, so that the high force movement rate is controlled by the fleet that knows the gates and has prepared for this ability. (cheaper to have ships to do this on a gate as the fleet transits, and then have the ships move to the next gate to power it. In fact that might be a design feature of jump gates in frontier areas, the power to make the gates usable jumps itself out using the gate, thus denying the use of the gate. Obviously this capacity needs to be kept secret as long as possible.

 

[warwizard]

Evil thought: 1 million DT replacement gates sent through the rift gates to systems where gates were destroyed. Still big enough to jump gate plankwells.

 

[infojunky]

I was thinking about adding jump gates to MTU. There’s really nothing in the rules prohibiting them, while they would add a certain amount of versatility to many scenarios.

Dude, Go for it.

Let us know how it plays.

 

[Enoki]

It would put a completely new twist on things like battle riders too. You have what is essentially a container with say a dozen + non-jump combat ships in it and fire it through the gate to the target system where they unload from the container and go into combat. The container is reusable, so it is saved for later use. It need only be a container, not even an actual ship. So, there is little or no crew and other 'stuff' aboard it. It just holds the smaller ships for the jump.

 

[infojunky]

It would put a completely new twist on things like battle riders too. You have what is essentially a container with say a dozen + non-jump combat ships in it and fire it through the gate to the target system where they unload from the container and go into combat. The container is reusable, so it is saved for later use. It need only be a container, not even an actual ship. So, there is little or no crew and other 'stuff' aboard it. It just holds the smaller ships for the jump.

Traveller is what you make of it...

Fading Suns, another Traveller relative had Jump Gates.

For some more heresy I have been pondering passive sensors for warp ships...

 

[Enoki]

Traveller is what you make of it...

Fading Suns, another Traveller relative had Jump Gates.

For some more heresy I have been pondering passive sensors for warp ships...

Well, the way I envision jump gates is they are an alternative to jump ships, not a replacement for them.

 

[kilemall]

It would put a completely new twist on things like battle riders too. You have what is essentially a container with say a dozen + non-jump combat ships in it and fire it through the gate to the target system where they unload from the container and go into combat. The container is reusable, so it is saved for later use. It need only be a container, not even an actual ship. So, there is little or no crew and other 'stuff' aboard it. It just holds the smaller ships for the jump.

Guild Heighliners is pretty much big box hauling smaller ships, although with the Navigation skill being a bit more of development/drug expense and psionic.

 

[Condottiere]

Car ferry.

 

[Enoki]

Dude, Go for it.

Let us know how it plays.

Uggg... Now I have to go and design one... uggg...

 

[whartung]

Now I have to go and design one.

How big of a ship can it handle?

How far can it send it?

Does it need a gate at the other end?

I think that about covers the "design".

For example, do Jump Gates use vast amounts of fuel? As a user, don't know, don't care. As a consumer, I know tank trucks are used to refill gas stations, but that's mostly trivia. Don't know when they come or how much they deliver. All I know is I show up, stick a nozzle in my car, and it gets filled up! Those infrastructure details of extract refinement, transport, additives, etc...Nope, don't care. Mostly invisible to me.

Didn't MT have a high tech "jump projector" as a weapon?

The Jump Gate can be along a similar tech tree as that. "If you wrap a construct around the generated jump field, you have a controlled entry into jump space, compared to a Jump Projector which has no construct and is an uncontrolled entry, and thus similar to a misjump."

 

[Enoki]

How big of a ship can it handle?

Depends on how big you make it. I'm betting one that will handle up to about 1,000 ton ships is going to be reasonably priced where it works. One big enough to hurl something like a 50,000 ship will be far too expensive.

How far can it send it?

J1 to J6 just like the rules allow.

Does it need a gate at the other end?

No.

I think that about covers the "design".

For example, do Jump Gates use vast amounts of fuel? As a user, don't know, don't care. As a consumer, I know tank trucks are used to refill gas stations, but that's mostly trivia. Don't know when they come or how much they deliver. All I know is I show up, stick a nozzle in my car, and it gets filled up! Those infrastructure details of extract refinement, transport, additives, etc...Nope, don't care. Mostly invisible to me.

Didn't MT have a high tech "jump projector" as a weapon?

The Jump Gate can be along a similar tech tree as that. "If you wrap a construct around the generated jump field, you have a controlled entry into jump space, compared to a Jump Projector which has no construct and is an uncontrolled entry, and thus similar to a misjump."

For a gate to jump a 1,000 ton ship J6 takes the same amount of fuel as a 1,000 ton J6 ship would use. To jump a 100 ton J2 ship takes the same amount of fuel as the ship would use.

So, to design one, it would be a ring / tube design with the 'donut hole' being large enough in diameter to allow most ships of the tonnage it can handle to fit into that. There might be some designs that couldn't fit by configuration, even if they were the correct tonnage. The jump station itself would require a crew, just like a ship, might even have some amenities (think of it like also being a truck stop), and all the support machinery and systems to make that work. I think I'd use two computer systems, one to run the station, one to process jumps.

The other thing it would require is sufficient fuel tankage to hold say a 10 to 30 jumps depending on how busy it is and how easy it is to refuel. It might need more if refueling takes a longer time to accomplish. You'd also need a tanker or tankers to supply the fuel. Onboard processing to refine it could be an option.

 

[bookwyrm]

The other thing it would require is sufficient fuel tankage to hold say a 10 to 30 jumps depending on how busy it is

(Monotone Voice)
Is this enough to handle the number of ships coming & going from/to a Type A Class Port?