Originally posted by Dalton:
You may have missed the part about the crew still being on the torpedo until it enters the destination system. Since the ship has no weapons etc., it can easily afford a few full 6g burns to compensate for any variation at the end point.
Dalton,
Since unmanned jumps don't seem to work in the OTU, I didn't miss that at all. And at the speeds I'm talking about a 'few' 6G burns are a spit in the ocean.
... travelling at a 14-18 G velocity...
First, you can stop right there. You have either made a mistake or don't know what you're talking about. A
gee is a measure of
acceleration and not
velocity. Saying
'14-18 G velocity' is gibberish.
Second, you need to look at some actual numbers in order to understand what sort of distances we're talking about. Let's assume an Earth-sized world with UWP factor 8. That's a diameter of 8,000km and 100D limit of 800,000km. Covering that distance at 1 G of acceleration with the usual turn-around (something our KKM won't do I know) takes 301 minutes or 5
hours.
Let's say your KKM was accelerated by some means at 18 G for an hour. That would give it a velocity of ~635km per second. With that velocity it would still take your KKM ~21 minutes to cover the 100 diameter distance of 800,000km.
Next, I want you to pull out a piece of graph paper. Fill in one tiny box and then count 100 empty boxes out to the left and right and make marks. That's your Earth-sized target inside its 100D limit. Each one of those boxes represents 8,000km But wait! We're going to add the dimension of time too.
'Rad-con' math time here(1), Earth moves at 30km/sec. Every hour, Earth moves 108,000km. Dividing our 8,000km box size into that gives us 13.5 and we'll round it down to 13 make it easier for you.
You're KKM is going to exit jump space sometime during a 33.2 hours window. You don't know when until you jump. Rounding down 33.2 to 33, again for ease, and multiplying by our 13 boxes from above gives us 429 boxes. Let's round that up to 430 because we've round down all the other times.
Take you graph paper and count 215 boxes above and below the center box, then make marks. Complete the 'rectangle' you just formed. It has sides of 201 boxes; Earth and its 100D limit, and 430 boxes; roughly the distance Earth moves in 33.2 hours.
Finally, color in the entire column of boxes Earth is in. That's your 33.2 hour Earth target. Pretty small huh?
It gets worse.
Your KKM is going to arrive at a point you can calculate to within 3,000km per parsec jumped. Again, to make things easier for you we'll say within a single box. The trouble arises that you don't know when you'll arrive at that box so you don't know what vector to choose.
Try this fun game. Take the sheet of graph paper I've had you mark and place a chit on the bottom of the 'Earth' column. Then select a box along one of the 100D sides. That's where you're KKM will arrive. Draw a line from your entry box to other 100D side. The line must be straight, but it can 'slope' in any fashion wyou want. Next, roll 3D6-3. That will give you a number between 0 and 33. It won't be random, there will be a bell curve distribution, but its the best we can do.
With the Earth chit in the 'zero' position and your KKM entry box marked along the 100D side and it's vector string marked across to the other side, apply your 3D6-3 roll to the Earth chit. Every interger in the roll represents 13 boxes of movement for the chit; 0 = none, 1 = 13, 2 = 26, etc. Repeat until the lesson is learned.
How many times did your vector line cross the Earth chit's final position(2)? Let me guess, was it
none?
If you bother to do more math, you'll see that adjusting the vector of your KKM to impact the body your trying to target runs into serious problems. It seems the greater your velocity, the less time you have to correct your aim. As your velocity increases, you get to a point where
Traveller's 6 G manned acceleration limit is wholly inadequate to make any real change in the KKM's vector before it passes the target. If you limit your velocity enough to allow for post-exit aiming, you give the defenders time to do something and severely limits your KKM's effectiveness on impact.
Another thing to remember, unless you're planet busting or are not interested in using the planet for anything for the next few millennia, you're not aiming at an entire world. Instead, you're aiming at an extremely small portion of an entire world. That makes your attempt at aiming even more problematic. You simply aren't trying to intersect a 8,000km 'box as in my graph paper game. Also, because planets
revolve your target might not be on the hemisphere facing you when your KKM arrives at the planet. Going into orbit in order to hit it will further lower your velocity, give the defenders more chances to do something, and limit the amount of damage inflicted.
Gee, ain't math a
BITCH?
Have fun,
Bill
1 - Rad-con i.e. quick and dirty. Earth's orbit, indeed any orbit, is elliptical which means the distance it covers during any given time period will very depending on when it is during it's orbit. That means its orbital speed varies too.
2 - Some folks will point out that you can exit ahead of the Earth chit and simply fly down its column for a slam dunk. Sory, no cigar. In reality the column the Earth chit is moving in is curved, just like the section of orbit the column represents.