new jump fuel

[Whipsnade]

Andrew Boulton wrote:

"No, it's simpler than that - there are two ships."


Mr. Boulton,

Precisely. Because an X-boat's primary 'cargo' can be transferred electronically, the idea that a newly arrived 'boat must be hurried refueled and refurbished so that it can rapidly depart is ludicrous. Passengers and parcels are incidental cargo for the 'boats. They can be collected and transferred in relative leisure. The real 'cargo' gets radioed or masered to where it needs to go.

Also, the idea that an X-boat need be separated between two different modules is laughable. An engineering section comprised of 'only' fuel and drives would still displace over 75% of an X-boat's volume. Why add the complexity of 'fast fuelers' shuttling around three quarters of an X-boat and hurriedly readying a newly arrived 'boat for departure when simply having 100% of another X-boat on hand and waiting for a message download would get the job done?

The 'frenetic' operational vision of the X-boat network presented here lately is unnecessarily complex, hideously inefficient, and almost completely wrong on every level. At the very least, it betrays a complete lack of understanding with regards to the very nature of jump drive and the operational tempo of the network.

The X-boat network does not operate frenetically. Given the nature of jump drives, it cannot operate that way. Multiple departures within a short time span; the 'reasoning' behind 'fast fuelers', plug n' chug engineering modules, and all that other nonsense, simply do not occur. Why? Because of the jump drive's temporal accuracy, that's why.

Jump lasts 168 hours - plus and minus 10%. A vessel's arrival window is then 33.6 hours wide. Multiple departures to the same destination within a single day means you run the risk of having the 1500 Hour 'boat arrive before the 0900 Hour 'boat. Single departures each standard day obviates that risk. As the average system hosting an X-boat station is only linked to two other systems, that system will only see two arrivals and two departures every 24 hours. That isn't frenetic, that isn't even busy. It rates as downright sleepy.

While the temporal accuracy of jump drive limits the amount of work required every 24 hours of each tender, the physical accuracy of jump drive makes that work even easier. Jumps are accurate to within 3000km of every parsec jumped. Given that the maximum possible jump by an X-boat is 4 parsecs, the arrival area will be a sphere of only a 12K-km radius. You can even increase that by an order of magnitude; 120K km - call it sloppy navigation, and still have trivial area in which the tender need operate.

The X-Boat Station Operating Region of an average system will be ~250K diameter sphere. The Region will be placed well above or below the system ecliptic in order to avoid any jump masking or shadowing concerns. Within the Region, a single tender awaits the arrival of two X-boats each standard day. For systems with more than two links, additional Operating Regions patrolled by additional tenders are set up.

As each boat arrives, the tender moves to intercept as the 'boat downloads its message load. The tender strips out any messages for the local system, adds any outgoing messages to the traffic queue, and rebroadcasts the entire package to a previously refueled and refurbished X-boat waiting to depart.

After the intercept, the newly arrived 'boat is refueled, personnel swaps occur, any scheduled maintenance done, and the occasional passenger or package collected. Sometimes, more extensive maintenance is required, the offending X-boat is brought aboard the tender, and another X-boat simply moves up in the queue of those waiting to depart.

X-boats ready for departure; those 'on-deck', are given a final check and placed on whatever normal space vector their destination system may require. The 'boat and her pilot simply wait for the next arrival, download their message 'cargo', hit the switch, and jump away.

Each standard day, 2 'boats arrive, 2 'boats are refueled and refurbished, and 2 'boats depart. It is steady. It is workman-like. It is nearly serene. Two arrive, two are caught, and two depart each and every standard day. High points of each week will include the visit by the in-system tanker topping off the tender's fuel stores and dropping off supplies or the occasional scout-courier summoned to collect the odd package or passenger or tasked with a message load due at a non-Network system. It is boring and, despite the logo, it is definitely not the Pony Express.

So the X-boat Network isn't some hurly-burly, turn-em-around-quick, dozens of 'boats coming and going kind of affair. The nature of jump drive won't allow that and the nature of the X-boat Network doesn't require it. You see, the X-Boat Network isn't a communications system, it is a control system. Any message that must be transmitted as rapidly as possible doesn’t go on the X-Boats. The Emperor, the nobility, the Navy, the megacorps, everyone who can afford it, they all have jump6 couriers. The X-boat system is for everyone and everything else.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Whipsnade]

far-trader wrote:

"Just an observation and no desire to change anything in canon, a little handwave to explain the past with his new wrinkle."

Mr. Burns,

I didn't reply to your post right away because I wanted to get things right. This whole 'canon changing' topic is a touchy one and a slip of the keyboard can cause all sorts of hard feelings. I enjoy homebrewed rules, I fiddle with them all the time, and you can see some of my home-brews at Freelance Traveller. I also try to be intellectually honest about home-brews and follow all the paths they may lead me down, even if it means changing the OTU setting.

I do not worship the 3I-OTU setting. It's a nice bit of common ground for us all to meet on, but it isn't holy writ. Traveller as set out in the Three LBBs doesn't even mention the 3I. I've played around with all sorts of non-OTU settings in the last +25 years and fully expect to invent many more in the next quarter century. Changing the 3I-OTU setting is a good thing. Applying your own creativity to Traveller is a good thing. We all should do it more often.

That being said, I like Spank's changes to jump drive speeds and fuel requirements very much. They are both fun and thought provoking. However, I was worried that the ramifications of his changes hadn't been addressed and, to do his intriguing changes justice, those ramifications do need to be examined. The reason for this is rather simple; the 3I-OTU is a sci-fi setting with a particular FTL drive, if you change the parameters surrounding the FTL drive, you've changed the setting whether you wish to or not. I call this the "Rome with Gunpowder" paradox.

Rome wouldn't be the Rome we know if you dropped gunpowder in the mix and not just because the legions will be carrying muskets. Gunpowder, plus the ability to make it and guns, will change much more than the weapon in a legionnaire's hands. To do justice to your changes, to be intellectually honest, you must take into account all the ramifications gunpowder would inflict upon Rome. If you change the nature of jump drive; its 'speed' or its 'cost' as Spank has done, you must take into to account the changes you will inflict on the 3I-OTU setting. To do otherwise is to short change the very homebrewed rules you've devised.

One of my home-brews involves 'flexible batteries'. I saw no reason why the battery assignments made while building a ship in HG2 were set in stone. My home-brew allowed the PCs to 'flex' their batteries each combat turn in response to their needs. Those four laser turrets could be grouped together in one battery for a big offensive strike, split up into four single batteries for anti-missile work, or any other combination desired. However, these flexed batteries still had the same upper weapons factor limit listed in HG2 for turrets, they still required a gunner per battery, they still required the same number of weapons for each increase in factor, and they still had damage applied to them in the same manner. In short, this particular home-brew didn't drop gunpowder into Rome and I made damn sure it didn't change any fundamentals regarding ship combat in the 3I-OTU setting.

Conversely, Spank's jump drive changes effect the 3I-OTU setting in a very fundamental way and those effects must be examined if we are to do justice to the home-brew. Let's look at some of the changes to the setting I believe these changes would create.

Communications - They'll be faster for shorter jumps. A jump6 courier can cover one parsec in two days and suddenly representative government on the interstellar level gets a big boost. The 3I-OTU has always side stepped this issue; it takes a week to send a message one parsec or six 'therefore' some sort of feudalism is a 'necessity'. It's already a pretty lame excuse and Spank's faster drives make it less plausible. Now, stellar clusters with a two-parsec radius could easily be governed by republics or democracies. Larger states in turn would be made up of these groups.

See the problem? Right off the bat, you've changed the 3I's most likely form government. Your faster drive doesn't make sense if you're using the government of the OTU's 3I. Time to think about the type of government that your setting's 3I will really have. Will there even be a 3I?

Commerce - Spank's jump drive changes just don't effect speed, they effect the 'cost' of jump too; primarily in fuel and the tonnage allotted for fuel tankage. For the price of a jump4 drive; both in MCr and tonnage, I can jump 2 parsecs using much less fuel than a jump2 drive would use. The savings in fuel tonnage used are great enough to make up for the larger jump4 drive AND give me more cargo space. No shipping corporation worthy of the name will pass up the chance to use freighters that move more cargo the same distance using less fuel. What's more, those savings in shipping cost will mean more large freighters moving cargo along previously unprofitable routes thus squeezing out the PCs in their Beowulf even further.

See the problem? At a stroke you changed the entire economic picture of the OTU's 3I. Time to think about the economics that your setting's 3I will really have.

Warfare - Everything that changed with cargo ships applies in spades to warships. That saving in dedicated fuel tonnage means more room for all sorts of things; armor, power plants, maneuver drives, weapons, etc. Warships using Spank's jump drives will be faster, more agile, and more heavily armed and armored. What's more, the way in which those warships are used will change too. Change the technology and change the operational nature of war.

Warships with Spank's jump drives will be able to arrive at their objective days before the warning from any tripwire force can. Short jumping; jumping at less then your rated ability in order to travel faster, will become the norm. Change the operational nature of war and you change the wars themselves.

Traveller's already porous borders become even less of a barrier. The astrography that shaped and molded the course of the OTU's 3I's many wars no longer in play. How did the wars pan out? Who won? Who could have won? Change the wars and you change the very history of the OTU's 3I.

See the problem? You've changed the conduct of the OTU 3I's wars and most likely changed the how's, why's, and who's of whomever won. Time to think about the history that your setting's 3I will really have.

All this is just off the top of my pointy head and all of this from 'merely' changing the speed and cost of jump! I'm sure there are plenty of other changes I haven't even dreamed of yet.

Please go ahead and use Spank's jump drive home-brews. I know I'll be playing around with them because they look like lots of fun. But show those home-brews the respect they deserve and be intellectually honest. Just don't plop them down in the OTU's 3I and claim nothing else changes. That's pure B.S. Everything changes and remember, Change Is Good!


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Zutroi]

Nice work on the X-boat system description, Larsen!

I believe the only thing I'd add would be a fuel-scooping shuttle (or small fleet of the same) of some kind, to collect fuel and run spare parts and minor parcels into and out of the system so that the tender need never depart the operational sphere.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
far-trader wrote:

"Just an observation and no desire to change anything in canon, a little handwave to explain the past with his new wrinkle."

Mr. Burns,

I didn't reply to your post right away because I wanted to get things right. This whole 'canon changing' topic is a touchy one and a slip of the keyboard can cause all sorts of hard feelings.

Please Larsen (unless you'd prefer Mr. Whipsnade ), Dan, or far-trader

or even "hey you!". Such formality feels too er, formal for such good correspondence.

You are quite right, and I fear my quoted line above may fall into that slip of the keyboard mire

It is much too brief to state my own feelings on the subject which you have once again expanded on quite well.

We are in agreement (I think) that the only constant is change and change does not happen in a vacuum. We both like fiddling with the rules where we see need and attempt to insure they don't unduly imbalance things. If there is one difference in our approach it is that I prefer to keep it workable in the OTU setting if possible, and work up rule reasons to support canon material that may seem at odds. That doesn't mean I'm a Canonista (well maybe with a small c ), rather that I'd prefer to be able to share any house rules without fear of it screwing up somebody else's game. I still look and borrow other's home brew's too, some with changes some without. So on to your excellent cautions...

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:


Communications - They'll be faster for shorter jumps. A jump6 courier can cover one parsec in two days and suddenly representative government on the interstellar level gets a big boost.

Conceivably yes, but in only limited circumstances. I think the cost for one would be a limiting factor as well as the required TL but I have more limits, addressed in the other sections below...

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:


Commerce - Spank's jump drive changes just don't effect speed, they effect the 'cost' of jump too; primarily in fuel and the tonnage allotted for fuel tankage.

Well for my version I was thinking of treating such drive manipulation similar to drop tanks, and so they would not be a part of legal practice for commercial shipping for reasons of safety.

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:


Warfare - Everything that changed with cargo ships applies in spades to warships.

Quite right again, but my drop tank analogy fix helps limit it here too. There will be some specialized ships that take advantage of the fuel or time savings but my thought was to make it an extra DM -1 for misjumps for each step (e.g. to use the J6 ship going 1 parsec in 2 days the misjump DM is -5, a little risky for everyday use but perhaps acceptable for critical reports from the front).

I'm not sure even without that limit that shortjumping would be much used. Any tripwire still has its own communications lag and I think deep strikes would work more effectively (with jump drives, short of cutting off refueling insystem, you don't really have a need to maintain supply lines through each system in real space between your base and objective like you do in (most) normal warfare.

In fact the biggest military type use I see for shortjumping is pursuit. If you have a bigger drive than your quarry and know where they are going you might be able to shortjump and beat them there to prepare a nice warm welcome.

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
All this is just off the top of my pointy head and all of this from 'merely' changing the speed and cost of jump! I'm sure there are plenty of other changes I haven't even dreamed of yet.

Agreed (well except for the pointy head part, but I'll take your word on it

) there may be problems and before I'd use it I'd try to work them out. That's what's great about the boards here, more brains to work on the puzzle. Mostly though I intend to make it just useful enough that the average PC might try it but no reasonable NPC (including governments) is going to run such a risk except in very special cases.

So in summary for MTU adaptation of spank's idea:

Each step of either time or fuel saving imposes a DM -1 greater chance of misjump

Due to the hazardous nature of these methods they are not legal for commercial vessels.

The minimum computer to use such methods is the same as that which would be required to use the drive as rated (e.g. to shortjump 1 parsec with a J3 drive requires a minimum model 3 computer).

For maintenance procedures each jump using the methods is treated as one week of operation regardless of actual time in jump AND adds another week of virtual use for each step of saving used (e.g. to economy jump 2 parsecs with a J4 drive for a 20% fuel savings is treated as 3 weeks of operation over the course of the 1 week in jump).

I think I had a couple more ideas bouncing around in my head but they seem to have settled in some dark corner of my mind and I don't see them right now. By all means feel free to use the above if you like it.

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:


Please go ahead and use Spank's jump drive home-brews. I know I'll be playing around with them because they look like lots of fun. But show those home-brews the respect they deserve and be intellectually honest. Just don't plop them down in the OTU's 3I and claim nothing else changes. That's pure B.S. Everything changes and remember, Change Is Good!

Sincerely,
Larsen

Absolutely, I for one would never just drop in a new ingredient and claim the cake will taste the same. I've got some 25+ years of RPG experience myself to guide me, but your words are valuable warning to less experienced GM's, again well said.

 

[Whipsnade]

Zutroi wrote:

"Nice work on the X-boat system description, Larsen!"


Mr. Zutroi,

It is good because it isn't mine! It was just a distillation of +25 years of X-boat materials written by GDW and DGP and ranging from CT to TNE.

"I believe the only thing I'd add would be a fuel-scooping shuttle (or small fleet of the same) of some kind, to collect fuel and run spare parts and minor parcels into and out of the system so that the tender need never depart the operational sphere."

Oh yes, most certainly. The ubiquitous Sulieman could handle the 'parts, parcels, & passengers' end of things. Local subcontractors could handle fuel deliveries; that's a nice way for PCs to actually see a tender at work. Otherwise the tender is in a pretty remote region of the system; i.e. one no one really has any reason for casually visiting.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Whipsnade]

Far-Trader wrote: "Please Larsen (unless you'd prefer Mr. Whipsnade ), Dan, or far-trader

or even "hey you!". Such formality feels too er, formal for such good correspondence."


Dan,

I'm an old poop and habitually add 'Mister' to everyones' name when I reply to their posts. It's a silly little habit but it also allows me to politely forget who likes being called by their personal name and who prefers more formality! Forgetting is something I'm good at so I decided to work with it!

"You are quite right, and I fear my quoted line above may fall into that slip of the keyboard mire

It is much too brief to state my own feelings on the subject which you have once again expanded on quite well."

Thank you, although my post did take up quite a number of bits. I was worried that the point I wanted to make might be lost if the post looked like a criticism. So, again, I erred on the side of caution and tried to fully explain myself.

Spank's engineering stuff is GOOD, so good that it deserves to be taken seriously. However, because it changes something so basic and fundamental in the OTU-3I, we are required to examine all the ramifications it creates. Not to do so would be to denigrate Spank's ideas.

I wanted them examined and applied and not just plopped down in any old setting. They deserve, hell - they require, their own setting. A setting that fits and a setting that has more internal consistency than your average Star Trek episode.

"We are in agreement (I think) that the only constant is change and change does not happen in a vacuum."

Yes, we are in agreement.

(snip of well thought out ramifications)

"In fact the biggest military type use I see for shortjumping is pursuit. If you have a bigger drive than your quarry and know where they are going you might be able to shortjump and beat them there to prepare a nice warm welcome."

I love this bit, consider it stolen!

In that long winded post, I'd tosed out some possible changes Spank's stuff may create, but those examples were 'quickies', just immediate ideas. I wanted to stress the case for examining the changes created and shorted everyone on the changes that might occur.

"Absolutely, I for one would never just drop in a new ingredient and claim the cake will taste the same. I've got some 25+ years of RPG experience myself to guide me, but your words are valuable warning to less experienced GM's, again well said."

Very well said, Dan. As a GM, make all the changes you want but also repsect your changes. Respect them by following whatever path they lead you down. Internal consistency is a good yardstick when it comes to 'judging' settings, it shows how much the creator cared.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
Far-Trader wrote: "Please Larsen (unless you'd prefer Mr. Whipsnade ), Dan, or far-trader

or even "hey you!". Such formality feels too er, formal for such good correspondence."


Dan,

I'm an old poop and habitually add 'Mister' to everyones' name when I reply to their posts. It's a silly little habit but it also allows me to politely forget who likes being called by their personal name and who prefers more formality! Forgetting is something I'm good at so I decided to work with it!

Yet one more thing we have in common I fear. No problem then, I'll try to remember you're not acting in some official capacity and/or annoyed with me (the two biggest thoughts that leap to mind whenever someone addresses me as Mister

).

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
Far-Trader wrote: "In fact the biggest military type use I see for shortjumping is pursuit. If you have a bigger drive than your quarry and know where they are going you might be able to shortjump and beat them there to prepare a nice warm welcome."

I love this bit, consider it stolen!

Can't steal what was freely given

I'm happy to have anyone pick it up and run with it. Good hunting

(but why do I feel I just added the requisite action movie car chase scene to Traveller jumpspace

hmm come to think of it the old western "head them off at the pass" might be a better analogy)

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I'm an old poop and habitually add 'Mister' to everyones' name when I reply to their posts.

What, even the women?

 

[Whipsnade]

Whipsnade whined: I'm an old poop and habitually add 'Mister' to everyones' name when I reply to their posts. [/QUOTE]

To which Mr. Boulton queried: "What, even the women? "


Mr. Boulton,

Sadly, yes. Although I'm recieving therapy.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[spank]

Glad to see such lively discussion, sorry to be away for so long.

One thing, slightly of topic the reason I sugested a two part system for x-boats is it would allow messages to be hand carried rather than transmitted, but in retrospect you could still do this with a small 1-10 dton shuttle that would fly quickly between the two ships when the first dropped out of j-space.

I'll have to think about the maintaince implications of different trick jumps. I had thought about raising the risk of mis-jump.

In that other post I made Dan asked aboutsort jumps, jump-0. I can't find any refence to a jump-0 drive leading me to think it would be considered as an extension of jump-1. Of course I'm far from an expert on traveller.

I was reading Fusion Fire and Steel today. On page 42 it says that the mass of a jump drive equals {jump number of the drive plus one} writen as a percent. The feul used by a drive equals the mass of the drive time 5 divided by the jump number.
So for a 100 d-ton ship the mas of the drives and feul usage would be:


</font>

• J-# Mass Feul per Parsec</font>
• j-1 2 dTons 10 dTons</font>
• j-2 3 dTons 7 1/2 dTons</font>
• j-3 4 dTons 6 2/3 dTons</font>
• j-4 5 dTons 6 1/4 dtons</font>
• j-5 6 dTons 6 dTons</font>
• j-6 7 dTons 5 5/6 dTons</font>

So according to this a j-6 drive on a 100 Dton ship would use use 23 2/3 dTons of feul for a jump-4. A j-4 drive on the same ship would use 25 Dtons for the same jump. Comare this to 40 Dtons for the basic Traveller 10% per jump drive number number rule, or 32 Dtons for my sugestion of -10% for each point the drive exceeds the jump.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by spank:


In that other post I made Dan asked aboutsort jumps, jump-0. I can't find any refence to a jump-0 drive leading me to think it would be considered as an extension of jump-1. Of course I'm far from an expert on traveller.

I did? Its quite possible but if so I've forgotten

<ahem> Jump Zero's as I used them (more on that later) were never official, but somewhere there's a reference to using your jump drive to travel far less than full even parsecs.

Useful for big stellar systems if you only have a 1G drive and need to get somewhere in a week that would take longer in normal space. Also used tactically to go nowhere for a week while things cool off and pop! there you are in the same system a week later while your pursuers (you hope) have jumped to the next star system and can't get back here for at least a week. (whoo hoo! what sensor blip? FOOOOMMM

)

Anyway, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy, erm, well this one acutally, and it was only 20 some years ago, I adopted the Jump Zero and extrapolated a bit from it to build actual J0 Drives

It went something like each Jump was actually a range of jump space transition of plus or minus the 0.5 parsecs of the jump. A ship could make a jump of anywhere from 0.0 parsecs to the drive rating +0.5 parsecs.

e.g. A ship making a J2 to the next system is actually going to travel between 1.5 and 2.5 parsecs to get there. The "maps" being a convention and not showing precise distances.

So what if all your travel is less than 0.5 parsecs? Why just buy a J0 drive of course! A J0 drive is what lets you make those insystem jumps economical. Its half the size, cost, power and uses half the fuel of a J1 drive for the same hull!

Anyway, that was then, I'm not sure I'd do it the same today.

Originally posted by spank:
I was reading Fusion Fire and Steel today.

HEY! Wait a tic, I thought we were working out some CT/T20 ideas

Serioulsly though, the other systems do offer some alternatives. I think MT had something similar but I may be misremembering. As validation of your suggestions though, take it with a grain of salt. TNE/FF&S also handled other systems quite differently in some cases and mixing may not be smooth.

 

[spank]

I suppose jump-0 is a bit of a misnomer. It might better be called jump-.5
Another thought I had was that the option for speed or effciency would be built into the drive when it was constructed. That would limit the drives to an extent. A person would have to decide if they wanted a "fast" ship, a feul effcient ship or one with the maximum possible range. Or possibly a mix of these factors.

In defense of ff&s I like this book alot and am currently using it to design my {non traveller} campaign, which should be done sometime around 2011 give or take. I particularly like the section on stargates & wormholes. But the construction methods are excessively convoluted, and the book seems to shift between dTons and kiloliters with no good reason.

It might be quite a boon to have a book, maybe "The ship's operational manual" covering only the operation maintainence and construction of ships.

 

[Whipsnade]

spank wrote:

"In that other post I made Dan asked aboutsort jumps, jump-0. I can't find any refence to a jump-0 drive leading me to think it would be considered as an extension of jump-1. Of course I'm far from an expert on traveller."


Spank,

None of us are! I'd say the only real expert's last name is Miller!

I tried to wrap the old weary wetware around the jump0 question right after the Solomani CT alien module came out. It was the story of how and why the Sollies developed jump that goosed me into the attempt.

It seems that they were looking for a way to move cargos around the Asteroid Belt. Given the way jump masking, shadows, and limits works, the ~168 hour time period, and way Sol's planetoid belt is arranged, using jump drive for shipments to and from the Belt was a bust. Of course, as an FTL drive, jump was the bee's knees. Barnard and the Ziru Sirka awaited.

I liked the story because it followed actual invention stories so closely. The story of Edison's career we learned in school taught us all the wrong lessons about invention. Most inventions are accidents, like the fellow looking for artificial ivory billiard balls developing gun cotton.

Getting back to jump0, I eventually settled on a muddled handwave of sorts. Canon talks about entering specific jump dimensions for specific jump distances. Only 6 of them can be entered with any thing approaching regularity. Rather than labeling them jump1 dimension, jump2 dimension, and so forth, I labeled them the jump0-1 dimension, the jump1-2 dimension, etc. You enter jump0-1 to move anything from 1 nanometer to one parsec, jump1-2 to move +1 to 2 parsecs, and so on.

If you wish to jump 25 AU for instance, you'd enter the jump0-1 dimension and move a distance within that dimension equivalent to 25 AU in normal space. It's a clunky solution, but it satisfied my players. Oddly enough, this solution also 'explained' some questions about jump masking and jump shadows.

"I was reading Fusion Fire and Steel today." (Snip of yet more excellent stuff)

Spank, you are an idea MACHINE! Please, please, please keep those neurons firing. I've saved your chart and am exploring the many ideas contained within it.

Thanks yet again!


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by spank:

I was reading Fusion Fire and Steel today. On page 42 it says that the mass of a jump drive equals {jump number of the drive plus one} writen as a percent. The feul used by a drive equals the mass of the drive time 5 divided by the jump number.
So for a 100 d-ton ship the mas of the drives and feul usage would be:


</font>

• J-# Mass Feul per Parsec</font>
• j-1 2 dTons 10 dTons</font>
• j-2 3 dTons 7 1/2 dTons</font>
• j-3 4 dTons 6 2/3 dTons</font>
• j-4 5 dTons 6 1/4 dtons</font>
• j-5 6 dTons 6 dTons</font>
• j-6 7 dTons 5 5/6 dTons</font>

So according to this a j-6 drive on a 100 Dton ship would use use 23 2/3 dTons of feul for a jump-4. A j-4 drive on the same ship would use 25 Dtons for the same jump. Comare this to 40 Dtons for the basic Traveller 10% per jump drive number number rule, or 32 Dtons for my sugestion of -10% for each point the drive exceeds the jump. [/QB]

This is almost exactly the same as the jump fuel requirement given in MT except that it only gives the fuel required for a maximum range jump for each engine i.e. a J6 100t ship requires 35t of fuel for a jump of 6 parsecs. The interesting bit for me is that FF&S ignores the reduction in fuel volume required at TLs of 17+. The factor of 5 drops to 4 at TL17, then to 3,2,1 at TLs 18,19.20 and then 0.5 at TL 21.
These reductions go hand in hand with the introduction of AM power plants which obviously take over the power genertation component of the jump thus requiring less H2(l) overall.
Even though T4 and T20 have gone back to the 10% rule and invalidated every MT and TNE ship design (I'll be interested to see if the RC Clipper survives to 1248- spinal meson and all - it's still one of my favorite ship designs) I think it's worth hanging on to the jump fuel reduction at higher TLs for those TL17 vampire ships out there??? A nice idea that one, thanks to TheDS.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
Getting back to jump0, I eventually settled on a muddled handwave of sorts. Canon talks about entering specific jump dimensions for specific jump distances. Only 6 of them can be entered with any thing approaching regularity. Rather than labeling them jump1 dimension, jump2 dimension, and so forth, I labeled them the jump0-1 dimension, the jump1-2 dimension, etc. You enter jump0-1 to move anything from 1 nanometer to one parsec, jump1-2 to move +1 to 2 parsecs, and so on.

Shouldn't that be the jump0-1 dimension, the jump0-2 dimension, the jump0-3 dimension, etc.? You can do a jump-0 with a jump-6 drive.

The way I conceptualize it, the amount of fuel you use depends on which jump dimension you enter (If you have a jump governor you can use your jump-6 drive to enter the jump0-1 dimension and only expend enough fuel for a jump-1. But if you don't have a jump governor, you're forced to enter the jump0-6 dimension and expend enough fuel for a jump-6; in both cases you can make a jump-0).


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Mr. Rancke-Madsen wrote:

"Shouldn't that be the jump0-1 dimension, the jump0-2 dimension, the jump0-3 dimension, etc.? You can do a jump-0 with a jump-6 drive."


Mr. Rancke-Madsen,

Nope, not IMTU. You perform jump-0 with a jump-6 drive by entering the jump0-1 dimension. The jump governor; standard equipment on all but a very few specialized jump drives IMTU, allows you to enter every jump dimension up to your drive's rating.

I hang my muddled handwave on the physical jump accuracy of jump drive. It is 3000 km *per parsec jumped* and not 3000 km *per maximum rating of the jump drive being used*. To me, that means discrete dimensions for each parsec grouping; 0-1, 1-2, 2-3, etc., each allowing different accuracy achievement.

IMTU, you enter a specific jump dimension on a specific vector and physically move within that dimension. You somewhat control the distance you move in jump space by choosing the jummp space vector you create and monitoring the 'friction' or 'drag' between your jump bubble and jump space.

Mr. Miller says there is a one-to-one mapping relationship between jum space and normal space; it's how limits, shadows, and masking work. By controlling your displacement in jump space, you control your displacment in nomral space. Let's say you move a distance in the jump 0-1 dimension that translates to 0.99 parsecs within an accuracy of ~3K km. The same distance moved in the jump 1-2 dimension will translate to 1.98 parsecs in normal space with a 6k km accuracy and so on.

It is definitely a IMTU thing, but it allows me to explain jump accuracy, jump masking, jump shadows, and the 'Three Body' jump limit problem to my satisfaction.

"The way I conceptualize it, the amount of fuel you use depends on which jump dimension you enter (If you have a jump governor you can use your jump-6 drive to enter the jump0-1 dimension and only expend enough fuel for a jump-1. But if you don't have a jump governor, you're forced to enter the jump0-6 dimension and expend enough fuel for a jump-6; in both cases you can make a jump-0)."

IMTU, the governor is a tuning device. All jump drives can enter any jump dimension up to their rating, the governor just lets them do so efficiently. The governor allows you to precisely 'tune' your drive for the dimension you wish to enter rather than entering it with a fixed 'tuning' and it at the cost with wasted energy/fuel; i.e. expending fuel for a jump-6 simply to make a jump-0.

It harks back to all those hours I stood watch on turbo-generator sets. I could set the governor on those machines to allow them to produce 15 Hz, 30 Hz, or 60 Hz electricity rather than have them produce one frequency and then step it up or down via transformers at a loss of efficiency.

I realize it's goofy, but we are talking about a Whipsnadian Traveller Universe after all.

If I may ask the Imperial Archivist a question? Have the price of jump governors or their displacement every been published? Do larger drives require 'more' governor; 'more' in pirce and size? IIRC, they were introduced very early, like in the years or so between LLB:2 and HG2.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:


IMTU, you enter a specific jump dimension on a specific vector and physically move within that dimension. You somewhat control the distance you move in jump space by choosing the jummp space vector you create and monitoring the 'friction' or 'drag' between your jump bubble and jump space.

Cool, great minds think alike I had a very similar MTU rule/explanation. I let the crew do the monitoring through jump and with good rolls they could coax the best performance (i.e. exit vector desired) or in the case of a minor misjump they might start to notice the "drift" and get a heads up that things could be bad come exit. They could also note the approach of the "edge" where the ship will precipitate out of jump and be alert for the drop back into real space, give or take the accuracy.

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
<snip more good stuff> ...and the 'Three Body' jump limit problem...

Oh great, Jump Physics refresher time, I've totally forgotten just what that is, now where's my old JP 101 textbook?

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:


If I may ask the Imperial Archivist a question? Have the price of jump governors or their displacement every been published? Do larger drives require 'more' governor; 'more' in pirce and size? IIRC, they were introduced very early, like in the years or so between LLB:2 and HG2.


Sincerely,
Larsen

Oh, yes please, if anybody knows. For the life of me I can't even recall where Jump Governors were introduced. Or if they had a TL intro for that matter. All I have is a vague notion of a rule that Book 2 designs did not have governors but Book 5 designs just assumed them included, but I'm not at all sure that's right.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Have the price of jump governors or their displacement every been published? Do larger drives require 'more' governor; 'more' in pirce and size?

I don't think the rules ever mentioned them. They appeared about the time of HG to explain the difference between Bk2 and HG fuel usage.

 

[Whipsnade]

far-trader wrote:

"Oh great, Jump Physics refresher time, I've totally forgotten just what that is, now where's my old JP 101 textbook?"


Dan,

Mea culpa, it's my parochial nature shining forth yet again. Because the phrase 'Three Body Problem' was created and bandied about on the TML after GT:FT came out and I assume everyone he has been on the TML, I fail to fully explain things. D'oh!

The authors of GT:FT finally collected all the hints and suggestions regarding jump masking and jump shadows and presented them together complete with a nifty diagram. Beforehand, any reference to either had been tucked away in various paragraphs which were then scattered across the Traveller oeuvre from CT to TNE.

The 'Three Body Problem' boils down to this; assume a badly plotted jump course that intersects three different jump limits - one near the entry point, one halfway between entry and exit, and one near the exit point. Which limit will then force precipitation? The answer depends on how you beleive objects travel in jump space.

Ultimately, every description of travel in jump space belongs to one of 3 cases; 'bead on a wire', 'live wire', or 'stretched rubber band'. There are a few more esoteric explanations but even those behave like one of the three listed above. Those three work as follows;

Bead On A Wire (BOAW)- The object exists at a discrete point at a specific location at any given time. Jump travel can be envisioned as a bead sliding along a wire. The amount of time it takes to 'slide' along the 'wire' is irrelevent; some folks have large chunks of the 168 hour period spent entering and/or exiting jump space. All that matters is that the object moves as a discrete point. (In my muddled mind, this model solves the 3 Body Problem and a few other things besides)

Live Wire (LW)- The object in jump space exists along the entire 'path' for the duration of jump or better put, talk about 'moving' in jump space or follwoing 'courses' is wrong because every point in jump space is co-existant with every other point.

Stretched Rubber Band (SRB)- This is best explained with a demonstration. Hold a scrunched up rubber band in your left fist. Now, with your right hand, grasp one end of it and stretch it away from you left hand. Finally, move you left hand to your right hand until the rubber band is scrunched about in your right fist. Your left fist is where the object entered jump and your right fist is where the object exited jump. In this model, the object is stretched between entry point and exit point at some time in it's journey.

Now, apply those three cases to our poorly laid out jump course with the three jump limits impacting it. For BOAW the answer is plain, the jump limit that causes precipitation is the one first contacted. The same holds true for SRB. For LW things get more hairy; all three jump limits are contacted at the same instant. To solve the problem for LW we must begin adding all sorts of handwaves, this limit applies because the body exerting it is denser, more massive, more energetic, etc. To me, having to add handwaves means LW is out as a solution.

How to choose between BOAW and SRB then? Let's start by moving the limits. Jump last 168 hours and all that stuff in normal space doesn't simply sit still for that time. Imagine our 3 jump limits crossing your jump course at different times as the objects that exert them move around. SRB immediately fails our little thought experiment because - What happens if an object moves on to SRB's jump entry point? The ship may be stretched halfway to the exit point but that doesn't matter as it still exists back at the entry point too!

You see, SRB would allow 'Doorstop' tactics, i.e. giving a pursuer the ability to nail a jumped vessel's foot to the floor as it were. It all comes down to which normal space objects exert jump limits. The shorthand answer is +1km with no questions about density, mass, etc. However, Marc W. Miller in his essay on jump space baldly states that any object larger than the vessel in jump can exert a limit on that vessel. Thus a Beowulf can exert a limit on a Suleiman while a Type-R can exert a limit on the Beowulf and in turn have a limited exerted on it by a Merc Cruiser, etc., etc., etc. See the problem? Let me illustrate it...

Commander Courage and the rest of the Space Patrol are hot on the heels of the dastardly Willy Whipsnade. Whipsnade got the jump on them and left Mora aboard his Schnorrer Special ahead of the valiant Commander and his Justice Cruiser. The slippery Whipsnade reaches the planet's jump limit, mashes the big red button on his control panel, and diappears in a nifty CGI lightshow and evil music. Gasps arise, have Commander Courage, his valiant Space Cadets, and their pet monkey Blip failed?

Hardly friends.

The Justice Cruiser displaces 800dTons while the Schnorrer Special is a measly 100dTons. Commander Courage simply parks his craft on top of the point where the evil Whipsnade entered jump space and waits 168 hours. He and his cohorts attend tooth care lectures, answer fan mail, and groom Blip. Once the 168 hours is up, Whipsnade reappears in the very system he thought he had escaped from! Ta-Da! Whipsnade is clapped in irons and Mora is safe for Truth, Justice, and the Delphine's Latest Whim. No, not the monkey! Keep it off! No! NO! NOOOO! Not the monkey! ArrghhHHHHHHH!

And that's how Bead-On-A-Wire, Commander Courage, the Space Cadets, and Blip all solved the Three Body problem. Now drink your water and go to bed.


Sincerely,
Larsen E. 'Not the monkey!' Whipsnade

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
far-trader wrote:

"Oh great, Jump Physics refresher time, I've totally forgotten just what that is, now where's my old JP 101 textbook?"


Dan,

Mea culpa, it's my parochial nature shining forth yet again. Because the phrase 'Three Body Problem' was created and bandied about on the TML after GT:FT came out and I assume everyone he has been on the TML, I fail to fully explain things. D'oh!

Ah well, I've been less than fully cognizant on the TML for a while now, only perking up on random occassions when I accidentally open a digest email

And I've not looked at any GT since it first hit the shelves and I saw this weird system of measures used in it, something based on some ancient terran kings appendages or something

No need for all the GT fanboyz to scream at me, I full know the value of many of the products but I've never bought one and doubt I ever will, just not my cup o tea, so thank you very much Headmaster Whipsnade for the very informative lecture.

"Odd, nothing in the old books about it, lets see what the ship's library has..."

Later... " <mutter, grumble, hmph...> Another bit of education invalidated by the march of progress <sigh> Oh well better order the upgrade course from The Whipsnade Correspondence School, at least it'll keep me busy through Jump."

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:


<snip of excellent stuff, go see above this post and read it, lots of times

>

And that's how Bead-On-A-Wire, Commander Courage, the Space Cadets, and Blip all solved the Three Body problem. Now drink your water and go to bed.

But Uncle Larsen what happened to Willy Whipsnade, he got away then right? Where did he go? Will he be back with more tricks? Promise? OK, g'nite...