There's gotta be a thread on this somewhere...

[jawillroy]

About the jump process using LBB2:

I know that you've got to have a jump-plan, either storebought or produced by the generate program; I know that if you're smart you'll have produced the jump-plan ahead of time and just need to load it into the Nav & Jump programs, which need to be running together in order to jump. I know that you're wise to be outside the 100D limit.

LBB2 doesn't seem to say at all how long it takes for a ship to jump, or where that fits into the combat sequence. Logic would seem to dictate that jump occurs during the movement phase, but how long must the Jump and Navigate programs be in operation before jump actually happens? It seems as though you could slap Jump and Nav into the computer during your reprogramming phase, and jump the very next movement phase - or you could have them loaded up and ready to go, and jump your first movement phase.

And if that's the case, must they run constantly, or just the movement phase?

HG has the rule about expending sufficient EP to run the jump drive for two turns (or something like that) and I recall that for most LBB2 designs that means that the ship's going to be working up juice for at least two turns without really doing anything else.

CT grognards, what have you done in the past?

 

[atpollard]

CT grognards, what have you done in the past?

Mostly, argued without reaching definitive consensus.
(applies to most Traveller topics)

 

[jawillroy]

Oy.

Okay then.

What have you done in-game, off-list?

 

[atpollard]

Are you familiar with the JTAS article on Jumpspace by Marc Miller?
That might have some answers.

 

[jawillroy]

I totally forgot I even had it. *reads.*

Well, it sounds quicker than High Guard. After the jump plan gets loaded in, the process is activated after a "short count down;" after a "very brief period (less than a few minutes)" the jump drive capacitors are at capacity and then the jump begins.

Sounds pretty quick. Hokay. That works for me - since I'm LBB2, and not messing around with this High Guard stuff these days.

So supposing the native's already loaded a jump plan, and has the nav and jump programs ready in storage:

intruder move
intruder laser Intruder's last licks, native evades if it can
native return fire probably won't be able to without a big 'puter...
intruder launch native really glad to have had the jump lined up
intruder computer reprogramming
***
native move Engages Jumpdrive
native laser no firing, so...
intruder return fireno return fire and
native launch no launching
native computer reprogramming

Native gone by interphase.

OR, in the case of the intruder having loaded up the appropriate programs in the prior turn, the intruder's got to suffer last licks before his movement phase.

'Course, if you don't have the nav or jump programs in place, you'll need to wait out another round, then load 'em in...

And you don't have a plan set up, you get into the sticky question of how long it takes to program one. (how difficult to make that roll on Nav, hmm?)

And even that one combat round's pretty dangerous, especially if the attacker's running a selective program. Which, if it's a military or paramilitary craft, there's no reason it shouldn't be.

 

[robject]

I suspect the reason High Guard imposes a delay is due to the way the rules handle power allocation. Badly, in my opinion, for the game's level of abstraction.

Details:

When you design a craft in High Guard, the power plant powers everything. This is a reasonable assumption to make, and in fact is unavoidable. However, this calculation ripples through the rules, cluttering up the game a bit. Since big honking weapons are installed on the big warships, power is siphoned from all other systems -- i.e. the drives. Thus an equation, a handwave, and a loophole are needed to take care of the maneuver drive and the jump drive, respectively.

The equation says that power goes first to the weapons; therefore, excess power is what sets the craft's combat acceleration, i.e. agility.

(By the way, the only reason Energy Points are used in High Guard at all is because of the way the power plant interacts with weapons. It does not amuse me that one assumed dependency resulted in a layer of complexity.)

The handwave says that two combat turns are sufficient to bleed off enough energy to power the jump drive.

The loophole says that black globes store absorbed energy in the jump capacitors, which the jump drive may use.

There really is no other way to do this in High Guard.



Book 2, on the other hand, only deals with turrets, which (I suspect) are assumed to have a reasonably low draw from the power plant.

 

[jawillroy]

"Book 2, on the other hand, only deals with turrets, which (I suspect) are assumed to have a reasonably low draw from the power plant."

Yup. Looking at LBB2, the limiter is the computer rather than power. If your computer can run the jump and nav program without interruption while running other processes, I'd say it could even keep fighting while it was jumping. The Model/1 aboard a Free Trader's going to need to keep its CPU jammed up with J1 and Nav, I reckon the whole time jump's in progress... so no evasion, no shooting, nada.

Hmm. Sandcasters are looking pretty good right about now.

 

[far-trader]

...Hmm. Sandcasters are looking pretty good right about now.

Sand still needs Target and Launch

You gotta upgrade to a 1bis if you expect trouble.

 

[jawillroy]

True, but the sand would have to go out the prior turn anyway to be doing any good, and it would be after firing sand that the computer op actually got around to swapping in the Nav and Jump...

 

[Supplement Four]

LBB2 doesn't seem to say at all how long it takes for a ship to jump, or where that fits into the combat sequence.

You've already found the combat sequence step in LBB2 space combat, but I also know there's a canonical reference to how long it takes to spool up the J-Drive for jump...I'm just not sure where I read it.

Snapshot? AHL? MT's Starship Operator's Manual? (I know there's a time component in the SOM).

I think I've read it in a CT reference someplace, too.

 

[boomslang]

Are you familiar with the JTAS article on Jumpspace by Marc Miller?
That might have some answers.

No!!!

That way lies madness!!!

:nonono:

Seriously, that lil' article ended up creating more issues than it resolved. It also flatly contradicts CT canon in one important respect: Jump duration.

 

[boomslang]

Oy.

Okay then.

What have you done in-game, off-list?

Here's the deal: under straight B2, there is no charge-up time for Jump -- it occurs in the Own Movement Phase once you've crunched the numbers and pushed the button. "Two turns' output from a powerplant equal to the Jump number" comes in only with High Guard, of course. Bear in mind that in the original printings of B2, j-drives didn't require anything from the p-plant in order to function -- hence the p-plant-less Xboat.

The key is that you have to load and run Generate in the turn leading up to the Jump (along with having Navigate and Jump-n loaded in there concurrently), and you can only change software configuration during the Own Reprogramming Phase. In practice, this means a small computer (Model/1bis, I'm looking at you) can be loaded for combat or jumping, but not both in the same turn.

Which is why all my starship designs scoff at Bis model computers... I needs my stack space for application swapfiles...

 

[jawillroy]

*NOOOOOOO that way lies MADmadNESSnessnessness*

Thanks, Boomslang- I'd pertnear got there, but that trims the fat just fine.

Also - I don't care for those jump grids. If there was an important network on the hull pertinent to the jump process, why don't hull hits interfere with jump? ^_^

 

[aramis]

I suspect that there was a veto on altering the HG tables that far.

It is, however, easy to implement. Replace 7 & 10 on surface with Jump -1.

 

[dccarles]

My explanation is that the jump network is massively redundant, so a few large holes here or there don't make much of a difference. By the time a ship has been swiss-cheesed enough for the jump grid to be nonfunctional, the crew has other problems...namely, not being alive.

Yes, it's a handwave.

--Devin

 

[Bob Weaver]

Sand still needs Target and Launch

You gotta upgrade to a 1bis if you expect trouble.

Now that just seems silly to me. Thinking of Sand in terms of countermeasures, why would the target program be needed? You're not trying to hit anyone with the sand cloud. Poor wording in Bk2 - I would ignore that rule and let sand be fired with only the launch program.

Just my Cr 0.02.

Cheers,

Bob W.

 

[jawillroy]

I always figured that a sandcaster worked a little like a really wide-gauge shotgun, and put the sand in an expanding field between the target and the expected source of laser fire - thus making the target program necessary.

Dissipates in a turn or two, and in any case lacks usefulness if either the target or the shooter maneuvers a whole lot.

 

[Timerover51]

My apologies for resurrecting this thread, but someone else was looking at it and I found it interesting. It also dates from before my joining the Forum.

The way that I handle Jump is that, assuming a reasonable size planet, say size 4 and up, I do a boost at one G for between a half-hour and an hour or so, then go to cruise, and shift power to the Jump capacitors. I do not normally slow down before jumping, as I prefer having some velocity vector upon exiting Jump, and have the Jump and Navigation Programs running well before hitting the Jump Point. Once there, I go with the capacitors dumping their energy in a few seconds, and then Jump occurs. I do typically use a somewhat bigger computer than standard.

 

[kilemall]

Sand still needs Target and Launch

You gotta upgrade to a 1bis if you expect trouble.

Not true, the computer rules say you swap out programs for each phase.


So a launch phase get the launch programs, firing a turret laser gets target/gunnery programs loaded, etc. A Model /1 can carry six spaces of programs, so Maneuver, Target, Launch, Gunner or Predict, Return Fire and room for one more. Have to run Generate if that wasn't done before, figure that goes in one turn, then the next turn swap out something like Launch or Return Fire, gets Navigation and Jump loaded and then go.



Rules are not clear on when a jump can be done to escape, Friendly Interphase looks to be as good as any.







As to the HG jump drives, no black globe involved, rather capacitors, 36 EP per ton. There is some calculated amount of capacitor built into the jump drives, you charge em, go.


Ah here it is, .5MJn tonnage of jump capacitors, which can be fed by BG bleedoff hence the description. But works just as well for a power allocation figure.


Example, 10000 ton cruiser with J-4, 4x50 equals 200 tons of capacitors, Jump-4 drive is 500 tons so 2/5 of that jump drive is capacitor.


That's 7200 EP, quite a bit more power then 'just' two turns of power. The power plant generation formula is E=.01MPn. That seems odd, a Power Plant-10 in that 10000 ton cruiser would 'only' create 1000 EP per turn. Several hours to power up for a jump.



Someone please check my figures, I'm guessing this was overlooked as capacitors being 'just a thing' for BGGs to dump power.


Two ways to go, change the jump capacitor formula to something more like .05MJn, or the jump capacitor overcapacity is just about what the jump drive creates quickly to do the jump while burning all that fuel.

 

[Grav_Moped]

My take on this is that the Jump Drive provides most of the power to the capacitors. However, its output cannot be precisely controlled or predicted, so relying only on the Jump Drive's power output will result in either a failed Jump or blowing the capacitors. The power plant output is used to stabilize the energy flow rate into the capacitors, since its output can be rapidly varied inversely with that of the Jump Drive.

Another option is that the capacitors are normally kept mostly charged, and can be because they only start to break down when fully charged. Ships with Black Globes may run with capacitors only partially charged or even empty, in anticipation of charging them from the Black Globe during combat.

The second option has awkward implications: if you can run the ship off the capacitors, the ones in the Jump Drive alone are good for Pn 18 x Jn for one turn if fully charged (or Pn 9 for two turns, and per RAW you'd better have dumped all of those EPs by the end of the second turn). But I seem to recall someone thought that made for interesting tactical decisions, and don't disagree with that at all.