Trading time for distance?

[rancke]

The setting doesn't, until MT, have any clear declaration that I've seen that J3 is unavailable prior to TL9.

You must have overlooked the Drive Tech Level Table on p. 23 of High Guard and the rule on p. 22 that goes "The drive tech level table indicates the minimum tech level required to construct the specified maneuver or jump drive."

This means that according to HG, tech level 12 is the minimum tech level required for constructing jump-3 drives. Any rule that allows the construction of jump-3 drives at a tech level lower than 12 (such as any grandfathered Book 2 rules to that effect) directly contradicts that rule. They are mu-tu-al-ly con-tra-dic-to-ry.

CT has only one TL table that I've found - it lists drive letters, not J numbers, and it's canonical for CT (and by Bk5, the standard). (The irony that many missed that is not lost on me...)

Go and check the Drive Tech Level Table in HG for yourself. It is a CT TL table and it lists jump number, not drive letter.

Quick turnarounds are, by the way, possible in CT using Bk7...

Book 7 is not Book 2. I have no opinion about Book 7's trade system. For all I know it is a marvel of self-consistency, but it's not the rules I'm talking about.

...just up the cost of your spec goods by 40% for immediate delivery. (Not practical - but definitely possible, RAW.)

If it's not practical then it isn't going to be standard procedure, is it?

Taking the nominal turnarounds implied in Bk7, we can justify 4.25 day turnaround... tight, but doable, and a nominal 7 day trip... round up, that's 12 days, instead of the 14. 28/12 is 2.333... which is enough to make the op costs on J2 work with freight.

And what about J2 with passengers? Not to mention J3 and J4 with anything?

It's far easier to ignore Al Morai than actual rules, BTW.

Actually, I find it perfectly easy to ignore rules that doesn't make sense, but that's not the point I was trying to make. I mentioned Al Morai to show how GDW used the rules, since that would seem to inidcate how they meant the rules to be applied.

(For that matter, I'm perfectly ready to ignore setting details that doesn't make sense, like Al Morai using J4 ships on J1 routes or their ships spending a full 14 days per jump, but when discussing rules as written I feel entitled to argue from setting details as written.)

As for "can't coexist" - well, Hans, the setting, until revised by MT, had Bk2 and Bk5 designs happily coexisting

Yes, they did. Using the third of the possibilities I outlined in my previous post, that Book 2 and Book 5 designs were mutually incompatible, but that this was ignored for game purposes[*]. See, a fictional world doesn't have to make sense in order to be gamable. It only have to make sense if one is discussing if it makes sense. But, and I want you to follow me closely here, we, you and I, are discussing if they make sense.

[*] Or possibly they actually didn't realize that the two systems were mutually contradictory.​

Bk2 designs must needs dominate small shipping - the costs per ton are lower for J1-J2.

What would dominate if both Book 2 designs and Book 5 designs were valid at the same time would be hybrid designs, using Book 2 components when they are better than Book 5 components and Book 5 components when they are better than Book 2 components.

Longer runs are less incompatible. So, either there's two different kinds of J-drive and m-Drive (which may operate on similar but different principles) or one or the other was wrong. I prefer one to be wrong, but the rules clearly say both exist.

The HG rules in one place say that they exist and in another place they say that a lot of them (every one with jump capacity above their tech level) don't exist.

What part of 'mutually contradictory' is so hard to accept? A fictional world doesn't have to make sense in order to be gamable, so the fact that the rules allowed something that isn't possible does not prove that it is possible. The fact that it's not possible, on the othyer hand, proves that what the rules allow can't actually be true.

And both continued to be used in canonical materials until MT was released. I agree that they are not truly compatible, but they do coexist in canon.

No, the rules allows referees to pretend they coexist. Not the same thing at all, and no proof that it makes sense that they would coexist. Being mutually contradictory, on the other hand, DO prove that the two cannot coexist in the same universe "for real", whatever the rules say.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Again with your English and/or logic failure...

Bk 5's tables apply to HG designs only, since they do not supersede any rule in Bk2.
The drive performance tables in CT Bk2 are limited by Bk3's TL table, not by HG's table.

And the J2 2G Type S continued, even post HG, to be a Bk2 TL9 design with less cargo space...

For whatever reason, there are two kinds of drives in the OTU as presented by CT. One where drive size is limited by TL, and one where drive maximum function is rated by TL.

Comparable, say, to single engine Propeller vs Jet aircraft... up to a certain point, the propeller is size-limited by TL (past that size combination, it loses ability to operate as fast, as the tips become excessively turbulent due to speed); the jet, however is more limited to capacity, as past certain speeds, the engine no longer aspirates properly. Both move an aircraft through the air by pushing large amounts of air the other direction.

It's certainly not implausible for two dissimilar technologies to both do the same end result by different means.

As for Book 7 trade, it's more easily seen where it's broken. You should read it - it is, in essence, the trade system for MT, TNE, T4, and T5, as well as HT. It's broken in that it's abstraction is flat costs of goods... and unlike Bk5, specifically replaces Bk2. It's ©1985, so it may predate the Al Morai writeup; if so, it is possible that, by careful route selection, it could generate an average of KCr2+ per cargo ton per leg... sufficient for two week J3 ops with Bk2 ships. (Such a route is unlikely to have been worked out, however.)

The Big Ship 3I really takes hold with Bk7 replacing the Bk2 trade system - it was specifically designed to support the big ships with longer legs.

 

[rancke]

For whatever reason, there are two kinds of drives in the OTU as presented by CT. One where drive size is limited by TL, and one where drive maximum function is rated by TL.

Except that if that had actually been true, people would have been building hybrid designs that mixed the four kinds of drives (two different jump and two different maneuver).


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

According to the rules as written in HG you can...

Why no one has ever posted such a design is a mystery - there's quite a space saving using a CT maneuver drive in a HG2 ship. At lower TLs (7-12) the LBB2 power plant offers a space saving as well.

That said it is clear by MT and onwards that there is only 1 drive paradigm and that is the one introduced in HG (I can't believe I just typed that).

As has been posted many times before GDW should have revised LBB2 ship construction to match HG2 when they revised the rules. But they didn't.

 

[rancke]

According to the rules as written in HG you can...

Why no one has ever posted such a design is a mystery - there's quite a space saving using a CT maneuver drive in a HG2 ship. At lower TLs (7-12) the LBB2 power plant offers a space saving as well.

My guess? Because the writers of HG never intended the use of the Book 2 design system to be common after it was published, never saw the two paradigms as coexisting "for real". In FS, published shortly afterwards, only grandfathered designs -- that is, ships that had existed prior to HG -- were presented as Book 2 designs. New 100-1000T designs were all HG. The Gazelle was even converted from Book 2 to HG design, explicitly retconning it from the old paradigm to the new.

Later, writers reverted to the use of Book 2 designs, increasing the confusion.


Hans

 

[aramis]

According to the rules as written in HG you can...

Why no one has ever posted such a design is a mystery - there's quite a space saving using a CT maneuver drive in a HG2 ship. At lower TLs (7-12) the LBB2 power plant offers a space saving as well.

That said it is clear by MT and onwards that there is only 1 drive paradigm and that is the one introduced in HG (I can't believe I just typed that).

As has been posted many times before GDW should have revised LBB2 ship construction to match HG2 when they revised the rules. But they didn't.

Mongoose has the two drive paradigm. HG drives only for ≥1000Td. Bk2 drives for ≤2000Td

T5 ACS has Bk2 drives, as well. I've not see a draft for bigger ships, but I'm reasonably certain that T5 HGS will be CT Bk5 derived...

 

[BytePro]

Went a few years before getting HG.

Here's the 'in-game' rationale for the meta-game differences based on how I interpreted things...

• Bk2 represent standard 'off-the-shelf' designs -> licensed.
  
• Re: drive TLs: Non-standard designs required the higher TL (to design), but standard (Bk2) components could be manufactured at a lower TL (due to licensed designs).
  
• Standard components were not compatible with non-standard - due to legal issues (licensing), not physical reality.

Not sure how well this holds up under intense scrutiny - its just what I used to explain away the irregularities. YMMV.

 

[mike wightman]

The real sticky is not the two different sets of drives, it is the TL disparity.

In CT 1st edition a TL9 could build a jump 6 ship, in CT revised the drives for jump 6 could be built at TL9 but the computer to control the jump can't be built until TL10.

In HG and every version of Traveller since a minimum TL per jump number was introduced.

I agree with Hans on this, the CT tech tables and LBB2 ship construction rules do not fit with the OTU paradigm.

 

[Ackehece]

My guess? Because the writers of HG never intended the use of the Book 2 design system to be common after it was published, never saw the two paradigms as coexisting "for real". In FS, published shortly afterwards, only grandfathered designs -- that is, ships that had existed prior to HG -- were presented as Book 2 designs. New 100-1000T designs were all HG. The Gazelle was even converted from Book 2 to HG design, explicitly retconning it from the old paradigm to the new.

Later, writers reverted to the use of Book 2 designs, increasing the confusion.


Hans

Hmm. I am quite certain that HG 1980 on page 18 states - and I quote:

"The ship design and construction system given in Book 2 must be considered to
be a standard system for providing ships using off-the-shelf components. It is not
superceded by any system given in this book; instead this book presents a system
for construction of very large vessels, and includes provisions for use of the system
with smaller ships. "

This means that Book 2 is the regular rules and that Book 5 while different is not the regular rules.
If you are designing and want to use Book 2 rules for your design even with the TL differences it is
fine and even generally encouraged. I have always built small ships on Bk2 rules and Bk5 for large ships.
The TL differences I explain as a problem with scaling the technology to larger sizes.


there are many small rules in Bk5 that directly reference Bk2 and say to use Bk2 for smaller ships,
things like "The actual number of crew personnel required for the ship must be computed
based on the drives, weaponry, and other equipment carried by the ship. If the ship
is 1,000 tons or under, then the rules stated in Book 2 should be followed. For
ships over 1,000 tons, the rules given below govern. "
but I find most people tend to gloss over them.



Anyone else notice how far off topic we have drifted for this thread?

 

[aramis]

Anyone else notice how far off topic we have drifted for this thread?

Yep. But we don't close off-topic threads which got there by drift, unlike some other BBS's. If the OP makes a request, we might spin off the off-topic portions to a new, more relevant thread.

Now, back to the off-topic topic of note: Keep in mind - Hans seems to think there's one platonic OTU that the games are all imperfect models of; I see the games as separate by edition reasonably accurate models of several different platonic OTUs.

See, I see pre-'81 CT as one universe (known locally as ProtoTraveller), and post-'84 CT as a separate universe, MT as a different universe (because the drives have different rules on how they work, how they fail, how big they are); TNE as another different universe (different kinds of drives, even), T4 as still another (yet another set of drives), and GT per its own initial anouncements as a still different universe; I see T20 as the post-84 CT-OTU being emulated in d20, and Traveller For Hero as setting-neutral, and trying to emulate the eras using CT-OTU-post-'84 universe rules but events from the other timelines.

If I run CT, since I only have CT-81 and later ("second edition CT" with no DM's in weapon damages and a few other changes) then practical J3 couriers are TL9 and 200Td.

And I don't mind two dissimilar tech approaches doing the same job at different efficiencies in one universe. Then again, I ran a Trek game using CT HG rules....

200Td TL 9 Bk2 J3 Courier
020 Bridge
003 Mod/3
020 JD C=3
010 PP C=3
001 MD A=1
060 JFuel 1j3
030 PFuel 4wk P3
002 Turret x2
016 Staterooms x4 (PNEG)
038 Cargo

100Td TL 9 Bk2 J3 Courier
020 Bridge
003 Mod/3
015 JD B=4*
007 PP b=4
001 MD A=1
030 JFuel 1j3
030 PFuel 4wk P3
001 Turret x2
012 Staterooms x3 (PEG)
-19 overage

 

[rancke]

Hmm. I am quite certain that HG 1980 on page 18 states - and I quote:

"The ship design and construction system given in Book 2 must be considered to be a standard system for providing ships using off-the-shelf components. It is not superceded by any system given in this book; instead this book presents a system for construction of very large vessels, and includes provisions for use of the system with smaller ships. "

So it does. The problem with that is that this is nonsense. Book 2 includes provisions for making custom designs and there is no reason why some HG designs couldn't be produced using off-the-shelf components.

I'm not saying that HG didn't grandfather Book 2 designs. I'm saying that Book 2 designs and HG designs are mutually contradictory.

This means that Book 2 is the regular rules and that Book 5 while different is not the regular rules.

If that was actually the case, how come the designs in Fighting Ships are not divided into small ships being Book 2 designs and large ships being HG designs, but instead preexisting designs being Book 2 and new designs -- irrespective of size -- being HG designs? Including, mind you, a retcon of the broken Gazelle design (replaced with another broken design, but nevertheless a HG design).

If you are designing and want to use Book 2 rules for your design even with the TL differences it is fine and even generally encouraged.

Anything you want to do for your own TU is fine. That's your business.

I have always built small ships on Bk2 rules and Bk5 for large ships. The TL differences I explain as a problem with scaling the technology to larger sizes.

An explanation that does not actually work, since HG, as you noted, can be used to make ships of any size.

There are many small rules in Bk5 that directly reference Bk2 and say to use Bk2 for smaller ships, things like "The actual number of crew personnel required for the ship must be computed based on the drives, weaponry, and other equipment carried by the ship. If the ship is 1,000 tons or under, then the rules stated in Book 2 should be followed. For ships over 1,000 tons, the rules given below govern. " but I find most people tend to gloss over them.

I see no reason to gloss them over. If I design a ship of 1,000T or under using HG, I can use Book 2 manning rules without a problem, because there's no inherent contradiction involved in that. Incidentally, this rule also say that if you design a ship of 1,001 to 5,000T using Book 2, the HG manning rules governs.


Hans