Who Uses Jump Tapes Anymore?

[robject]

Longtime collaborator Boomslang recently asked that question, and you know, as of a few months ago I realized that Jump Tapes aren't such a bad idea.

Magnetic media is no good. It gets scrambled.
Digitally-encoded media is no good. It's flimsy.
Holocrystals... well, maybe. We can call them durable and easy and ubiquitous.

But there's something even more durable and easy and ubiquitous, and that's paper tape or film.

A good sheet of laminated paper, filed properly in a insulated safe, can last hundreds of years. And if you really really had to, and your life were depending on it, you might could hand-key the values into a computer. Anyone remember typing in pages and pages of machine code from magazines into your Commodore 64? Complete with checksum... how tiresome. But, if your life depended on it, you could.

It's absurd, I know, but I've really been feeling kind of retro about the whole paper storage thing lately. With a cheap modern printer you can get 1200 dpi on a sheet of paper. Potentially that's a pile of floppy disks on one sheet of paper. Far less than a CD, but great for backing up a large percentage of your data files.

Just a thought to stir up your brains.

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Why yes, I DO in fact recall entering an enormous string of hexadecimal digits from a magazine (AppleCider? I can't remember) into my Apple //c and ending up with a pretty cool arcade game. I also remembering realizing at some point that I had scotched the data entry at some point and had to re-enter about 600 numbers

There was an Apollo movie recently on some network, there was a great scene where they have to reprogram the navigation computer or something. It involved entering about 6 hex digits into the computer

 

[far-trader]

Just to pick an old nit, they're not jump "tapes" they're single use flight plans in self erasing cassettes. The actual media is not mentioned. And yes I have and do use them, though with a small MTU change. The price is only 10% of the listed value because otherwise they're practically pointless.

I like the image of a "paper" tape in the cassette though

But I doubt the usefulness of the plan beyond a narrow window of time/space plotted from origin to destination.

 

[BlackBat242]

Use ultra-thin metallic tape (or the tech 10+ replacement), and it is likely to last even longer.

 

[Starviking]

I had a background where the Traders all had to use Jump Tapes, as the government wanted to keep them firmly within the bounds of their state.

Maybe something for one of those states that compose the Solomani Confederation?

Starviking

 

[Fritz_Brown]

You mean like magnetic tape is now? Or something different?

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Jump Tapes.

I personally also like the Jump Tape deal, but have never had to think too much about the media and such before....will think on this at work...

 

[boomslang]

Just a thought to stir up your brains.

Disregarding this recent breakthrough, a modern equivalent would be USB stick loaded with the program output from a planetside computer running Generate that would be pre-calculated for a specific flightplan and interface with Navigate at need. It doesn't have to self-erase to prevent reuse; it can simply be reformatted/recycled after use because the Jump data is time-sensitive and expires after a while, once the celestial spheres move in their courses a bit...

 

[Icosahedron]

Several thoughts:

Microfiche, anyone?
That nanopaper looks good.
Metallic tape too, or actually a metal 'credit card' punched with nanoscale coding holes - hi tech replacement for punched paper tape.
I can see some type of USB style chip - and as for erasing, I've had one of those things self-erase on me during use. :frankie: There's something to be said for paper backup.

 

[Scathsealgaire]

Disregarding this recent breakthrough,

Thanks for that link.

 

[jawillroy]

The price is only 10% of the listed value because otherwise they're practically pointless...
But I doubt the usefulness of the plan beyond a narrow window of time/space plotted from origin to destination.

I use them, and IMTU, I go with the stated price. Jump charts are one of the major cash-cows for the Independent Interstellar Scout Service. The chart is not only totally useless after that window of time, but also a positive threat to navigation: this is why they erase, to prevent the accidental use of no-longer-valid calculations. But the chart is absolutely essential during that window.

Also: there are some worlds IMTU, generally high law-level, which require the use of official charts by ships entering and leaving their space, whether you've got a generate program or no.

 

[far-trader]

I use them, and IMTU, I go with the stated price. Jump charts are one of the major cash-cows for the Independent Interstellar Scout Service.

Thing is though at the listed Cr10,000 per jump number it pays huge dividends for even a lowly J1 merchant to buy the Cr800,000 generate program asap. Even included in the mortgage to be able to start with it the program is paying dividends of Cr10,000 every two weeks after about 6 years. You tell me who in their right mind is going to not get the Generate program and never buy another cassette.

If you want a major cash cow, without inventing deus ex machina laws, drop the price to Cr1,000 per jump number. Now the investment in the Generate program takes about 60 years to pay off (at J1) if mortgaged so you won't see it being included. It's a poor investment. Heck you might even never see a J1 ship with a Generate program at that ratio. All for a simple decimal point move in the price. Think volume, there's your market. Sell lots cheap, rather than price yourself out of business. Face it your costs for making them are practically nil, especially with a deposit return incentive to insure you get the used ones back. And just think what wondrous data the thing could record while it's plugged into that computer as a hidden bonus.

I agree expired plot cassettes may be a hazard. So are using them outside the parameters* set when you make it imtu. And that's a big part of why they self-erase. I've been tempted to make them self-initiating too so they can't be used before they are ripe (as well as a bit of ref mess with them fun :devil:

* parameters including (but not limited to): the departure point in space/time, the arrival point in space/time, the ship's physical specifics, the ship's vector, etc.

As for worlds insisting you use their plot cassettes, good luck with that. Local authority (in the Imperium at least) only extends to 100d (at the most). And there's no way at all for them to force me to use their plot cassettes for jumping in. Now they may require me to "buy" their plot cassettes when I'm leaving (tax grab, and probably illegal in the Imperium). If that's what you meant. If you mean being required to stick to official traffic lanes or be subject to boarding or destruction, then yeah, there's places like that :devil:

One thing I do which others seem to as well, is restrict mortgaged ships to only using plot cassettes, which they have to pick up from the agent of the mortgage when they go to make their payment. No payment no plot cassette, mortgage called and ship lost, unless you can talk them into an extension. The computers are actually hardware locked to only accept verified authentic plot cassettes, and the cassette carries your financial data to the next agent. Just one more reason you don't want to misjump.

Now then in my totally heretical price restructured tu the Generate program is only Cr80,000 so the plot cassettes had to take another price cut to Cr100 per jump number so the rational still worked. That's pocket change to most free traders so yes, plot cassettes are in wide usage.

 

[Ishmael]

I don't use jump tapes..
Jump coords can't be pre-figured like that (imtu, anyways)

imtu, the variables in the jump calculation are all pretty much dependant on the ship's predicted exact state at jump time...that includes mass, mass distribution, energy states, temperatures, orientation with relationship to various gravity wells, etc....the better that info..the more exact to 'n' decimal places, the more accurate the jump transition and the less chance for a misjump. Tech level restrictions to jump aren't from the drive itself, but from the accuracy of the incoming data ( better in-ship sensors, etc....more exact pulse timing once the jump coords are figured )

the closer to exactness...the better the jump...further jumps need even more exact solutions. At lower techs, such perfect solutions are not exact enough and to try to force a jump greater would cause a misjump...if one is lucky, the seeming randomness past a certain number of decimal places is close enough to not rip you apart tooo badly.

with pre-computed jump tapes...who needs a navigator?

*the number is not random...just unpredictable..like the 'n'th decimal place in pi*

 

[mike wightman]

I stilll use jump cassettes, for flavour more than anything. I also allow a navigator to compile a jump rutter.

I have significantly increased the cost of the generate program IMTU.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Really?

I stilll use jump cassettes, for flavour more than anything. I also allow a navigator to compile a jump rutter.

I have significantly increased the cost of the generate program IMTU.

As some one with a Navigation-1, I don't think I've heard of this here Jump Rutter is...well, I have heard of it:smirk:, but not being complied, is that another of those wacky new phrases you kids are using now?

 

[Gadrin]

Use ultra-thin metallic tape (or the tech 10+ replacement), and it is likely to last even longer.

Can you say Bernoulli Box ? :rofl:

Yes, I think the QUOTE is something I had in mind for MTU.

The main idea is that they make good maguffins for "down the road" or "next act" types of games.

For instance, I put together a Zhodani scenario where the team was sent to destroy a rival power's ship that had wiped out a Zho base and one of their resupply ships. While the commando teleported over to the engine room to plant the satchel charge, he came across a set of Nav Tapes™ which he of course pocketed for the teleport back, no one will miss them once the area gets slagged.

This leads the team to their next target once they investigate them.

Anyway as a maguffin, they can be copied, stolen, destroyed, erased... all the standard things a GM and his players need to do in yet another day inside the TU. Leftover relics from the 2nd Imperium to the Rift Passage whose knowledge was thought lost in the Long Night, etc, etc...

If I'm not mistaken wasn't the golden winged statue in CT Adv 12: Secrets of the Ancients a type of one ?

>

 

[casquilho]

I have to admit, I like the idea of the metalic card with micro-holes. Cute.

"We had a misjump."
"Do we know why?"
"Yes, the jump card had lint in one of the holes." :rofl:

I tend to like the idea of a Jump 'precalc" as like having 90% of the job done for me. Then the Navagator finishes it up with current data on the specific ship etc.

Daniel

 

[Trent]

The vilani do, because it's traditional.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Back in MTU, we had 8-track Jump Tapes...

:file_23:

 

[robject]

Back in MTU, we had 8-track Jump Tapes...

Oh the horror. I've gotta use that.