Agreed
Extended range stutterwarp drives
- Thread starter Brandon C
- Start date
Agreed
The Shenyang freighter, laid down in 2198, has a 7.7 ly range. The Krupp 821 cargo carrier, laid down in 2234, has a 7.7 ly range. The Metal modular freighter, laid down in 2015, has a 7.7 ly range.
The 7.7 ly range is in absolutely no way new military cutting edge.
Would it be less of an issue for you if the extended range stutterwarp just delayed discharge by 24 hours (like the temporary engineering task)? The problem is that fast ships could go well beyond the 8.9 ly noted in the OP.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I'll rephrase it, it didn't come across right: even the cutting edge new military drives of 2300 have a range of 7.7ly, that is a property/barrier for the drive.
If you change that by means of a routine or cheap upgrade you change the setting because the arms are no longer cut off, you can cross the boundaries in a few places quite easily so you effectively change the setting from one of arms and fingers to a globe of exploration.
Why go to the expense of disposable drives and attempted piggyback trips if all you need to do is make an engineering roll or two?
If you change that by means of a routine or cheap upgrade you change the setting because the arms are no longer cut off, you can cross the boundaries in a few places quite easily so you effectively change the setting from one of arms and fingers to a globe of exploration.
Why go to the expense of disposable drives and attempted piggyback trips if all you need to do is make an engineering roll or two?
Actually, it's not. In the GDW and Mongoose versions, a difficult Engineering roll can delay discharge for 24 hours. For military ships, this will add over 2.5 ly to range, possibly as high as 11 ly for the whole trip.
Now, this is a temporary and risky option. My option is permanent and safe, but not as good (any ship with an efficiency over 1.15 comes out worse)!
The engineering roll is RAW.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
In which case they broke their own setting right out of the door.
There are no dead ends to human exploration and the arms make no sense in game.
But wait - it is a difficult roll - so what are the odds that in taking the risk you blow up your ship and everyone on it?
(Ok irradiate it, but blow up sounds so muh better).
If you make it routine it breaks the setting - if it a risk in extremis - well roll the die and let's see...
The rules say you roll before you make the trip - I have always ruled that you don't know the result of your roll until you go beyond safe discharge range, otherwise there is no risk at all.
There are no dead ends to human exploration and the arms make no sense in game.
But wait - it is a difficult roll - so what are the odds that in taking the risk you blow up your ship and everyone on it?
(Ok irradiate it, but blow up sounds so muh better).If you make it routine it breaks the setting - if it a risk in extremis - well roll the die and let's see...
The rules say you roll before you make the trip - I have always ruled that you don't know the result of your roll until you go beyond safe discharge range, otherwise there is no risk at all.
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In which case they broke their own setting right out of the door.
There are no dead ends to human exploration and the arms make no sense in game.
But wait - it is a difficult roll - so what are the odds that in taking the risk you blow up your ship and everyone on it?
If you make it routine it breaks the setting - if it a risk in extremis - well roll the dice and let's see...
In the original rules, it is Difficult, Drive Engineering, 1 hour. The roll is made before the ship heads out but is kept secret until the ship gets past 7.7 ly. If the roll failed, the drive immediately starts to catastrophically fail. RIP crew. If the roll succeeds, the ship can go for 24 more hours at normal speed before it must discharge.
The Mongoose version works essentially the same.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The odds of success in making a difficult engineering roll:
11 or more required on the roll of 1d10 with a +DM of your engineering skill, how high is the engineering skill of an experience ship's engineer in your games?
Are you willing to take the risk?
Now lower the difficulty to routine thanks to your proposed upgrade:
7+ is now your target number - you will still lose ships. Ships are expensive, warships and colony transports are not something you want to risk even with only a 10% chance of losing the ship.
11 or more required on the roll of 1d10 with a +DM of your engineering skill, how high is the engineering skill of an experience ship's engineer in your games?
Are you willing to take the risk?
Now lower the difficulty to routine thanks to your proposed upgrade:
7+ is now your target number - you will still lose ships. Ships are expensive, warships and colony transports are not something you want to risk even with only a 10% chance of losing the ship.
Cannot find it in the original Traveller:2300.
Cannot find it in 2300AD... But can find the task to bring a second drive from offine to online; turning the online and charged-up one off is formidable SDE.
Referee Manual, page 20.
Also, for reference, in Mongoose 2300 it is a Very Difficult task (-4) but unlike T2300, the drive engineer can take more time, stretching a 1-6 hour task to 1-6 days for a +3.
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Considering that the designers defined the task in the rules, I assume it must happen often enough.
There is no difficulty because there are no rolls. The e tended range stutterwarp drive is built with the tweaks made by the task actually inherent in the design.
I am going to post a MgT version of the Trilon ISV-5 and I noticed a few things in the color text that indicated that there was was a very different view of the setting presented in Traveller 2300:
"The ISV-5 is a rather fast vessel, but has an extended range stutter warp capability."
"Unfortunately, the prototype [stutterwarp drive] developed quite a few operational problems, and indeed several missions were lost due to faulty design. The newer version, however, has a much greater serviceability and an acceptable breakdown rate."
"A fairly advanced vessel, the ISV-5 has only been in production for ten years. There are hundreds in use in all corners of human space [...]"
So, originally, the 7.7 ly limit could be overcome by design, not just lucky Drive Engineering rolls. Also, the arms were considered open enough to justify building "hundreds" of these small initial survey vessels.
Just something to ponder when viewing how Star Cruiser and 2300AD changed things.
"The ISV-5 is a rather fast vessel, but has an extended range stutter warp capability."
"Unfortunately, the prototype [stutterwarp drive] developed quite a few operational problems, and indeed several missions were lost due to faulty design. The newer version, however, has a much greater serviceability and an acceptable breakdown rate."
"A fairly advanced vessel, the ISV-5 has only been in production for ten years. There are hundreds in use in all corners of human space [...]"
So, originally, the 7.7 ly limit could be overcome by design, not just lucky Drive Engineering rolls. Also, the arms were considered open enough to justify building "hundreds" of these small initial survey vessels.
Just something to ponder when viewing how Star Cruiser and 2300AD changed things.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It was retconned away long before the Ships of the French Arm or 2300AD revisions, in Challenge and traveller's Digest Q&A and errata.
Extending the range of a stutterwarp drive changes the setting, if that is what you want in your version of T2300 go for it and have fun
But consider this; no arms, human space has no bottlenecks, no need to worry about he Bayern mission, you just use the extended range drives, no need to worry about assaulting Kafer space since you can easily find an alternative route into their space.
Extending the range of a stutterwarp drive changes the setting, if that is what you want in your version of T2300 go for it and have fun
But consider this; no arms, human space has no bottlenecks, no need to worry about he Bayern mission, you just use the extended range drives, no need to worry about assaulting Kafer space since you can easily find an alternative route into their space.
You are going to lose 10-60% of your shipping that attempts it.
In which case you have an alternative setting, things will play out very differently. But I say again, if that is how you want to do it the important thing is to have fun
I guess the reason I can't let go of this bone is that I have had the T2300 boxed set for over 25 years but never had any of these other things (except SotFA, which did have a German survey ship with more than 7.7 ly range). So, I was quite shocked when I got the Mongoose version last year and things in the setting were quite different from what I was expecting.
Extending the range of a stutterwarp drive changes the setting, if that is what you want in your version of T2300 go for it and have fun
Arguably, I'm just resetting to the original setting assumptions
Although the ISV-5 is 10 years old, it doesn't appear other have done much with the technology. The fast missile cruiser and SSV-21 only have 7.7 ly ranges (like the other ships -- including the X-2296 fighter!*)
* with a Stutterarp Efficiency of 2.84, though, it would take less than three days to go maximum range. I'm guessing this was a nod to the Star Wars fighters with hyperdrives.
I was thinking of it mostly being used by warships, survey vessels and perhaps desperate pirates. For corporate merchants, it's just a matter of profit (If you lose half your ships but you profits from it cover 300% of your losses -- the corporation will order it done).
Worth noting that I had missed the "acceptable breakdown rate" of the ISV-5 (although the game mechanics for this are not given). Given a crew of only six, one in 100 blowing up might be "acceptable" ...
While I agree in the arms and bottlenecks situation, I reach a different concluison about its effect in the Kafer war (assuming it is kept as in Classic 2300AD, as in MgT2300AD it has not yet happened and I'm not sure if it will): Kafers would have won the war (or at least made quite a lot more of damage).
I'll explain myself: with the kafers having advance information about Human colonies (taken from the Arcturus base), and with any extended stutterwarp that humans can have probably also theirs (as already discussed), not being subjected to the bottlenecks would have made their drive for Terra quicker as it would have allowed them to bypass Human resistence (as they did in Eta Bootis).
OTOH, with humans fully blind about Kafer space, they could not have taken any advantage on it offensively (while they could defensively).
ITTR other fighters are also given range, and it's always 7.7 ly. I understand it as a theoretical limit, while the practical one being endurance (fuel) and life support dependent.
In the specific case of the X-2296, with 20 hours endurance, its range would be 2.36 ly before runing out of fuel, and that's not enough to reach anywhere from Kie Yuma (Xi Ursae Majoris), where Invasion Sourcebook tells us there are a squdron of them (closer destination, accoridng the map, is Joi, 61 Ursae Majoris), 2.8 ly away. And you must count the time taken in STL speed before reachinmg the 0.0001G treshold.
Classic 2300AD specified the task is done before the travel, and it's not uncertain. So, I guess the results are known before the coils become overloaded (as the engineer sees if his attempt to evenly distribute the energy among the coils is being successful), and probably allowing the ship to abourt and return (if it is noticed before the no return point at 3.85 ly).
In MgT2300AD it is specified it is rolled before the trip, but not known until you pass the 7.7 ly threshold, so being lost if it was failed.
In both cases I feel quite odd that the oveloading capacity is for a time, not for a distance, allowing faster ships to overload them more than slower ones, as the charging of the coils is clearly distance (not time) related, with usual limit set at 7.7 ly, regardless if it takes you 2 days or 15 to reach it.
This way, a ship with Warp Efficiency 0.5 would be allowed to overpower the coils by 6.5%, while a ship with a Warp Efficiency 4 will be alowed to overload them by 52%.
Even reducing the range from 7.7 to 7.5 ly reduces the number of reachable systems (multiple stars at the same coordinates counted as a single system) in the NSL (Plus backdoor and the kafer) from 214 to just Alpha Centauri, Proxima Centauri, Barnard's Star and Serurier via Alpha Centauri.
It seems someone at GDW did a bunch of math... probably computer aided.
ISTR that 8 made a big difference over 7.7, as well.
Now, the computing power to do so is available to do it real time.
For the NSL, it does. Route finding from any star to any other star once you had the adjacency graph built is real time, doing a cartesian search for all routes still takes time.
For datasets larger than the NSL it is nowhere near real time, at least with the techniques that I am using. I have a dataset derived from Gaia DR2 out to about the Peleides cluster that I'm doing a route for that is a struggle. It's well more than a million stars in the dataset I'm working with, though:
We have always treated the extended range drives as prohibitively expensive and prone to catastrophic failure, the surviving ships spent more time in space dock than in motion by orders of magnitude.
to build the drives requires ultra rare isotopes, there are barely enough to keep the ships in service that exist and trickle out replacements for the ones that keep going missing or exploding.
heck we had a campaign arc (that never got resolved) revolving around the fact the ISV-5 running around in 2300 was not the original, there was evidence that they may have lost multiple ISV-5's and hushed it all up.
If I recall the numbers right we found out in our campaign that you could only keep a ship with an extended range drive underway (when running the ship in extended range mode) for like six weeks out of every sixteen months. you could build an entire Squadron of Conventional Cruisers or a small Fleet of Merchant ships of the same capacity for what it would cost to build a single extended range ship of the same type. on top of the unexplained disturbances & explosions their where the health problems of the passengers & crew.
In short just make them too expensive for even uncommon use and at this time more trouble than they are worth even for the few than can afford them.
to build the drives requires ultra rare isotopes, there are barely enough to keep the ships in service that exist and trickle out replacements for the ones that keep going missing or exploding.
heck we had a campaign arc (that never got resolved) revolving around the fact the ISV-5 running around in 2300 was not the original, there was evidence that they may have lost multiple ISV-5's and hushed it all up.
If I recall the numbers right we found out in our campaign that you could only keep a ship with an extended range drive underway (when running the ship in extended range mode) for like six weeks out of every sixteen months. you could build an entire Squadron of Conventional Cruisers or a small Fleet of Merchant ships of the same capacity for what it would cost to build a single extended range ship of the same type. on top of the unexplained disturbances & explosions their where the health problems of the passengers & crew.
In short just make them too expensive for even uncommon use and at this time more trouble than they are worth even for the few than can afford them.
