Is it time for Jump-7 drives in Traveller?
- Thread starter Shonner
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shadowcat20
SOC-12
Well skip drives really open up new territory. Not sure T5 mentioned the fuel usage other than just a little. It is still a work in progress after all. I do like turrets with slug firing guns though. Now you can do some New BSG type combat with rounds flying all over the place.
Modern rocketry wouldn't think twice about the idea of launching a ship with a tiny payload package compared to its vast drive and fuel reserve.
Considering the fate of the Saturn V rocket (and the entire Apollo/skylab program), the fate of the STS with its massive external tank, and the fate of the Ares I/V M.O.A.R.* (and the entire Constellation/Vission for Space Exploration program) - I would respectfully suggest that the Powers-That-Be have indeed thought twice (or even thrice) about the cost/benefit of really small craft with really big fuel tanks, and rejected them.
... but otherwise, point taken: It is not as inconcievable as I first thought.
[EDIT: *M.O.A.R. = Mother Of All Rockets]
I would not mind a J7 drive if it could fit within context of the existing universe, barring antimatter (I do not have access to T5, yet...). Would such drive have HG requirements stats of 8% Drive, 70% fuel?
For that matter, is there "flavor text" reason for the TL gap from TL 9 and TL 11 between J1 and J2 in CT? I ask bucause I wonder, barring T5 and/or antimatter, what TL would such as speculative drive have?
For that matter, is there "flavor text" reason for the TL gap from TL 9 and TL 11 between J1 and J2 in CT? I ask bucause I wonder, barring T5 and/or antimatter, what TL would such as speculative drive have?
And either TL16 (if you just want to follow the progressions extant) or TL17 (if you want it out of PC reach).
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
That's how I read it. J7 becomes available at TL16, it requires 70% fuel, 8% Drive and 7% Power plant, total 85%.
J8 is TL17, 80% fuel, 9% Drive and 8% Power, total 97%.
J9 is TL18, 90% fuel, 10% Drive and... oops, no, we can't go there. So why create an artificial limit at J6 when there's a perfectly good one at J8 as a natural consequence of extrapolating the rules?
J8, TL17 is the best you can get with a fusion powered Jump Drive, so from TL17, you need to bring in Antimatter - in perfect harmony with the TL table from LBB3.
If it's not broke, don't fix it.
As for why J2 doesn't come it at TL10, maybe it's just a slow start, getting the hang of the technology? I don't think a canon explanation was ever made.
I agree 100%.
As an aside, IMTU there is no reason a starship less than 100 dTons can not be built, but the High Guard 2dTon Jump Drive, requiring 10 dTons of fuel is the absolute smallest that can be built. (I simply treat a 60 dTon starship as if it were 100 dTons, just as Book 2 treats a 160 dTon starship as if it were 200 tons.)
One thought on that was that TL 9 represents the experimental prototype stage and TL 10 is the mature technology stage. At TL 10 (and higher), one could choose a slightly more risky J2 prototype (TL+1), or a safe and reliable J1 drive - a no brainer decision. At TL 9, the choice is to use a J1 prototype or build a STL generation ship - again a no brainer decision, but for completely different reasons.
Of course this is just empty conjecture. As you pointed out, cannon doesn't explain it (but IMTU, TL 9 is a prototype J1 drive).
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
I do that, too.
Therefore smallest possible starship is 15dT (automated SOS beacon), 20dT (cryolifeboat) or 25dT with a single stateroom (I have the 4dT stateroom as the minimum for interstellar travel).
david.wendelken
SOC-12
I once allowed a savvy team of players with a good bankroll and the right skillset (very high naval architect, gravitics, electronics, mechanical engineering, astrogation and mathematics) to design a custom ship that required slightly less jump fuel. Basically, instead of 10% of the ship's volume per parsec jumped, it only required 9%.
It's amazing what extras can be squeezed into 1 to 6% of the ship's total volume.
It also opened up some very interesting adventure scenarios as the mega-corporations started getting wind of the ship's capabilities. The players were very clever in that regard, because they had the ship constructed by a shipyard as if it required the usual fuel storage. But they designed it so it would be inexpensive and easy to alter the fuel storage compartments to free up the spare space where they wanted it. They had the alterations done on a different planet.
They were also careful about how the key components were manufactured so no single corporation had enough info to piece together how all the custom components worked together. A final raid on the shipyard destroyed the shipyard's records so they had the only plans for building another ship like it.
It's amazing what extras can be squeezed into 1 to 6% of the ship's total volume.
It also opened up some very interesting adventure scenarios as the mega-corporations started getting wind of the ship's capabilities. The players were very clever in that regard, because they had the ship constructed by a shipyard as if it required the usual fuel storage. But they designed it so it would be inexpensive and easy to alter the fuel storage compartments to free up the spare space where they wanted it. They had the alterations done on a different planet.
They were also careful about how the key components were manufactured so no single corporation had enough info to piece together how all the custom components worked together. A final raid on the shipyard destroyed the shipyard's records so they had the only plans for building another ship like it.
Bravo!
Bravo I say to you for letting them and to your players for doing it right. Awesome!
I would consider drop tanks that looked like the fuel tanks of the space shuttle. Extending the range to J14 max would have very great practical applications.
shadowcat20
SOC-12
The downside of large drop tanks is if they out displace the ship in tonnage they will have a larger gravity well than the ship and it should misjump. Also displacement is based on volume so it does not matter if the tanks are dry at that point. Not quiet sure how that works but a ship uses the same amount of fuel reguardless of it load size be it full or empty.
Using T5 for this but if a larger and smaller object are sitting next to each other and one jumps the smaller object suffers for it. This rule may also doom drop tanks to be non recoverable.
Using T5 for this but if a larger and smaller object are sitting next to each other and one jumps the smaller object suffers for it. This rule may also doom drop tanks to be non recoverable.
Jump-7 with 80% cargo space has very great implications[*]. A range of 14 parsecs (as opposed to 12 with J6) will be useful in a few rare cases, but I can't think of many.
[*] But then, so does Jump-6 with 80% cargo space.
Hans
The Drop Tanks are for refeuling mid J-14 journey (Jump 7 Parsecs- refuel & drop the tanks and then Jump 7 more Parsecs)
The Lyman version of a Jump Drive would reduce the amount of fuel needed making the drop tanks smaller than I had mentioned because the engines are much more fuel efficient.
I think that the J-6 limit is important, in that it helps to maintain a "differentness" to the Traveller universe from what we're used to.
One of the key underlying themes which shapes the Traveller concept of the universe which we game in is the limitation on the speed of communication, which is limited to the speed of travel.
There are plenty of historical precedents that will help you understand the concept.
Think the Pony Express in the old West (certainly what GDW had in mind when they invented the Xboat network - although I think that the Mongol empire had a rather better version some four or five centuries earlier).
Think of the great maritime empires in the days of sail - the Spanish in the Sixteenth Century, the Dutch in the Seventeenth Century, and the British in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries.
Their world was so very different from ours, because the governor of Van Diemen's Land couldn't just get on the telephone to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for a decision or a ruling. He had to write them a communique, and send it on a ship, which might or might not get wrecked en route, and then they woudl send something back, in another ship, which might or might not get wrecked en route; and if he was lucky, he had a reply in a year's time.
On minor matters, he was trusted to make his own decisions. He would only go to all that palaver for a major decision.
Or think late Roman empire. Impotent emperors issueing decree after decree, which were not implemented. Then Orders to provincial governors to implement their decrees. Then decrees that governors who did not implement the decrees be fined ... exiled ... executed. And the governors blithely went on doing their own things regardless. Or at least, the more remote ones did.
These are the historical precedents to look to, when deciding what the outlying regions of an interstellar empire ought to be like. And it's got FAR more gaming potential, and freedom for referees to desing the adventures that THEIR group of players will want to play, than a Star Trek or Blake's 7 type of universe in which sub-ether communications allow commanders at imperial HQ to give direct commands to their subordinates on the far side of the universe.
So a limit - no matter how arbitrary - is important for establishing that freedom.
Start allowing J-7, J-8, controlled mis-jump to J-36, and you soon reduce it to role-playing the modern world with picturesque aliens, rather than the unfamiliar universe of Traveller.
It's up to you, of course. But speaking personally, I'd rather be gaming a universe which requires the players to think themselves into a wholly different mindset - albeit one for which, with a little research, they can find historical precedents to provide pointers - than a "Sci Fi future" which is, in reality, just the modern world in fancy dress.
One of the key underlying themes which shapes the Traveller concept of the universe which we game in is the limitation on the speed of communication, which is limited to the speed of travel.
There are plenty of historical precedents that will help you understand the concept.
Think the Pony Express in the old West (certainly what GDW had in mind when they invented the Xboat network - although I think that the Mongol empire had a rather better version some four or five centuries earlier).
Think of the great maritime empires in the days of sail - the Spanish in the Sixteenth Century, the Dutch in the Seventeenth Century, and the British in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries.
Their world was so very different from ours, because the governor of Van Diemen's Land couldn't just get on the telephone to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for a decision or a ruling. He had to write them a communique, and send it on a ship, which might or might not get wrecked en route, and then they woudl send something back, in another ship, which might or might not get wrecked en route; and if he was lucky, he had a reply in a year's time.
On minor matters, he was trusted to make his own decisions. He would only go to all that palaver for a major decision.
Or think late Roman empire. Impotent emperors issueing decree after decree, which were not implemented. Then Orders to provincial governors to implement their decrees. Then decrees that governors who did not implement the decrees be fined ... exiled ... executed. And the governors blithely went on doing their own things regardless. Or at least, the more remote ones did.
These are the historical precedents to look to, when deciding what the outlying regions of an interstellar empire ought to be like. And it's got FAR more gaming potential, and freedom for referees to desing the adventures that THEIR group of players will want to play, than a Star Trek or Blake's 7 type of universe in which sub-ether communications allow commanders at imperial HQ to give direct commands to their subordinates on the far side of the universe.
So a limit - no matter how arbitrary - is important for establishing that freedom.
Start allowing J-7, J-8, controlled mis-jump to J-36, and you soon reduce it to role-playing the modern world with picturesque aliens, rather than the unfamiliar universe of Traveller.
It's up to you, of course. But speaking personally, I'd rather be gaming a universe which requires the players to think themselves into a wholly different mindset - albeit one for which, with a little research, they can find historical precedents to provide pointers - than a "Sci Fi future" which is, in reality, just the modern world in fancy dress.
For all that J6 drives are supposed to be the limit, does anyone even use them? Most player ships are J2 or J3 tops aren't they? Aren't J6 ships supposed to be rare and experimental anyway? I can't even recall ever seeing a listing for one in any official traveller book.
Increasing the limit to J7 or higher won't really make much difference in practical terms as far as I can see. Yes, news will travel a little faster, but that's no big deal; it still takes a minimum of a week (+ in-system traveltime to destination, docking, refuelling, launching again, going to 100D limit and jumping out again) to get from A to B, and going further would still require multiple stops.
I don't think changing the limit would break the setting (no more than it already is broken, at least ). I'm sure people will claim that borders may become "meaningless", but they're demonstrably meaningless already - the only border that matters in terms of being practically defendable is the border between a target planet's atmosphere and space (a line in space on a map is not a border, and is completely undefendable). If anything using larger J drives might allow for more exploration and expansion.
Increasing the limit to J7 or higher won't really make much difference in practical terms as far as I can see. Yes, news will travel a little faster, but that's no big deal; it still takes a minimum of a week (+ in-system traveltime to destination, docking, refuelling, launching again, going to 100D limit and jumping out again) to get from A to B, and going further would still require multiple stops.
I don't think changing the limit would break the setting (no more than it already is broken, at least
). I'm sure people will claim that borders may become "meaningless", but they're demonstrably meaningless already - the only border that matters in terms of being practically defendable is the border between a target planet's atmosphere and space (a line in space on a map is not a border, and is completely undefendable). If anything using larger J drives might allow for more exploration and expansion.
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