Vote Your Canon #1: Empty Hex Jumps (consensus: YES)

[robject]

How much is the penalty to the astrogation check?

Good question. The rules I've used never handled empty hexes as a special case. Presumably, then, they fall under general astrogation tasks.

And.... I don't remember reading this, but I seem to recall that jump drives will drop you out of jump after they're "done". In other words, a 1 parsec jump is set (assume governor!) and you exit.

Scatter might be wild though?

 

[Spinward Flow]

How much is the penalty to the astrogation check?

Good question. The rules I've used never handled empty hexes as a special case. Presumably, then, they fall under general astrogation tasks.

And.... I don't remember reading this, but I seem to recall that jump drives will drop you out of jump after they're "done". In other words, a 1 parsec jump is set (assume governor!) and you exit.

Scatter might be wild though?

Programming a jump to an empty hex ... standard.
Accurately/precisely determining your position WITHIN the empty hex after breakout ... potentially more difficult than average, although spending "enough time" on the problem would reduce the difficulty back down to standard.

In other words, the astrogation "challenge" isn't before jumping into the empty hex, it comes after jumping in.

That extra challenge can be overcome by spending "enough time" working through the problem (lots of sensor readings and pulsar timekeeping observations to get an accurate fix on your position that far away from anything else "useful").

If an accurate fix of current position within the empty hex is not made, a starship can jump out at any time (standard astrogation task), but has a +1DM chance to misjump (so misjump is possible even with refined fuel and maintained drives) when jumping due to insufficient navigation procedural checking of the intended outbound route. That way a misjump is unlikely to happen (1 in 36 odds) but still theoretically possible. The basic idea being that if you aren't completely sure of where you are inside the empty hex (the aforementioned scatter factor, which could be considerable) then the safety of jumping out will be impacted. You can still jump ... but you might not wind up where you thought you were intending to go (misjump), rather than being incapable of jumping (stuck until astrogation challenge task is solved).

 

[whartung]

Accurately/precisely determining your position WITHIN the empty hex after breakout ... potentially more difficult than average, although spending "enough time" on the problem would reduce the difficulty back down to standard.

Ya know, that's the funny thing.

Galactic positioning is a trick.

In theory, I guess the common knowledge is to rely on pulsars. Scan the sky, find the pulsars, grab the sextant, and you can get some solid idea of your location at a galactic scale.

And that's all fine.

What we don't know, is how long do pulsars last? I guess the Cosmology wonks assure us that they last for at least 1000's perhaps 100's of thousands or millions of years. "Good enough" for most Imperial measurements.

But, see, if my ship is yanked 100,000 LY to Random Place...well, we're now 100,000 years up or down the time line in the life span of the pulsar.

Is the pulsar of 100,000 years ago "pulsing" the same as it was "today"? or, 100,000 years later? does it even exist?

Likely this is not a problem with our little parsec jumps. Few years here or there aren't going to matter...much.

But it's an intriguing problem.

 

[Spinward Flow]

But, see, if my ship is yanked 100,000 LY to Random Place...well, we're now 100,000 years up or down the time line in the life span of the pulsar.

Being yanked 100,000 LY is not even a misjump result, since you're talking a distance of over 30,000 parsecs "too fast to do something about" effectively.

You're basically talking about a "misleap" when using a Leap Drive (TL=22+) that operates on the 1000-9000 parsecs per Leap basis before your question has significant relevance (presuming a misleap of up to 36,000 parsecs).

Likely this is not a problem with our little parsec jumps. Few years here or there aren't going to matter...much.

With Jump drives, so long as the relevant navigation pulsars have been observed for the past 120 years (36 parsecs < 118 light years) then you've got all the observational records you need in the navigation database for Pulsar Clock Timing so as to be able to more accurately determine your position within an empty hex.

Since the Third Imperium (and most of the other major races) have been star faring species for a lot longer than 120 years, a suitably adequate database of pulsar timing observations would have been gathered for the purposes of accurate and precise navigation would have been gathered within the past several centuries (if not multiple millenia by 1105 Imperial).

Now, in the very early days of jump astrogation before an adequate database got built up, I can easily imagine this being a potential navigation hazard/problem ... but not in the "modern" (or golden age if you prefer) time frame of 1105.

 

[bookwyrm]

How much is the penalty to the astrogation check?

in T20, there is a +5 to the difficulty checks for Empty Hexes. this applies (I believe) to Plotting Jump into the Hex, Determining Location in Hex after arrival, then Plotting Jump to final destination.

 

[Condottiere]

That would be deliberately jumping into one, so it's the same as navigating a six parsec passage.

Out of it, I would be more sceptical, because that would assume you'd need to anchor both ends of a transition with massive gravity wells, which if conducted along the edges of any hex, empty or not, subject to similar penalties.

 

[aramis]

Good question. The rules I've used never handled empty hexes as a special case. Presumably, then, they fall under general astrogation tasks.

And.... I don't remember reading this, but I seem to recall that jump drives will drop you out of jump after they're "done". In other words, a 1 parsec jump is set (assume governor!) and you exit.

Scatter might be wild though?

TNE's Calibration points require no increase in difficulty - and are merely fuel depots in empty space.

 

[Grav_Moped]

If an accurate fix of current position within the empty hex is not made, a starship can jump out at any time (standard astrogation task), but has a +1DM chance to misjump (so misjump is possible even with refined fuel and maintained drives) when jumping due to insufficient navigation procedural checking of the intended outbound route. That way a misjump is unlikely to happen (1 in 36 odds) but still theoretically possible. The basic idea being that if you aren't completely sure of where you are inside the empty hex (the aforementioned scatter factor, which could be considerable) then the safety of jumping out will be impacted. You can still jump ... but you might not wind up where you thought you were intending to go (misjump), rather than being incapable of jumping (stuck until astrogation challenge task is solved).

Under CT misjump rules, I'd say that jumping out of an empty hex doesn't increase your risk of a 1-36 parsec misjump, but it will run the risk of a later-Traveller-type misjump ("right hex, wrong orbit").

Jump is like throwing a paper airplane through a hula hoop, using only a compass to aim. Later-rules misjumps are from mis-reading the compass (or in this case, having misjudged where you were standing when you threw it). CT misjumps are from throwing the paper airplane into a dust devil updraft and having it drift out of the park.

 

[HanleyTucks]

The existence of "Jump tapes" in some versions of Traveller tells me that observing and calculating isn't a trivial task. You can consider for example the fact that stars aren't stationary with respect to one another, but do move. Relative velocities on the order of 100km/sec are common. Over a parsec, this means that looking at the "current" position of a star gives you where it was 3.26 years ago, which might mean it's 68AU away from where you thought it was - twice as far out as Neptune. This is going to seriously cut into your little trading ship's turnaround time, and make the crew bored and passengers angry. It gets worse for Jumps-2 and more.

Then as well as the star itself, there's the target world. Depending on your technology assumptions, this may or may not be directly visible from the original star system - at least not with a small ship's sensors. Assuming 1 or 2 G's acceleration, Jumping in at Earth's orbit but when it's on the other side of the Sun isn't a big deal, just 2 AU journey - but Jumping into Neptune's orbit when it's on the other side gets you back to a 60+AU trip again.

With that in mind, orbital or planet-based observatories could have a viable business selling Jump tapes. And with or without Jump tapes, observations of the target system would more easily pick up a large planet than small - a gas giant. And of course, a gas giant will offer the opportunity for fuel skimming. And if people are going there anyway, someone may decide to set up their own fuel skimming business refining fuel and selling it, so that people can just Jump in, cruise to the gas giant, refuel, cruise out a bit, then Jump out, thus doing long journeys relatively quickly.

I still don't see the appeal of empty hexes.

 

[aramis]

The existence of "Jump tapes" in some versions of Traveller [...][

No GDW/IG edition says "Tapes".
CT says "cassettes" - which is interchangeable with cartridge in some contexts...
Various things called cassettes:

• Audiotape - 5 formats.
• Videotape - >6 formats
• Ammunition hoppers for 20mm and .50cal repeating naval machineguns
• At least one early HP program cartridge ("kassette") - I suspect German. Was for an HPM Financial, and it showed an edge connector.
• At least one electronic expansion device: https://us.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/222005981223/
• Small storage boxes, synonymous with casket in that use. (Meriam Webster online)
• film holders (for cameras) including the 35mm reel-to-reel used in some movie cameras, and the 35mm spool type for SLR camera use
• soap or sanitizer refills for auto-dispensers https://www.sunrisesupplyinc.com/ca...rk-Electronic-Cassette-Dispenser-Floor-Stand/

 

[Grav_Moped]

soap or sanitizer refills for auto-dispensers

... and now there's a flood of suds flowing from the control console of the Model 1/bis because someone loaded the wrong kind of soap.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Tape might be more of an Americanism.

2. Probably also less awkward to express than cassette.

3. Nowadays, it would be compact disc.

4. Or mini disc, Dee Vee Dee, or Blu Ray.

5. Pretty dependent on how much actual data is required.

 

[mike wightman]

You mean too many people couldn't spell cassette and so opted for the easier word association.

In today's world it is getting harder to find a new computer with any version of a disc drive - cd/dvd/blu ray - and the days of 'floppy discs' are well and truly over.

 

[Spinward Flow]

and the days of 'floppy discs' are well and truly over.

You can thank Apple and the iMacs for that one, courtesy of USB (that no one else was going to adopt until Apple did it).

 

[Condottiere]

You probably want to avoid stick USB sticks gratuitously all over the ship's computer, so a removable disc drive would sort of exclusify it.

Though you'd have to wonder how many floppy disks you'd need.

 

[coliver988]

You can thank Apple and the iMacs for that one, courtesy of USB (that no one else was going to adopt until Apple did it).

see this for the history of Apple/USB: https://www.fastcompany.com/3044088/apple-and-usb-a-history-of-adoption-acceptance-acquiescence

brings up an interesting point for the cassette / tape / whatever we are calling the pre-made jump plot. It is assumed that there is a standard for that so that all jump capable ships have this interface. Wonder if there are 3rd party components to utilize that port? Not that I'd want to (and in MTU I gloss over most of the expense of software and assume everyone has the generate program installed and they need a navigator. One of the things in CT I sort of change).

If I had to think about the jump cassettes, I'd probably liken them to the old tape backups I used to have on my computers: chunky tape drives that can hold a great deal of data, but not fast nor made for rapid I/O. Reading would be fast, and they would also be read-only to prevent someone altering the data (which, if you use these in your games, would be an interesting way to get the party to someplace they may not have thought they were going: someone swapped out the nav plot for another. Of course, it would have to be within the jump limits of the ship.

 

[robject]

TNE's Calibration points require no increase in difficulty - and are merely fuel depots in empty space.

Great example, thank you!

No GDW/IG edition says "Tapes".
CT says "cassettes" - which is interchangeable with cartridge in some contexts...
Various things called cassettes:

• Audiotape - 5 formats.
• Videotape - >6 formats
• Ammunition hoppers for 20mm and .50cal repeating naval machineguns
• At least one early HP program cartridge ("kassette") - I suspect German. Was for an HPM Financial, and it showed an edge connector.
• At least one electronic expansion device: https://us.misumi-ec.com/vona2/detail/222005981223/
• Small storage boxes, synonymous with casket in that use. (Meriam Webster online)
• film holders (for cameras) including the 35mm reel-to-reel used in some movie cameras, and the 35mm spool type for SLR camera use
• soap or sanitizer refills for auto-dispensers https://www.sunrisesupplyinc.com/ca...rk-Electronic-Cassette-Dispenser-Floor-Stand/

Many types.

I just assume the GDW versions are either
(a) "Vilani" cassettes or
(b) Eight-track.

Oh it would be soooooooo 70s to drop that into a game.

---

"Hey man, it's me Eneri. I've got the dustspice, but I think the Inspection Cutter is onto me."

"ENERI'S NOT HERE!"

 

[Spinward Flow]

You have to remember that in the late 70s when CT was being written, data storage looked like this ...

Vacuum column tape drives.
Looked fantastic on television ... all those Das Blinken Lighten™ and spinning wheels all over the place, creating a visual sense of frantic activity happening when the computers "got to work" on whatever task they had been given.

 

[whartung]

Looked fantastic on television ... all those Das Blinken Lighten™ and spinning wheels all over the place, creating a visual sense of frantic activity happening when the computers "got to work" on whatever task they had been given.

It was always a visceral thrill to hit the RETURN key and see the lights dim and the cacophony roar as the assorted devices (be they printers, disk drives, plotters, tapes) came to life.

Back in the day, when I "got" networking, a true "Unix" moment, a favorite anecdote was watching someone essentially do this:

cpio -ocv /dir | rsh otherhost cat > /dev/tape

Typed that in, the cartridge tape drive lit up as the contents of the /dir was moved across the network to another machine and streamed to the tape.

I used to use one of those reel-to-reel tape drives for a process every night. We didn't have the disk space for it, so I'd write the work file to tape, delete it, and then read it back in and merge it with the new work.

 

[robject]

You have to remember that in the late 70s when CT was being written, data storage looked like this ...

I saw those at Honeywell in the mid-1970s.

There were also floppy disks (1972 onward).

And dishwasher-sized magnetic hard-disk drives (e.g. American Express in 1971 or so).

Floppy disks were an almost universal data format from the 1970s into the 1990s, used for primary data storage as well as for backup and data transfers between computers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_floppy_disk