Is it time for Jump-7 drives in Traveller?

[Grav_Moped]

Mentioned elsewhere:
The OTU had Jump-8 and Jump-9 available somewhere before Year Zero.
It's just that almost nobody knew it (and they still don't).

According to Marc's (decades after the fact) explanation for Annic Nova, the reason the ship had two Jump Drives was that while their Jump ratings could not be added, they could be exponentiated -- the J2 drive raised to the 3rd power by the J3 drive, and vice versa (2^3=8, 3^2=9). Annic Nova was given to a shipwrecked/misjumped crew by extremely advanced aliens who hadn't yet discovered Jump, but quickly deduced how it worked and provided Jump-2, Jump-3, and exponentiation to get the stranded crew home. The returning crew shared J-2 with the rest of their society, but hid J-3 and expo.

This capability may or may not have required an accessory device provided by the very-high-TL aliens, and may or may not have required a computer no longer installed on the ship.

The actual unstated reason at the time that the adventure came out was that it was designed under LBB2 '77, which required ships to burn all of their Jump fuel regardless of distance actually Jumped. Having two Jump Drives allowed for consecutive Jumps without refueling, and allowed for a range of 5 without needing to carry "fuel" for 6 parsecs.


Anyhow. The rationale for how this is supposed to work indicates that it only provides for Jump-4, Jump-8, and Jump-9. Jump-1 through Jump-3 are accomplished normally; the others, through exponential operation. Jump-5 through Jump-7 require aiming at a gravity well to force early precipitation from Jumpspace during a Jump-8.

The open questions are what TL is the accessory device, and what computer is needed to run the Jump-8 or Jump-9 programs.

Something that hadn't occurred to me the last time I considered the topic, is that because the original design was under '77 rules, it might not require a Model/8 or Model/9 computer to run the Jump-8/Jump-9 program. The requirement of computer=Jn was only introduced in HG '80 and LBB2 '81.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Why isn't Jump-7 at TL=16 advancement?

 

[Grav_Moped]

Why isn't Jump-7 at TL=16 advancement?

It is.

Metadata in the Travellerwiki entry on Jump Drive

 

[Grav_Moped]

It is.

Metadata in the Travellerwiki entry on Jump Drive

And because I'm not seeing an edit capability...
You can't get there with LBB2 (doesn't fit, and under rules as written a drive rating of 7 is not possible).
HG tech might do it without drop tanks, but only have 6% of tonnage left over after drives, bridge, and fuel requirements.
With drop tanks, it'd be trivial.

Antimatter power is TL 17. So is the Hop-1 drive.

 

[mike wightman]

You could borrow the reduced fuel requirements from higher TLs that MT introduced.

 

[Condottiere]

It's a more precise placement of the jump exit point, so wouldn't be surprised that if the possibility exists for seven plus parsecs at low fuel requirements, might be preferable to just bouncing around all over the hex grid.

 

[Timerover51]

I did not vote as my view is that it is time to advance beyond Jump Drive to something else. For a very large ship you are burning literally thousands of tons of Liquid Hydrogen to produce the energy for jump. Simply handling that volume of Liquid Hyfrogen in a short period of time is going to be a difficult engereering question, but the energy being produced by fusing even a froction of that is incredible. And if you are fuzing all of it. how are you conceivably processing all of the energy being produced. Two ounces of fuzed hydrogen will yeild on the order of the equivalent of 3 kilotons of energy, and you are talking thousands of tons. Do some of the math please.

I figure that it is that is it part of the game, so I still allow for Jump Drive in my Piper-Norton Universe,, but I also allow for the equivalent of H.Beam Piper's hyperdrive. That uses a pretty much standard fission plant for power, which makes it much more viable in my opinion.

 

[infojunky]

Ok, to be quite honest I have considered dumping Jump for something like Fullthrust’s hyperdrive. And using FT’s Thrust to replace Manuver.

 

[Fovean]

I ran a campaign way back when where instead of increasing jump ranges we reduced the time required based on jump number. It was a pretty popular idea at the time. I think we landed on Jump 1 = 1 week, Jump 2 = ½ week, Jump 6 = 1/6 week, etc.

It was fun for a while but didn’t really change things that much. We ran a typical free trader/ small ship campaign. Maybe in a naval campaign or during a war at strategic levels we’d have found some differences but that’s not really our cup of tea.

These days we’re using MgT 2e which allows up to Jump 9 at TL18 (derived from T5). Works for us, Jump 7 (TL16) is there if you can find it and afford it.

 

[whartung]

It was fun for a while but didn’t really change things that much. We ran a typical free trader/ small ship campaign. Maybe in a naval campaign or during a war at strategic levels we’d have found some differences but that’s not really our cup of tea.

It would have a very big impact. J6 now become vastly more powerful, for example. J6 "Day Couriers" (Since they take "a day" to go from system to system) would be routine, probably leaving every 4 to 6 hours to move information.

 

[Fovean]

It would have a very big impact. J6 now become vastly more powerful, for example. J6 "Day Couriers" (Since they take "a day" to go from system to system) would be routine, probably leaving every 4 to 6 hours to move information.

True but we didn’t really explore those aspects, stayed focused on adventuring. Mortgages were sometimes easier to take care of with an extra trip per month but again, not the focus. At one point a nemesis caught up to the gang more quickly than they expected but that was probably going to happen anyway.

It was a good thought experiment but we quickly went back to RAW.

 

[casquilho]

I ran a campaign way back when where instead of increasing jump ranges we reduced the time required based on jump number. It was a pretty popular idea at the time. I think we landed on Jump 1 = 1 week, Jump 2 = ½ week, Jump 6 = 1/6 week, etc.

I tried something like this once, but not as large a drop in time. It did change some things. Made the larger jump ships more valuable for sure.

 

[aramis]

True but we didn’t really explore those aspects, stayed focused on adventuring. Mortgages were sometimes easier to take care of with an extra trip per month but again, not the focus. At one point a nemesis caught up to the gang more quickly than they expected but that was probably going to happen anyway.

It was a good thought experiment but we quickly went back to RAW.

At least a cursory understanding of the potentials is useful to verisimilitude.

The biggest change of goign to proportional jump durations, for example, is one tha makes a huge difference in player actions...
If news can go 1 Pc in 7/6 of a week , but PC's ships max out at 7/2 Pc/week, any adventure putting one at odds with the law is going to follow.

Likewise, news will go via J6 courier universally, because the short links don't count as slowdown...
THe cash influence will also be weaker; waiting 3 days for checking the neighboring banks is reasonable for trade.
There will be much less speculation for tramps, as locals can now get information timely enough to let ost trade switch over to demand. (Having crawled the ship registers from the 19th C, the telegraph cuts of most in-US shipping to demand mode; pre-telegraph, much was speculation by the ship or a shipping import/export company. When the Trans-Atlantic Cable goes in, we again see a shift away from speculation to demand.

Also, keep in mind, even to present, most people are dealing with speculators... just not in the shipping nor source side. The average retailer is a speculator... buying on speculation then selling to (hopefully) meet local demand. Only a few areas are non-speculative retail. (Non-Spec retailers include: Tesla Motors, SpaceX, Blue Origin, most aircraft manufacturers in the commercial carrier size vehicles, some of the private pilot focused aircraft manufacturies, some baked goods shops, caterers, custom tailors, catalogue order storefronts.)

 

[Fovean]

There will be much less speculation for tramps, as locals can now get information timely enough to let ost trade switch over to demand.

Interesting ramification. Oddly enough, we defaulted to “Ag world needs industrial items” or what have you, rather than rolling cargoes. The campaign didn’t really require the PCs to speculate to pay the bills so we sort of instinctively slipped into what you describe.

I don’t mean to sound glib, it’s just that we wanted to try a different jump paradigm and didn’t really need to expand it outward in a world building sense. But now I’m wondering what our old Five Sisters/Dist 268 would have really looked like if we had…

 

[whartung]

I don’t mean to sound glib, it’s just that we wanted to try a different jump paradigm and didn’t really need to expand it outward in a world building sense.

No, of course, it's all in good fun. It's just when you think big picture of the ramifications. The "1 week from everywhere" is fundamental to the Traveller universe, and these changes rock that foundation pretty hard. I have no idea if Hop and Skip drives might have a similar impact or not.

 

[Spinward Flow]

No, of course, it's all in good fun. It's just when you think big picture of the ramifications. The "1 week from everywhere" is fundamental to the Traveller universe, and these changes rock that foundation pretty hard. I have no idea if Hop and Skip drives might have a similar impact or not.

I presume that Hop and Skip drives preserve the "1 week interstellar" travel delay while simply extending how far you can go during that 1 week.
Jump = 1-9 parsecs per week
Hop = 10-90 parsecs per week
Skip = 100-900 parsecs per week
... you get the idea.

 

[Fovean]

No, of course, it's all in good fun. It's just when you think big picture of the ramifications. The "1 week from everywhere" is fundamental to the Traveller universe, and these changes rock that foundation pretty hard. I have no idea if Hop and Skip drives might have a similar impact or not.

Well, it seems to me you have to advance the campaign timeline to really explore the use of these Higher Order drives. 1248 doesn’t have them to my knowledge, presumably Milieu 1900 will have the lower rated Hop drives available… but at that point we’re apples’n’oranges as far as foundations of the universe go. I mean, at that point, the big polities (Imperium, 2000 Worlds, Consulate, Hierate, etc) become sectors essentially, and the Marches become a highly detailed subsector. What does trade of goods and information along the Main even mean at the point?

 

[Fovean]

I presume that Hop and Skip drives preserve the "1 week interstellar" travel delay while simply extending how far you can go during that 1 week.
Jump = 1-9 parsecs per week
Hop = 10-90 parsecs per week
Skip = 100-900 parsecs per week
... you get the idea.

Yes I believe they do (don’t have T5 to hand atm). But I recall that Hop drives at least can’t travel less than their rating, which is why you might see some discussions about ships with Hop AND Jump drives installed. Or “Jumplines“ that purposely intersect the 100 diameter limit to forcefully precipitate the ship at the destination.

 

[daryen]

1248 doesn’t have them to my knowledge, ...

The 1248 setting has no "unusual" jump abilities and is limited to J6. Even the small-ship jump ability of TNE is jettisoned as being too dangerous now that things have calmed down, and is no longer used. Also keep in mind that in that setting, everything took a big step back. There are sources of TL16 (e.g. in the Claw there is parts of Deneb and Darrian), but they are very rare and the overall TL is less than it was "back in the day".

There are no new improvements in 1248 because they are all still trying to recover what was lost.

 

[robject]

...presumably Milieu 1900 will have the lower rated Hop drives available… but at that point we’re apples’n’oranges as far as foundations of the universe go. I mean, at that point, the big polities (Imperium, 2000 Worlds, Consulate, Hierate, etc) become sectors essentially, and the Marches become a highly detailed subsector. What does trade of goods and information along the Main even mean at the point?

Good question. I figure that long-haul routes change, resulting in an interstate highway phenomenon where small towns get bypassed and turn into local backwaters.

The old Xboat routes might still exist as pairs of layered Hopship routes... routes are either Odd or Even... assuming the hopships can simply aim at a world 8 parsecs away and be stopped reasonably well. THAT assumes that long-haul freight is being handled by Farports, because Hop drops out of jumpspace at 1000 diameters. But I also expect that, where the money is obvious, a world will be skipped for the sake of a more lucrative one a couple more parsecs away. Or new routes emerge entirely (although nothing is ever simple and clean, right?).

Meanwhile, jump-1 mains will still be there. Local traffic might still do better overall with jump-capable ships.

That's my vote, anyway. I could be wrong.