Yes, I was forgetting the sun - probably the most important bit most of the time.
Another thought coming out of that is maybe the M-drive either not working or only working weakly if the ship misjumps into empty space. ...
Game makes it a straightforward full thrust up to about 10 diameters and half after that. 10 diameters, 20 radii, 1/400 G field for a 1 G world - but 1/3200 G for a 1/8 G size 1 world. If you feel the strange urge to make things complicated IYTU, you can adjust the distance by world size: for a size 1 world, the grav thruster works fully to 3.5 diameters, half effect beyond that. You might further rule that it halves again in deep space 10 AU out from the local sun, which puts the gas giants within reach but means you're at quarter speed beyond them. In interstellar space, you might rule that there isn't sufficient field for the grav thrusters to produce any meaningful thrust.
Of course, there's not much need for thrust if your crew finds themselves in interstellar space without the fuel and resources for a very, very long trip.
...Would the locus of the thrust be the thruster if it was increasing the push and pull of external gravitic forces? ...
Yes, unless you altered the description of how the TL11 reactionless thruster works in your TU by saying it was acting on the ship's entire mass rather than on the thruster plate.
... Although even if so the thruster being pulled apart could be the end of the engineering bay. ...
Oh no, the engineering bay would still be there. Smashed and riddled with shrapnel from the exploding drive, and in hard vacuum, but definitely still there.
... Yes, or the ex-marine combat dude is left to sit in the bridge and shout if any lights turn red while the people with ship repair skills are all down in the engineering bay trying to fix a minor problem with the M-drive and then WHUMP. ...
Type, "Emergency maneuver drive shut down," into the search box in the bridge computer, then follow the instructions. I'm sure there'll still be people alive in the engine room by the time you finish entering in the sequence - assuming the drive doesn't overload and explode before you finish. :devil:
... Players arrive at a planet with an ancient subsidized merchant which goes between two C systems and hasn't been properly maintained for years and are hired to take it back the 2-3 jumps needed to get it to an A star port for repairs. They are offered danger money (x4) for the trip, tickets back to pick up their own ship and double pay on the return trip. ...
Excessive. There are desperate and naive players stranded without transport on the world who will gladly take the job for only danger money x2 and no return trip funds. Don't overpay when you can capitalize on someone's desperation.
... The situation itself is just a haunted house situation with constant creaking and bulging and weird noises mixed in with constant repair encounters so it feels like the ship is going to fall apart any minute with maybe some NPC crew members to start freaking out and needing sedating etc or a plot by the ship owners to blow it up and collect the insurance by planting a bomb set to go off in jump space.
The jump grid is overdue for maintenance. Isolated elements flicker occasionally, creating very brief and very localized partial jump space intrusions into the ship. Over the course of the trip, small sections of bulkhead walls suddenly frost up as they drop to freezing temperatures, making creaking and popping sounds as they cool and then warm back to normal temperature. At other points, they look like they turned liquid for a fraction of a second, sloughing briefly downward and then instantly solidifying. The air temperature in rooms suddenly drops to freezing. The computer monitor suddenly blanks and reboots. Alarms go off at random, reading vacuum in one room when it has normal pressure, reading fire in another when there is no fire. Lighting suddenly flashes to extreme brilliance and then burns out. An unlucky NPC in the wrong place at the wrong time suddenly collapses, his body temperature in the 30's (Fahrenheit); you manage to revive him and he is completely berserk, uncontrollably psychotic. You hear another NPC screaming and run to find him trapped ankle-deep in the floor, his ankles now merged with the floorplate. You get up from your bridge post to stretch your legs and hear crackling behind you, look back to see your chair is covered in frost.