General Getting rid of some Empty Hexes?

[Spinward Scout]

Was having a discussion about Refueling Stations in a Rift over on the Traveller Reddit and I've come up with a snag. It's 2am here and I better write it out before I go to sleep and forget. Of course, I brought it here, because I'm sure you all could figure out if I'm wrong.

There's an Empty Hex in Regina subsector between Efate and Boughene at 1804. Would towing an Asteroid at 6-G be able to make it into the middle of the Empty Hex?

I see it like this:

Needed:
A.) a Jump-2 ship with 6-G maneuver that can Tow an Asteroid.
B.) An Asteroid that's big enough to be picked up by Sensors.

1.) Tow the large Asteroid to the farthest point you can while still leaving enough fuel to Jump back to the Origin Point (either World).
2.) Now you have set a Gravity Well that your Sensors could/might pick up.
3.) You Jump back to the Origin Point to refuel, then Jump back to the Asteroid if your Sensors do pick it up.
4.) Again, tow the Asteroid as far as you can, then Jump back to the Origin Point.
5.) Repeat as many times as it takes to get the Asteroid to the center of the Empty Hex.

Once that Asteroid Gravity Well is in place, Jump Tankers could Jump in and sell their fuel, then Jump back to refuel at a Gas Giant or Water World for free. This way, I think you can make a Gravity Well that Sensors can pick up on in the Empty Hex. It might be a decades-long project. If that works, almost the entire Imperium could be reached by Jump-1, by putting Gravity Wells in an Empty Hexes.

Or I'm wrong about part of this. And I don't know if someone else came up with this in discussions before and I'm reinventing the wheel.

What do you think?

 

[Condottiere]

What is supposedly (in the rule set) the smallest discernible gravity well that can be detected, and presumably anchored on during astrogation calculations?

 

[mike wightman]

There doesn't need to be anything in an empty hex to jump into and out of it, all you need are the coordinates and the correct generate/jump cassette.

So you just use a jump 2 ship to take lots of fuel to that coordinate and build up a fuel dump. Then you ship in station components to build your 'truck stop'. Repeat with a new station every 2 parsecs.

 

[kilemall]

There doesn't need to be anything in an empty hex to jump into and out of it, all you need are the coordinates and the correct generate/jump cassette.

So you just use a jump 2 ship to take lots of fuel to that coordinate and build up a fuel dump. Then you ship in station components to build your 'truck stop'. Repeat with a new station every 2 parsecs.

With an Oort Cloud you don’t have to compromise- grav anchor if you are playing that rule and refueling.

 

[mike wightman]

The only version of Traveller where that is an official rule is GT ISW.

 

[whartung]

Taken at face value...

I picked an arbitrary limit of .75 light speed as the max speed you will go.

Given that, with a 6G drive, you're looking at about 4.5 years of travel.

But since most of it is coasting, you'll hit that .75c in about 45 days. So, you accelerate for the 45 days, then jump back, wait 4 years, and then jump out, latch on, and decelerate the rock.

Mind, you will need to decelerate yourself from .75c to jump back to your system (another 45 days), and reverse the process to catch up to the rock later on. But, back of the napkin, this is "no big deal". 3 months in space is not an arduous demand, and the ship would, ideally, be specifically designed for this mission anyway. It would have to be, the ship is all motor.

That said, as others have mentioned, the rock is not necessary.

I've done the work on fueling shuttles, and a J3 fuel tanker can move about 20% of its volume each trip. This scales after about 1000 tons. So, a 10K tanker can move 2K tons of fuel, and 100K tanker can move 20K tons of fuel.

If you did need the gravity anchor, as mentioned in Gurp ISW (which has a rule that says early jump could not jump in to an empty hex), a 5-10 year project to put a dot on on the map is not that bad.

 

[Dragoner]

There doesn't need to be anything in an empty hex to jump into and out of it, all you need are the coordinates and the correct generate/jump cassette.

So you just use a jump 2 ship to take lots of fuel to that coordinate and build up a fuel dump. Then you ship in station components to build your 'truck stop'. Repeat with a new station every 2 parsecs.

This is a feature of my setting, I use Cherryh's stations as sort of influence.

 

[mike wightman]

According to Imperium ships can achieve 0.8c to 0.9c for STL transit between systems, and in Dark Nebula it is given as 0.9c

 

[robject]

I say, go for a government grant and over-engineer it. Sell it as an extension of security and regional defense. It's going to be very expensive. But money is not a problem when you're Efate.

Get a grant from Efate to install Very Large Jump Drives* on a 100 million-ton ice chunk from the Oort cloud.

Jump it one parsec; 84 million tons of water ice left. If an average vessel needs 100 tons of fuel, then that's sufficient for 840,000 ships.

Efate subsidizes operations of course. It also charges for use to help support operations and replenishment. Efate government and military get to refuel for free of course. Efate's military tankers are the primary means of replenishment.

Run the base on the ice-teroid with Fusion+. Don't use the power plant, it's too inefficient.


* 2.5% for Jump-1 is a 2.5 million ton jump drive cluster. Cost is 2.5 trillion credits. 1.5% for Power-1 is 1.5 million tons, and another 1.5 trillion credits. Ice volume is reduced to 96 million tons. Fuel use is, oh, say it's 12%, so a jump leaves us with 84 million tons of water ice.

 

[robject]

Alternately, install Very Large NAFAL on said planetoid. Don't know if the tradeoff is worth it, but it's an option.

NAFAL-1 is 2%, at MCr1 per ton, and has integral fission plants which power operations. Fuel use might be a bit lower. Travel time is 32 years though.

 

[aramis]

Was having a discussion about Refueling Stations in a Rift over on the Traveller Reddit and I've come up with a snag. It's 2am here and I better write it out before I go to sleep and forget. Of course, I brought it here, because I'm sure you all could figure out if I'm wrong.

There's an Empty Hex in Regina subsector between Efate and Boughene at 1804. Would towing an Asteroid at 6-G be able to make it into the middle of the Empty Hex?

I see it like this:

Needed:
A.) a Jump-2 ship with 6-G maneuver that can Tow an Asteroid.
B.) An Asteroid that's big enough to be picked up by Sensors.

1.) Tow the large Asteroid to the farthest point you can while still leaving enough fuel to Jump back to the Origin Point (either World).
2.) Now you have set a Gravity Well that your Sensors could/might pick up.
3.) You Jump back to the Origin Point to refuel, then Jump back to the Asteroid if your Sensors do pick it up.
4.) Again, tow the Asteroid as far as you can, then Jump back to the Origin Point.
5.) Repeat as many times as it takes to get the Asteroid to the center of the Empty Hex.

Once that Asteroid Gravity Well is in place, Jump Tankers could Jump in and sell their fuel, then Jump back to refuel at a Gas Giant or Water World for free. This way, I think you can make a Gravity Well that Sensors can pick up on in the Empty Hex. It might be a decades-long project. If that works, almost the entire Imperium could be reached by Jump-1, by putting Gravity Wells in an Empty Hexes.

Or I'm wrong about part of this. And I don't know if someone else came up with this in discussions before and I'm reinventing the wheel.

What do you think?

There's probably no need to tow one out; current astrometrics imply a lot of debris; the oort cloud being 1000AU+, some scientists are predicting out to about 1.5 LY (roughly 100 kAU); a few are pushing 200 kAU. (Until we get probes out, it's unlikely to be easily solved. We'd need to be actively radaring for them.)

Also note: destination gravity wells are not an actual requirement, provided the target is 1Pc away. If not, only then is dropping out against a gravity well needed.

That said, it's doable; it's been done by IY 1120 to access the Reft Crossing. Survival Margin implies that it's been done by 1115, hence Norris' knowledge of the warrant.

 

[Grav_Moped]

There doesn't need to be anything in an empty hex to jump into and out of it, all you need are the coordinates and the correct generate/jump cassette.

So you just use a jump 2 ship to take lots of fuel to that coordinate and build up a fuel dump. Then you ship in station components to build your 'truck stop'. Repeat with a new station every 2 parsecs.

You only need Jump 1, twice, for this location -- not Jump-2. Roup (SM2017) should be the base of operations as it has the best starport (even if only Class C) of the three adjacent worlds.

And, unless you're working under a rules version that doesn't allow empty-hex jumps, you don't need to bring in an anchor mass, just fuel and the gas-station infrastructure.

A bigger question is why Efate would need it? They have a J3x2 route to Regina via Whanga, and it'd be a lot easier to upgrade the starport there than to build a deep-space cache, unless there was a really good reason for Boughene to have regular J3x2 access to Regina. The simpler alternative for quicker Boughene-Regina communications is an XBoat route directly from Boughene to Roup (in addition to the links to Feri), and thence to Regina. Roup already has an XBoat route through it, and a Scout base.

Then again, IMTU I've placed a 6Boat route from Boughene to Regina that's less about communications (though that's a plus) than it is about being a coalmine canary for the outbreak of war -- either a 6Boat carries the news, or its absence itself is the message. 6Boats are either 135Td from LBB5, sourced from Rhylanor; or 400Td from LBB2 (really bending rules to work, but this is IMTU), sourced from Efate. There's undoubtedly something similar on the Efate-Regina run but I haven't written that up yet.

(In an odd coincidence, I suspect my PbP is going through that exact spot a few weeks of in-game time in the future, unless something unexpected happens. Maybe they won't need drop tanks after all...)

 

[Spinward Scout]

A bigger question is why Efate would need it?

(In an odd coincidence, I suspect my PbP is going through that exact spot a few weeks of in-game time in the future, unless something unexpected happens. Maybe they won't need drop tanks after all...)

Efate to Boughene is 2 parsecs. If you add a fuel station at the Empty Hex, it extends the Jump-1 route farther into the subsector.

You could do the same to get from Boughene to Feri, from Beck's World to Kinorb. Then it gets tougher as there are several worlds without abundant fuel sources. But you can ignore those and go between Roup and Hefry, between Yori and Regina. Although Inthe is stuck out there.

But that would extend Regina subsector's Jump-1 route considerably and open up the Spinwars Marches to better travel and trade.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Oh, I misread this as a Boughene-Regina route and thought you were trying to enable 2xJ3 to Regina with a stopover point.

Disregard.

Anyhow...

SM1804 would connect the Menorb Cluster to the Spinward Main.
SM1905 would connect the Feri string to trailing to/through Moughas, and as you note allow...
SM2203 to connect the Feri string to the Kinorb Cluster and out into Vargr space.

The problem with the Trailing Feri String is Pscias's red zone. There's a gas giant though, so that's not necessarily a show-stopper.

The first two gaps could easily be handled with drop or internal demountable tanks, and perhaps a delivery service for drop tanks to the respective 100D limits so ships without excess thrust capacity (i.e. only 1G without tanks) could benefit. On the third, Kinorb could build drop tanks for the crossing Rimward to Beck's World, but the reverse trip would require imported tanks from Kinorb or Feri.

A Type S or Type J rigged with fittings for 4x20Td drop tanks* might be able to turn a profit towing drop tanks to the 100D limit for Type A Free Traders, if there's enough traffic. Heck, a Cutter with a module that holds 1x20Td tank and has external mounts for a couple more of them could, too.

Paging @Spinward Flow to the white courtesy calculator...

----------
*It could tow 5x20Td tanks but that'd just look weird.

 

[Condottiere]

There might be an option for a light house, or in this case, some form of generator that gives out dense enough gravitational waves.

 

[Grav_Moped]

There might be an option for a light house, or in this case, some form of generator that gives out dense enough gravitational waves.

Canon doesn't have any tech or technobabble that would support it, but I have to admit that an artificial gravity well serving as a mid-rift gravitational anchorage is a really cool idea.

 

[robject]

Canon doesn't have any tech or technobabble that would support it, but I have to admit that an artificial gravity well serving as a mid-rift gravitational anchorage is a really cool idea.

"We've hauled out a couple million tons of grav plates, see..."

 

[Spinward Flow]

Paging @Spinward Flow to the white courtesy calculator...

Snarf.

For a purely LOCAL operation, you basically want a small craft that can "haul tanks" around for the job. No need to spring for the price of a jump drive into the bargain, since if you're "never" leaving the system, the jump drive is just dead weight (and sunk cost) for a capability you don't need to use.

However, for a location that doesn't have the technological industry base to support even TL=7 fission powered nuclear drives (and there are some locations like that), then going with a jump capable tanker ship that needs to "rotate outsystem" for maintenance every year someplace else makes more sense.

And then you get the "hard to supply" tanker jobs for places that lack a gas giant and also lack liquid water oceans (which can include both Desert and Vacuum Worlds) where there just isn't as easy/ready of a supply for L-Hyd locally, but there is a plentiful supply "nearby" that can be harvested for transport through jump. Extreme cases of this would be places like Rift Stations in either the Greater or Lesser Rifts, that need to draw fuel supplies from systems that have ready access to L-Hyd fuel for transport.



So an in-system L-Hyd Drop Tank business is almost certainly going to rely almost exclusively on small craft (runabouts) and big craft (transfer station/refinery) as their business model. The business case for supply a deep space fuel cache operation would simply "upgrade" to a starship (fuel haulers) and starship (deep space station) that runs relays to the fuel cache station. The station would need a jump drive in order to "rotate back" out of deep space for annual maintenance every year, so you wind up with what amounts to a 3 station rotation (1 deep space, 1 local system out at jump point, 1 in maintenance/reserve) with starship tankers shuttling fuel to the deep space cache and small craft shuttling fuel to the local station.

It's basically the space based equivalent of this type of business ...

 

[Grav_Moped]

"We've hauled out a couple million tons of grav plates, see..."

It's better than that. If it's artificially induced, you can turn it off. In a universe requiring gravity wells to force jump precipitation at precise locations, it's a kind of drawbridge.

 

[Spinward Scout]

It's better than that. If it's artificially induced, you can turn it off. In a universe requiring gravity wells to force jump precipitation at precise locations, it's a kind of drawbridge.

Wow. I was intrigued by the idea of a possible Drop Tank Tender, and then you show me this.

How many Pirates are doing this to hide their refuel points?

Of course, the Imperial Navy would use this idea. Possibly even the Zhodani.