Non OTU: Alternate Jump Drive

[fiat_knox]

The non-OTU setting based on Mongoose Traveller I run has a number of tweaks to the way Jumps operate.

The drives are rated 1 to 6, as per standard Traveller rules; but instead of one Jump lasting one week, a Jump could last one or more weeks, always a whole multiple of [148 + 6D] hours. Once in Jump, the ship travels through a hyperspace corridor or wormhole running along the underside of the skin of the universe.

During that time, the ship travels its rated distance in parsecs per week of travel: a Jump-4 ship running Jump-4 on its computer could make a trip of sixteen parsecs in a single, four-week Jump. Even a Jump-1 ship could make the journey to the same destination sixteen parsecs away in a single Jump, but it would take the crew sixteen weeks to make that trip.

A Jump-4 ship could choose to run Jump-2, for instance, to make the same trip - but it would take eight weeks to travel, so there's little point in making a trip at less than full speed.

If a ship has to make a journey of an awkward length, for example a Jump-4 ship having to travel to a system five parsecs away, the voyage still takes a whole number of weeks. For example, regardless of whether the planet was five, six or seven parsecs away, the Jump-4 ship would take two weeks to get there.

Sometimes, it pays to run a Jump-4 ship at Jump-2. For instance, if one has to Jump to a planet just two parsecs away, a Jump-2 will only consume half the fuel, and the ship still gets there in one week.

And that brings up the other major tweak: the fuel consumption. Half the fuel is consumed to open the Jump point at the point of origin to enter the corridor, and the second half is burned to open up the Jump point to enter normal space at the destination system.

Oh, and the amount of fuel used in a single Jump is equal to the Jump, divided by ten, multiplied by the mass of the Jump drive. Not the mass of the ship.

In this setting, stellar rifts are no problem, providing the crew has enough time to prepare for a long trip in the corridor. And since I also handwave away the low berth unreliability issue (it is only an issue during the TL that low berths are invented, and the issue goes away for TL +1 or higher) it means that all Starships are routinely equipped with low berths for both passengers and crew, with skeleton crews operating on rotation while the main body of the crew sleeps off their long voyages.

 

[mike wightman]

So basically you have massively reduced the fuel used by jump drives and turned them into a hyperdrive of sorts.
Interesting way to do it.

How does it affect the money you can make as a merchant now that you don't have to pay for as much jump fuel?

 

[Timerover51]

Oh, and the amount of fuel used in a single Jump is equal to the Jump, divided by ten, multiplied by the mass of the Jump drive. Not the mass of the ship.

That is an interesting concept. I will have to keep it in mind.

 

[kilemall]

Huge impact to war and piracy.

Now interstellar war can operate fleets that strike past previous choke points, particularly for bolt from the blue/Pearl Harbor type war openings.

It then devolves into a dance between a threat in being for major economic and/or military facility systems and attacks on shipping and supply by the otherwise lurking offensive fleets- when the raiding fleets judge the prime systems are drawn or worn down enough by scatter, then they come in for destruction or occupation. It would be pure military genius, a break in crytography or other intel advantage, negligence in maintaining movement or major luck to bring battle to an offensive fleet before it attacked critical worlds.

Pirates would have a much bigger haystack to hide in or sell goods ahead of word of the heist, and more importantly would likely retain their present jump fuel tanks to allow for multiple jumps without the dangers of refueling in the system they are victimizing, or possibly even the one they escape to initially.

 

[McPerth]

Huge impact to war and piracy.

Quoted for truth. In fact, it would change it so much that it would no longer be traveller setting (at least for wars). Not saying this is good or bad, just different.

Traveller war setting is based on that lines are kept because jump is limited and ships need to refuel after each jump, so keeping the front lines about a jump wide. At the moment you don't need this post-jump refuelling but once in several jumps, and jumps can take you quite farther front lines become quite more fluid, and not defined as such, as offensive fletes can easily slip from defensive lines by jumping empty hexes, or making two (or more) jumps in a row before any fleets in the system have time to engage.

This would force the defender to garrisson nearly all the systems in several jumps reach of the enemy, as it can appear nearly anywhere in the sector without warning. So to say, we will go from trench war to blitzkireg, of from playing a WWII wargame, with its ZOC efects forcing you to overcome enemy lines to advance to VG Vietnam game, where ZOCs were fluid and combat could occurr anywhere.

Another major effect (this time for ship design) is that when you so reduce fuel needs, the payload a ship has is quite larger, and BRs lose their advantages, so disappearing from the scene. Also Battleships may be smaller and have nearly the same combat power, as most volume needed for fuel is now freed. Only the hardpoints limit will cap the combat power by size...

As for not war related effects, the rifts would no longer be natural barriers, as jumps may be quite greater (in parsecs) and ships can easily carry fuel for several J6, and, to give you an example, Islands would no longer be isolated.

 

[Reynard]

Some Traveller editions have something similar as an alternate, the Warp drive allowing a ship to travel the warp number (akin to jump number) in parsecs per week but it's continuous as long as you have fuel. You're still in real space and can start, stop and change course. Power is from the power plant and measured in weeks of endurance but separate from the operational endurance and at twice the consumption rate of the plant.