Alternate way to get the 100 diameter limit?

[Condottiere]

Finite Probability Drive.

 

[Condottiere]

1. First of all, all the astrogation charts are two dimensional; coincidence, I think not.

2. Despite appearances, you can't get anywhere fast.

3. Jumping basically involves an intrusion of third dimensional space into a second dimensional one.

4. Hence, jump bubble in a two dimensional plane, where a third dimension can express itself, since I don't think our technology, or biology, can survive a transformation into two dimensions.

5. Which now leaves us with gravity wells leaking into jumpspace.

6. Since jump technology, as well as most other Travellerized technological advancements, is based on gravity, this does not seem implausible.

7. Gravity wells also form a bubble, but superficially, having only a surface layer, and no substance.

8. Which leaves us with the lanthanum grid.

9. It creates a three dimensional environment within it's field, but acts more as a needle.

 

[Silverhawk]

A thought occurred to me when the comment about tidal forces was made upthread, could a smaller ship jump closer to the 100D limit than a big ship?

Key thing being that both ships breakout from jump at 100D, regardless of ship size.
It's not like the small ship is forced to break out from jump at 99D while the big ship is forced to break out from jump at 101D (which would be silly).

I agree with Spinward Flow that the breakout is at the limit regardless of ship size. But if it wasn't that way and there was some flex in breakout I would think that the larger vessel would 'penetrate' deeper due to its larger size. Still if you did that you would be opening a seriously large can of worms.

 

[Spinward Flow]

if you did that you would be opening a seriously large can of worms.

Quoted for S'truth.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Unless you get stuck in the roundabout . . .

 

[Grav_Moped]

Yes.

Of course, where that circle actually protrudes in relation to a foreign object, depends on when the cat observes it.

 

[Grav_Moped]

I agree with Spinward Flow that the breakout is at the limit regardless of ship size. But if it wasn't that way and there was some flex in breakout I would think that the larger vessel would 'penetrate' deeper due to its larger size. Still if you did that you would be opening a seriously large can of worms.

Breakout is at 100D unless otherwise indicated. Prototype and early drives have greater jump exclusion distances if I recall right, and it's not necessary to hit a gravity well to precipitate from jump.

 

[mike wightman]

1. First of all, all the astrogation charts are two dimensional; coincidence, I think not.

it's a meta artifact, but assuming there can be a plausible in universe explanation then it is worth exploring.

2. Despite appearances, you can't get anywhere fast.

Faster than light, and jump 6 is pretty fast (~0.1 ly/hour)

3. Jumping basically involves an intrusion of third dimensional space into a second dimensional one.

Four, we live in four dimensional spacetime, but collapsing it down to two dimensions may be the key thing here. In the past authors have bandied around words like higher dimensions, but what if we collapse down to two?

4. Hence, jump bubble in a two dimensional plane, where a third dimension can express itself, since I don't think our technology, or biology, can survive a transformation into two dimensions.

Four, not three. The rest makes sense.

5. Which now leaves us with gravity wells leaking into jumpspace.

The mass/energy of a large body causes frame dragging of spacetime, this dragging could express itself in the two dimensional jump space.

6. Since jump technology, as well as most other Travellerized technological advancements, is based on gravity, this does not seem implausible.

Not gravity, "gravitics" - Traveller gravitics are something beyond our current physics and understanding of gravity.

7. Gravity wells also form a bubble, but superficially, having only a surface layer, and no substance.

A 100D barrier that can not be passed by something in 2D space....

8. Which leaves us with the lanthanum grid.

Stop trolling, there is no lanthanum hull grid. lanthanum is used in the jump drive coils, we do not know what the hull jump cable network is made from.

9. It creates a three dimensional environment within it's field, but acts more as a needle.

Four, it is a four dimensional environment

I like a lot of your thoughts here.

 

[Condottiere]

Fourth dimension would be time, so you are correct.

Well see if more options are offered besides the lanthanum (grid).

 

[mike wightman]

The use of lanthanum in the hull grid has only ever been mentioned in MegaTraveller, no other iteration uses lanthanum in this way, they all use it in the drive coils as per MWM's article.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Real world Lanthanum info (wikipedia article, quite an interesting read for Travellers).

 

[Jame]

I agree with Spinward Flow that the breakout is at the limit regardless of ship size. But if it wasn't that way and there was some flex in breakout I would think that the larger vessel would 'penetrate' deeper due to its larger size. Still if you did that you would be opening a seriously large can of worms.

The limit is probably the closest a ship could get to a given planetary mass. If you jump too close, you come out at the limit, but if too far, you have some travel time in your near future.
"What do you MEAN, we're at the orbit of Mars?!?"

 

[Condottiere]

 

[atpollard]

Alternate way to get the 100 diameter limit?​

I think you should explore some REALLY alternate ways to reach the 100D limit.

Let's take "The X-Boat Approach" ... design a ship for JUMP ONLY operation using a rule version with HIGH MD Fuel use and LOW JD Fuel use [Does TNE HEPLAR fit this bill?] The launch the ship on a slightly eccentric orbit and every time it passes perigee, shoot it from the planet with a burst of energy to provide a small impulse as it gravity slings and spirals out to 100D and jump distance.

Gravity capture and a decaying orbit will return it to the destination world.

 

[whartung]

Does TNE HEPLAR fit this bill?

It can, I suppose.

In "real space" terms, it's pretty darn efficient. 1G of acceleration is a LOT, and still far more efficient to "turn and burn" than wait for orbits to take you, well, pretty much anywhere.

A TNE Scout (100 ton) ship requires 6.25m^3, or about .44 dTons of fuel for a single G turn (30m of 1G). A single G turn of acceleration is ~40,000MPH (Apollo traveled at 25,000MPH). Thats 18.5 hours to Earths 100D.

Performance like that, and you make room for the fuel.

 

[Spinward Flow]

In my opinion, interplanetary maneuver drives are ... underappreciated ... by most Players and Referees using Traveller.
Not all "adventures" need to be interstellar, or require jump drives.

Sometimes it can be quite interesting to have a "maneuver only" campaign setting within a single star system.

Depending on "how things go" in the campaign, you can always "upgrade" to being interstellar with a starship later ...

 

[sudnadja]

It can, I suppose.

In "real space" terms, it's pretty darn efficient. 1G of acceleration is a LOT, and still far more efficient to "turn and burn" than wait for orbits to take you, well, pretty much anywhere.

A TNE Scout (100 ton) ship requires 6.25m^3, or about .44 dTons of fuel for a single G turn (30m of 1G). A single G turn of acceleration is ~40,000MPH (Apollo traveled at 25,000MPH). Thats 18.5 hours to Earths 100D.

Performance like that, and you make room for the fuel.

Or about 15.1 hours if you start from 1 radius altitude with initial C3=0, or 25.7 hours if you start at 1 radius altitude with no initial velocity, presuming you only accelerate for 30 minutes and accounting for planetary gravity. Presuming also 100 diameters from the center, not from the surface.

 

[sudnadja]

In my opinion, interplanetary maneuver drives are ... underappreciated ... by most Players and Referees using Traveller.
Not all "adventures" need to be interstellar, or require jump drives.

Sometimes it can be quite interesting to have a "maneuver only" campaign setting within a single star system.

Depending on "how things go" in the campaign, you can always "upgrade" to being interstellar with a starship later ...

It certainly is a lot more entertaining to plot https://1drv.ms/v/s!AhOy6SzueEkKkt42pDJLwlPhtcCLTw?e=bxq2Fe

 

[sudnadja]

In my opinion, interplanetary maneuver drives are ... underappreciated ... by most Players and Referees using Traveller.
Not all "adventures" need to be interstellar, or require jump drives.

Sometimes it can be quite interesting to have a "maneuver only" campaign setting within a single star system.

Depending on "how things go" in the campaign, you can always "upgrade" to being interstellar with a starship later ...

and another one: 2G vs 6G intercept inbound

I think in general I prefer it and use of maneuver rather than jump makes the game feel more like it is really taking place in space. There are some issues though: if you give the player explicit control of the ship it can make interception difficult. particularly an optimized interception, as naive players will tend to overshoot their targets, and you need computers for continuous time integration anyway. It can be done with 1000s turns but that turns out to be a little too quantized in practice.

 

[kilemall]

In my opinion, interplanetary maneuver drives are ... underappreciated ... by most Players and Referees using Traveller.
Not all "adventures" need to be interstellar, or require jump drives.

Sometimes it can be quite interesting to have a "maneuver only" campaign setting within a single star system.

Depending on "how things go" in the campaign, you can always "upgrade" to being interstellar with a starship later ...

Firefly seemed to work out ok with ‘just’ an mdrive universe.