A 300,000 ton ship has a diameter of ~200 meters. Nearest ship at jump, 20km. In local space that is practically touching. I would never expect to see a battle fleet's ships closer than that.
Closed Starship Environment - Recycling & Conservation
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A 300,000 ton ship has a diameter of ~200 meters. Nearest ship at jump, 20km. In local space that is practically touching. I would never expect to see a battle fleet's ships closer than that.
answers
However, that is not a canon answer purely an assumption. In a battle things get pretty messy and Traveller has close ship combat (aka Star Wars, BG...etc).
The concept of opening a jump window and causing damage to 100AUs of damage changes the perspective of the Jump Event. Loosing Jump Tanks during the Jump Event and having them destroyed in the vortex is one thing but an energy surge 100AU is something very different.
We do not jump into and out of 100AUs of solar bodies to avoid there gravitational influence on the jump. A ship is not a significant influence on local gravity.
However, that is not a canon answer purely an assumption. In a battle things get pretty messy and Traveller has close ship combat (aka Star Wars, BG...etc).
The concept of opening a jump window and causing damage to 100AUs of damage changes the perspective of the Jump Event. Loosing Jump Tanks during the Jump Event and having them destroyed in the vortex is one thing but an energy surge 100AU is something very different.
We do not jump into and out of 100AUs of solar bodies to avoid there gravitational influence on the jump. A ship is not a significant influence on local gravity.
20 km IS close combat based on Trav ship weapon ranges. Is there a range band for ship to ship combat (turret weapons) that is closer than 20km??? I haven't done ship to ship combat in every edition so I probably missed that one.
There's an option for a close combat range band in MegaTrav:
"Visible Range: At visible range, several special considerations come into play. Because minimal sensor aid is needed at this range, a unit is automatically considered to have a sensor lock on if any friendly unit is at visual range to it. Spinal mount weapons cannot be used at this range. Spinal mount weapons require moving the entire mass of the ship in order to aim - which is virtually impossible when the target is this close. If a target at this range is hit with nuclear or antimatter missiles, the firing unit also takes radiation hits."
Not usually possible in your typical maneuver combat, but possible if for example some player's Free Trader feigns surrender and allows the pirate to come to boarding range. Unfortunately, the game then fails to define "visible range," which is perhaps not too surprising as it will depend a lot on lighting, background, albedo of target and size of target. I'd say it ranged at least to Distant range (5 Km) and possibly to Very Distant range (50 km) depending on size, light and albedo. Could get to Regional range (500 km) if the target's cooperative (i.e. high-albedo hull paint, flashing lights on the hull, and so forth).
MegaTrav usually runs 25,000 km hexes, so most combat would be considered Planetary range or better (>5000km). CT Book 2 worked on a 1 mm to 100 Km scale.
We did a discussion about jump from planetside some time back. T5 threw some unusual rules that didn't exist in the traditional CT/MegaTrav set, including that the jump would fail to initiate if there was a significant mass within the field. Lycanorukke posted from T5, "If during the process of initiation a Jump objects larger than the ship are in (or partially in) the ship’s jump field, the Jump fails. The Jump Drive receives Mishap damage." From this, I infer that T5 has a somewhat different view of the jump event than CT/MegaTrav. I also presume that the drop tank is not as thick-walled as the typical ship hull, therefore possibly more vulnerable to damage, but I don't know T5.
My thought is that drop tanks are not cheap at Cr1000 per ton of fuel. Tripling your fuel cost has got to affect the bottom line. Since the game arbitrarily caps your cargo and passenger fees, I don't see a commercial venture using drop tanks that would be trashed the first time they were used, not unless you had some odd situation where some government was subsidizing the effort. A "trashed drop tank" rule tends to imply that drop tanks are the province of military and certain specialized civilian ventures.
Right. So, I don't see a problem with huge warships setting up at >20km range. There wouldn't be a need to be closer when staging.
Marc's T5 jump essay is a refinement of one in JTAS. Essentially, Marc's claim is reported by his close associats to be that this is how it's always been intended to be. The essay form appears to have been cut from the final, but the tables (and what Lycanorukke posted) still is.
I'd agree mostly; flying tighter formations would risk collisions, given the need to evade fire through agility.
One speculative thought, not actually represented in the game (that I know of): flying closer might be a way of performing High Guard's odd "reserve" rule. At the typical space combat ranges, two ships flying very close would tend to appear as one on sensors of opposing ships, especially if the active ship of the pair played "wild weasel" by running up active sensors and jammers to blind the passives of the opposing fleet. The active member of the pair would then be the clear target for opposing weapons. The passive member of the pair would be "invisible" within the mass and energy output of the active member (so long as he did not use his weapons and screens to attract attention), but its maneuvers would be slaved by computer laser-link to the movements of the active pair. The opponents would know something was being covered because the neutrino signature and mass signature would be larger than expected, but the two signals would be too close to discriminate individual targets by that information alone and they'd not be able to engage a weapons lock while the active partner was jamming.
Of course, this would involve the gamemaster setting up rules for the situation: clearly a fighter is not going to be able to hide a dreadnought (which was always a problem with the High Guard reserve rule). So, it's more an IMTU possibility, not a canon occurrence. If I were doing it, I'd rule that the mass of the active ship must be equal to or greater than the total mass of the hidden ships. (A dreadnought could cover a squadron of fighters or destroyers, but not the other way around. I'd have done power plant output, but that can get complicated quickly.)
It might not be worth while for low jump numbers. If you look at the true costs per parsec, it's game-changingly cheap for jump-4 and 5 and 6.
Which means that the canonical information about the existence of drop liners in the setting is yet another piece of evidence that the cap on freight and passenger fees is just a game artifact, not something that actually applies in the setting.
Hans
Jeff M. Hopper
SOC-14 1K
Is there a place where one could find this Jump Essay to read?
If you got the BetaCD, it's in there; It's not so much an essay as missing explanatory and fluff text for the "How Jump Works" chapter - amounts to a couple trimmed pages.
The original essay is in JTAS issue 24.
Seeing what is in T5 Beta, it's real easy to read JTAS 24's Jumpspace article, and see the origins, but if you've not seen T5, it's very easy to not get the T5 Beta from it.
shadowdragon
SOC-12
Note that the reason is historical. Without the ability to properly sterilize it, it is a bad idea to use it. Add in the lack of germ theory, and you have several centuries of a habit continued after the solution is possible.
31st century tech should be more than equal to the task of proper sterilization without destroying the "food" value of the fertilizer, making it safe and common.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Pfft, why just turn it into fertilizer? Just put it right back into the food chain! :nonono: *shudders at the thought of poo-burgers*
human waste, "night soil", as fertilizer for human crops
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil
http://www.theworld.org/2013/07/recycled-lunch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_soil
http://www.theworld.org/2013/07/recycled-lunch/
Shudder if you will, but if I'm the Navy running a dreadnought that might find itself separated from its supply chain, and I have the tech to do the job properly, then the ratings are gonna have yet another disgusting but nutritious fallback option on the menu. Maybe it'll teach them to respect the regular menu a little more.
Although I'd probably want to take the chipped beef off the menu.
sterilize
Yes. Science is making progress in reutilization. However, the longevity of the cycle is not completely tested.
So you want to expose it to the reactor? Or deep space to kill off microbes before fertilizer use?
I have a better political statement: Sand for Sandcasters
Note that the reason is historical. Without the ability to properly sterilize it, it is a bad idea to use it. Add in the lack of germ theory, and you have several centuries of a habit continued after the solution is possible.
31st century tech should be more than equal to the task of proper sterilization without destroying the "food" value of the fertilizer, making it safe and common.
Yes. Science is making progress in reutilization. However, the longevity of the cycle is not completely tested.
So you want to expose it to the reactor? Or deep space to kill off microbes before fertilizer use?
I have a better political statement: Sand for Sandcasters
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