High Guard

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rancke:
First of all, MT introduced a way that multiple ships could jump together. You used a lot more time to plot the jump but in return the ships arrived over a much shorter span of time.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Whoops, I never played MT. Just one more reason for FFE to do some MT reprints after the CT reprints are done...

-FCS

 

[Lokar]

There's still no defense to FTL dimensional teserecting thing Traveller tech does.

Who would ever do these silly space naval engagments? I would just invest in the technology of sending in swarms of teserect bombs/cruise missles to your navy and/or home world. Of course launching from an extremely secret location.

There really has to be a way to detect dimensional travel. What about posting sensors in the FTL 'space'? Oh yeah, they'd be 'stuck' there for two week time intervals.

It's really insane to drop from existense for two weeks and appear without warning and blind yourself some fantastic distance away.

If this is really the case for the Traveller Universe... then there really is no way to argue how anyone could maintain a power base.

Even the checking power of mutual annihilation is not valid. Since a hostile power would just need to build enough fire-power to suprise attack and take out key strategic points.

Or perhaps this has already happened and the winning empire in place would have to be fanaticle in keeping tabs on any power capable of launching a successful attack on anything. And obliterating them when encountered. Seeing as how there is only offence and no defense.

 

[DrSkull]

You've also missed the fact there is a very definite limit as to how far you can travel in jump space. The maximum jump is 6-parsecs. Since most interstellar states are hundreds of parsecs across, an enemy has to fight his way through system after system of frontier before coming anyway near to a capital or homeworld. And there are definitely predictable "routes" that military commanders can guard on the stellar map as well. If the enemy is at point X, the defender knows he can only go to points Y and Z, and that A, B and C are impossible.

------------------
Dave "Dr. Skull" Nelson

 

[Lokar]

Then are there FTL sensors and communications? It wouldn't be feasable to have a delaying fleet at ever jump point.

Also what is the range of weapons? With the fantastic distance of space, you run into the problem of "seeing" someone not very far away. As well as trying to engage them.

Light is extremely slow in the galaxtic scale.

 

[Crimson Cat]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lokar:
Then are there FTL sensors and communications? It wouldn't be feasable to have a delaying fleet at ever jump point.

Also what is the range of weapons? With the fantastic distance of space, you run into the problem of "seeing" someone not very far away. As well as trying to engage them.

Light is extremely slow in the galaxtic scale.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No FTL communication or sensors. If you think about it all you need to post is a few Xboats around to jump to the nearest Navy depot when trouble arrives. Especially when you concider that it takes time to refuel and get a whole fleet ready for jump a quick respose from an x-boat could possibly have a fleet jump in range before the attacker could jump out of system.
Also though the max range is 6 most fleets ship most likely have a only J4 or 5. Also most fleets I doubt would jump their fuel tanks dry so most invasions would only have be doing around j3 jumps at a time to allow a retreat if they cannot break through to a refuel point. all you need is one ship to get out that a fleet is on the move and containment can get under way fairly quickly.
So a complete surprise attack may be able to cross one subsector or two before enemy response can contain the fleet. If troop movements ar noticed the response time could be even faster. Especially since the attacker does not know if their plan has been leaked and maybe jumping into a trap and must proceed with caution.


[This message has been edited by Crimson Cat (edited 10 August 2001).]

 

[Lokar]

Since there is no addressing of FTL sensors or communications issues, the warning is still nill it seems.

Does it take weeks and weeks and months on end to prepare to jump again? I've never played Traveller, so thus my only understanding of the 'technology' of the era is from this board.

Is it impossible to carry additional fuel for the next jumps?

Space is unimaginably vast. Jumps only go six parsects max. More often five or so. Okay how far across is a parsect? Can technology "see" across a parsect? Can weapons engage someone half way across a parsect? Two? Six? What? How long does light take to pass through a parsect of space? Isn't a parsect the distance light goes in a year or something like that?

By the way how fast are sublight engines? Just under light speed? I find it amazing that friendly ships could ever find each other, let only enemy ships.

It would seem that most Traveller people are locked into the space armada duking it out WWII style (ala StarWars). This can't possible be the case with the way techonolgy is represented in Traveller.

Yes there were no satellites in the 40s but radio was quite fast, so fast ships could scatter about looking for fleet movements and radio back their locations.

All but impossible with Traveller. Sure maybe someone could skip along just one hop in front of the invading force. And do what?

Give someone the time it takes to prepare for a jump of warning.

That's assuming a parsect isn't the size I think it is (one light year of travel). If so then anyone could run straight up to a planet unchallenged until where ever the invader wanted to be engaged.

Seeking weapons of mass-destruction would rule supreme. An invader would just launch swarm after swarm of deadly weapons at home-worlds, space-stations, sitting fleets, anything that's standing still.

Without warning and more than two light weeks out, missle ships would launch jump capable multiple warhead vehicles that jump in and deliver their arsenals at stationary targets.

I don't see how there is any defense to this at all. None, zero, absolutely nothing. So if the defense is... it's expensive to jump. You've got to be kidding.

Perhaps jumping is so grossly in-accurate that it takes several weeks (it need to be months!) to complete the rest of the sub-light travel to get within range to engage a target. Thus time for light (oh brother) to get to the planet and then for them to send for help. Of course they'd need weeks on end to communicate with anyone and have them send re-enforcements.

Regardless, what a frighting universe to live in. You're blind to aggressors, as well as going anywhere.

 

[hunter]

A parsec if rougly 3.27 ly in distance

The time spent in jump space is 1 week. The time spent travelling to 100 diameters out from the gravity well of a planet depends on the speed of the ship up to 6-G acceleration.

Nothing smaller than 100 tons can be equipped with a jump drive. Thus no jump torpedoes or jump world buster missles, etc...

Naval engagements in Traveller are similar to WWII naval engagements for fleets.

Hunter

 

[rancke]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Crimson Cat:
No FTL communication or sensors. If you think about it all you need to post is a few Xboats around to jump to the nearest Navy depot when trouble arrives. Especially when you concider that it takes time to refuel and get a whole fleet ready for jump a quick respose from an x-boat could possibly have a fleet jump in range before the attacker could jump out of system.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The shortest possible time for a courier to fetch help from another star system is 12 days (if both the courier and the responding fleet is VERY lucky with the jump duration). More realistic is 14 days. A fleet of streamlineed ships should be able to refuel in less than a day.

[OUOTE]
Also though the max range is 6...
[/QUOTE]

In Milieu 1000 the Imperium has only just reached TL15. Jump-6 couriers may already be fairly common (it's the obvious first use of jump-6 technology), but few or no jump-6 cruisers (and even fewer battleships) would've been built.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
...most fleets ship most likely have a only J4 or 5. Also most fleets I doubt would jump their fuel tanks dry so most invasions would only have be doing around j3 jumps at a time to allow a retreat if they cannot break through to a refuel point. All you need is one ship to get out that a fleet is on the move and containment can get under way fairly quickly.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

However, the defender has the same problem that the British had during the Napoleonic Wars when a French squadron managed to elude the blockade. They had to send squadrons to all the places the French might've headed for. If there is only one logical place for the attacker to head for, jump-6 (or even jump-5) couriers may indeed outstrip them and fetch help from other systems before the attacker gets there, but if there are multiple possible targets, things gets much more complicated.

Hans

 

[AndreaV]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lokar:
Since there is no addressing of FTL sensors or communications issues, the warning is still nill it seems.

Does it take weeks and weeks and months on end to prepare to jump again? I've never played Traveller, so thus my only understanding of the 'technology' of the era is from this board.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Assuming you have the fuel, it usually takes about an hour to prepare to jump after a jump (carefully checking the drives, calculating your current position and the optimal jump route etc); but you can do it in as little as a few minutes (hit the big red button and prey you don't misjump)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>[B}
Is it impossible to carry additional fuel for the next jumps?
[/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not exactly, ships with limited jump range do routinely. However, you require 10% of your ship's volume for every parsec you jump. Thus to do Jump-4 (standard for military vessels) requires 40% of the ships volume in fuel. So for all intents and purposes, it's impossible for for warships to carry additional fuel.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>[B}
Seeking weapons of mass-destruction would rule supreme. An invader would just launch swarm after swarm of deadly weapons at home-worlds, space-stations, sitting fleets, anything that's standing still.
[/B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But nothing in a system is standing still <g>. Everything is moving, moons orbit their planets, planets orbit the star(s), the star orbits the galactic centre etc. All adding up to a substantial vector and velocity for every body in the system.

Now, while this motion is fixed and predicatable, exactly when and where your weapon of mass destruction pops out of jump space is not. Therefore you have absolutely no way of knowing just where your target will be and how it will be moving *in relation to* said weapon. And given that a) natural forces will cause you to drop out of jump space at 100 diameters from a world (thats about 800,000 km for an average world) and b) to be effective the weapon has to be moving at tens of Km/sec when it exits Jump, course correction after exiting jump isn't really possible.

 

[Takei]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lokar:
Regardless, what a frighting universe to live in. You're blind to aggressors, as well as going anywhere.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

All the talk of being blind to agressors and how easy it is to get totally zapped assumes that the agressor doesn't actually want to hold the rocks your forces are guarding. I can't think of many wars that have been fought just for the hell of it. You place your forces to guard the things your enemy would want to capture, hold and use, which tends to make them unlikely to just flatten said places.



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Paul