Mentioned elsewhere:
The OTU had Jump-8 and Jump-9 available somewhere before Year Zero.
It's just that almost nobody knew it (and they still don't).
According to Marc's (decades after the fact) explanation for Annic Nova, the reason the ship had two Jump Drives was that while their Jump ratings could not be added, they could be exponentiated -- the J2 drive raised to the 3rd power by the J3 drive, and vice versa (2^3=8, 3^2=9). Annic Nova was given to a shipwrecked/misjumped crew by extremely advanced aliens who hadn't yet discovered Jump, but quickly deduced how it worked and provided Jump-2, Jump-3, and exponentiation to get the stranded crew home. The returning crew shared J-2 with the rest of their society, but hid J-3 and expo.
This capability may or may not have required an accessory device provided by the very-high-TL aliens, and may or may not have required a computer no longer installed on the ship.
The actual unstated reason at the time that the adventure came out was that it was designed under LBB2 '77, which required ships to burn all of their Jump fuel regardless of distance actually Jumped. Having two Jump Drives allowed for consecutive Jumps without refueling, and allowed for a range of 5 without needing to carry "fuel" for 6 parsecs.
Anyhow. The rationale for how this is supposed to work indicates that it only provides for Jump-4, Jump-8, and Jump-9. Jump-1 through Jump-3 are accomplished normally; the others, through exponential operation. Jump-5 through Jump-7 require aiming at a gravity well to force early precipitation from Jumpspace during a Jump-8.
The open questions are what TL is the accessory device, and what computer is needed to run the Jump-8 or Jump-9 programs.
Something that hadn't occurred to me the last time I considered the topic, is that because the original design was under '77 rules, it might not require a Model/8 or Model/9 computer to run the Jump-8/Jump-9 program. The requirement of computer=Jn was only introduced in HG '80 and LBB2 '81.
The OTU had Jump-8 and Jump-9 available somewhere before Year Zero.
It's just that almost nobody knew it (and they still don't).
According to Marc's (decades after the fact) explanation for Annic Nova, the reason the ship had two Jump Drives was that while their Jump ratings could not be added, they could be exponentiated -- the J2 drive raised to the 3rd power by the J3 drive, and vice versa (2^3=8, 3^2=9). Annic Nova was given to a shipwrecked/misjumped crew by extremely advanced aliens who hadn't yet discovered Jump, but quickly deduced how it worked and provided Jump-2, Jump-3, and exponentiation to get the stranded crew home. The returning crew shared J-2 with the rest of their society, but hid J-3 and expo.
This capability may or may not have required an accessory device provided by the very-high-TL aliens, and may or may not have required a computer no longer installed on the ship.
The actual unstated reason at the time that the adventure came out was that it was designed under LBB2 '77, which required ships to burn all of their Jump fuel regardless of distance actually Jumped. Having two Jump Drives allowed for consecutive Jumps without refueling, and allowed for a range of 5 without needing to carry "fuel" for 6 parsecs.
Anyhow. The rationale for how this is supposed to work indicates that it only provides for Jump-4, Jump-8, and Jump-9. Jump-1 through Jump-3 are accomplished normally; the others, through exponential operation. Jump-5 through Jump-7 require aiming at a gravity well to force early precipitation from Jumpspace during a Jump-8.
The open questions are what TL is the accessory device, and what computer is needed to run the Jump-8 or Jump-9 programs.
Something that hadn't occurred to me the last time I considered the topic, is that because the original design was under '77 rules, it might not require a Model/8 or Model/9 computer to run the Jump-8/Jump-9 program. The requirement of computer=Jn was only introduced in HG '80 and LBB2 '81.
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