Jump Capable Small Craft

[mike wightman]

Hmm, wearable jump drives...

TL21+ BattleDress...

Some of the space suits/powered armour in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels are FTL capable.

<evil thoughts hatching for galaxy campaign>

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Ummm. A week in jump in a BD?! How big IS the piddlepack in that thing? Not to mention the time to drift in from the 100d limit....

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Ummm. A week in jump in a BD?! How big IS the piddlepack in that thing? Not to mention the time to drift in from the 100d limit....

Got that covered too with the same answer as eleswhere.

Just have his suit Med AI dope him with Fast at the threshold and then slam a hit of Anti upon precipitation (or orbit to orbit even). Pricey sure, but only relatively, and the trip is only about 3 hours (subjective), just right for an in flight movie

Now if something should go wrong with that, well boredom or a bathroom will be the least of the Marine's worry.

 

[MrMorden]

I've always stuck with the 100 dton limit on starships, but I'm starting to rethink this. There's no real gameplay reason for it, and since jump drives are fictional anyway, there's certainly no technical reason for it.

Why *not* have jump-capable small craft? It would not be common to build such things, but why not have them for certain applications? A jump-capable fighter that can jump into a system, strike a target, and jump away again, is an appealing prospect, and doesn't compromise game balance in any way.

As long as your small craft can have adequate facilities to support the crew in jump (at least a small stateroom and fresher), and you are comfortable waiving the 20 dton bridge in favor of a small craft cockpit, I think this would be kind of fun, actually.

You could even re-fit standard designs by tearing out the cargo spaces for fuel and a jump drive. Cutter jump module, anyone?

I think I'm going to play with this a bit in my next game.

 

[robject]

I haven't thought it through much, so my preference was that the 100-ton barrier didn't get broken until TL16 or higher.

How about ten thousand jump-capable robotic nukes programmed to attack a starport? Too expensive?

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by MrMorden:
Why *not* have jump-capable small craft? It would not be common to build such things, but why not have them for certain applications? A jump-capable fighter that can jump into a system, strike a target, and jump away again, is an appealing prospect, and doesn't compromise game balance in any way.

As long as your small craft can have adequate facilities to support the crew in jump (at least a small stateroom and fresher), and you are comfortable waiving the 20 dton bridge in favor of a small craft cockpit, I think this would be kind of fun, actually.

You could even re-fit standard designs by tearing out the cargo spaces for fuel and a jump drive. Cutter jump module, anyone?

And all of this is perfectly legal for TNE

 

[mike wightman]

Shoehorning into LBB2, a type A jump drive should give a performance of jump 2 to small craft in the 51-99t range, jump 3 for 26-50t craft, and jump 4 for 13-25t.

Hmm, your cutter jump module isn't a bad idea.
And how about a jump capable lifeboat?

 

[Flynn]

I personally think that it should be possible to create sub-100dton jump-capable ships, but the field becomes more unstable, and thus the Astrogator must be more talented as the tasks become more difficult (+2 levels of difficulty, or DC +10 if T20).

Just some thoughts,
Flynn

 

[robject]

Nice way to boost the value of having an Astrogator.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"And all of this is perfectly legal for TNE and T4"

The 100dton minimum came back in T4.

 

[TKalbfus]

A lifeboat might have a one-use-only emergency jump drive that "burns out" upon first use in exchange for miniaturization. Emergency jump drives are also cheaper than your standard fare jump drives. It might also be useful to have a lifeboat that can escape from a ship while its in jump space. The lifeboat can depart and maintain its own separate jump field as it leaves the ship. The lifeboat will arrive some distance away from the host ship and appear at the same time as the host ship drops out of jump space. The life boat will generally appear in the same system that the host ship arrives in, but at a distance determined by its relative departure speed from the host ship while in jump space and how long ago it departed.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
The 100dton minimum came back in T4.

So it is, right there at the bottom of the page in FF&S2.
Oh well, they're only legal in TNE and 1st edition CT then

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
A lifeboat might have a one-use-only emergency jump drive that "burns out" upon first use in exchange for miniaturization.
<snip>

I like this idea as well Tom