Jump Completion

[LeperColony]

I know the exact duration of a jump is variable by a few hours, give or take. Does the crew of a starship know when they will emerge from jump? If so, when do they know? At the start? As the jump progresses?

Thanks.

 

[McPerth]

I know the exact duration of a jump is variable by a few hours, give or take. Does the crew of a starship know when they will emerge from jump? If so, when do they know? At the start? As the jump progresses?

Thanks.

IDK about how much canon might it be, but in the literary part of a MT supplement (IIRC the Empres Marava Far Trader ship plans, from Seeker) it told about an alarm ringing just before reentering normal space.

If that's true, my guess is that they don't know until this alarm rings (let's say that it detects when the jump bouble starts to unstabilize, so return to normal space is imminent).

As an aside, in the MT:SOM it talks about missjump causing nausea and dizziness in many people since the start of the jump, so, they at least know that they have not missjumped before de told alarm rings...

 

[mike wightman]

According to the original jump article by MWM the ingame crew know how long the jump takes and they gather at the appointed time:

At the end of the week in jump, the ship naturally precipitates out of jump space and into normal space. The exact time of emergence is usually predicted by the ship's computer and the bridge is well-manned for the event.

 

[Reban]

Depends on the edition I think but in general you can say the following:

- Jump takes so many hours plus or minus a defined amount.

- therefore you can stand up a "break-out" watch to monitor the necessary ship's systems from the earliest possible time that the ship should break out.

- there may be some tell tales signs that break-out is imminent. T5 for example says there are "jump rumblings" a few hours before break-out.

- I like the idea of the Astrogator setting a "best-guess" countdown timer on the bridge.

- Crews love to bet on everything, so betting on the exact time of break-out is probably a passtime on lots of ships.

Getting back to your original question. The astrogator can probably say "we'll arrive between such a time and such a time" as soon as he or she completes the jump calculations. Making a skill roll could let you narrow down the time considerably.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on the predictability of the jump drive, and that depends on it's condition and servicing; of course, you can always consult Schrodinger, ship's cat, reading the tea leaves.

 

[atpollard]

Strictly IMTU, but you know exactly how long it should take almost immediately after entering jump (but not before entering jumpspace). Not exiting when you should is one of the first warnings that you have misjumped.

 

[Adam Dray]

Agent (Marc's novel) has some kind of warning. If I recall, it's a shudder? or am I mixing up canons?

 

[kilemall]

Okay, I got issues.

No not those issues, the jump issues.

Specifically, how the heck does the universe handle 'matter is neither created nor destroyed' given that a small piece of it blips into jumpspace and then propagates back out again?

 

[aramis]

Okay, I got issues.

No not those issues, the jump issues.

Specifically, how the heck does the universe handle 'matter is neither created nor destroyed' given that a small piece of it blips into jumpspace and then propagates back out again?

Canonically, both big flashes of energy and gravity waves.

 

[Enoki]

I'd add, that the better the ship's crew (pilot, navigation, and engineering skills) are the more accurate the jump is. I would think a highly skilled crew would take it as a point of pride to be at the right place at the right time while a marginally competent one would be lucky to end up in the right system at some point.

At least that's what it looks like from the MT sequence. The chances of a mis-jump with a crew with skill level 1 is close to 50% cumulatively (.479). There is an 8% chance of a "fumble" too.

If a mishap occurs, there is an 8% chance of major problems, 50% chance of a minor problem, and a 42% chance of something superficial. I make those results cumulative too.

To be really safe making a jump you need a skill level of 3+ for each skill (+ education) and each part of the jump sequence: Prepare, Prepare drive, Engage drive.

 

[whartung]

In the JTAS article, as you as you entered Jump, you knew the duration. You didn't know before hand, but you learned right after entry.

I don't know if T5 has changed this or not.

The other part I'm muddy on is if the jump is interrupted.

As I understand it, Jump is jump, and you're stuck there for the duration. Where the jump actually terminates in normal space, is not certain.

For example, I don't know if you know that your jump was blocked (T5 Blockage) when you enter or not. You're stuck for the duration, and you know the duration (at least did, ala JTAS), just not sure if you know where you will return to normal space once you leave jump.

 

[Enoki]

That too I handle somewhat differently. You know you either jumped correctly to include minor mis-jumps in terms of time or being off position at the other end, or you know you mis-jumped. Any serious mis-jump is accompanied by obvious differences in how you and the ship entered jump... Time dilation, distortions in "reality" momentarily, the ship bucking and wobbling, etc.
That way you don't say "Oh, you've mis-jumped..." Instead, you'd describe the effects of the mis-jump they'd perceive and let them figure out what happened.

What you don't know before hand is by how much you might be off either way until you emerge at the other end. That is, the players get told when they re-enter normal space and start trying to figure out exactly where they are something like, "Local system transmissions show ten days sixteen hours have elapsed while you were in jump and you're one million, six hundred and ten thousand kilometers from your target planet..."

Let them figure out what happened. Narrative like that is preferable to simple exposition of the problem. They can problem solve now that you've given them the situation and information about it as they would perceive it.

 

[Timerover51]

So for a severe misjump, you do not go with "your Jump Drive has just disappeared from your Engineering Section, and all connections to it are sheered off and have a mirror-bright finish"?

 

[Condottiere]

Wouldn't work with a jump bubble, except that it contacted to around the engine room, and there's now an empty void sphere where it used to be.

 

[Enoki]

So for a severe misjump, you do not go with "your Jump Drive has just disappeared from your Engineering Section, and all connections to it are sheered off and have a mirror-bright finish"?

Nope. I'd tell them something like there's an explosion in the engine room (with the chance anyone present is injured or killed as appropriate), along with a fire. Additionally, I might / could add that the jump conduits (which I describe as something akin to a microwave wave guide in appearance) has smaller detonations and are wrecked with holes in them that cause secondary damage to the ship in other places.

That's my version of "ship destroyed." It didn't simply "blow up," or disappear with everyone dead but rather is horribly crippled and sitting there without maneuver power due to secondary damage from the explosion(s) along with fires, hull breeches, and other problems the crew now needs to solve yesterday or they're :toast:

Throw in that it is still possible the ship managed to jump as this happened only that it is thrown randomly somewhere and is going to be in jump for X days... Now you have the ship crippled, maybe life support failing, gravity failed, and you can't call for help and it is just going to get worse...

:devil:

 

[whartung]

Actually, it's not quite clear to me that Jump Blockage is in fact a mis-jump. Seems that a mis-jump is something different, due to either a technology malfunction, or trying to initiate jump within a 100D limit.

 

[lostscout5]

So for a severe misjump, you do not go with "your Jump Drive has just disappeared from your Engineering Section, and all connections to it are sheered off and have a mirror-bright finish"?

:rofl: It may not be 'cannon', but I like it. I get a mental image of an engineer scratching his head while using the intercom. "Err .. captain, I don't know how to tell you this but ..."

 

[whartung]

:rofl: It may not be 'cannon', but I like it. I get a mental image of an engineer scratching his head while using the intercom. "Err .. captain, I don't know how to tell you this but ..."

"Captain. Good and bad news. Good news is the Jump drive worked flawlessly. Bad news is that it didn't take us with it."

 

[Enoki]

My version of explaining the jump is that a "well" is opened in nth dimensional space. The depth of the well is determined by the strength of the drive (1 to 6 parsecs, although I use light years).

The reason you have to have no gravity is it distorts the well and will result in you going to somewhere not where you planned. Good pilots, navigators, and engineers can compensate to one degree or another manually for this but the standard navigation / jump software assumes you are at the 100 D boundary (I call the FTL event horizon) where only micro gravity is present.

So, when you miss-jump you end up either damaging the machinery involved and / or open a distorted well. Either way you know you f***d up but you can't do anything but ride the results out.

In a normal jump the ship is pulled into the well and emerges at the singularity point at the other end. The J6 limit is there because you can only stretch gravity / the fabric of the universe so far before it tears and... well... that's really, really bad...

This also means you don't need a gravity source at the destination to pull you out of the well. This means you can deliberately jump to an "empty hex" on the map if you want in cases like you are carrying fuel for multiple jumps.

 

[Kaeto]

My version the crew knows exactly when they are coming out of jump. With a misjump the exit time ends up much later and the crew doesn't know where or when they will come out.

And by 'when' in addition to not knowing how long after they find out that there has been a misjump. They don't know what date it will be in the real world. It could be hundreds of years in the past or future.