Jump Distance and Stars

[rancke]

Which is why you need a really skilled navigator and an antique 'lost jump rutter of Mc Sporran' to make the jump...

Maybe I've misunderstood something, but as I understand it, this spot where the tidal forces balance out would be completely surrounded by areas of greater tidal strain, making it not so much a lake (with potential river access to the ocean) as a swimming pool. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

consider the adventure possibilities.

Oh, I can see those all right.

Andventurers come across the rutter in a place of your choice, the Imperium/megacorps/evil bad guys TM want it too.

OK, I can't see the rutter thing. The physics of tidal forces are well known and if there is a way to get from this sweet spot inside the jump limit to outside the jump limit, everybody would be able to figure it out.


Hans

 

[whartung]

Maybe I've misunderstood something, but as I understand it, this spot where the tidal forces balance out would be completely surrounded by areas of greater tidal strain, making it not so much a lake (with potential river access to the ocean) as a swimming pool. But please correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, since they tend to line up on the ecliptic, you can probably safely jump as long as you're jumping "up" or "down", it's a matter of approach angle to clear the tidal areas.

So, you can see, from adventure POV, a ship, escaping from the planet, heading for the quiet zone, and popping a quick J1 in to deep space, then, perhaps another J1, later, back in to the system, or to another one (if they're in range, assuming a ship with J2 or J1 and enough fuel for two jumps, etc. etc.)

Could be a fun plot twist.

 

[rancke]

Well, since they tend to line up on the ecliptic, you can probably safely jump as long as you're jumping "up" or "down", it's a matter of approach angle to clear the tidal areas.

Ah, that could be useful. How would you go about calculating the distance to this sweet spot?

So, you can see, from adventure POV, a ship, escaping from the planet, heading for the quiet zone, and popping a quick J1 in to deep space, then, perhaps another J1, later, back in to the system, or to another one (if they're in range, assuming a ship with J2 or J1 and enough fuel for two jumps, etc. etc.)

But not back to the sweet spot. The jump variation would prevent that from working. For a quick getaway it's a nice idea, though.

Could be a fun plot twist.

I agree.


Hans

 

[mike wightman]

The really fun thing is that, as has been mentioned, the tidal sweet spot and the route to it is not fixed, it is constantly moving.

Solving an n-body jump space dimensional tidal gravitational eddy problem is going to be... tricky.

All of this would have to be an IMTU thing anyway.

 

[rancke]

All of this would have to be an IMTU thing anyway.

Oh, of course.

Though I suspect that it would be possible to get a Traveller editor to accept an adventure that featured it. :devil:

(Please note: I do not plan to try it. That would not be a nice thing to do :nonono.


Hans

 

[tjoneslo]

IMO that would allow jump travel the same way having a lake big enough to float a boat would allow ocean travel. Such a spot would be surrounded by unsafe jump zones, precipitating a ship out right next to where it entered jumpspace.

This ends up being a really interesting problem in how things in jump space interact with changes in normal space. If you enter jump space safely at 40D, (the lake like area), the ship will re-apppear where in a week? In a week the planet will be about 7 million miles away. The safe space may no longer exist.

Figuring out how these interactions work as the universe changes is a difficult problem. And as the discussion of jump masking shows, it doesn't make much difference to the larger game.