Jump effects?

[far-trader]

Interesting. Wouldn't it be easier just to overload the Power Plant, tho? Or would there be an advantage to this?

I think there are built in black box safeties in canon for powerplants. Any attempt to do more than simple maintenance outside of a proper facility results in a fused lump of inert junk. This is partly to protect the monopoly of advanced fusion power and partly to prevent "accidents".

Jump drives are probably similar (the powerplant part) but they do have one thing that powerplants don't, jump capacitors. Capacitors can be very explosive when overloaded or mishandled when fully charged, and even a small ship has a lot of power potential in a small package of jump capacitors. The thing stopping them from being used as weapons is the expense. MCr4 per dton is pretty steep for something you just want to go boom.

In MTU the capacitor bank is jettisonable in an emergency (critical hit, emergency jump abort after the fuel is burned, and such) to save the ship and most of the jumpdrive. Analogous to the Trek option to dump the warp core.

A terrorist could conceivably charge the jump capacitors and then overload them (bypassing several safeties) and/or apply a small explosive to tip them into an explosive discharge state. It wouldn't be a huge explosion though. I'd imagine conventional explosives could do a lot more damage for a lot less money and work.

 

[Spinward Scout]

So no real advantage other than the convenience of it being right in front of you when you need it.

 

[Vargas]

That would depend on what side of the jump threshold the ship was destroyed on. If it crossed the threshold and was then destroyed there would be very little damage on the planetary side.

My fault for being inexact; my assumption was that everything in the Jump field gets whisked off to oblivion.

 

[penguin133]

By your own bootlaces!

I can just picture some smoking landing pads left on the ground as the ship disappears with a boom of inrushing air. :file_21:

I like the sound of the "Smoking boots"! I don't think a ground jump would do much damage to the ground itself, but would certainly slag the Drive and possibly a good bit of the ship in the savme area? Assuming it is possible to "force" a jump in a Gravity well or close to that much matter? In Star Wars, etc., the escaping fugitives have to be a certain distance out before they can jump at all, let alone safely? The "Flash" might be left behind, but to passengers on the ship you would simply be "somewhere else", ie. the star patter in the viewport chages? Or are you in "Limbo" for Jumpspace, since a Jump has to last a certain amount of time?
Ian Winterbottom (New member today)

 

[aramis]

Since the jump field only extends a meter off the hull, it's not going to do much with the average 1.5m clearance shown in CT.... You'll have smoking boots alright... the landing gear!

 

[MR TEK]

There are cannon anssers, of a sort...

No answer on what happens to the source of the gravity, but in reading old articles on drop tanks, it was said that early attempts at drop tanks were extremely hazardous becuase the tanks did not get jettisoned far enough that their gravity did not interfere with the jump. Such an event was fatal to the ship jumping. I have to look it up, but now that I think about it, it was also catastrophic for the drop tanks too.

Just thoughts, but the suggestion was even such a small mass such as an empty drop tank was enough gravity to break up the transition to jump space in a way that was fatal to the ship jumping.

I know that makes planet busters theoretically passable, but that was canon as I recall on drop tanks.

Mr Tek

 

[TheEngineer]

Hi !

Does anybody else has the same picture in the mind, that everything inside the jump field is cut out of the departure location, really leaving behind calmy smoking edges ?

If so, is the cut out stuff wabbering around the ship during jump then ?

Well, using the MT ruleset there is a fairly high probability to survive such a kind of jump. At least it needs a 15+ on 3D to be destroyed, if a likely mishap occurs. In all other cases all it does is to scramble navigation a bit.

Anyway, it is not said "where" and how the ship is destroyed (?), meaning the referee might decide if there is a catastrophic boom at the departure site, or simply a g-fluctuation crunched piece of matter popping out at the destination ...

Lets collect some "destroyed" variations ...

TE

 

[Rover]

Hi !

Does anybody else has the same picture in the mind, that everything inside the jump field is cut out of the departure location, really leaving behind calmy smoking edges ?

That is exactly how I pictured it, only it would be a sphere encapsulating the ship.

Lets collect some "destroyed" variations ...

TE

Let's say the ship arrives at the jump destination completely intact, but everyone on board is dead from radiation exposure. (or completely insane, or missing, or ...)

R

 

[far-trader]

Hi !

Does anybody else has the same picture in the mind, that everything inside the jump field is cut out of the departure location, really leaving behind calmy smoking edges ?

If so, is the cut out stuff wabbering around the ship during jump then ?

That was the picture I was trying to paint when I suggested it yes

I don't think there'd be much cut out stuff wabbering (what a wonderful word) around though...

That is exactly how I pictured it, only it would be a sphere encapsulating the ship.

...and I don't think it could be a sphere either. I don't even go with the 1m clearance. Why? Because the jump drive and fuel are calculated on the ship's displacement volume. Not a sphere of x volume that the ship would fit in. Not the ship volume plus some variable percentage based on configuration to allow a 1m clearance. JUST the actual volume of the hull. Period.

So if the ship were to leave the downport pad by jumping it wouldn't leave smoking cut off boots (landing gear), just smoking (or frosted) boot prints (where the landing gear were in contact with the ground). In my opinion.

 

[Rover]

Ship performance based on volume has alwasy been a bit of handwave to avoid doing endless complex calcualtions based on mass. I am not sure of any canon descriptions of whay exactly happens during the transition to J space.

IMTU it is a sphere. IYTU it can be skin tight to hull of the ship. In another it could be an opened portal you must move through.

 

[aramis]

and the OTU is 1m off the hull.

 

[Rover]

and the OTU is 1m off the hull.

That is good to know I don't reacll where that is written. do you know where.

Thanks,
R

 

[far-trader]

and the OTU is 1m off the hull.

That is good to know I don't reacll where that is written. do you know where.

Thanks,
R

MT Starship Operators Manual 1 iirc is the only place, but there could be others.

 

[TheEngineer]

Ok, so now the standard question, if the jump drive is engaged on the ground, all the burned fuel is released here, too, isn't it ?
Would not be pretty ....

 

[far-trader]

Burned how is the MCr question though?

Is it all magically 100% translated to energy pumped into a grid that opens the rift into J-space? Without any heat issues since ships don't have huge radiators or heat dumps?

Or is the bulk of the fuel actually used as a heat dump and simply spewed out the back superheated, with only a small amount of energy actually magically needed to rip a hole in the very fabric of the dimensions?

Or is the fuel turned into a plasma that is then held by magic gravitics in close proximity to the hull and the door to short space is opened by some harmonic of tuned gravity and plasma?

Or...

If we don't know how it works, it's kinda tough to figure how it goes wrong.

I still vote for everything going down the hole. It's just cleaner.

 

[The Thing]

According to LKW, only a portion is converted to energy in the reactor.

The rest is used to cool the reactor and to create an insulating layer around the ship to protect it from jump space.

I wonder of the 99.3% of the hydrogen that doesn't get converted to energy in the fusion reactor but does get converted to helium by the fusion process is used to make the jump bubble around the ship, in conjunction with the hydrogen used and vented as coolant...

 

[TheEngineer]

A major breakthru in Traveller TL9 technology surely is the discovery of a fusion process, which turns hydrogen into helium WITHOUT energy release !

 

[penguin133]

Jump Bubble

According to LKW, only a portion is converted to energy in the reactor.

The rest is used to cool the reactor and to create an insulating layer around the ship to protect it from jump space.

I wonder of the 99.3% of the hydrogen that doesn't get converted to energy in the fusion reactor but does get converted to helium by the fusion process is used to make the jump bubble around the ship, in conjunction with the hydrogen used and vented as coolant...

I like the "sound" of this one, you have to create some sort of "bubble" around the ship, it and the crew are "not meant to exist" in the other Dimension which is J-Space. Though I suppose you can interpret the ideas how you wish so long as it's believable and has the effect you want it to have; I once forced down my characters on an inhospitable Ice Planet where they were forced to carry out a task for the local Port Boss in order to get their "Hyperdrive Governor" repaired, it was (I decided) "wandering" very slightly with the effect that the ship was blipping in and out of J-Space at irregular intervals, causing severe strain on the hull and the drive. It was also only a matter of time before it began to fail PARTIALLY and catastrophically as one end of the ship was in J-Space and the other in Normal Space. It worked as blackmail and sounded reasonable!
I am enjoying this discussion very much, it's great to have guys who know what they're talking about giving you ideas!
Ian Winterbottom

 

[atpollard]

I prefer the simpler (but less dramatic) nothing happens when you attempt to jump from a planet surface.

The power plant charges the capacitors to power the jump drive. The jump drive converts some of the hydrogen into power to charge the jump grid in the hull. The planetary gravity prevents the opening to jump space from forming. The ship just sits there as the remaining hydrogen is vented around the ship.

The hydrogen venting is a fire hazzard, but that is all.
Just my opinion.

 

[Valarian]

I prefer the simpler (but less dramatic) nothing happens when you attempt to jump from a planet surface.

The power plant charges the capacitors to power the jump drive. The jump drive converts some of the hydrogen into power to charge the jump grid in the hull. The planetary gravity prevents the opening to jump space from forming. The ship just sits there as the remaining hydrogen is vented around the ship.

I think I prefer this as well. It's so much simpler to say that the jump drive just doesn't work in a gravity well.

The hydrogen venting is a fire hazzard, but that is all.
Just my opinion.

Pity the poor deckhand popping out for a cigarette.