Jump-Gates

[manley_t]

If you can place a jump engine in a starship so it can travel in jump-space, why can't you make a gate?

In fact, you can even do this within the existing canon rules. There already exists the x-boat tender; and if I recall I've seen a picture with a scout ship and a couple of x-boats in it's hull. The only thing is that it's a jump-1.

But, why not extrapolate that into a ferry service? Build the 100,000 ton ferry that can shuttle starships and non-starships between worlds.

And, it's not that far of a stretch to build a giant 'tube' that jumps everything inside itself but *not* itself.

just a thought or two....

 

[BluWolf]

Thank you!!!

I think it would make too much sense NOT to. Particularly in corridor sectors.

Basiclly make it work like more of "jump sling shot" rather than an actual gate.

It would be much more economical for a few sytems to pool resources to build these gates than a fleet of jump capable ships.

Then they can make a bunch of system manuever ships and stick it near a massive fuel source,much more economical and away you go.

Counter argument, the imperium no likey. Sort of bypasses the need for them too certan extents.

But I think it is very doable.

 

[spank]

I was thinking about this the other day. probably because I am reading the Depths of Time series. I wonder if the empire has a hall of suppressed technology, maybe it's behind the Black Curtain.

 

[spank]

I was thinking about this the other day. probably because I am reading the Depths of Time series. I wonder if the empire has a hall of suppressed technology, maybe it's behind the Black Curtain.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

If I remember the JTAS article about jumpspace correctly...the purpose of the Jump Engine is not so much to get a ship into jumpspace as it is to keep it there. The ship itself is skinned with an energizing mesh that with the jump engine behinds it, allows the ship to go into jump and to stay there.

Given the 'laws' governing jump in Traveller you could have a tender or a cradle since the ship carried by it would be within the tender's jump field, but not a jump facility that stays behind.

Of course, that doesn't mean if you decide it works differently in your universe you can't have it

 

[aoehler]

N.I.C.E Labs is correct. But the idea of a tender is doable. In fact I've read that the imperial navy was trending that way...

To see if it's feasable, you would need to design the tender and then estimate how much revenue you would need to collect to make the thing work. Then estimate how much customers would have to pay and compare to the costs of operating a smaller ship.

My perception is that the main jump 1 routes would be served by huge cargo ships that move modularized containers. These containers are "routed" across the imperium.

Smaller ships fulfill the special routes, jump-2 or greater routes, etc.

If you use FedEx or UPS as a modern day analog, I think the argument can be made that large tenders would dominate the main shipping lanes.

 

[themink]

Jump Tugs are canon - although they are rare.

There are references to the Jump drive having to stay on for the entire week in jump so canon wouldn't support a jump gate.

That isn't to say YTU won't have them in - possibly even naturally occuring ones - possibly natural ones don't take a week to jump (or are further than J6). There are boundless possibilities - The Only limit is imagination (common sense isn;t a limit)

 

[savage]

Don't believe that canon says "no jumpgates". It just describes jump drives. So, ships with the mesh could be energized from an outside source. It would be pretty easy to assign limitations.
As a I recall the fuel is spent during the initial entrance into jump space. That should make an externally generated field feasible.

Where there is a will there is a way. Several issues follow;
1. Might have to make certain that the mesh is included in non-jump ship designs
2. Large supplies of fuel to be economically feasible.
3. size, fuel and maintenance would indicate a cost associated with the jump.
4. Should reduce the use of the jump drive resulting in lower jump maintenance for the ship.

Natural jump gates...well that's an ingenious idea. Would they be an anomoly or a beastie excretion. Why not just implement wormholes?

Savage

 

[themink]

Canon doesn't dscribe jump gates however it describes ships travelling arround - If they had any real effect, then they would have to be described. For eaxmple, canon doesn;t describe what types boots people wear - so we can assume that the boots have no real effect on the game. Jump gates would have an effect, so their lack of description is significant.

But if you like them, have them.

Drop tanks on the other hand are described.

Why do you want jump gates? Is it purely the strategic effects? do you like the imagery? Do you like the effect it has on trade?

 

[spank]

A ship has to maintain a jump field while in jumpspace to protect the ship and crew from jump space, But this is only 20% of the energy expended.
80% of the energy used is to push the ship into jump space
So MAYBE you could push the ship into jump space externally this would mean a huge savings in feul and ship space.
IF you could do it there would be all manner of problems to work out
syncing the ship jump field and the jump projection.
Arivials would be erratic at best, to keep from "landing" on another ship you would have to establish "landing zones" in or outside a system, and the gate would have to rotate between them

The landings would have to be patolled and cleard of ships and debris natural and otherwise.

A misjump could easily leave a ship stranded if the ship was not jump capable {possesing only a grid but not enough power to open a jump gate on it's own}

That's a theory anyway

 

[manley_t]

Jump Gates change the game significantly. You could, for example, have small craft traveling on interstellar voyage. You could have large non-FTL ships filled to the brim with cargo traveling from system to system. It makes a significant difference in how the games play out. For one, a jump gate can send non-FTL warships to any system within its jump range. There’s an issue of getting them back – but Jump Pods or Ferry Ships can handle that once the area is safe. This strategy of deployment puts greater emphasis on scouts as they’re the one’s to do the traveling back and forth for message carrying.

From all the reading of how Jump Drives work, I don't think it can't be done. Per my understanding of the rules, all the fuel is used up before you enter jump-space. My impression was that you needed the big 'charge boost' to energize your mesh to get into jump space and then you just exited when your jump duration was over -- kind of like a sling-shot effect. We know that you don’t need a maneuver drive to traverse jump-space as the Jump Boats are built without them and the rules do state running energy for either jump or maneuver. I just don’t recall any mention that you have to cover the energy costs the entire time you’re in jump space or just the initial jump into jump-space.

If anyone can quote to me a place where in the rules it describes that the jump engines must remain on and running the entire time one is in jump I'd appreciate it.

Also -- last night I did a quick design of a ‘ferry’. It was a 100,000dton J-3 behemoth designed with no maneuver drive and could carry 80,000K inside its massive hull. The only restriction would be on the dimension of the vessel. Since it was designed without Maneuver Drives I also designed 400dton non-FTL tugs that could each haul 10,000 at 1G (I also added 40tons of ‘reinforcement’ as a GM’s call in that a Tug would need stress bracing. They were all engine and power-plant and 10 of them could move the ferry around. The interesting point here is that 10 of these things could easily fit within the ferry and still have a TREMNENDOUS amount of space left over.

 

[spank]

p.352 t20

it says the 80% of the feul to enter jumpspace - 20% to keep the generator running

I forgot another problem the gate "house" would constitue a sizeable object at the origin possibly causing mis-jump

 

[gardclan]

The original FFS had rules for alternate tech jumpgates. They proposed a sort of "manually drilled wormhole" for operation instead of jumpspace.

So, I propose that you have two ways of going about this:

1. Set up the jumpgates to use some sort of non-jump tech for their operation. Alternatech from FFS may, or may not be cannon in your opinion, but the rules are there, and they are usable. There's even design rules on how to set them up, how much power they require, and how big they are.

2. Have the jumpgate apply "shrink wrap" an applique field generator layer on the passing ship before it chucks it into jumpspace. How you explain this is up for interpretation. You could claim that the gate sprays on the wrap, that the wrap is just a magnetic charge on the hull metal, or that it reaches out with giant George Jetson type arms to apply the ole reynolds in a more time honored fashion. (Jane! Stop this crazy thing!)

The gate then supplys the power, jump fuel, and all astrogation functions. The jump gate sequence could run: wrap the field layer, charge the grid, bore the tunnel, launch the ship, depolarize for the next customer.

Its an idea anyway.

 

[manley_t]

Originally posted by spank:
p.352 t20

it says the 80% of the feul to enter jumpspace - 20% to keep the generator running

I forgot another problem the gate "house" would constitue a sizeable object at the origin possibly causing mis-jump

Ah!! Thanks! Guess jump gates don't fit into the letter of the canon rules :-(

though ferrys still do

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

On page 22 of the CT supplement Fighting Ships is the 5000 ton Jump Ship. It's designed to tow objects into Jump and transport them via special field cables that it wraps around the cargo...like a net. It has a jump of 6 but every thousand tons it carries drops it by one...so if it carried 1000 tons of cargo it'd be jump 5...5,000 tons, jump 1.

It also has the feature of Jump pods....like a giant version of the modular cutter...featuring cargo, passenger, even a low berth pod for mass transportation of corpscicles.

Also, in Library Data A-M, there is the entry on Battle-Riders and Tenders. The riders are non-jump cruisers and the tender is a huge jump shuttle of sorts, several hundred thousand tons in size designed to carry full squadrons of battle riders into a system.

In both cases there it's mentioned there are numerous variations. If you're looking for ways to jump without jumpdrive...these ships can do it for you.

Of course though as we've said...it's your universe. If jump-gates fit what you want to do...universal laws can be bent from time to time

 

[bozzutoman]

I've been toying with the idea of including Gate technology... at TL16+

The Ancients first developed this technology, which they utilized to run their vast civilization over enormous distances without constantly relying on the painfully slow travel times of Jump Space. Unfortunately this very ease of travel helped accelerate the levels of destruction during their "Ragnarok".

Not sure of the details of function, but I think a folding of space sounds good. Like walking through an open door.

I figure that a few surviving units would still exist. Tempting scientists to make them function... or maybe they already did...

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Originally posted by bozzutoman:
I've been toying with the idea of including Gate technology... at TL16+

The Ancients first developed this technology, which they utilized to run their vast civilization over enormous distances without constantly relying on the painfully slow travel times of Jump Space. Unfortunately this very ease of travel helped accelerate the levels of destruction during their "Ragnarok".

Not sure of the details of function, but I think a folding of space sounds good. Like walking through an open door.

I figure that a few surviving units would still exist. Tempting scientists to make them function... or maybe they already did...

Our group had a bout with some ancient drives (Tech 21+) like that, but we dealt with a black hole drive (what the Shapieron had in James P. Hogan's Minervan Experimant book series). It's basically the original Warp Drive (at least it was until the next gen fanboys got hold of it and 'explained' it.) Using gravity generators (the nacelles in ST terms) basically a black hole would come into being at a fixed distance from the ship....sort of like a carrot dangling in front of a horse. The ship would contantly 'fall' into it but never reaching the singularity...and constantly gaining speed. Since the ship was inside it's own gravity well, the normal laws governing speed and time wouldn't apply.

The ancient ship that had this drive went very fast....crossing parsecs in hours rather than the days Jump drive took.

There was a more advanced version of this...Torrid Jump...where the black hole would be stationary and spun...causing the sort of folding of space you mentioned. The ship would travel through and instaneously be at it's destination....up to six parsecs away...but of course this was Grandfather stuff so it wasn't on the open market

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Darth Sillyus:
The original FFS had rules for alternate tech jumpgates. They proposed a sort of "manually drilled wormhole" for operation instead of jumpspace.

So, I propose that you have two ways of going about this:

1. Set up the jumpgates to use some sort of non-jump tech for their operation. Alternatech from FFS may, or may not be cannon in your opinion, but the rules are there, and they are usable. There's even design rules on how to set them up, how much power they require, and how big they are.

2. Have the jumpgate apply "shrink wrap" an applique field generator layer on the passing ship before it chucks it into jumpspace. How you explain this is up for interpretation. You could claim that the gate sprays on the wrap, that the wrap is just a magnetic charge on the hull metal, or that it reaches out with giant George Jetson type arms to apply the ole reynolds in a more time honored fashion. (Jane! Stop this crazy thing!)

The gate then supplys the power, jump fuel, and all astrogation functions. The jump gate sequence could run: wrap the field layer, charge the grid, bore the tunnel, launch the ship, depolarize for the next customer.

Its an idea anyway.

________________________________________________
RADM Bachfisch/DS is correct on the FF&S listing for Jump gate technology.
It has limits...
Earliest gates being TL-10, being able to move a vessel(Non jump-henceforth in this post called NJ)
7 parsecs.

AN example of "Ancient technology leftover" and used in a campaign, would be the Swan Kingdom of the Stars By Antony Farrel, on the Yahoo taveller webring.

A Most excellent example, set in a Traveller usniverse, Solomani Rim, alternate/ non Imperium setting.
Not Quite the David Weber Honorverse, but it has parallels woth noting! Good ideas to mine folks.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/Skaran/
IMTU, I had the Geonee Confederation in TNE recover in the 70 years since the collapse some of htis technology, and opened up a Jump gate. They work in pairs...
Size of the Ring/gate limits the size of ship that can use it. All others must use jump drives themselves...
I think in AF's its 15ktns max that can use the gates, at a passage (1 ship) or multiples up to 15kts..(1x 10kt+1* 5kt,/ 3x 5kts/ 6x 2.5Kts, etc).

The gates must then "recharge" (usually internally and solar powered (Receptors facing the Star in the system they were arranged in.

I made an adventure where the Geonee fixed their end of a gate...the PCs were 17 parsecs away studying this ancient artifact...when it"turned on" and they were passing thru the ring...and wound up guests of the Geonee!

If I was going to utilize these as alternate technology, I might want to point out they are extremely expensive to build. (in pairs). A Lanthanum poor star cluster might erect these to save valuable resources for its military, and link up Rich worlds with its Hi IN worlds to save merchant shipping costs in construction. After all, NJ ships can be built at TL-7, with a B-class port!

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The tender/ ferry system has been around, since CT days.

Military uses are the Battle Tender, and her Battle Riders.
Earliest example I can recall is the ISS Star Rider, 40,000dtns, capable of carrying nearly 20ktns of ships (in the High Passage #5 adventure where she is featured, some 16 x 400dtn ships possible, in this case SDB's as "battle riders").
Sadly, Star Rider was a milspec ship that did not make the IN's cut, so she's a white elephant..Then she was betrayed, and believed destroyed--she's now in the hands of Solomani Pirates/rebels in Sarid/Oriflamme subsector, bedevilling the Imps there...

Commercial Ferries are logical, say for J-2/J-3/J-4 rtes rtes for ships of J-1 heritage.
Say a bunch of Beowulf/Morraine class 200dtn ships, want to go to the next cluster over. Its safer and cheaper to let the ferry do the work, save yer Jay's, and fuel, and be shipped as 200dtns of cargo!

This brings me to the next subtopic..LASH system ships...
"Lighter Aboard Ship"-this concept was used by the Imperium in regions where C-class ports or better in frontier regions were scarce...Carrying some NJ Lighters (thats the word for NJ merchant ship) of 20-200dtns.
The largest ones carried some 200 lighters of 100dtns, attached by docking rings/clamps within their jump fields (it displaced some 40ktns total/loaded out). Others carried less, but larger lighters (like 200dtn sized Lighters, Cargo was aboard these spaceships, crews /passengers tended to stay aboard the mothership. One could easily with that 20ktns have 200dtn/ 400dtn lighters that are in reality NJ Fartraders/Subsidized liners...

Turning one into a Ferry!!!!Hey, there's money to be made there...

I believe in a previous thread, the silly TRIAD war threads on random Static between RV, GAB, & Me vs TJ, Nurdboy, & TCJS, I cited an example of this ship as being Hijacked...out of their own convoy.

----------------------------------------------
Last subtopic: Jump tugs.

Jump tugs/barges/frames,shuttles,pods etc..have been around since CT days. Towing ores to systems for refine ment, to moving SDB's along mains, or across J-2 gulfs...

IMTU, the TNE era..(don't panic, I'm not trying to convert ya here!), these remanant ships are utilized (along with converted X-boat tenders)into this rle of beng small LASH ships.

In my SOleean Empire, with its plethora of NJ ships, many of the SDB's, and lighters for insystem developed industries/trade, the Jump spindle concept comes to the fore: Capable of moving 1ktns at J-1, the Buffaloe-class shuttle has a spindle that 5x 200dtn lighters dock/clamp to. Or 2x 400dtn lighters,& 1x 200dtn lighter. Or 10 100dtn lighter/shuttle spacecraft.
In the words of Hard Times author Charles Gannon-"It ain't got to look pretty, it just has to go". Making do with lower tech in the face of Higher tech loss/lack has been a hallmark of many campaigns I've been in, so I became accustomed to such ideas.

Depending on your TU that is.! Thanx fer listening/reading.

 

[Antony]

Just so people know, I have just uploaded some more background material onto my website including the Star Kingdom of Swan section. If people could check that all my links are still working I would appreciate it.

Oh yes the location is www.users.bigpond.com/Skaran

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Antony:
Just so people know, I have just uploaded some more background material onto my website including the Star Kingdom of Swan section. If people could check that all my links are still working I would appreciate it.

Oh yes the location is www.users.bigpond.com/Skaran

__________________________________________________
I like the new look Antony! One page wouldn't open-The Darakul from the KoS page. Smashing stuff ya gots there!

heretically,