Jump gates

[Spinward Flow]

Here's a different way to think about Jump Gates.

Your standard starship has the jump drive on the INSIDE and is used to jump the starship the drive is built INTO.

Your standard jump gate has the jump drive built AROUND A SPACE and is used to jump whatever gets put IN/THROUGH that SPACE. It's basically a VERY short range jump projector (with the range measured in kilometers/almost docking proximity, rather than in light seconds/weapons ranges). That way, whatever you put into the volume of space ... jumps ... while leaving the "gate drive" behind. The "jump drive" becomes (more or less) "external" to the "starships" that can be jumped by the gates. The only difference is that when a craft "gets jumped" it doesn't take the jump drive with it (because the gate stays behind).

It's broadly analogous to a Rider/Tender arrangement, except that the "tenders" DO NOT MOVE when stuff jumps through gates.

Fun part is when you realize that the 100D limit for jump safety should still apply ... so if you've got a 100m spherical volume that you can target to jump projector into, 100*100=10km ... so your jump projector equipment is going to need to be a minimum of 10km away from the "target volume to jump" and will itself need to be 100m or less in length/major axis to prevent needing to move farther away to maintain the 100D jump safety condition into the projected space. One way to do this would be to "subdivide" the jump projector systems into multiple "satellite" (or jump "rails" if you prefer) craft that all coordinate and work together harmoniously to create a working jump projector collectively between them.

 

[Enoki]

(Monotone Voice)
Is this enough to handle the number of ships coming & going from/to a Type A Class Port?

Don't really know for sure... There are no rules indicating how many would be transiting. The economic rules really don't cover that either.

 

[warwizard]

Docking bays for ships that will be transiting the gate, with power hookups so the ships can contribute to charging the capacitors for thier jump.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Fun part is when you realize that the 100D limit for jump safety should still apply ..

Hmmn. CT allows risky jumps from 10-100D (main hazard is the 1-36 hex misjump, not destruction) but it's a valid point.

 

[mike wightman]

Can you build a jump gate into a ship?

Can you send a small jump gate through a larger jump gate?

 

[Condottiere]

As long as only one is active.

You probably could send a smaller gate anywhere you can send any other spacecraft.

Whether it could be sent to a new, unanchored location, that would depend on the actual physics and mechanism of the gate.

 

[Enoki]

Can you build a jump gate into a ship?

Can you send a small jump gate through a larger jump gate?

Well, you can fold a piece of paper in half 7 times so how many times you can jump a jump gate is...

 

[Carlobrand]

Some mad scientist is going to try to open up a gate while in mid-jump, you know they will.

 

[Condottiere]

The fun part is whether you consider the surrounding larger gate as part of volume for jumping.

 

[Enoki]

The fun part is whether you consider the surrounding larger gate as part of volume for jumping.

Or the far trader captain who tries to jump in the middle of a jump and says...

Hold my beer 'n watch this $h!+...

 

[Condottiere]

I'm pretty sure one consideration was using the initial transition as a springboard to increase range, with a second one.

Just going by known jump physics, in a jump bubble it would increase (hull) volume, and cause an instant collapse of said bubble, unless you jump while still in the hangar.

Or cargo hold.

On emergence.

If docked, you'd have a decrease in hull volume, and cause a collapse of the jump bubble.

 

[BlackBat242]

That very much depends on the edition of the game you are using.
In CT to enter jump you need
a jump drive and fuel
the correct computer programs
distance from large objects
Not a lot of rules to change at all

Ships would have more room for other stuff without jump drive and fuel - more passengers, cargo, etc.
Not exactly game changing.

Depends on which version of Trav you're using. MT was pretty detailed about how jump worked: lanthanum jump grid being energized to protect the ship against intrusion of jump space and so on. However, I don't see any reason they couldn't have discovered another method of interstellar travel, or perhaps the ships using the gates have a lanthanum grid but not the jump initiator.

This is a Babylon-5 style setting: you get places on your jump drive and, if they're worth regular visits, you build a gate. Gate's gonna be a prime military target though: blow it up and you've crippled trade. Won't slow down war fleets, but it will definitely affect their war economy.

Late CT had the lanthanum hull grid as well - Marc Miller introduced it in an article in JTAS # 24 that detailed jumpspace.

As that issue of JTAS was published in the fall of 1985 (in the "upcoming events" list is a convention in November 1985), that is a good 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 years before the initial publication of MegaTraveller.


Personally, I have put a scattering of old "Forerunner"* star gates around various worlds in the area around and spinward of Reaver's Deep and the Spinward Marches etc.
These are not at all common, and act more like artificial wormholes to more-rapidly transport ships great distances in less time - but they still do take time for the trip - about 1 day per 5 parsecs. No such gate has a trip distance of less than 10 parsecs.


* My TU is constructed more like Andre Norton's view - there were many different starfaring civilizations in the past, built by many very different species (Grandfather etc are simply a Droyne myth and never existed), over hundreds of thousands of years. The only actual studiable ones that left ruins etc that can be exploited are from less than 125,000 years ago, and mostly from the last 50,000 years (which still meant at least 4 known different civilizations).

 

[mike wightman]

Late CT had the lanthanum hull grid as well - Marc Miller introduced it in an article in JTAS # 24 that detailed jumpspace.

As that issue of JTAS was published in the fall of 1985 (in the "upcoming events" list is a convention in November 1985), that is a good 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 years before the initial publication of MegaTraveller.

No, the jump cabling hull network was mentioned in the article but the material it was made from was not mentioned. Lanthanum being used for the drive coils in the inner working was mentioned.
It was DGP that added the handwavium about jump cables in MegaTraveller. I can post the actual text.

Personally, I have put a scattering of old "Forerunner"* star gates around various worlds in the area around and spinward of Reaver's Deep and the Spinward Marches etc.
These are not at all common, and act more like artificial wormholes to more-rapidly transport ships great distances in less time - but they still do take time for the trip - about 1 day per 5 parsecs. No such gate has a trip distance of less than 10 parsecs.

Such a network exists, according to T4 canonical adventures the Ancients built it, bit who is to say they they "inherited" it?

* My TU is constructed more like Andre Norton's view - there were many different starfaring civilizations in the past, built by many very different species (Grandfather etc are simply a Droyne myth and never existed), over hundreds of thousands of years. The only actual studiable ones that left ruins etc that can be exploited are from less than 125,000 years ago, and mostly from the last 50,000 years (which still meant at least 4 known different civilizations).

In MegaTraveller there is a flavour text aside about there being many previous starfaring species prior to the Ancients. They then introduced an older race, the primordials, in the adventure Knightfall.

 

[BlackBat242]

Late CT had the lanthanum hull grid as well - Marc Miller introduced it in an article in JTAS # 24 that detailed jumpspace.

As that issue of JTAS was published in the fall of 1985 (in the "upcoming events" list is a convention in November 1985), that is a good 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 years before the initial publication of MegaTraveller.

No, the jump cabling hull network was mentioned in the article but the material it was made from was not mentioned. Lanthanum being used for the drive coils in the inner working was mentioned.
It was DGP that added the handwavium about jump cables in MegaTraveller. I can post the actual text.

Here is the text from the last paragraph of page 35 of the original JTAS #24 (see below).
While you are correct it does not call out lanthanum for the jump grid (network of wires in the hull) in the hull (and on page 36 discusses the lanthanum jump coils in the drive itself) it most certainly does state that the wire network is required "to maintain the jump field", and that damage to this network is "a primary cause of the loss of ships in jump".

Written by Marc Miller himself, and published long before anything for MT was published by anyone!

 

[Grav_Moped]

Or the far trader captain who tries to jump in the middle of a jump and says...

Hold my beer 'n watch this $h!+...

I did the math on this once and don't recall where I left the notes. Spherical 100Td ship jumping from inside another ship with a spherical cargo hold of a diameter 201x the diameter of the smaller one... while in jump space.

 

[Krikkitone]

Some mad scientist is going to try to open up a gate while in mid-jump, you know they will.

That would probably be tried already by a non mad scientist/ research team trying to study jump space… 1000 dt ship carrying 100 dt messenger… try launching it mid jump

1. can the small ships own La grid protect it while in Jump (can a ship change its configuration while Jump as long as the Jump grid is maintained?)

2. If it can launch, can it move away from the larger ship?

3. If it can get enough distance, can it successfully engage its jump drive?


….I would assume at some point the answer is No… the question is if the result is just “It doesn’t happen”
or “It causes a misjump and one or both ships don’t know where/when they will end up”
or
“It collapses the Jump bubble early and a cloud of irradiated strange matter is all that drops back into normal space at the end of the week”

 

[mike wightman]

Here is the text from the last paragraph of page 35 of the original JTAS #24 (see below).
While you are correct it does not call out lanthanum for the jump grid (network of wires in the hull) in the hull (and on page 36 discusses the lanthanum jump coils in the drive itself) it most certainly does state that the wire network is required "to maintain the jump field", and that damage to this network is "a primary cause of the loss of ships in jump".

Written by Marc Miller himself, and published long before anything for MT was published by anyone!


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I'm not disagreeing with you. Just pointing out the article mentions a jump grid network of cabling, it does not say it is a lanthanum grid.

 

[Carlobrand]

That would probably be tried already by a non mad scientist/ research team trying to study jump space… 1000 dt ship carrying 100 dt messenger… try launching it mid jump

1. can the small ships own La grid protect it while in Jump (can a ship change its configuration while Jump as long as the Jump grid is maintained?)

2. If it can launch, can it move away from the larger ship?

3. If it can get enough distance, can it successfully engage its jump drive?


….I would assume at some point the answer is No… the question is if the result is just “It doesn’t happen”
or “It causes a misjump and one or both ships don’t know where/when they will end up”
or
“It collapses the Jump bubble early and a cloud of irradiated strange matter is all that drops back into normal space at the end of the week”

This is one of those cases in which a robopilot would be handy.

 

[Vargr Breath]

Have Jump Gates exist, but like the ships in the Gateway books (by Frederik Pohl), they have to be mapped, some lead to nowhere, some to new unknown but worthwhile systems, and some to known systems and maybe to the worst place you could imagine- like in the movie Event Horizon.

 

[Condottiere]

You could also have naturally occurring wormholes.