This never made sense to me. I did read the other threads regarding the subject and was not convinced. In my mind the ship would be thousands of miles away as soon as it entered jump space. IMTU this wont even be an option.
Jump Occlusion
- Thread starter RobM
- Start date
This never made sense to me. I did read the other threads regarding the subject and was not convinced. In my mind the ship would be thousands of miles away as soon as it entered jump space. IMTU this wont even be an option.
There is this neat element in Quantum Physics, called a wave collapse... some objects (esp. elementary particles) are able to be described as a wave form, but they're actually particles. Observation causes the waveform to collapse and the particle to be detected as a particle, rather than a wave, and its location to become quantified by the observer.
Essentially, the Jump tunnel (not the ship, but the tunnel) exists as a macroscopic quantum wave effect - the ship rides the wave, and barring interference at the start or middle, the wave decays 168 hours later at the target point; until that time, however, it's a line between the two; drop a gravity well bigger than the ship on it, it collapses at that gravity well's threshold when it decays, rather than at the intended destination.
The ship itself doesn't go anywhere - until the wave collapses. It's literally trapped in the wave, and wherever the wave collapses at, there the ship appears.
It makes perfect sense to me. I dislike it immensely, but it makes sense.
Why do I dislike it? Because there's no evidence for it in prior canon, and it makes certain canonical adventures nigh-impossible. Tho it does give justification to 500KTd battleships...
Depends on your definition of fun.
Me, I think it is an extremely cool rule and look forward to planning my wars with it in mind. Also, salvaging those ships that a had a bad jump line and got bumped into an "empty" hex by something or other.
Care to share them? And then explain to the rest of us, or at least me what is so "un-fun" about them.
Me, I think it is an extremely cool rule and look forward to planning my wars with it in mind. Also, salvaging those ships that a had a bad jump line and got bumped into an "empty" hex by something or other.
I agree - it's not fun.
It's bad for RPing. It's bad because most PC's are skirting the law, and it means that the locals merely need to put a ship on station for a 32 hour window on your departure point to snap you RIGHT back, and capture you.
The rule makes sense, but it's a bad-for-play rule.
Isn't going to do all that much when it pops out. Sure, an EMP flash. Ships will recover from that. Enough antimatter to cause even that is prohibitively expensive, and requires TL15+ just to have a chance of getting it where your want it.
In other words, only practical for covering escapes - and that by blinding sensors as the rest jump.
Otto Harkaman
SOC-12
Sounds like something out of a Van Rijn story by Poul Anderson, maybe Trader to the Stars?
I wouldn't know about that - I've never read any of Sir Bella's fiction, just his SCA songs and an old SCA article...
How close would a 500KTd ship have to be to the other ship?
±11.8km from the departure point should precipitate it out for a 500KTd sphere.
But note: you don't need to be ON the exit point, just on a line between target and destination point.
NASA spacecraft are able to locate themselves within a couple km; I can't find specific data at the moment... so an accurate radar and a good stellar fix, and it should be able to pop you out.
Then, barring real time monitoring of a specific craft trying to leave a system, it is pretty useless. And, you aren't going to likely pull anyone out arriving to your world. Not a big deal nor a tool really.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
Seems like a correct assessment. If anything you'd pretty much have to "step on it's tail".
If, at 500kt, you have to be ±11.8km away, then it's not likely you are going to be straddling the "line of sight" from origin to destination. Pure chance there and an infinitesimally small one at that.
As for jumping ahead off it? Even if your jump was of shorter duration your not going to precipitate out of jump space within ±11.8km...
I'm still open to other ideas, but, it doesn't seem very practical in the end.
The 3I would really have to want a PC sized ship badly to commit these kinds of resources to the effort! 500dt ship? No, just commit several Patrol Frigates in neighboring systems for a lot less. The 200t A2 shows up and the Patrol Squadron grabs them easily.
Re Jump Occlusion
It can be used to "accidentally" pop a ship back to source.
It can be used to intentionally prevent the losing battleship from escaping; moreover, the locals can have 2-3 days in port to repair, while the failed attempt to flee can only do those repairs that don't require EVA.
It can be used to interdict a wanted ship - a 2500Td ship can interdict out to ±2km, but only smaller craft; 2400 Td and under.
And most systems can afford to keep an orbital 2500Td ship. It's going to be a LOT tighter, and not nearly so automatic, but I'd expect 20KTd (±4.6km) destroyer in any system with over 1M people.
Note that even if one restricts jumpline occlusion to at the moment of jump, ship an still block without having to be in direct reach of the ship.
Oh, and jumplines are extremely narrow windows... To hit the Solar System, you're aiming for 60AU wide... a light-year is about 63241 AU long. You're thus aiming for a 1:10,000 cone at 1 LY. 1:32,600 at 1 Pc. 1:65,200.
It's actually not that hard to block exit if you know where they are aiming, and have the same or higher rated drives.
It can be used to "accidentally" pop a ship back to source.
It can be used to intentionally prevent the losing battleship from escaping; moreover, the locals can have 2-3 days in port to repair, while the failed attempt to flee can only do those repairs that don't require EVA.
It can be used to interdict a wanted ship - a 2500Td ship can interdict out to ±2km, but only smaller craft; 2400 Td and under.
And most systems can afford to keep an orbital 2500Td ship. It's going to be a LOT tighter, and not nearly so automatic, but I'd expect 20KTd (±4.6km) destroyer in any system with over 1M people.
Note that even if one restricts jumpline occlusion to at the moment of jump, ship an still block without having to be in direct reach of the ship.
Oh, and jumplines are extremely narrow windows... To hit the Solar System, you're aiming for 60AU wide... a light-year is about 63241 AU long. You're thus aiming for a 1:10,000 cone at 1 LY. 1:32,600 at 1 Pc. 1:65,200.
It's actually not that hard to block exit if you know where they are aiming, and have the same or higher rated drives.
I said it once, I'll say it again.
As for the EVA during Jump, you can do it with a Jump Bubble or maybe Plates, and in at least one case in a PC's history a squeaker with Grid, but there were consequences since he was closer to the Jump Field than with the other two. So you can do it, it's just potentially dangerous.
I see this as a feature, not a bug. I said so when it was being discussed during the Beta, but then I don't tend toward criminal type games so it doesn't bother me so much. Okay, I will say this again in my TUs "All pirates must hang!" so part of me loves this rule.
As for the EVA during Jump, you can do it with a Jump Bubble or maybe Plates, and in at least one case in a PC's history a squeaker with Grid, but there were consequences since he was closer to the Jump Field than with the other two. So you can do it, it's just potentially dangerous.
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Correct. A ship leaving a Earth sized planet goes out about 120,000 km, in any direction in a hemisphere facing the destination world. They aim anywhere in a similar sized area at the other planet. That is a cylinder with a cross section of ~113,097,335 square kilometers. It would take 258,803 500kt ships to "block" that path.
SpaceBadger
SOC-14 1K
But if I understood Aramis correctly, they don't have to block all possible paths, they just have to send a ship to approximately the point that the fleeing vessel actually jumped from - and they don't have to get there before the Jump, they have up to a week as they can "retro-block" after the fact and pull the fleeing ship back. Wasn't that what he said?
Once a ship is gone, it's gone. Unless someone was 'out of it' enough to say that you can pull a ship light-years backwards by going to where it has already passed. If so, heavy shipping lanes near a planet will be total chaos as large freighters constantly pull back smaller ships.
That was the original draft version. Put your sphere intersecting with their jumpline, and 168 hours±17, out they Pop at 100 diameters of whatever they hit.. The final version is inspecific, but may be at time of entry only; One reference simply mentions any block, while another notes that being blocked at jump entrance results in misjump.
If blocking exit, and you know where they're going, then its mathematically trival. Put and keep yourself on a line between the system and them. If you can get and stay within the few km, then you can prevent them from jumping at all.
Not really. See my calcs below.
