Jump Occlusion

[Vladika]

Schrödinger's starship: Did it jump or not?

No, I have it right here, but, I'll get an X Boat confirmation of it's cargo delivery (and payments!) in a couple of weeks. I'm liking this; I get paid for cargoes than never left... This is a totally great trade system! The seller, and the buyer, both have their money...at the same time, and the goods...

 

[HG_B]

No, I have it right here, but, I'll get an X Boat confirmation of it's cargo delivery (and payments!) in a couple of weeks. I'm liking this; I get paid for cargoes than never left... This is a totally great trade system! The seller, and the buyer, both have their money...at the same time, and the goods...

Quark's Quantum shipyard:

In the Quantum realm particles can appear from nowhere & from nothing. So, ships can too. No need for all that pesky financing. Just wait for your brand new ship to "pop" into existence!

 

[cuTTer]

Schrödinger's starship: Did it jump or not?

And thus the true dread secret of jump travel is revealed...

Every time you precipitate into real space it's the next reality along, not yours.

A always suspected as much.

 

[HG_B]

And thus the true dread secret of jump travel is revealed...

Every time you precipitate into real space it's the next reality along, not yours.

A always suspected as much.

:file_21:

 

[aramis]

Schrödinger's starship: Did it jump or not?

Oh, it Jumped - the question is, "Is it at Departure A, Deztination Z, or anywhere in between?"

THe answer is, based upon what's there, informed by the drafts, probably best explained by ATPollard's description - the stretched rubber band...

Tho' I can't find (or don't recognize) a particular table for determining how far one gets on an attempted jumps.

I've argued against the wave-function collapse model since it first cropped up. I much prefer the parabola through J-Space (Which, coincidentally, doesn't use the jump-line). And the parabola model also avoids most of the entanglement issues with intervening bodies. It's simpler, easier to rule as a GM, and makes for a better universe to play in.

The Jumpline model does restrict the utility of hop and skip drives, but at a strong price for jump drives. It also should result in major systems trade ships being million ton monsters or more - less to track. And if long cylinders, they should block less....

And to Vladika: Quantum Physics is strongly grounded in experimental models. Wave Function Collapse is the only way to explain the behavior of wavicles (particles that have wavelike function, namely photons and electrons), and is widely accepted, because it's the best fit to the data.

And T5 is playable out of the RAW. Doesn't make for a familiar TU, but it is playable. I've seen unplayable games - key chunks missing, etcetera; they're bloody rare, and I've seen difficult to play, which is more common. (I've about 20 milk crates filled with RPG materials, and have played and run most of them - hundreds of games.)

 

[captainjack]

(I've about 20 milk crates filled with RPG materials, and have played and run most of them - hundreds of games.)

....and it would seem that you are storing them in my garage......

 

[HG_B]

THe answer is, based upon what's there, informed by the drafts, probably best explained by ATPollard's description - the stretched rubber band...

Except, that doesn't work for anything above the quantum realm. Based on what IS in the rule book, it needs to be errata'd to be understandable.

 

[atpollard]

Except, that doesn't work for anything above the quantum realm. Based on what IS in the rule book, it needs to be errata'd to be understandable.

... and Jump-Physics, apparently.
[The point being that one can only resort to real physics so far when describing imaginary concepts like FTL travel and reactionless drives.]

 

[SanDragon]

My view of Jumpspace was also paraboloic...

 

[Bloo]

And thus the true dread secret of jump travel is revealed...
Every time you precipitate into real space it's the next reality along, not yours.

That's what John Scalzi does in his Old Man's War books.

Did I miss something detailing Jump Parabolas? This is intriguing.

 

[aramis]

That's what John Scalzi does in his Old Man's War books.

Did I miss something detailing Jump Parabolas? This is intriguing.

It was the common interpretation amongst the Alaskan GM's and Players in the 90's. I think it was grounded in SSOM, but I'd have to reread to be certain.

Anyway, the idea is that Jump travel is a kind of parabolic course that misses bodies in between, and only the entry and exit points are affected by gravity wells; you "fall through jumpspace" on that parabolic course and can't do a thing about it.

In other words, a perfect fit to the mechanics in CT and MT, but not (based upon the JTAS Jumpspace article by MWM) in line with what Marc intended. T5 builds upon that article, not upon the extrapolations from the CT/MT rules.

 

[Bloo]

It was the common interpretation amongst the Alaskan GM's and Players in the 90's. I think it was grounded in SSOM, but I'd have to reread to be certain.

Anyway, the idea is that Jump travel is a kind of parabolic course that misses bodies in between, and only the entry and exit points are affected by gravity wells; you "fall through jumpspace" on that parabolic course and can't do a thing about it.

In other words, a perfect fit to the mechanics in CT and MT, but not (based upon the JTAS Jumpspace article by MWM) in line with what Marc intended. T5 builds upon that article, not upon the extrapolations from the CT/MT rules.

I've forgotten most of the TML discussions from then other than general feelings about conclusions or that some things are problematic (pirates economically unviable, near-C kinetic kill things, bb clouds, etc.)

Thanks. You knocked the dust out - though I was vaguely hoping for some awesome new thing with diagrams and stuff.

 

[HG_B]

... and Jump-Physics, apparently.
[The point being that one can only resort to real physics so far when describing imaginary concepts like FTL travel and reactionless drives.]

If Jump physics is unique, don't use real world quantum mechanics to try and describe it then. Agreed. Thus, there is no "snap back" as described because of quantum mechanics. I agree.

 

[SpaceBadger]

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.

Except that I believe it was described as a quantum event; a ship doesn't actually "travel" in jump, it just disappears from point A and reappears at point B (if all goes well). The transition takes approx. one week, but there is no "movement" during that week in jumpspace; the ship is a quantum particle of indeterminate location.

The "blocking" then simply interferes w the transition, causing that quantum particle to come out of jump back at point A (origin) rather than point B (intended destination).

I can kinda understand that, but I cannot fathom why Marc would want it to work that way. It certainly will not work that way in any game that I run!

If so, heavy shipping lanes near a planet will be total chaos as large freighters constantly pull back smaller ships.

Agreed, and that is one reason why it will never work that way IMTU.

 

[SpaceBadger]

Marc's mind? Great, then whatever I can't find in the T5 Mega-tome, I can read in Marc's mind! Aren't psionics great! :rofl:

:rofl:

 

[HG_B]

Except that I believe it was described as a quantum event; a ship doesn't actually "travel" in jump, it just disappears from point A and reappears at point B (if all goes well). The transition takes approx. one week, but there is no "movement" during that week in jumpspace; the ship is a quantum particle of indeterminate location.

The "blocking" then simply interferes w the transition, causing that quantum particle to come out of jump back at point A (origin) rather than point B (intended destination).

I can kinda understand that, but I cannot fathom why Marc would want it to work that way. It certainly will not work that way in any game that I run!



Agreed, and that is one reason why it will never work that way IMTU.

Yeah, I think aramis' mention of a parabolic situation would be the best & easiest.

 

[SpaceBadger]

I've argued against the wave-function collapse model since it first cropped up. I much prefer the parabola through J-Space (Which, coincidentally, doesn't use the jump-line). And the parabola model also avoids most of the entanglement issues with intervening bodies. It's simpler, easier to rule as a GM, and makes for a better universe to play in.

Aramis, could you please either restate or link to an explanation of the parabola paradigm for jump travel? (I ran an advanced search for any of your posts w terms jump and parabola; found some references to it but nothing that really explained what it is.)

Thanks!



Edit: After I posted this I saw your brief explanation above. Still not sure I get it, but no need to repeat unless you have more to add.

 

[HG_B]

Aramis, could you please either restate or link to an explanation of the parabola paradigm for jump travel? (I ran an advanced search for any of your posts w terms jump and parabola; found some references to it but nothing that really explained what it is.)

Thanks!



Edit: After I posted this I saw your brief explanation above. Still not sure I get it, but no need to repeat unless you have more to add.

Here's a link of sorts http://forum.rpg.net/archive/index.php/t-313683.html

I always rationalised it that you kind of launched yourself into Jumpspace and then sort of fell back out in to real space. Just like the way a shell from a gun follows a parabola, with gravity pulling it back to earth, a ship in jumpspace launches itself in a 5 dimensional course and 'falls back to realspace'. This means that J2 takes just as long as J1 because even though it's twice as far, you have to launch off with twice (or some other function) as much energy to get there. Accordingly, you can't do a J1 twice as fast as a J2 jump because if you launch with J2 energy you'll just go deeper into jumpspace than you need to, and will in fact take longer.

Wow. I almost convinced myself

Also, I rationalised that each increased in jump distance gave diminishing returns. By the time you get to J6 you're up against some absolute limit, beyond which you'd rapidly approach infinite launch energy to go further.

 

[Murdoc]

I always rationalised it that you kind of launched yourself into Jumpspace and then sort of fell back out in to real space. Just like the way a shell from a gun follows a parabola, with gravity pulling it back to earth, a ship in jumpspace launches itself in a 5 dimensional course and 'falls back to realspace'. This means that J2 takes just as long as J1 because even though it's twice as far, you have to launch off with twice (or some other function) as much energy to get there. Accordingly, you can't do a J1 twice as fast as a J2 jump because if you launch with J2 energy you'll just go deeper into jumpspace than you need to, and will in fact take longer.

Yes, I like the parabola model better as well, for all the aforementioned reasons. And this is a good analogy. Or you could use a pendulum perhaps.

Also, I rationalised that each increased in jump distance gave diminishing returns. By the time you get to J6 you're up against some absolute limit, beyond which you'd rapidly approach infinite launch energy to go further.

Now in T5 we don't need that, since you can get to jump 9, but it just gets increasingly impractical, especially considering hop and other future drives.

 

[esampson]

At the risk of throwing fuel onto the fire;

Ships accidentally causing other ships to precipitate from J-Space is probably pretty much a non-issue. Even in the case of gargantuan battleships mentioned earlier the range was around 11 km. 800,000 km out from an Earth sized body the odds of that kind of intersection is vanishingly small. Could it happen? Sure, but you're probably more likely to have the engine of your car spontaneously explode because of catastrophic failure when you try to start it. The odds of such an occurrence are real but so small that it doesn't prevent anyone from driving a car.

Deliberately 'stepping on someone's tail' though may be much more of an issue. Forget about try to figure out where they were headed and plotting an intercept. Using the logic that any disturbance along the course during the 168 or so hours the ship is in J-Space the aforementioned battleship simply needs to move to a distance of less than 11 km from where the ship departed. No matter what path the ship took it had to pass 'through' that space.

My guess is that the idea of stepping on someone's tail was deliberately left out of the final printing. Yeah, you can argue that its inclusion in the Beta showed how Marc was thinking, but I can argue its exclusion from the final rules shows he decided against it.

What I'm curious about, though, is the 100D rule. Why should it matter how far away you are from a body, other than the gravitational effect of that body? My assumption (and this is just me. YMMV) is that 100D is really just a convenient shorthand for 'gravitational influence has to be below .000025 Gs', which would be the gravitational influence you would be under 100D away from an Earthlike planet.