Jump Projector

[JAFARR]

This weapon is listed at TL 21 as a spinal mount for MT. Any ideas how it works?

 

[mike wightman]

If it hits and penetrates defenses it causes the target ship to undergo a misjump.

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm - can't find the stats for the jump damper.

I wonder if the spinal mount weapon serves as both offensive weapon and screen?

Or am I being thick and can't find it in errata?

 

[JAFARR]

If it hits and penetrates defenses it causes the target ship to undergo a misjump.

But, (1) does the target have to be jumping?
(2) does the target have to have fuel to expend?

I was thinking of possibly have an old Ancients site have one as an automatic defense and wondered how to administrate it. Most important - can it be set to send the target to a specific location or would it just cause a micro jump and just make it go away for the week?

 

[far-trader]

I seem to recall it being described as sending the target into jumpspace, independent of the target's ability or desire to be in jumpspace. In other words, it's a clean killer. Target goes into jumpspace and is obliterated as it isn't prepared or able to protect itself from raw interaction with jumpspace.

If it's for use against PC's as a bit of referee Deus Ex Machina I'd maybe allow a small window where they detect that a jump field is forming and give them a chance to scramble a jump of their own (with sufficient fuel, but no need for the jump drive powerup, just like jumping using the energy stored in a black globe to initiate the jump) and by the skin of their hull manage to safely (relatively speaking) misjump.

As for a controlled jump, the basic weapon doesn't have that ability as I recall it. An Ancient or other alien device might have though. Make it up, have fun

EDIT: Oops, sorry, your questions slipped away from me. No the target doesn't have to be jumping, or even jump capable as I recall. And no it doesn't need to have sufficient or any jump fuel, again as I recall.

 

[aramis]

But, (1) does the target have to be jumping?
(2) does the target have to have fuel to expend?

I was thinking of possibly have an old Ancients site have one as an automatic defense and wondered how to administrate it. Most important - can it be set to send the target to a specific location or would it just cause a micro jump and just make it go away for the week?

Jump Projectors cause a misjump in the target.
Jump dampers prevent jumping.
(MT RM 69)
The effect does not require any preconditions... but a damper is pretty useless unless either someone is shooting a projector at it, or it's trying to jump on it's own

 

[mike wightman]

Anyone managed to find the stats for the jump damper yet?

 

[mike wightman]

But, (1) does the target have to be jumping?

No, the target can be anything a ship can use a spinal weapon on.

(2) does the target have to have fuel to expend?

Nope - the target is forced into jumpspace.

Now this could be considered an auto-kill, or a kindly ref may allow a jump drive equipped ship to fire up its jump engine in an attempt to survive.

I was thinking of possibly have an old Ancients site have one as an automatic defense and wondered how to administrate it. Most important - can it be set to send the target to a specific location or would it just cause a micro jump and just make it go away for the week?

Hmm, now this is the really interesting question.

By the rules the target is subjected to a misjump - d6xd6 parsecs in a random direction for a random time..

But at really high TLs (JP is TL21 - Ancients were up to TL35 IIRC) I wonder if the ancients could have fine tuned the jump projector to allow just what you suggest - pick the length of the jump and time in jumpspace.

 

[aramis]

Misjump, in MT, means a random jump. A successful hit/pen with a Jump Projector is going to cause a misjump (a specific form of jump mishap, causing the misjumping vessel to go (1d6)d6 Pc in a random direction.). Defense is a jump damper.
Back of the Ref's manual.

Jump Dampers are on MT RM p72; bay weapons. (50 and 100Td, TL21, factors 1 and 2, 100 or 200 GW, MCr120 or 200)
Jump Projectors are on MT RM p71; spinal weapons. (4074 and 7037Td, Factors A & B, 40 or 70 HP, MCr1000 or MCr1200, 8 or 9.5 TW)

Also buried in there are the tractor rules... 10000G-Tons per factor, measuring mass, not displacement, but that roughly works out to 1000G-Td per factor.

 

[Swiftbrook]

I seem to recall it being described as sending the target into jumpspace, independent of the target's ability or desire to be in jumpspace. In other words, it's a clean killer. Target goes into jumpspace and is obliterated as it isn't prepared or able to protect itself from raw interaction with jumpspace.

I have never thought of it this way, and it doesn't make sense to me. It sends the object/ship into a jump. I look at a jump as creating a small 'tunnel' or 'worm hole' though space/time. The jump projectors create that effect on the target. Now the jump it self doen't harm the target at all, but where the target ends up ....... there is a whole lot of emptyness in space. Roll a misjump and see where they end up.

-Swiftbrook

 

[mike wightman]

Jump Dampers are on MT RM p72; bay weapons. (50 and 100Td, TL21, factors 1 and 2, 100 or 200 GW, MCr120 or 200)

D'Oh

Yep, couldn't see them for looking lol

Thanks Aramis.

 

[mike wightman]

I have never thought of it this way, and it doesn't make sense to me. It sends the object/ship into a jump. I look at a jump as creating a small 'tunnel' or 'worm hole' though space/time. The jump projectors create that effect on the target. Now the jump it self doen't harm the target at all, but where the target ends up ....... there is a whole lot of emptyness in space. Roll a misjump and see where they end up.

-Swiftbrook

I suppose it depends on the nature on jumpspace IYTU.

 

[aramis]

D'Oh

Yep, couldn't see them for looking lol

Thanks Aramis.

Most people try to find the dampers in the screens section, and fail, since they are in Weapons. I did, at first, too.

 

[boomslang]

Now this could be considered an auto-kill, or a kindly ref may allow a jump drive equipped ship to fire up its jump engine in an attempt to survive.


Hmm, now this is the really interesting question.

By the rules the target is subjected to a misjump - d6xd6 parsecs in a random direction for a random time..

But at really high TLs (JP is TL21 - Ancients were up to TL35 IIRC) I wonder if the ancients could have fine tuned the jump projector to allow just what you suggest - pick the length of the jump and time in jumpspace.

I always figured the weaponized Jump Projector is a less-controlled version of a high-TL device -- call it a "Jump Gate" -- that is used, in non-hostile applications, to propel craft on plotted Jumps without using the travelling craft's own Jump Drive or Fuel. In essence, a Jump field is formed outside the hull that houses the machinery, to the benefit/detriment of some other vessel.

For battlefield purposes, you simply increase the range at which the effect is concentrated, do not bother to plot the Jump trajectory, and then omit the mass-equivalent fuel, thus inducing an automatic Misjump upon whatever you are aiming the weapon at. Do not forget that planetary altitude considerations will still apply, in some cases increasing the risk of catastrophic (i.e., "ship destroyed") Misjump results.

The high-TL development of a Jump Drive which can be reconfigured on the fly into a Jump Projector is left as an exercise for the reader...

 

[JAFARR]

Well however it works, it does not appear that I will be able to use it how I wanted. I am going with a mod of the telaporter or what ever it was in Secrets of the Ancients.