Jump Tech.

[Keklas Rekobah]

I recently tried extrapolating Marc Miller's original Drive Potential table from LBB2p22, and found it to quickly become unwieldy (e.g., couldn't fit an A-sized portrait page) after about 1000 tons. The Drive Potential Table from LBB5p23 is certainly easier to work with, but seems more appropriate for military vessels (maybe just my imagination).

I was wondering ... how do you explain this difference to your new players? I went with: "The table from LBB3 is based on old Vilani technology, while the table from LBB5 is based on Solomani technology. The Vilani found it easier to build a lot of ships of 5000 tons or less than try to scale their jump drives well into the multi-kiloton range with diminishing returns on mass versus distance traveled. The Solies, being much more adaptable and innovative, were able to overcome this issue." Or something like that.

So, IMTU, if a character happens to purchase a surplus military vessel, they'll likely get one with a 'Solie' drive installed; but if they purchase a vessel with jump drives A through Z installed, it is more likely to be of a more traditional Vilani manufacture.

What do you think?

 

[kilemall]

I recently tried extrapolating Marc Miller's original Drive Potential table from LBB2p22, and found it to quickly become unwieldy (e.g., couldn't fit an A-sized portrait page) after about 1000 tons. The Drive Potential Table from LBB5p23 is certainly easier to work with, but seems more appropriate for military vessels (maybe just my imagination).

I was wondering ... how do you explain this difference to your new players? I went with: "The table from LBB3 is based on old Vilani technology, while the table from LBB5 is based on Solomani technology. The Vilani found it easier to build a lot of ships of 5000 tons or less than try to scale their jump drives well into the multi-kiloton range with diminishing returns on mass versus distance traveled. The Solies, being much more adaptable and innovative, were able to overcome this issue." Or something like that.

So, IMTU, if a character happens to purchase a surplus military vessel, they'll likely get one with a 'Solie' drive installed; but if they purchase a vessel with jump drives A through Z installed, it is more likely to be of a more traditional Vilani manufacture.

What do you think?

That's OTU stuff.

IMTU the A-Z are standardized designs, widely copied and supported, HG drives are custom and require more tailored support, among other things the same or higher TL.

Kind of the difference between an ALCO or EMD diesel engine and a massive container ship/carrier engine.

 

[robject]

IMTU the A-Z are standardized designs, widely copied and supported, HG drives are custom and require more tailored support, among other things the same or higher TL.

Kind of the difference between an ALCO or EMD diesel engine and a massive container ship/carrier engine.

That's a useful explanation.

Mine is different but similar in some ways. The HG drives are stripped down essential drive cores, suitable for specialist and military use. Book2-like drives have that extra jump control module (5 tons overhead!) that provides tools and governors for operation by the less skilled (a "civilian" pejorative misnomer).

 

[kilemall]

That's a useful explanation.

Mine is different but similar in some ways. The HG drives are stripped down essential drive cores, suitable for specialist and military use. Book2-like drives have that extra jump control module (5 tons overhead!) that provides tools and governors for operation by the less skilled (a "civilian" pejorative misnomer).

I'll use that, perfect explanation for what makes a standardized engineering component vs. custom. Thanks!

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

... The HG drives are stripped down essential drive cores, suitable for specialist and military use. Book2-like drives have that extra jump control module (5 tons overhead!) that provides tools and governors for operation by the less skilled (a "civilian" pejorative misnomer).

Even better, and it doesn't conflict with my explanation.

 

[McPerth]

I just see one (relative) flaw to this explanation:

Imagine we want to give a ship J4 capability.

Tonnage	LBB Drive	Tons	Cost	HG tons	HG cost
400	H	45	80	20	80
800	R	85	160	40	160
1000	V	105	200	50	200
2000	Y	120	230	100	400

So, up to 1000 dtons, the Price is the same, but the tonnage is quite smaller. Who would use standarized drives under those conditions?

The main advantage of standarized designs should be the Price, even if the cost is more tonnage used...

 

[Ulsyus]

So, IMTU, if a character happens to purchase a surplus military vessel, they'll likely get one with a 'Solie' drive installed; but if they purchase a vessel with jump drives A through Z installed, it is more likely to be of a more traditional Vilani manufacture.

What do you think?

So is there a price benefit to purchasing what is effectively an off-the-shelf drive module from a Vilani corp? If not, what's the benefit of going with one of those units rather than the more adapted Solie drives? Reliability? Servicing and parts? H&C laid on at the party thrown by the salesman when the drive's bought?

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

... The main advantage of standardized designs should be the Price, even if the cost is more tonnage used...

I see the main advantage of a standardized (LBB2) design as having off-the-shelf parts available in just about every Class A or Class B starport, while the more custom-built (LBB5) designs would require equally custom-made parts that would either have to be fabricated on the spot or ordered from far, far away.

Whatever, right? This started out as an attempt to expand on the LBB2 Drive Potential table, so let me throw this in for your amusement:

DRIVE POTENTIAL (Civilian / Commercial)

Hull  <----- J-Drive, M-Drive, or P-Plant Type ----->  Build
Tons  A B C D E F G H J K L M N P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  Time:
 100  2 4 6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   10
 200  1 2 3 4 5 6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   12
 300* 1 1 2 3 3 4 5 5 6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   14*
 400  - 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 - - - - - - - - - - -   16
 500* - 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 6 6 6 - - - - - - - -   20*
 600  - - 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 - - - -   24
 700* - - 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 -   26*
 800  - - - 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 5 6 6 6   28
1000  - - - - 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 5 6 6 6   30
2000  - - - - - - - - 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 4 6   32
3000  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 4   34
4000  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 1 1 2 3   35
5000  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 1 1 2   36

* - Non-canonical values, interpolated from canonical values.

As you can see, there are 3 tonnages that were not in the original material. There is also a hint of diminishing returns, as if there is a point beyond the table where installing a larger j-drive to go farther would only 'burn' more fuel and take up more room.

I wish I could see M.Miller's original notes on this.

 

[mike wightman]

I would disagree with some of your drive interpolations. When I did this very same task many years ago I used a drive potential that I calculated by looking at the performance of drives in hulls around the missing hull tonnage and then used simple ratios - rounding down

A type A drive can shift a 100t ship at 2, a 200t ship at 1 - therefore it has drive potential 200 and will will not move a 300t ships.
A D drive grants a 200t ship drive 4 - it should give a potential for a 100t ship of 8 and so has a drive potential of 800 - 8/3 is 2 rounding down.

The 3I uses the HG drive paradigm, you can not really rationalise the letter drive and TL progression of the LBB:1-3 drives with the 3I (even though I have my own hand wave for it too ).

 

[infojunky]

I was wondering ... how do you explain this difference to your new players?

Honestly, I don't. In nearly 40 years of running and playing the game it has never come up in play.

Also Note that he the largest ship that was ever in constant play in those games was a 3000 ton J2 Freighter, Which I believe was done up under Book 2 rules.

On a textual Analysis basis comparing and contrasting Both earlier editions of Book2 the general rule of the Letter coded drives is each Letter is a increment of 200 tons worth of performance. With the lower cut off of performance is rating of 1. The larger drives in the larger hulls use a differing rounding threshold, Notably is looks as if the performance rating is chosen instead of calculated.

A final note, there is a scale difference between Book 2 and High Guard, which is fundamental in the thought guiding the writing of the rules. Book 2 is focused on ships between 200 and 2000 tons while High Guard has a focus on ships larger than that. While there is overlap, functionally neither rules set works very well out of their core ranges.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

The differences between AZ and HG drive potentials are not game-crashers by any means. I'm just curious about what in-game hand-waves might be used to explain those differences, and how the two tables were generated.

In the USN, we had a saying: "Press the 'I believe' button". It meant that even if you don't understand how something works (microwave diplexers and bifurcated waveguides, for example), you just follow the procedures in the manual, apply power, and make sure that the system is tuned to "Minimum Smoke". In other words, you do the 'what' without needing to understand the 'why', and everything just works - that's all.

Now that I'm not actively playing or refereeing Traveller, these little details have become a focus for my attention.

 

[infojunky]

The differences between AZ and HG drive potentials are not game-crashers by any means. I'm just curious about what in-game hand-waves might be used to explain those differences, and how the two tables were generated.

The honest truth to my indifference lies in the number of editions of Traveller. My crowd has played nearly every edition of the game, as such basic performance characteristics rather than the specific details of the bits has been the most important.

In the USN, we had a saying: "Press the 'I believe' button". It meant that even if you don't understand how something works (microwave diplexers and bifurcated waveguides, for example), you just follow the procedures in the manual, apply power, and make sure that the system is tuned to "Minimum Smoke". In other words, you do the 'what' without needing to understand the 'why', and everything just works - that's all.

Man, we were in totally different Navies then. Actually, we probably were, in that in Litoral Navy the entire crew had a good idea of how all the parts worked. But there is a huge difference between a crew of 5 to 10 on a boat to the 100's+ on most Blue Water vessels.

Now that I'm not actively playing or refereeing Traveller, these little details have become a focus for my attention.

I get that, with the release of MgT I went back to CT and started dissecting all the crunchy bits. It's just that the demarcation line between Bk2 and HG is too clear for me to ignore, in that Bk2 ship combat and HG Fleet combat systems have such different foci that their associated design systems don't have easily available conversion tables. Well at least going from HG into Bk2 terms.

 

[Carlobrand]

The handwave only becomes problematic as you approach 1000 dT or high performance. For the most part, the only ships the players have intimate experience with are going to be the little 200-400 dT ships with short jump ranges and low-G drives, which is precisely the range in which High Guard fails, at least in terms of merchant craft. I grandfathered in the A-B-C-D drives and plants, call them alternate tech - they're usually cheaper but bigger, the plants are low efficiency and draw more fuel - and limit jump performance to jump-2. I did some IMTU tweaks as well, but that for elsewhere. Everything above that got dumped and the ships based on the E+ drives are converted to High Guard; players only ever saw those at a distance anyway, so it didn't matter.