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Jumpspace, its not just for breakfast

R

Ran

SOC-10
Hello all,

A long time ago I played the Megatraveller PC game. Since retaining some fond memories of that I picked up the Mongoose Traveller book from my local Barnes and Noble for nostalgia sake.

Turns out, pen and paper Traveller is awesome.

But I have some questions about Jumpspace.
When a spacecraft enters jump space, everyone just kinda hangs around for a week inside the ship (of which is inside a bubble of boiling hydrogen)?
Also, what do they eat inside the bubble? I don't see a mess hall in the deck layouts.

What happens when you eject while in the bubble? Does the tender/escape bubble get incinerated by the hydrogen?

Lastly what is the largest dTon a ship gets?
 
Welcome to PnP Traveller!

I've always considered Traveller's official setting material (including descriptions of jumpspace, etc.) to be open to interpretation, subject to players' and referees' preferences. Nonetheless, the generally accepted description of jumpdrive as presented in the books is here - one of several Traveller library data websites.

My interpretation of the official material? I would suggest that the integrity of the "lanthanum hull grid", which guides the ship through jumpspace, depends on no breach or interruption in the hull surface, such as an open or ejected hatch. If the grid's integrity is disrupted, the ship would be torn apart instantly by jumpspace vortices (or something like that). The system would obviously be designed to prevent anyone from disrupting the grid (by opening a hatch, for example), but a suicidal saboteur with sufficient engineering or computer skill might find a way to override the safeguards...

If there's no galley labelled on the deckplans, look for a "common area" or something like that. If no such area exists, there could be a small "autochef" device which stores, refrigerates and dispenses pre-packaged meal substitutes. Not very luxurious, I agree.

For what it's worth, roleplayers should be willing to interpret all aspects of an RPG as they see fit. If a particular detail or description is missing or doesen't fit with your preferences, make one up!
 
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Yes different interpretations of Jump space exist, but they generally agree that Jumpspace is another dimension. Some say a 'folded' dimension, hence its apparent two-dimensionality. You can't communicate to or from Jumpspace because that little bubble of reality created by your drive is all that exists in your particular Pocket Universe. If you eject from a ship in Jump, you cease to exist.

No great shakes, if you leave the confines of a Jumbo jet mid-flight, or the QE2 mid-Atlantic you're gonna die too. Death is just more certain in Jumpspace. :toast:
 
Indeed You have about a week in JumpSpace to do things - keep a few systems of the ship running, maintenance and such - but some shipboard life, too. Time for some personal plot development or the occasional closed room murder mystery (hey, it probably can't get any more closed than on a starship). And if there is no galley there will be some kind of common room - or at least the crew will think of designating one to meet in.

According to most sources You cannot leve the ship (not to mention eject) while in jumpspace - should You leave the protective hydrogen bubble You are gone. Really.
It is up to You to decide what JumpSpace (actually the inside of the hydrogen bubble) looks like - will it be a dull gray, will it be chaotic patterns in colours nearly beyond normal vision? Will it be unsettling (but safe - jumpdrives exist for thousands of years) to watch, soothing - or bland?
And it is up to You to decide if one can leave the ship while in jumpspace, staying close to the hull in a vaccsuit - between hull and the hydrogen bubble, always in danger of meeting instant oblivion if one passes the treshold. In our Traveller universe one simply cannot leave the ship in jumpspace. Should You force the outer airlock doors open You will be very close to the hydrogen bubble, leaving absolutely no space between hull and bubble. But at least You won't destroy the ship either in our universe should You do so, the Lanthanum grid only needs a certain amout of integrity and can easily cope with an open airlock (otherwise ships might have even more difficulties with battle damage).

The largest ships - I faintly recall something along the lines of 1.000.000 dtons BUT actually there is no real limit other than common sense: ships that size are simply too large to be useful. If You have a huge ship with a large spinal mount weapon, numerous bay weapons and batteries of turrets, armour thick as a planet and engines to move swiftly around, legions of troops and everything else that Traveller might offer - You will do nicely with a much, much smaller ship already. No need to go larger unless You want to add even more turrets to the already overkill ship.
For a normal Pen'n'Paper group You won't need ships of that size - the ships Your player characters run are usually much smaller to keep the neccessary amount of organization and logistics manageable. And for ships of that size You will always be able to find '(too) dangerous encounters' just a few dtons larger, better armed or better armoured - or military in design (OK, do not forget about speed and good electronics ;) ).

Hope You'll enjoy the game!
 
Rraurgrimm said:
Indeed You have about a week in JumpSpace to do things . . .
Click to expand...


Chat up the prettiest girl on board.
Help recapture the escaped live cargo.
Study up for your licensing exams.
Fleece your shipmates at the card table.
Come up with wonderfully inventive activities to fight the boredom that sound terribly dangerous to groundpounders.
 
Thanks for the replies!

I guess jumpspace could be handled relevant to the TL the jump drive was built at. A TL9 drive being instant vaporization for any hull disturbance and a TL15 drive creates a relatively 'safe' vacuum for the ship to operate in. I like that variance.
It's the safety difference between either 'flying' in a fully fueled Pinto and a ramp... or a Boeing 747.

And though it's unlikely to ever see use as a PC vessel, I'd like to see the real "Flag Ships" as mammoth (1M-Holycow dTon) vessels that may eclipse the sun in low orbit. I just didn't know if there was "canon" rules for their construction.

Nothing like saying "hello" by blotting out the sun. :rofl:
 
Well, 1M dton really isn't that big ;) A sphere that size is only about 295m in diameter. It'll cast a big shadow (not from orbit though) but won't be much of an eclipse event even near the ground. A flattened sphere (flying saucer) will be a bit bigger around (depending how thick it is) and look much bigger for it. Of course even a 295m sphere just hanging there in the sky is still pretty impressive.
 
Ran said:
Turns out, pen and paper Traveller is awesome.

[...]

Lastly what is the largest dTon a ship gets?
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's encouraging to hear.

There is no upper limit to ship size. Death star? No problem... refueling may be a pain, but go for it.

There is an early adventure (Fate of the Sky Raiders, by FASA) which features a TL9 jump-capable planetoid ship displacing something like fifty billion tons.
 
The ship size will depend partly on which system you use to build it, however. If you are a CT LBB afficianado like me, and you happen to use LBB2, you will hit a limit of 5,000dT. However, I think everything from LBB5 on had no absolute upper limit.

(We just started a voice chat game with a ship of 75,000 dT. It looks huge, until you factor in how much of it is fuel. :p )
 
LBB5 has a hard limit: a model 9 computer can only handle a 1,000,000 Td ship.
 
Hmm, let's see now, how to be delicate about this.....

I would bet, heavily, that in the traveller universe there are people, mostly young, attractive ones, mostly but not always female, who make decent livings as "traveling companions" for older, or at least wealthy, people, mostly but not all male.

The "traveling companion" would basically earn her/his or even their money seeing to it that the wealthy traveller didn't find his/her week in jump to be dull.

In fact, some agencies might ever arrange "cruises" where the main attraction are the traveling companions, and the staterooms might, for an extra fee, be furnished with a variety of.....furnishings to the customer's taste. Such furnishing could include lots of black leather in various forms.
 
The largest ship I have seen in CT is the 500,000 dton spherical Tigress class Dreadnaughts... described in supplement 9 as "the largest line-of-battle vessel currently in service with the Imperial Navy in the Spinward Marches.


As for the limit a model 9 comp can handle... ever hear of a parallel-processing network?

It allows two (or more) processors to be linked in a "side-by-side" network (in terms of their functioning).

Such systems can handle active data-processing and programs greater than each processor could by itself... and to do it nearly as fast as one could handle a normal-sized program.


Thus, two model 9s linked in parallel could likely handle a ship displacing up to 1,414,214 dtons, with 3 handling 1,732,050 dtons, and 4 an even 2,000,000 dtons (guess my formula).
 
aramis said:
LBB5 has a hard limit: a model 9 computer can only handle a 1,000,000 Td ship.
Click to expand...

Said rule can of course be bent within the rules by using drop tanks for the jump fuel and external mounts for all the carried subcraft. So a 1Mdton Tender with however much jump fuel it needs in drop tanks (retained of course) and as many super large external craft as you can fit on. I'd guess 2Mdton wouldn't be impossible within the letter of the rules ;)

EDIT: Seems I was misremembering as well (or confusing HG with T20?). I was going to go see how big a ship could be built and found that a 1Mdton ship only requires a model/7 computer as a minimum. The model/7, model/8 and model/9 presumably can run any size ship of 1Mdton and larger. By the rules.
 
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far-trader said:
Seems I was misremembering as well (or confusing HG with T20?). I was going to go see how big a ship could be built and found that a 1Mdton ship only requires a model/7 computer as a minimum. The model/7, model/8 and model/9 presumably can run any size ship of 1Mdton and larger. By the rules.
Click to expand...

That's what my copy says, too. Size Y is 1,000,000+ tons and requires a Model/7 minimum.
 
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