new jump fuel

[aramis]

Back to the J0:

I've always assumed J0 drives existed.. because the formula is conviniently extrapolated that far.

I've also always treated max range as Jn+0.5 Pc.

microjumping is canonical if MWM's article on jump masking is canonical. And Jump Fuel Governors are in HG or TCS, but can't get to the books to check right now.

 

[Whipsnade]

Aramis wrote:

"I've always assumed J0 drives existed.. because the formula is conviniently extrapolated that far."


Aramis,

Same here, it's what the Solomani were trying invent after all. I just handwave it by saying that any jump drive; jump0 to jump6, use the 0-1 jump dimension to make microjumps or jump-0 or whatever label you may prefer.

"I've also always treated max range as Jn+0.5 Pc."

Now that is very intriguing!

"microjumping is canonical if MWM's article on jump masking is canonical. And Jump Fuel Governors are in HG or TCS, but can't get to the books to check right now."

It's canonical alright and Mr. Rancke-Madsen says governors show up in HG2. This is just another example of how Traveller doesn't necessarily equate the Third Imperium; one is a RPG system and the other is a RPG setting that requires various modifications to the system.

Traveller-LBB:2, the RPG system, had a starship building system; fixed hull sizes with fixed engineering compartments, upper limit on hull sizes, jump drives designed to efficiently jump only when using their rating and inefficiently using any lesser rating, and so on. Now, look at HG2. It's partially a Third Imperium setting book; the chargen with it's tables setting up the branches of the Imperial Navy, the skills available, the triad of Imperial, colonial, and planetary navies, etc., and partially a Traveller-RPG system book; the much expanded shipbuilding system (although that system uses IN hull prefixes!). The system and setting are all muddled together, something we're not used to thanks to GURPS and d20.

Jump drives in LBB:2 and HG2 don't necessarily equate just as the strict tech levels in LBB:3&6 and Imperial mandated free trade don't necessarily equate.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Andrew Boulton]

This is the way I've always done it:

A, B, C are normal space objects (stars, planets, etc), with their gravity reaching through into jump space. More massive objects extend further into j-space.

A ship jumps from A to C, passing B along the way. Its course through j-space is a curve, J. When it reaches B, it's far enough into j-space to pass "over" it, but as it approaches C it hits the 100d edge of the gravity well, and the ship is precipitated back into n-space.

Only objects close to the entry or exit points will affect the course.

A ship encountering a gravity well on the way into j-space will not be precipitated by it, although it may alter the course (J), causing a misjump.

 

[Whipsnade]

Andrew Boulton wrote:

"This is the way I've always done it: (snip of superb diagram)"


Mr. Boulton,

Yep, me too. Until I re-read Mr. Miller's jump space essay and GT:FT trader came out. I had starships blithely burrowing 'through' moons, planets, stars, and each other while in jump. Limits only mattered at the entry and exit points.

After reviewing the information, I decided Iliked the idea of one-to-one normal to jump space correspondance and all the other baggage associated with jump masking and shadows. I felt it would add to MTU and therefore MTU was changed to include it.

Naturally, if I hadn't liked it, MTU would not have been changed and would still work like YTU. Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe, toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe, MTU, YTU, and the OTU. They're all Traveller and they're all good. The only thing that really matters IYTU is whether you and your players enjoy it or not. Everything else is negotiatable.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[TKalbfus]

After reviewing the information, I decided Iliked the idea of one-to-one normal to jump space correspondance and all the other baggage associated with jump masking and shadows. I felt it would add to MTU and therefore MTU was changed to include it.

Makes it more like warp drive doesn't it? Warp drive has a 1-to-1 normal space correspondence. Its funny what they do to concepts like Hyperspace in SF. Hyperspace is supposed to be a higher dimension, a shortcut through which travel may occur between two widely separated points in normal space. The starship doesn't actually go faster than the speed of light, but takes the shortcut through hyperspace around which normal space is curved. Now normal space is flat, and hyperspace is just a parallel plane that has a higher speed limit than the speed of light, but it is not completely separate from normal space as gravity shadows extend into it. Hyperspace now bears no resemblence to its theoretical origin. This is the Hyperspace used in the Star Wars role playing game, and Traveller Jump space is beginning to resemble Star Wars Hyperspace. So now heres the question: Could a giant solar sail precipitate out a jump drive starship?

 

[Granpafishy]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
Mr. Boulton,

Yep, me too. Until I re-read Mr. Miller's jump space essay and GT:FT trader came out. I had starships blithely burrowing 'through' moons, planets, stars, and each other while in jump. Limits only mattered at the entry and exit points.
Larsen

Is Mr. Miller's essay available any where? I would very much like to read it.

 

[Whipsnade]

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

"Makes it more like warp drive doesn't it? Warp drive has a 1-to-1 normal space correspondence."


Mr. Kalbfus,

Makes it like warp drive? Hardly. In warp you can still see the normal universe around you. In jump, you're outside of the normal universe for 168 hours. The 1-to-1 correspondance here refers to objects in normal space exerting effects into jump space and the relative positions of those jump space effects mirroring the relative positions of the normal space objects. That doesn't mean that two objects 1 AU apart in normal space project effects that are 1 AU apart in jump space.

"Its funny what they do to concepts like Hyperspace in SF. Hyperspace is supposed to be a higher dimension, a shortcut through which travel may occur between two widely separated points in normal space."

Do tell.

"The starship doesn't actually go faster than the speed of light, but takes the shortcut through hyperspace around which normal space is curved."

Really. Just like a short cut through jump space, huh? Who ever said a vessel in jump space actually goes faster than the speed of light? All they do is take a short cut.

"Now normal space is flat, and hyperspace is just a parallel plane that has a higher speed limit than the speed of light, but it is not completely separate from normal space as gravity shadows extend into it."

How interesting. Just like objects in normal space projecting an effect into jump space. I'm amazed no one has ever seen the similarities before.

"Hyperspace now bears no resemblence to its theoretical origin. This is the Hyperspace used in the Star Wars role playing game, and Traveller Jump space is beginning to resemble Star Wars Hyperspace."

I suppose if you've been playing d20 Star Wars and are now playing d20 Traveller the two concepts would look very much alike. Let me ask you about SW's hyperspace; can you see or otherwise monitor normal space while in it? Can you make course corrections; speed and direction, while in it? Can you attack other ships while in it? If the answer to any of those is 'yes', hyperspace and jump space have no more resemblence than apples and oranges.

"So now heres the question: Could a giant solar sail precipitate out a jump drive starship?"

Mr. Miller deliberately avoids any precise parameters regarding that, instead he prefers to leave players wiggle room for their campaigns. The most used rule of thumb is any +1km object of sufficient mass/density will exert a limit and cause precipitation. Mr. Miller also states that any object 'larger' than the vessel in jump can cause precipitation. So, perhaps precipitation could be caused by a large solar sail or Orion Nuclear Pulse Drive ship; a really nifty idea, this Orion spaceship, blasts off from the launch pad using conventional chemical rockets and ascends to a mile in altitude, then it ejects an atomic bomb from it magazine. The bomp has a proximity detonator and explodes once it reaches a certain distance from the spaceship. 4 such bombs are ejected and detonated every second, a giant piston separating a pusher plate from the rest of the spaceship smooths out the bumps.

I guess it all depends on whether the adventure needs the ship to precipitate. It's your call.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Granpafishy]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
I suppose if you've been playing d20 Star Wars and are now playing d20 Traveller the two concepts would look very much alike. Let me ask you about SW's hyperspace; can you see or otherwise monitor normal space while in it? Can you make course corrections; speed and direction, while in it? Can you attack other ships while in it? If the answer to any of those is 'yes', hyperspace and jump space have no more resemblence than apples and oranges.

Sincerely,
Larsen

I don't know about the D20 version, but in the WEG version, the answer to all the above questions is no. So in that respect, it is very similar to the Traveller Jump Space.

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Larsen E. Whipsnade:
It's canonical alright and Mr. Rancke-Madsen says governors show up in HG2.

Jump governors were in HG1. They were completely eliminated in HG2.

Consequently, in "official" CT (i.e. Bk2 v2 and Bk5 v2) there are no jump governors.

Traveller-LBB:2, the RPG system, had a starship building system; fixed hull sizes with fixed engineering compartments, upper limit on hull sizes, jump drives designed to efficiently jump only when using their rating and inefficiently using any lesser rating, and so on.

I don't have Bk2 v1. But I do have Bk2 v2 in the reprints and I do have the Traveller Book. Both of those books specifically state that jump fuel usage is proportional to the jump made. For example, if I have a 200 dton ship with a J3 drive, I will use 20 dton fuel for a jump 1, 40 dton fuel for a jump 2, or 60 dton fuel for a jump 3.

So, for Bk2 v2 and Bk5 v2 (and GT and T20, for that matter), all jump drives are efficient. (Assuming you can call anything that uses that much hydrogen "efficient".)

Inefficiency was only introduced in MT, were fuel usage was no longer proportional.

[Edit] Oops, forgot the standard disclaimer: this is all OTU. Do whatever you want in YTU.

 

[TheDS]

MT, TNE, and I thought T4 had no mention at all of "jump masking", so imagine my surprise when seeing it in GT:FT! I don't recall seeing anything about it in (what few) CT materials I have either.

I've made a couple analyses in the past about jump drive, based on what I've read, and the initial impressions I got from it from MT (my first Traveller). I won't post those humongous things, but a little of what I recall:

Jumps take a week. This allows merchants to jump to another system, land, swap around their goods/cargoes, and jump out on a 2-week schedule.

Jump can be entered at ANY point, but the closer you are to gravity well, the greater your chances of misjump.

Jump corresponds to 36 dimensions, all of which take 1 week to transit through. Even the lowliest jump drive is capable of accessing J36, leading one to wonder if he should explore the possibilities of a "misjump" drive. Jump close to gravity wells, use lowsy fuel, don't compute your course fully... maybe you'll go really far!

No one can reach you while in jump space. Unless there are some critters living there, an idea put forth in some book (SOM, maybe?)

Jumps require a lot of fuel. SOM (Starship Operator's Manual) says most of that fuel is ballast, released during jump to maintain the jump bubble. It carries that, to use less fuel on a shorter jump, lower J-levels are less energetic, which also explains why it's harder to get to higher ones. Higher techs shouldn't require all that much less fuel for a particular jump; antimatter doesn't help. The initial opening of the hole doesn't require so much energy that you're burning all that fuel; it would take YEARS to burn all that in a reactor! So therefore, higher tech doesn't get you much if any fuel savings.

Wormholes need not go STRAIGHT. That's what you're in, a wormhole. Who says it's a staight line? (Oh, MM does, NOW.)

So you start fiddling with all these rules, and pretty soon, the 3I doesn't look a THING like it's been described. Jump masking is a common occurrance; there's not going to be a lot of traffic that can accommodate the 2 week schedule. It's not often that you can do 8-day jumps, for that matter (1 day for wilderness refueling). Survival Margin's maps about the spread of the news start to look very implausible.

So to keep the flavor of the game (excepting the ridiculous 60% fuel requirements that everyone hated in CT), we have to have a solution that caters to what we know.

Imagine you're on the inside of a tube-world (like, one that's 1000 miles in diameter). You can get to the other side by walking there, but it takes a while. You can fly, taking less time, because the resistance of air is less and less the higher you go, and the distance is shorter too. With a good enough craft, you can take the most direct route. That route never gets shorter than that particular distance. You can travel at any speed you like.

Jump is somewhat the same way. On the ground, that's normal space. You don't even have a car, so it's going to take some time to get to the other side. Going "up" in altitude gets you to higher and higher levels of jumpspace. Going straight across would be J36. You can't get any faster than that.

If we listen to modern theory (the one that says we have 10 dimensions), Jumpspace cannot be a multitude of dimensions. Instead, it is a single dimension with 36 quanta. You usually enter only the quanta you specify. Your existence there is limited to a single week (give or take 10-20%), after which you must be ejected.

On the one hand, this supposes that you may have to fly around "mountains", but on the other, who's to say there ARE mountains to fly around?

Anyway, hopefully I didn't meander too much... wouldn't want anyone to think I was a wormhole...

 

[Whipsnade]

TheDS wrote:

"MT, TNE, and I thought T4 had no mention at all of "jump masking", so imagine my surprise when seeing it in GT:FT! I don't recall seeing anything about it in (what few) CT materials I have either."


DS,

Actually it is, it just isn't called 'jump masking'.

As you noted, you can try and *enter* jump anywhere. However, the further you are within the 100D limit, the better your chances for a misjump.

Now look at what is written about *exiting* jump space. Can you exit at 1D? 10D? Nope, it is always 100D. In fact your ship will be precipitated out of jump space at 100D whether you want it to or not. The places this is written in usually add something like this being a mechanism to avoid 'reappearing inside a object'.

So, we have this mechanism that precipitates your vessel out of jump at 100D no matter what course you have plotted. It doesn't matter if you aren't anywhere near your plotted exit point, you've hit a 100D limit and you're coming out at the end of 168 hours. This was always there, from CT to TNE. GT:FT just put it all in one place, that's all.

"Jump corresponds to 36 dimensions, all of which take 1 week to transit through. Even the lowliest jump drive is capable of accessing J36, leading one to wonder if he should explore the possibilities of a "misjump" drive."

An intriguing thought, isn't it. Foul up with the lowliest jump drive and you can giddy-up 36 parsecs! There's just *got* to be a way to work it out!

"Wormholes need not go STRAIGHT. That's what you're in, a wormhole. Who says it's a staight line? (Oh, MM does, NOW.)"

Who ever said you're in a wormhole? You're in a jump dimension. Hell, you yourself referred to the 36 jump dimensions in the paragraph above. Where does the obligatory Star Blecch Plot Device; aka a wormhole, come into it? And who says it's a straight line *in jump space*? All Mr. Miller says is that is corresponds to a straight line in normal space.

"So you start fiddling with all these rules, and pretty soon, the 3I doesn't look a THING like it's been described. Jump masking is a common occurrance; there's not going to be a lot of traffic that can accommodate the 2 week schedule. It's not often that you can do 8-day jumps, for that matter (1 day for wilderness refueling). Survival Margin's maps about the spread of the news start to look very implausible."

Chris Thrash et. al. carefully worked out the canonical aspects of jump masking in GT:FT. Furthermore, Mr. Miller vetted GT:FT, just as he vets everything Traveller, including the previously unheard of 8 foot tall, 4 armed, HMR you can find in T20.

Look at the masking tables in GT:FT, they've been calculated directly from the stellar and habitable orbit information found in GT:FI. In most cases jump masking is a nuisance, it may add less than a 1 AU to a normal space journey during certain times of the local year. Sol and Earth are a good example. Earth orbits just beyond Sol's 100D limit. Vessels wishing to clear Sol's 100D limit and avoid her jump shadow must travel ~30 additional hours. Remember that only comes into play for certain destinations at certain times of the year. Sirius-Sol may be masked while Barnard-Sol is not.

As for wilderness refueling, that's a sucker's bet. When all the factors are considered, it isn't that less costly than tanking up at the port. In the Sol system, clearing Sol's jump shadow is a trip of ~1 AU while travelling from Earth to Jupiter (assuming they're on the same side of Sol) is a trip of 4.2 AU. Why make it if you don't have to?

The X-boat travel times and Assassination news dates diagrammed in 'The Survival Margin' are completely uneffected by jump masking. Well before GT:FT, X-boat tenders and the 'boats themselves were described as operating well above or below the system ecliptic and well away from any bodies that may be in the system. The 'boats operate in regions where masking doesn't apply because there are no bodies of sufficient size anywhere near the area.

"On the one hand, this supposes that you may have to fly around "mountains", but on the other, who's to say there ARE mountains to fly around?"

You don't fly around 'mountains' in jump space because you cannot maneuver in jump space; your vector is set when you enter and you cannot change it. Using your aircraft analogy (which I don't quite grasp, although I liked your 36 quanta as opposed to 36 dimensions idea), you launch your aircraft on a course that must avoid those 'mountains' otherwise your trip will come to an end when the aircraft intersects a 'mountain'.

My jump space analogy relies on a toy submarine I had as a child. I could never quite trim it's bouyancy right, the lead wafers were far too coarse considering the ever fluctuating pool water density caused by Pa Whipsnade's morning chlorine pail and my sister Bronwyn's weak bladder. Anyway, I'd eventually fiddle with the trim well enough for the submarine to slowly rise to the surface. Once I set the planes and rudder at neutral and wound the rubber band, the sub would always take the *same time* to surface from a given depth. No matter how much I wound the rubber band and no matter how much *distance* the sub travelled, it would always surface after the *same amount of time*. Now if my sub bumped into Pa floating in his truck tire with a Narragansett and a Dutch Masters while listening to the Red Sox collapse, the sub would not travel any further (it would just continue to ram Pa as the rubber band unwound) but it would still take the *same time* to surface. The same time if Pa didn't scoop it up and throw it into the yard that is.

IMTU, a vessel expends it's jump fuel to enter a specific jump dimension or quanta (thanks!), create a jump space vector, and establish a protective jump bubble. The exact manner in which the fuel is divvied up among those three jobs is something I don't know, but guesstimating I say each higher dimension/quanta takes more fuel to break into and more fuel to protect the ship from. The jump space vector fuel costs remain relatively the same.

The jump space around an normal space object large enough to exert a jump limit is effected in some manner. This space has a 'grain' to it or some other one-way nature. A vessel can enter *jump* space within this 100D region and can move *outwards* from it, but a vessel in jump cannot move *into* this region. When it trys, it is stopped regardless of it's vector or how far along it is on it's course.

IMTU, this 100D limit boundary is sometimes 'sticky'; the vessel stays where it contacted the limit, sometimes 'smooth'; as the body exerting the limit moves, the vessel slips along the limit until the limit may be cleared but at a cost of time, and sometimes 'reflective'; the vessel 'bounces' off the limit IAW with the old angle of incidence equals the angle of refraction saw.

Of course, this is all IMTU. YMMV and YM should most certainly V as that's what Traveller is all about. In the end, all that matters is whether you and yours enjoy the game. Everything else is of no consequence.

Thanks for 'quanta'!


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"This is the way I've always done it: (snip of superb diagram)"

Mr. Boulton,

Yep, me too. Until I re-read Mr. Miller's jump space essay

If you mean the one in JTAS 24, then it says pretty much the same as my post.

 

[Whipsnade]

Andrew Boulton wrote:

"If you mean the one in JTAS 24, then it says pretty much the same as my post."


Mr. Boulton,

I'm unsure as to where his essay was first published, but a bit of google-fu turned it up when the release of GT:FT sparked this disccusion on the TML. The Great Old Ones; Miller and Wiseman, assured us that a jump course *when laid out in normal space* resembles a striaght line. It may be curved, screw-shaped, a parabola, or anything else in jump sapce, but for the purposes of navigating, it is a straight line in normal space. The example given was plotting the shortest course between NYC and London on a globe and then transferring that course to a flat map.

Reading your diagram post again, you mention hitting the jump limit at C and precipitating out of jump space. Do you IYTU require mass for jump exits?


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I'm unsure as to where his essay was first published, but a bit of google-fu turned it up

I couldn't find it before, but this is the one.

The Great Old Ones; Miller and Wiseman, assured us that a jump course *when laid out in normal space* resembles a striaght line. It may be curved, screw-shaped, a parabola, or anything else in jump sapce, but for the purposes of navigating, it is a straight line in normal space.

Yeesss. You can connect the realspace start and end points with a straight line, but as you say, that's not relevant to the jumpspace course.

Reading your diagram post again, you mention hitting the jump limit at C and precipitating out of jump space. Do you IYTU require mass for jump exits?

You mean, is a nearby mass required for a ship to exit jumpspace? No, you can come out in deep space if you wish. But if you try to exit within 100d, you'll be kicked out at the 100d limit.

 

[Whipsnade]

Andrew Boulton wrote:

"Yeesss. You can connect the realspace start and end points with a straight line, but as you say, that's not relevant to the jumpspace course."


Mr. Boulton,

Exactly. It isn't relevant to a real space course just as a flat map (2D) course isn't relveant to a globe (3D) course, but Mr. Miller has said on various fora that the ability to map a N(?) dimensional jump space course into 3D real space implies a one-to-one relationship between real space objects and their jump space effects.

Whatever the true shape of the jump course is, it *behaves* as if it *were* a straight line course in normal space. You draw a line in real space between exit and entry point taking care not to intersect any bodies large enough to project a jump limit or any bodies that may move to intersect your course in the next 168 hours. You then transpose that 3D real space line into it's N(?)D jump space equivalent in much the same manner a 3D transoceanic course is transposed onto a 2D map.

This all an OTU affair, if it doesn't meet the needs of YTU then chuck it out. We all to do that all the time. I asked about whether you required mass for jump exits because that is another example of the OTU vs. various PTUs. Many folks require mass for jump exits; Evil Dr. Ganymede - an honest to god astrophysicist - is one, and they've adjusted their TUs to fit. No one is 'right' and no one is 'wrong' and everyone is enjoying themselves.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Okay, let's look a possible 6-parsec jump in the Spinward Marches, from Narsil to Hofud. This passes through Anduril, Orcrist, Excalibur, Sacnoth, and Beater, plus possibly several objects at each end. This should be a harder task than, say, jumping from Carey to Loneseda, which passes through 5 empty hexes. It isn't. A misjump should have a significant chance of dumping you into one of the intervening systems. It doesn't.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
Okay, let's look a possible 6-parsec jump in the Spinward Marches, from Narsil to Hofud. This passes through Anduril, Orcrist, Excalibur, Sacnoth, and Beater, plus possibly several objects at each end. This should be a harder task than, say, jumping from Carey to Loneseda, which passes through 5 empty hexes. It isn't. A misjump should have a significant chance of dumping you into one of the intervening systems. It doesn't.

Hmm, I can see that, of course we might also assume it the other way around. That is the programming and computer required are based on such a worst case scenario as the base difficulty so the empty seas course is dead easy for it.

Of course, IMTU the planets in between are not all on the same real space plane and pose little in the way of interference (usually, its those rare misjumps that reveal to the GM the systems that are in the same real space plane, or close, to your jump plane).

 

[Whipsnade]

Andrew Boulton wrote:

"Okay, let's look a possible 6-parsec jump in the Spinward Marches, from Narsil to Hofud. This passes through Anduril, Orcrist, Excalibur, Sacnoth, and Beater, plus possibly several objects at each end. This should be a harder task than, say, jumping from Carey to Loneseda, which passes through 5 empty hexes. It isn't."


Mr. Boulton,

Why should passing through five parsec-wide hexes that contain stellar systems be any harder than passing through five empty hexes? How much room does a stellar system take up within a parsec? Are all those systems perfectly centered in each hex? Are all the systems IYTU on the same plain? Do all have the same real space velocity? Are all oriented in the same direction, each pointing to the galatic north?

"A misjump should have a significant chance of dumping you into one of the intervening systems. It doesn't."

We're not talking about a misjump here, we're talking about a failure to reach your planned destination due a too early (distance-wise) precipitation. A misjump puts you on a random vector for a random distance in jump space. Early precipitation is not a misjump.

Again, this is an Official TU versus Personal TU thing. If you don't like something in the OTU, chuck it out. We all do; I don't use anything like the OTU's lowberth assumptions and never have.


Sincerely,
Larsen

 

[Andrew Boulton]

How much room does a stellar system take up within a parsec?

The Oort Cloud extends out to about 100,000AU, or 1.5ly, so a typical system actually fills a hex. There are billions of objects in the cloud, most very small but enough will be big enough to cause problems.

We're not talking about a misjump here, we're talking about a failure to reach your planned destination due a too early (distance-wise) precipitation. A misjump puts you on a random vector for a random distance in jump space. Early precipitation is not a misjump.

Any jump where you end up in the wrong place is a misjump, according to most of the rules*.

Again, this is an Official TU versus Personal TU thing.

MTU is almost indestinguishable from OTU*. Jump masking is an interesting variant, but it breaks (or at least bends) canon too much for me.


*ie CT, MT, TNE, T4, most of GT, and probably T20 (not got it yet).

 

[Whipsnade]

Andrew Boulton wrote:

"MTU is almost indestinguishable from OTU*. Jump masking is an interesting variant, but it breaks (or at least bends) canon too much for me."


Mr. Boulton,

Let us agree to diagree. However, let me make one last statement so that anyone else following this thread does not become confused.

Jump masking and shadows are *not* a variant, they are canon. They have been explicitly endorsed by Marc Miller - the sole prerequisite for what is considered canonical and what is not.

In this respect, YTU is distinguishable from the OTU, just as MTU is distinguishable from the OTU in matters dealing with low berths.


Sincerely,
Larsen