Rent-a-Misjump

[Grav_Moped]

Not sure where this goes; it's an adventure seed.

Patron wishes to charter a ship with Jump-2 to test his/her theories about misjumps -- by having it intentionally misjump!

The patron will provide internal collapsible tanks for fuel to keep the power plant running during extended misjumps and to Jump back from deep space if needed, as well as external drop tanks and their fittings (the PCs get to keep the drop tank fittings) so Jumps don't use up the ship's normal fuel tankage. He/she will also provide TL15 (survival roll automatically succeeds) self-powered low berths for everyone in the event the Jump Drive malfunctions irreparably and it's necessary to return at sublight speed. The PCs may get to keep them; it's negotiable.

An easy - though tedious -- way to get a safe (no "ship destroyed" result) misjump is to keep using unrefined fuel and wait for a misjump roll of 13+.

Another is to deliberately mess with the jump drive settings, but that might not be perfectly safe.

A third, depending on how it's handled in your game universe, is to jump from just inside the 100D limit. It's safe to jump from outside it, but DM+5 between the 100D limit and the 10D limit. It may be that at 82D it's +1, at 64D it's +2, and so on (that is, the +5 can be pro-rated between 10D and 100D in increments of 18 diameters). If so, the 36-64 diameter zone has a +3DM, giving a 16.7% chance of misjump but no possibility of destruction.

The patron could have several motivations:
1. Everything is as it seems, and this is legitimate research. Probably won't amount to much though.
2. The patron is looking for the place where all the socks that vanish from the laundry misjumped ships end up -- a space Sargasso Sea of sorts.* If found, there may be a reason ships get stuck there. Perhaps jump drives don't work in that zone? Or there's an Ancients site, or both? Either way, there may be survivors on other lost ships, and they'll want out, and may have operational starship weapons even if the ships themselves are stuck there.
3. The patron has an Ancient Artifact that he/she believes allows one to pick a misjump's destination or at least direct it somewhat. It works. Further testing will be needed to determine exactly how to control it.
4. The Artifact will send a misjumped ship to a specific world instead. This world may have an Ancients site. (This world isn't a starship graveyard, unlike 2, above.)
5. The Artifact does not work at all, and may in fact be fake. The patron could react poorly to discovering this, and may blame the PC crew.
6. This is an elaborate suicide attempt.

Questions or comments?
Thanks in advance!



*There's a non-trivial chance the ship will exit Jumpspace in someone's laundry room, down back behind the dryer.

 

[vegascat]

Sargasso Sea

The most interesting misjump would have to be (in the realm of messing with players) would have to be the Sargasso sea option.
The ships there would have run out of fuel so no power for weapons other than missiles. Missiles would take power for targeting and launch, but that could be handles by batteries.
Power for life support would be a problem for most ships as solar panels are not a common items on most ships. A scout survey vessel would be equipped with solar cells leaving at least one ship with a surviving crew. If the players are as paranoid as usual, they will make sure their ship does have solar cells installed giving them an edge.
I can't think of any player not wanting to loot every ship possible, believing no one would have survived due to power failure. The ways to make life interesting for players doing so would be scary. Think of a Droyne military destroyer with all crew in low berths, revived on a proximity alert, that has laid a salvage claim on all ships present that are being looted by your players. Hibernating space monsters, think Alien egg sacks.
Misjump the players to the near edge of a red dwarf system ort cloud with a gas giant in close orbit of the star. It would take at least a couple of years under drive powered by a solar cell array. A good engineer could modify the manuever drive for a very low power low G drive to move the ship into course to intercept the gas giant. What could go wrong with that? "creepy laugh"
A ship to do this job would best be a modified subsidized merchant. Replace the passenger cabins with extra stores, ships batteries, and a folded solar cell array. Upgrade the jump drive to J2. Install collapsible tanks in the cargo bay.
Find a good trustworthy lawyer to create a paranoid contract. Buy blue chip stocks with all cash left on hand, Add a professional righter to the crew to document the expedition. Pick up a couple tons of low tech trade goods for the inevitable low tech world you will get stranded on. Get parts to do proper maintenance on all your vacc suits and weapons. Get Extra parts to fix the jump drives after the misjump. Consider hiring a jump priest to bless the ship and crew before takeoff.

 

[BRover]

Does the manner or cause of misjump affect the result? (I know it's not the rules as given, but it might be mods for the purposes of the adventure/YTU)

This might be the purpose of the research . . .

 

[Proneutron]

Does the manner or cause of misjump affect the result? (I know it's not the rules as given, but it might be mods for the purposes of the adventure/YTU)

This might be the purpose of the research . . .

With "effect" it might, depending on the rule set being used.

 

[Proneutron]

Power for life support would be a problem for most ships as solar panels are not a common items on most ships. A scout survey vessel would be equipped with solar cells leaving at least one ship with a surviving crew.

In an empty hex solar cells are useless. They are pretty much useless outside the habitable zone of stars.

 

[whartung]

Patron wishes to charter a ship with Jump-2 to test his/her theories about misjumps -- by having it intentionally misjump!

How about "No".

He can buy my ship, and pay Scotty, my Engineer to wire up a button he can press so he can go along with it.

This is an "unsafe at any speed" problem. A "Fredrick Pohl Gateway" game.

JTAS 24 distinguishes between fuel base misjumps, and jumping within 100D.

"Activating a jump drive within a gravity well usually destroys a ship. In rare instances, the ship survives, only to misjump."

"A ship committed to making a jump, but with insufficient energy for the planned jump, may find itself inserted into an unintended jump space." That's what we colloquially know as a "misjump". Ship enters the wrong jump space and ends up who knows where.

Playing within a gravity well is...not recommended.

Finally, there's no reason for the patron to do this. You can build a system of ships that can get you back safely from a misjump (assuming it survives).

You simply build a Russian doll of fueled, J6 capable ships. Start with, say, a 2000 ton ship, carrying a 500 ton ship, carrying a 100 ton ship (or whatever). I think even in the Rift, you can find civilization or a gas giant within 2 J6 jumps. And we also know the Rift has fuel caches stashed in secret places.

For my crew, I would not participate in such ad hoc research. The patron can run a Go Fund Me campaign to build specialized ships to do this work.

 

[Condottiere]

One shot jump drive, with increasingly likelihood per jump; in theory, you're not supposed to survive the fourth jump.

Basic penalty:

-2 first
-4 second
-8 third

 

[Grav_Moped]

How about "No".

He can buy my ship, and pay Scotty, my Engineer to wire up a button he can press so he can go along with it.

This is an "unsafe at any speed" problem. A "Fredrick Pohl Gateway" game.

JTAS 24 distinguishes between fuel base misjumps, and jumping within 100D.

"Activating a jump drive within a gravity well usually destroys a ship. In rare instances, the ship survives, only to misjump."

That's inconsistent with the LBB2 misjump rule. Based on the +DMs, a jump from within 10D is always "ship destroyed", but a jump from 10-100D only results in "ship destroyed" on a base roll of 11+ (3/36) -- hardly "usually". Survivable misjumps (ship survives, random destination) happen on (base 2D) rolls of 8-10 exactly (12/36, or 33%) -- that's not "rare instances". Successful (normal) Jumps from that zone occur on base 2D rolls of 7- (21/36, or 58.33%).

If this is only a rough approximation of the way the (game) universe works, it's possible the +5 DM gradient (+5 vs +0) between "just outside the 10D sphere" and "outside the 100D sphere" doesn't happen all at once exactly at 100.01D.
If so,then there is a zone near the 100D shell where "safe" misjumps are possible.

That said, if you're trying for the +3 to maximize your odds of misjump, you're cutting things a bit too close for comfort.

"A ship committed to making a jump, but with insufficient energy for the planned jump, may find itself inserted into an unintended jump space." That's what we colloquially know as a "misjump". Ship enters the wrong jump space and ends up who knows where.

Playing within a gravity well is...not recommended.

Finally, there's no reason for the patron to do this. You can build a system of ships that can get you back safely from a misjump (assuming it survives).

You simply build a Russian doll of fueled, J6 capable ships. Start with, say, a 2000 ton ship, carrying a 500 ton ship, carrying a 100 ton ship (or whatever). I think even in the Rift, you can find civilization or a gas giant within 2 J6 jumps. And we also know the Rift has fuel caches stashed in secret places.

Use drop tanks. Here's one carried-to-extremes version: LINK. 20 parsecs range in 8 weeks; core ship is J5/1G, 400Td (LBB2:'81). 1430Td of drop tanks (including 20Td of "bridge" components in the first drop tank unit), in 3 stages plus core ship, dropped as expended. Expendable tanks and auxiliary controls cost Cr644,000, most of that for the 20Td "bridge" components in the first stage.

"Extra Bridge"? Why?

Spoiler

The first drop tank "stage" has the extra "bridge" section because it pushes overall Td close to 2000Td, therefore the whole thing needs 2% bridge instead of 20Td)

For my crew, I would not participate in such ad hoc research. The patron can run a Go Fund Me campaign to build specialized ships to do this work.

Yeah, that's a perfectly sensible response.

 

[Grav_Moped]

While we're on the subject of long range ships, a Type S with a 90Td drop tank has a range of 7 parsecs.
With tanks, J1x3 (60 tons jump fuel, 7.5 tons power plant fuel (3/4 of 4 weeks at Pn-1: 10Td per Pn at LBB2 rates). That's 3 parsecs.
Jettsion tanks while using their last 20Td fuel for J2 (waste the 2.5 tons, if it's left). Use 5Td (1 week Pn-2) of onboard fuel. That's 2 more parsecs.
Jump-2 with onboard fuel. Uses 25 tons fuel (J2+1 week). That's two more.
10Td fuel remains. It's taken 5 weeks to travel 7 parsecs, unrefueled, and it's rules-as-written compliant. It even works if you don't adjust the power plant fuel use (10Td per Pn per month) based on the increased tonnage -- just increase the drop tank to 100Td.

 

[BRJN]

Alas this adventure seed requires the starship not be on a schedule, nor have anything else in its cargo bay.
"Hmmm, if we get thrown 36 parsecs away that will take 18 weeks at J-2 if we can return in a straight line. I'm not sure our customers will wait 4 or 5 months for their goods to arrive..."

 

[Werner]

In an empty hex solar cells are useless. They are pretty much useless outside the habitable zone of stars.

What if the Starship misjumps to inside a Dyson Sphere with a star inside of it that is not visible from the outside? This Dyson Sphere is unusually large, about 80 AU in radius, and a normal G2 V star is in the center of it, so the thermal waste heat emitted by the shell is very slight, and since no one suspects a star to be in this location, no one is looking for it in sparsely settled sector of Charted space, space is big, and an 80 au radius Dyson Sphere is small so unless someone knows exactly where to look, no one is going to detect this Dyson Sphere from the outside, but from within, via a misjump, that is a different story.

Okay so the misjumped ship appears within the Dyson Sphere, there is a Solar System with 8 planets within including an Earthlike planet in orbit 3. There are stars projected on the inside of they Dyson Sphere, and the ship's sensors can determine they are real, but they can't see past the shell, so the ship can't jump back until it moves AU through normal space and can find an exit to get outside of the Dyson sphere so it can make a jump.

 

[whartung]

What if the Starship misjumps to inside a Dyson Sphere with a star inside of it that is not visible from the outside? This Dyson Sphere is unusually large, about 80 AU in radius, and a normal G2 V star is in the center of it, so the thermal waste heat emitted by the shell is very slight, and since no one suspects a star to be in this location, no one is looking for it in sparsely settled sector of Charted space, space is big, and an 80 au radius Dyson Sphere is small so unless someone knows exactly where to look, no one is going to detect this Dyson Sphere from the outside, but from within, via a misjump, that is a different story.

Okay so the misjumped ship appears within the Dyson Sphere, there is a Solar System with 8 planets within including an Earthlike planet in orbit 3. There are stars projected on the inside of they Dyson Sphere, and the ship's sensors can determine they are real, but they can't see past the shell, so the ship can't jump back until it moves AU through normal space and can find an exit to get outside of the Dyson sphere so it can make a jump.

The mass of the sphere would prevent the ship from jumping in. It would coalesce in normal space 100D from sphere.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Does the manner or cause of misjump affect the result? (I know it's not the rules as given, but it might be mods for the purposes of the adventure/YTU)

This might be the purpose of the research . . .

Rules as written (LBB2), no.
As a house rule/one-off for the scenario? Good idea!

 

[Grav_Moped]

The mass of the sphere would prevent the ship from jumping in. It would coalesce in normal space 100D from sphere.

Hang a lampshade on it: Yes, it's not supposed to work that way. It did anyhow. Now what?

It takes ultra-high-tech to build one. Perhaps the same tech can make the sphere out of material that doesn't interact with Jump Space, at least from the outside. (Such material might have other uses too.)

 

[mike wightman]

We have the necessary engineering to build a dyson swarm now - what we lack is the infrastructure.

I would recommend the latest Isaac Arthur offering:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMiHioZrlOw

More on topic there were a couple of JTAS articles about jump research and such stuff. I'll try and dig up the references.

 

[Werner]

The mass of the sphere would prevent the ship from jumping in. It would coalesce in normal space 100D from sphere.

Well considering that the misjumping ship violated that rule by jumping out from within the 100D limit of the planet it was departing from, I think this would be considered not a normal jump so therefore the normal rules concerning jumped ships precipitating into normal space don't apply either. I think the main problem with misjumps is that you can't calculate the result prior to making the jump, the most likely result is the ship emerges in interstellar space with jump fuel exhausted and thus no place they can jump to from there, which means the crew has two choices and possibly only one other than dying when their life support and food run out.

1) typically a Starship has 4 weeks of fuel to power the reactor and keep life support going, if the starship has low berths available, the crew and passengers can put themselves in those, and put the ship on standby power, basically this means battery power. After everyone is frozen, a clock ticks down the seconds until the ship arrives at the nearest star system while drifting through normal space. A course is plotted for the nearest gas giant in that system, a few centuries later the ship powers up and cycles the crew out of their low berths after the main reactor is powered up, the ship then skims the gas giant to gather enough fuel to make another jump, the ship's engineer should probably check the jump drive to determine that its in working order before doing this to avoid another misjump.

2) the second thing the crew might try is spend the next four weeks using the ship's sensors to scan for an interstellar Comet or other rogue body from which to refuel from. Interstellar comets will often have ices which contain hydrogen, a large enough Comet could provide enough fuel for the ship to jump somewhere else.

 

[Grav_Moped]

In LBB2, it's not violating the rule. It's just doing it from a risky starting point.

If I were an annoying ref, I'd consider house-ruling that it'd be a Jump-0. (You want to jump from inside the 100D limit? WELL OK THEN, FINE -- it's a week later and you're AT the 100D limit. What do you do now?)

 

[Werner]

In LBB2, it's not violating the rule. It's just doing it from a risky starting point.

If I were an annoying ref, I'd consider house-ruling that it'd be a Jump-0. (You want to jump from inside the 100D limit? WELL OK THEN, FINE -- it's a week later and you're AT the 100D limit. What do you do now?)

You could simply have the Jump Drive take damage and the ship go nowhere, now that's a boring result.

 

[Grav_Moped]

You could simply have the Jump Drive take damage and the ship go nowhere, now that's a boring result.

Sure. Better, have the drive itself jump while the rest of the ship just sits there.

 

[whartung]

I'm pretty sure the LBB rule is simply to try to make the jump less than a death sentence, even though that's spelled out pretty clearly in the JTAS 24. It should be treated more like the cold start equation from ST:TOS "The Naked Time".

No pilot would willing risk their ship within the 100D.