...So, hijacking my own thread with another cross-posting, what IS the jump fuel for?????
(Game balance I believe....nothing more....)
Ultimately yes, I agree.
Personally I don't care for the jump grid or the jump bubble for they both cause more issues then they claim to address.
In MTU it has long been that the jump drive burns a horrific amount of fuel in a very rapid fashion to generate a grav shaped plasma jet so intense it cracks open the boundary between our dimension and those of jumpspace. No capacitors or any of that other fancy new (CT HG
) stuff. This is your "jump flash" and it is only at the opening of the rift.
This jet is normally directed out the aft of the ship but can be anywhere the jumpdrive is placed adjacent to the hull. And the rift will appear at close range to the hull and will draw the ship and anything nearby into it. It's bad to be near anything not factored into your jump calculation for this reason, like debris or droptanks floating away. The plasma jet must be precisely tailored by the grav field to make jump predictable, so doing it near a large body is also not good.
Once the rift is formed you need to enter/cross it before it distorts (misjump) or closes (missed jump). Time is of the essence here, it will not stay within parameters long, and will close entirely shortly after. The rift itself is invisible*, and anything dropping into it appears to simply vanish.
That's it. Once in jump you're there until the predicted (or not so predicted in the case of misjump) precipitation point is reached. In MTU gravity wells are precipitation points, so there are no deep space jumps without a gravity source, and you precipitate (most predictably) at the 100D line. You can aim for deeper in the gravity well or further out in MTU, but at increased risk of misjump.
The course through jumpspace in MTU is not necessarily linear, and is a function of the Navigator's (Astrogator's) plot and continual fine adjustment of the starship's trim through the trip. This is just to keep Nav busy and justify the salary and position. This trim maintenance is part science, part art, part... other (some say Psi) gifts. A good Astrogator can make trips more predictable, a great one can get you across the same distance more quickly. A poor one will generally mean more time in jumpspace. The average is still about a week though.
While in jumpspace your predicted precipitation is not guaranteed however. If your Nav fails to keep the ship in trim you could end up drifting, a little or a lot. If you do something stupid like introduce variables by say dumping material or energy into jumpspace that is likely to outright destroy you in the mutual annihilation of N-space matter/energy and J-space matter/energy.
Your ship, and externally carried craft, are protected through jump from jumpspace by the same charged field/grav effect that the power plant produces in normal space to protect you from radiation and collisions. Lose your power and you lose your field protection, and you're destroyed.
Heat radiation bleeding from the ship produces a low level interaction between the field and jumpspace, obscuring direct observation of jumpspace. Rumours persist though of glimpses of "things" just beyond the heat shimmer. Things more felt than seen. And tall tales of creatures are told, often as explanation of lost ships. Jumpspace monsters are just a myth though...
At the end of the trip you drop back into normal space with no flash or other telltales. It's a very difficult thing to note the arrival of a starship.
That about sums it up, more or less, for MTU of olde.
* it is much like a Black Globe in this way, though in MTU that is itself not a globe either, both are point effects and all but impossible to detect, except by running up against it, take from that what you will about how it applies
