Stutterwarp and Beyond

[Solo]

Ok, my question. Ways to advance the Stutterwarp Drive to break the 7.7 light year limit. Please comment and advise!

1) Increase the cycling speed of the drive and double the abosorbtion ability of the Tantalum in the drives. Maybe double the speed and double the amount of radiation the drive can absorb before meltdown. Effectively allowing the ship to go 15.4 light years?

2) New metal found, replacing Tantalum, that absorbs the hard radiation more efficiently. Ships can now go x amount futher than they previously could. This new metal is scarce and would open up a new commodity base for 2300AD. Competition and possible open war might happen?

Other ideas? Completely change the way Stutterwarp works?

-S.

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Solo:
Ok, my question. Ways to advance the Stutterwarp Drive to break the 7.7 light year limit. Please comment and advise!

1) Increase the cycling speed of the drive and double the abosorbtion ability of the Tantalum in the drives. Maybe double the speed and double the amount of radiation the drive can absorb before meltdown. Effectively allowing the ship to go 15.4 light years?

2) New metal found, replacing Tantalum, that absorbs the hard radiation more efficiently. Ships can now go x amount futher than they previously could. This new metal is scarce and would open up a new commodity base for 2300AD. Competition and possible open war might happen?

Other ideas? Completely change the way Stutterwarp works?

-S.

Given that stutterwarp, or more specifically the 7.7ly, is an artificial limit GDW appear to have formulated on the basis of creating (along with the NSL data they were using) a particular feel, I'd advise extreme caution about altering the limits of stutterwarp. Changing the range on stutterwarp radically affects the astrography of the setting - doubling to 15.4ly IIRC pretty much eliminates the arms as defined in GDW's material, removing all the choke points and radically altering the nature of conflict and trade in the setting.

Having said that, if you are prepared for that degree of change (or that's what you wanted!) then go for it. One obvious "canon" way is to have the Eber Stutterwarp modifiable so that it is useable by humans. Equally, using the mineral idea could work, allowing conventional stuterwarp drives to go longer before discharge. Or you could keep the limit the same, but boost the warp efficiency - astrography remains the same (you still have to discharge after 7.7ly) but response time changes radically (messages that took months now take weeks or even days...)

I have personally always like the feel that the standard stutterwarp gave the 2300AD setting, but as one of the more arbitrary of the settings enabling assumptions, its one of the simpler ones to alter to arrive at variant settings.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

 

[TKalbfus]

Well you can simply advance the date of the 2300 campaign to say 2350, and have a new and improved stutterwarp developed. I also think they should update the starmap, new stars have been discovered and the starmap should reflect the latest data, including the new red dwarf star 8 light years away that was discovered recently. I have the old boxed edition. I recently read about a new extrasolar planet that was discovered within 50 light years, but the star itself wasn't listed in the 2300 near star list. I think all the newly discovered extra solar planets within 50 light years should be mentioned in any new edition of 2300.

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
Well you can simply advance the date of the 2300 campaign to say 2350, and have a new and improved stutterwarp developed. I also think they should update the starmap, new stars have been discovered and the starmap should reflect the latest data, including the new red dwarf star 8 light years away that was discovered recently. I have the old boxed edition. I recently read about a new extrasolar planet that was discovered within 50 light years, but the star itself wasn't listed in the 2300 near star list. I think all the newly discovered extra solar planets within 50 light years should be mentioned in any new edition of 2300.

Then, to be blunt, why bother with a new edition of 2300? Why not just come up with a new hard SF near future game (e.g. bolt Stutterwarp onto Transhuman Space)? The NSL and 7.7ly limit are _fundemental_ assumptions of the 2300AD background as published - why (potentially) invalidate all previous material in a new edition, especially in a way which will change the feel of the setting to something radically different from the original? If it doesn't feel like 2300AD, and it doesn't use the 2300AD rules, then it isn't 2300AD. Why can't we have a new edition of 2300AD that, like QLI's T20, respects the previous editions continuity and doesn't impose any one persons pet fixes for percieved problems on the rest of us?

Ahem, can you tell I'm touchy about this topic? Sorry, but whilst I sympathise with the appeal for including accurate data, I really do think it is a mirage and will do a disservice to 2300AD. Nothing against ref's doing their own thing, but to do a 2nd edition (whatever the rules) that departed so far from the original would IMO turn it into a different setting (and IMO a less inteersting one). YMMV.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton.

 

[TKalbfus]

What's wrong with updating the 2300 Near Star Map? Does working with obsolete data make it more authentic? So you want the 7.7 LY limit to be the second speed of light limit that no one can pass, or is it the assumption that technological innovation in the 2300 universe has come to a halt and no one can do any better. Well its possible their may be two speed barriers, but I don't understand why the Near Star List should reflect only 1980's data. New stars are being found all the time. By failing to update the star map, you make it less of a hard science Fiction setting. People who start playing now will wonder why their are missing stars. Are the stars deliberately left out so that starships can't cross in that direction, why is that so vital to 2300? I'm sure their are other gaps that still can't be crossed. I just think that in Hard Science Fiction its more important to have all the known stars within 50 light years than it is to artificially maintain the barriers to navigation by leaving them out. Transhuman space by the way is a one solar system setting

 

[kafka47]

I think if T20: 2300AD is being touted as an alternate milieu for T20, the 7.7 ly barrier is to prevent the Earthlings overwhelming the Kafers too soon and see that the Yili are merely puppets of a larger game lying behind.

So I applaud efforts at updating the Starmap, and encourage more alien worlds (read: hostile environments) in a more Hard SF exploritory mode but what limits humanity from taking the whole of the Stars for itself. Ok, national rivalary but, as I find that prospect unrealistic in 2300AD, as I dismiss the Twilight War, what remains?

So the shuttlewarp limits are there to keep a certain balance. Start tampering too much and you will have to develop a game like Traveller, worlds in every system which goes against the Hard SF emphasis.

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
What's wrong with updating the 2300 Near Star Map? Does working with obsolete data make it more authentic?

Umm, no, I never said it did. I said that using different data to that which GDW used when writing 2300AD and it's published supplements alters the setting. In ways I think are a bad idea, although I obviously didn't explain why very well

.

So you want the 7.7 LY limit to be the second speed of light limit that no one can pass, or is it the assumption that technological innovation in the 2300 universe has come to a halt and no one can do any better.

No, I want one of the other fundemental underpinnings of how the setting worked (that ships could only make journeys up to a certain length before they had to seek a gravity well) to be retained as it is essential to the setting as published. And light speed in 2300AD remains a limit no-one can pass...

Well its possible their may be two speed barriers, but I don't understand why the Near Star List should reflect only 1980's data.

Because with more modern data much of what was written for 2300AD becomes innaccurate. There may be (multiple) 'backdoors' in to Kafer Space, routes to the arms that seriously alter the balance of economic power in the setting. And once we decide that we can alter the NSL, why should we stop at 2003 data? Why not wait until 2005. And what happens in 2006? It's a game setting: we have to take a snap shot at some point and given we already have a large body of material (soon to be republished) based on the existing NSL, why not stick with it?

New stars are being found all the time. By failing to update the star map, you make it less of a hard science Fiction setting.

Pardon? We obvioulsy have radically different ideas of what constitutes 'hard SF'. To me what makes 2300AD a Hard SF setting is the absence of human genitcally compatible triple-breasted aliens and the fact that there is no sound in space. And IMO adherence to sciences current best guess about the stars near Earth won't automatically make a game a Hard SF setting: it'll just tie everyone in knots trying to keep up with those guesses.

People who start playing now will wonder why their are missing stars. Are the stars deliberately left out so that starships can't cross in that direction, why is that so vital to 2300?

Did we play the same game? The whole nature of space exploration and the economic, politcal and military structures of the setting were determined by the fact that some journeys required more steps than others, that there were choke points at key positions on the arms...

I'm sure their are other gaps that still can't be crossed. I just think that in Hard Science Fiction its more important to have all the known stars within 50 light years than it is to artificially maintain the barriers to navigation by leaving them out. Transhuman space by the way is a one solar system setting

The gaps are in different places though, so the choke points move, and changiing the stutterwarp limit has a similar effect... My point is that it's like saying that adding reliable GPS systems to a game of 15th Centurey ocean exploration wouldn't change the nature of the setting in fundemental ways... What gives 2300AD it's unique feel (part 18th/19th Centurey Age of Empires, part CJ Cherryh, part unique) IMO opinion is that absence of FTL communication faster than a ship, the need to stop frequently on long journeys, the fact that insiginficant way stations can be come crucial in military strategy. These things arise from the NSL data and the Stutterwarp drive, change those two and you alter fundemental aspects of the setting. For new 2300AD material to be accessible to the maximum number of people, it needs to build on what has gone before, not contradict it, IMO.

Now having said all that, I do think (and may have suggested before here) that any _new_ edition of 2300AD should include notes to enable referees to apply some of the more obvious tweaks (Stutterwarp II, changing the Stutterwarp for Jump2 and melding the 2300AD and OTU timelines etc). But they should be OPTIONS, not baseline assumptions IMO.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

 

[BMonnery]

Nick, you're not on Channel 4 by any chance?

Certainly, altering S/W range makes a huge difference (like when TDs invasion fleet jumps straight to Earth via backwater systems).

I've no problem with altering the nature of warp (quite good in some ways) but it'd kill the history of 2300.

Bryn

 

[TKalbfus]

Can we like make a general version of 2300 AD, that is separate from any specific setting? In other words keep the stutterwarp or how about just a warp drive? I don't think it matters whether it stutters or not. Keep the 7.7 Light year rule, and the need to dissapate its energy in gravity wells. The General assumption remains that the world is still split into various nations and their is a Kafer Menace out there, we include an up to date starmap and just indicate which stars aren't supposed to be their for the original setting, but we include all the known stars for the Referee to use if he wants. It other words we first describe the game and the general setting assuptions without getting too specific. Later on we elaborate and describe the original 2300 setting in another section. In a third section we describe how the Referee can generate his own 2300 setting, this is for the new players who don't remember the original 2300 AD and who would have trouble swallowing the concept that World War III occured in 1997. I think the setting and the game can be separated into two different sections. The game has all the rules, how starships work, system generation etc, the setting section is for people who wish to recreate the setting.

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by BMonnery:
Nick, you're not on Channel 4 by any chance?

You mean have I been trouping off to some of the most inhospitable places on earth recently? No, although I _have_ been to Milton Keynes...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

 

[Gallowglass]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
Can we like make a general version of 2300 AD, that is separate from any specific setting? In other words keep the stutterwarp or how about just a warp drive? I don't think it matters whether it stutters or not. Keep the 7.7 Light year rule, and the need to dissapate its energy in gravity wells. The General assumption remains that the world is still split into various nations and their is a Kafer Menace out there, we include an up to date starmap and just indicate which stars aren't supposed to be their for the original setting, but we include all the known stars for the Referee to use if he wants. It other words we first describe the game and the general setting assuptions without getting too specific. Later on we elaborate and describe the original 2300 setting in another section. In a third section we describe how the Referee can generate his own 2300 setting, this is for the new players who don't remember the original 2300 AD and who would have trouble swallowing the concept that World War III occured in 1997. I think the setting and the game can be separated into two different sections. The game has all the rules, how starships work, system generation etc, the setting section is for people who wish to recreate the setting.

Errm, that's really up to QLI and who ever takes on the T20 2300 sourcebook, however... Given that this new edition appears to be envisaged as a T20 supplement (an alternate setting using the T20 rules) there will presumably not be much in the way of rules in the book. As a first product in a line I'd suggest that it would wisest to focus on "plain vanilla" 2300, i.e. the setting as previously published (NSL ommissions and all) as that provides the greatest synergy with the FFE reprints (I'm guessing that a similar synergy has helped T20). But a chapter of said sourcebook on variants, as I mentioned previously, would be a good way of examing variants and if popular could pave the way for further supplements in variant time lines. The T20 T2K project specifically mentions covering two alternative timelines to the original T2K one, so may be something similar could be done with 2300?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

 

[TKalbfus]

Errm, that's really up to QLI and who ever takes on the T20 2300 sourcebook, however... Given that this new edition appears to be envisaged as a T20 supplement (an alternate setting using the T20 rules) there will presumably not be much in the way of rules in the book. As a first product in a line I'd suggest that it would wisest to focus on "plain vanilla" 2300, i.e. the setting as previously published (NSL ommissions and all) as that provides the greatest synergy with the FFE reprints (I'm guessing that a similar synergy has helped T20). But a chapter of said sourcebook on variants, as I mentioned previously, would be a good way of examing variants and if popular could pave the way for further supplements in variant time lines. The T20 T2K project specifically mentions covering two alternative timelines to the original T2K one, so may be something similar could be done with 2300?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

I know they would like to make it compatible with previous editions, but I don't think an updated star map would detract from this. You would basically draw a map like in the original version, but you would draw a circle around the stars that are new additions. The near star list would list each star and put an asterisk * next to each star that is a new addition and perhaps a carrot top ^ next to stars where extra solar planets have been detected in the real world. Some stars will be new additions and have extra solar planets and will be marked like this *^. In some cases I believe 2300 has renamed a star Queen Alice Star I think, in such a case the real designation should be put next to the 2300 designation. These are just suggestions to improve the product while leaving it compatible to older additions. You see I'd like the map to be usable for other settings, not just specifically for the official 2300 setting rather than having to print two maps, it should just denote what is and what isn't part of the setting. This would give maximum utility to most players, some of who might like accurate up to date stellar information and may be interested in Astronomy. I have a keen interest in Astronomy myself, I just think it would be a neat idea if one can look up a star in the near star list and also find that same star in an astronomy sky chart. In the 1980's there were no extra solar planets discovered, I don't think the inclusion of that data would affect the setting much, except in those cases where a Gas Giant's orbit overlaps that of a fictional planet established by 2300. The newly detected gas gianst tend to have elliptical orbits and are close to their stars if they don't. Basically it would be another snap shot taken in 2003. Further discovers will make that obsolete in time, but that is the burden of establishing an science fiction setting in real space. I think one of the attractions for me are that the stars in the near star list are actually out there.

 

[TKalbfus]

I just thing the new material should be flexible and leave the choice of whether to include newly discovered stars up to the Referee. Also on a side not its possible that even in the 2300 universe new near Earth Stars can be discovered. In otherwords as they were discovered in the real world, they are also discovered in the 2300 setting. Prior to these stars discovey, they were effectively not there. No starship captain is going to pilot his ship toward a star no one knows about. Also remember some of these stars are hard to find. Even in 2300 its likely that not every star withing 50 light years will be charted, new stars will continue to be discovered as time progresses. This will effect, politics economics, and the travel lanes, but only after the star is discovered, that way you don't have to alter the history of the 2300 game universe, but new discoveries should realistically be expected to occur.

 

[Gallowglass]

(SNIP)
These are just suggestions to improve the product while leaving it compatible to older additions. You see I'd like the map to be usable for other settings, not just specifically for the official 2300 setting rather than having to print two maps, it should just denote what is and what isn't part of the setting. This would give maximum utility to most players, some of who might like accurate up to date stellar information and may be interested in Astronomy. (SNIP)

Fair enough, and in the end it's up to QLI, but I don't think it would improve the product: it would require extra effort to produce (and verify) such material, effort which could be better spent elsewhere.

And to be blunt, this is an RPG sourcebook, NOT an astronomy text! There are libraries and the internet if people are curious about actual data (it took me two minutes with Google* to find a near star map synthesis of the most recent Gliese and Hipparcos data...). A decent bibliography should point people in the right direction but I still see no compelling reason to do it, and a number of (to me at least!) compelling reasons why it would be bad idea.

As for updating the Star Listing in with discoveries as they are made, fine if you want to, but I am deeply suspiscious that this is the beginning of the slippery slope to having an ever advancing "offcial" time-line unfolding some gargantuan (and usually badly thought out, poorly executed and mind numbingly cliched) meta-plot that renders a significant percentage of official material irrelevant or hard to adapt to a lot of peoples games. Meta-plots are at best a clumsy substitute for an inheirantly interesting background and at worst a cynical piece of manipulation by unscrupulous games companies to gouge their customers (T$R (esp Forgotten Realms) and FASA, take a bow...). Ahem, not that I feel strongly about this sort of thing. Nope, not me, I am a perfectly happy camper... And more seriously, whilst star positions are of academic interest now, in the period 2200 - 2300 in the 2300AD timeline they are of vital economic and military importance - I suspect there will be a whole industry hunting for reliable short-cuts (c.f. C J Cherryh's Alliance-Union-Compact stories) and the idea that given that century or so of searching things have been missed I actually (bizarre though it may seem!) have more problems with than simply ignoring a few red dwarfs discovered since 1969 (or whenever Gliese 2.0 was compiled)...

I think Tom that it's best if you and I agree to differ on the updating of the NSL and altering Stutterwarp in the new edition of 2300AD. I'm sure QLI will review the discussions here, and I don't think we're going to change each others minds.

Back at Solo's original question, isn't Lanthanum
vital to Traveller jump drives? What if some one in 2305 discovers a _completely_ different FTL mechanism, like the Traveller jump drive, how would that shake up the situation?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

* http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/index.html

http://homepage.mac.com/robmyers/jiex/2301/avril/gliese3_nsl.html

http://www.solstation.com/stars.htm

 

[Colin]

If we start talking about the inaccuracies of the NSL, how about the map of Kafer Space? Many of those stars are simply made up. Given that there is 6-12 months to produce a book, and that it is supposed to be largely source material, I don't think there is time to revisit the NSL and the Map and update it. GDW could produce the map because that's what they did. They had full-time artist and such on staff, or hired free-lancers. This book is going to be written by, probably, one guy, or at best a very small team, who also have other jobs. Revisiting the NSL, not to mention the Kafer stars, would be a huge undertaking, and that time would be better spent on writing.

The assumptions of the NSL are one of the major underpinnings of the setting, and I think changing it would be a mistake, at least for "official" T20 2300. It would invalidate too much of what has gone before, and too much of the history of the setting.

 

[TKalbfus]

If we start talking about the inaccuracies of the NSL, how about the map of Kafer Space? Many of those stars are simply made up. Given that there is 6-12 months to produce a book, and that it is supposed to be largely source material, I don't think there is time to revisit the NSL and the Map and update it. GDW could produce the map because that's what they did. They had full-time artist and such on staff, or hired free-lancers.

It doesn't take an artist to plot points on a map. You down load the information, use a spreadsheet or another program to convert the celestial coordinates to (x,y,z) coordinates, and you feed that information into a computer program that draws a map from a certain perspective. I have the Sky Catalogue 2000.0 Stars to Magnitude 8.0. This information is also available on CD rom, and at the Seti Web site. With the right software you can produce a 50 light year map with very little human input. The book even gives an estimate of each stars distance in parsecs.

As for updating the Star Listing in with discoveries as they are made, fine if you want to, but I am deeply suspiscious that this is the beginning of the slippery slope to having an ever advancing "offcial" time-line unfolding some gargantuan (and usually badly thought out, poorly executed and mind numbingly cliched) meta-plot that renders a significant percentage of official material irrelevant or hard to adapt to a lot of peoples games.

You want a completely static 2300 game universe where nothing ever changes? How realistic is that? New stars will be discovered for the next several centuries. Having an FTL drive won't change that or make these stars any easier to find. Many of the dim ones can't be seen with the naked eye. You have to search the whole sky with a telescope to find them and telescopes have a narrower field of view than your naked eye. You have to search every star with your 100x telescope, plot evey one and search them all over again 6 months later and see if any of the stars shift their positions. The amount in which the stars shift their positions against the background stars tells you how close they are and whether to include them in your 50 light year map. Stars can get very dim and even nearby stars are hard to see. Its hard to tell which stars are in the background and which are in the foreground and its hard to decide on which stars to do stellar paralax measurements on as there are literally millions visible to a 100x telescope. You can't find them just by traveling aimlessly though space on starships. You have to take the same paralax measurements you would do today.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
I have the Sky Catalogue 2000.0 Stars to Magnitude 8.0. This information is also available on CD rom, and at the Seti Web site. With the right software you can produce a 50 light year map with very little human input. The book even gives an estimate of each stars distance in parsecs.

Snrk. You do realize that any M-class dwarf will be dimmer than magnitude 8 at 50 light-years, and many will be much dimmer at shorter ranges? You'd produce a map missing a lot of stars. Proxima centauri is magnitude 11 and is only 4.28 light-years away.

 

[TKalbfus]

Snrk. You do realize that any M-class dwarf will be dimmer than magnitude 8 at 50 light-years, and many will be much dimmer at shorter ranges? You'd produce a map missing a lot of stars. Proxima centauri is magnitude 11 and is only 4.28 light-years away.

Kind of proves my point doesn't it. I think someone in another threat mentioned a Seti website with a number of sunlike stars. I'm not saying that you try to get every star! What I am saying is that the list of near stars be recompiled from available sources, rather than a reprint of the old list published in the original 2300 material. An attempt should be made to include the stars where extrasolar planets were discovered.

 

[aramis]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
Kind of proves my point doesn't it. I think someone in another threat mentioned a Seti website with a number of sunlike stars. I'm not saying that you try to get every star! What I am saying is that the list of near stars be recompiled from available sources, rather than a reprint of the old list published in the original 2300 material. An attempt should be made to include the stars where extrasolar planets were discovered.

Most important for the 2300 background is how big an object do you need to be around when "cooling" the stutterwarp? If brown dwarves and M Dwarves can, then 2300's chokepoints, etc are no longer viable, there are other places, faster routes, and mulriply more venues than the 2300 NSL provides, and thus the "History" and the Arms must be thrown out when the new data is incorporated.

The question is one of

Why do you play 2300?
(1) For the technology assumptions
(2) for the setting
(3) for the rules mechanics
(4) cause it's what wour group insisted on playing, and you can't find another group?

 

[TKalbfus]

Most important for the 2300 background is how big an object do you need to be around when "cooling" the stutterwarp? If brown dwarves and M Dwarves can, then 2300's chokepoints, etc are no longer viable, there are other places, faster routes, and mulriply more venues than the 2300 NSL provides, and thus the "History" and the Arms must be thrown out when the new data is incorporated.

The question is one of

Why do you play 2300?
(1) For the technology assumptions
(2) for the setting
(3) for the rules mechanics
(4) cause it's what wour group insisted on playing, and you can't find another group?

One thing I don't like about the Stutterwarp and the Jump Drive is that it turns the vacuum into barriers that make space into a giant 3-dimensional dungeon with "walls" made out of nothingness and "corridors" made out of stars. Its kind of like traversing a pond by jumping from stone to stone rather than just getting into a boat and rowing across. I don't get why this is so darned important. In Star Trek it isn't, and neither is it in Star Wars. These are fairly unrealistic RPGs, but thats not because they're not required to stop at a star every 2 parsecs. Everybody gets so touchy about adding a star here or there, even a minor no accout red dwarf. The fact is red dwarfs are the most prevalent stars out there, including places where you might think there are no stars because they are too dim. The stars are placed at random with no rhyme or reason, they don't care about any nation's strategic plan. For the nations in the 2300 campaign, the sudden discovery of stars where previously none were thought to exist is a reoccuring problem, opening up trade routes and short cuts, they just have to deal with that. If it means that an all important red dwarf star is no longer so important because of a new star discovered, what was once a "boom town" may become a "ghost town" I'm sure that can realistically be expected to happen all the time and people have to deal with it, pack up their stuff and move on. It happened in the Old West when Gold mines run dry and it can happen in space too. Why is that so upsetting? There are probably more numerous brown dwarfs, but they are of no use to travel unless you know where they are before hand. You can't go searching with a spacespace ship because space is just too big.
The geography of 2300 isn't as unchangeable as the continents and islands of the Earth.