The Early Days of Jump.

[BlackBat242]

Actually, Marc Miller's article "Jumpspace" in JTAS #24 (late 1985 and pre-MT) goes into detail about this: "Starship hulls contain as an integral part of their structure a network of wiring which maintains the jump field around the ship. Without this field, the natural physics of jump space would intrude into the ship interior. The alien physical principles would make life impossible: even the passage of time altered. Breaks in the protective network within a starship hull are a primary cause of the loss of ships in jump".

More discussion follows. Lanthanum jump coils and microjumps are also discussed there by Marc.

While not using the phrase "jump grid", it is clear that Marc was establishing it as canon there.


My ships do not have this, the engines generate a "jump-field bubble" around the ship... the materials in the hull (the base metals, NOT a special grid) are charged by the engines to repel the field, so that it is maintained about 2-3 meters outside the hull, depending on surface features.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Professor Thornwood pops back in.

Well, well, I seem to have a plethora of neato responses.

Awesome, and thank you. Now on the comments section of Jump 101.

1. I personally dig Traveller sooo much and such a big dork that I like T4, hell I own it and several supplements (including my beloved Pocket Empires. ) So, go ahead and use it in Class. Hell, I even have some of the icky Shatter Imperium MT.

2. Not only does the SOM have the Old Man talking about losing two crewmates to a Jump Grid Malf, it has the bloody grid energized on the Starship on the cover of the book.

3. Now, I really have to dig out the other Traveller box, which means a trip the AAB Basement Stored Archive, grrrr. Oh, well, JTAS #24, huh?

4. Thanks again for all the input and IMTU, Jump Grid Uber Alles.

5. I dig the cage within a cage explanation of CVs and Riders, mine btw carry the Riders inside or have JG w/Connectors and slotted into the JG, if present on the CV. Otherwise the JG is laid into every Rider Station so that the JG will function with the loss of Riders.

I look forward to seeing more, thank you again and my inbox is jammed so, laterness.

 

[Peter Schutze]

>Hull mounted jump grids

Ive always thought of this being more like David Weber's drive "nodes" in the honor harrington universe than anything like a mesh inside the hull's surface

it also helps explain why you can do some work on the engines / powerplants etc while in use .... the engineer is fiddling the power balance of the nodes to ensure the individual fields overlap

and why stuff can be outside the hull eg battle-riders because the nodes can be telescoped out or similar to mould itself to the appropriate shape

>lanthanum jump coils

convert the raw power into the proper charge/frequency etc being fed into this "grid" of nodes

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

interesting.

Greetings, I do like this but, again, I have a Jump Grid Bias. That's the Reason I have Engineering Bots to run Hull Integrity Checks at constant rates. Keeps the Bad People from messing with my JG.

None the less, I seem to reading some where that the JG has to be tuned for Jump, so have the Engineer having to make sure the JG stays nominal and balanced during Transit through JumpSpace.

Hoping to Hear from You Soon,
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[Zowy]

I never bothered with Jump nodes or grids. In CT Book 2 a non-starship cost 50% the cost of a similarly equipped starship....however, they could not be converted to take a jump drive at a later time. The use of lanthanum ore and other rare elements, has been cannon from the early 80s. But I just consider that it is spread throughout the structure, hull and the jump drive. I do not have it as a sub-item that needs to be accounted for in battle.

 

[jawillroy]

Actually, Marc Miller's article "Jumpspace" in JTAS #24 (late 1985 and pre-MT) goes into detail about this: "Starship hulls contain as an integral part of their structure a network of wiring which maintains the jump field around the ship...
While not using the phrase "jump grid", it is clear that Marc was establishing it as canon there.

That kind of retconning is the main reason I never got into the superhero comicbooks. :nonono: His game, he can do what he wants...

On the other hand, If I wanted to go with the whole jumpgrid thing, I'd probably just have each unrepaired hull hit add a DM on the next misjump roll...

I liked the imagery of Cherryh's "jump vanes;" they're distinct enough from the rest of a ship's structure, but they're still so prominently situated that such a thing would be an easier hit than is reflected in the damage tables. (Can you tell I'd rather not mess with them? :wink: )

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

And We have our First Extra Credit Point!

Congrats on the C.J. Cherryh reference! You get an Extra Credit Point.

And I'd go with the DM± to the MisJump Number. But, as for Jump Vanes, they do make it convenient for the Ref doing Damage Tables.

 

[jawillroy]

Actually, having looked at the LBB2 damage tables again, I see that maneuver drives are hit on a 3 and jump drives on a 4; iirc there's a slight increase in the probability of rolling a 4 over a 3, is there not? (I'm not mathy) So maybe IMnon-otuProTU, something akin to jump vanes might not be a bad thing: the lanthanum coil is the means by which the jump field is projected around the mass of the ship; the jump vanes amplify and control the jump field, permitting longer jumps. Hence a small ship, like an S or an A, doesn't have much in the way of vanes - stubby little fins at most, or even discrete panels integral to the hull. Long-jump ships would have significant tonnage given over to the vanes, which would be integral to wing-structures on streamlined craft...

Just blahblah off the top of my head, here.

 

[Whipsnade]

Actually, Marc Miller's article "Jumpspace" in JTAS #24 (late 1985 and pre-MT) goes into detail about this: [big snip] While not using the phrase "jump grid", it is clear that Marc was establishing it as canon there.

BB,

There's a helluva difference between JTAS #24's "something in the hull that helps protect the ship from jump space" and DGP's "lanthanum-doped glowing lines that actually initiate the jump". In fact, the "something in the hull that helps protect the ship from jump space" description is often cited to "explain" the "No Jump Torpedos nature" of the OTU; you need a hull of 100 dTons or greater in order to establish a stable jump field.

DGP took one sentence in a deliberately vague article on jump and expanded it to the point of idiocy. Hell, DGP even added the overly twee "fact" that each major race uses different grid patterns; Zhos triangles, Aslan swirls, Droyne hexagons, etc., etc., etc.

No other version uses jump grids in the manner MT does and no version - including MT - links hull damage with jump drive degradation. It's kewl and nothing more. It doesn't fit, it wasn't thought out well enough, and it's just plain silly.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[boomslang]

It doesn't fit, it wasn't thought out well enough, and it's just plain silly.

Indeed.

Speaking for myself, I would extend this critique of yours to cover pretty much the entire canon-busting/canon-reworking "Jumpsace" article, but that's a whole 'nother discussion...

 

[rancke]

The hull grid is something DGP spun out of a few word description found in the CT ship supplement. There was a jump tug which used a "jump net" to enclose it's cargo. From that little acorn a mighty piece of crap has grown.

And so what? When you're building up a shared universe, that's the way you do it: You grab small throwaway references and build mighty edifices on them. Or, more often, you grab a big piece of no information about the subject at all and make something up completely out of the blue.

(I remember getting roasted for daring to give the Duchy of Regina a senate on the flimsy evidence of the existence of a senator being kept prisoner on the Gaesh. As far as I'm concerned, as long as no one has detailed how the Duchy of Regina is governed, I'd be perfectly entitled to introduce a senate even without the existence of that senator. That one was mentioned in The Kinunir is just a little bonus.)

Whatever inspired DGP to detail the jump grid is irrelevant. The real question is if it's a good idea or not.

First, as you note, hull damage doesn't effect jump performance at all. I can scrub every single turret and bay off your hull, pierce every fuel tank, and generally nibble a ship to death BUT if it can make the EPs and can find the fuel it can jump. Howzat again?!!?

The combat system is an abstraction of how things "really" works. If you go solely by the combat rules, you can also damage the interior systems without damaging the hull at all. Howzat again?!!?

I think that the rationalization that jump drive damage reflect damage to the hull grid is an excellent one. How else are you going to explain damage to the jump drive that only reduces its capability? I'd think that either your jump-5 drive works or it has a hole and doesn't work. Reducing its capacity to jump-4 is just silly if it really represents a hit that damages the drive itself.

Second, jump grids play merry hell with the canonical "rider & tenders". (Not to mention the equally canonical "dispersed structures".) Do riders ride "inside" or "outside"?(1) If "outside", do riders need a grid?(2) If they do, does damage to a riders grid effect the tender's jump rating? Can't answer any of those? Don't worry, DGP didn't bother to answer them either.

I can answer them: Some riders ride inside, some (those with dispersed structure carriers) ride outside. Inside riders don't need a grid (but they probably have them anyway). Outside riders need a grid. In "real" life damage to the grids of outside riders effect the carrier's jump rating, but none of the existing combat systems are detailed enough to take that into account.

Are there any problems with jump grids that can't be explained by them falling below the resolution of the existing combat systems?


Hans

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Another thought

Gentlebeings,

Perhaps we have drifted a bit off topic, but think of this on the current comments, why is everyone trying to make it one or the other?

Perhaps, it is a combination of Jump Grid energizing and LH interaction to create a pseudo space bubble that allows the Starship to slip between the Barrier.

Thoughts?
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[boomslang]

Perhaps, it is a combination of Jump Grid energizing and LH interaction to create a pseudo space bubble that allows the Starship to slip between the Barrier.

Thoughts?

Or perhaps the conversion of LH mass to energy is used to create a 100-dton-minumim-size quantum field effect from the lanthanum coils within the Jump engine which propels everything in physical contact with (or in the vicinity of) the drive through a subspace matrix to an equivalent quantum state in a non-localized space-time position while still obeying the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Either that, or it's Magical Elves, and LH is a TL9+ substitute for Pixie Dust.

It's all just handwaving Zen, brah... you need lots of advanced mathematicss, a big-enough object to move, lots of LH, a microgravity environment, and some electricity. Plus, you know, the budgetary/political/cultural inclination to Travel in the first place...

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Professor Thornwood peeks in again.

Greetings and Salutations Class!

A new topic to be Discussed here in Jump 101 (History and Theory).
#jump101.mvt.online.extension.aab#

So, I am curious to the thoughts you have on detecting Starships exiting/entering Jumpspace.

If they can be detected, can that information be used to plot probable courses?

Could a savvy Navigator and Com/Scan Officer sit down and review the data logs and use the info gained to tell their Captain "Well, it took us a an hour or so, but we got a plot, Captain, they're headed for Pixie."

Opening the floor....
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[Andrew Boulton]

Since the fuel needed (and therefore energy released) is proportional to the ship size and distance jumped, if you know how big the ship is the jumpflash will tell you how far it's going (but not the direction).

 

[jawillroy]

If they can be detected, can that information be used to plot probable courses?

Could a savvy Navigator and Com/Scan Officer sit down and review the data logs and use the info gained to tell their Captain "Well, it took us a an hour or so, but we got a plot, Captain, they're headed for Pixie."

IMTU, yes, sometimes.
1) If ship tonnage is known, jump length can be guessed at, which narrows down possible destinations.
2) If the ship ran for jump, and the Navigator knows the the relative speeds of the possible destination systems, then the Navigator should have a relatively easy time of it.
3) If the ship ran for jump using official commercial lanes, it's a no-brainer.
4) Of course, it's possible IMTU for a ship to run for one jump but actually take another. She'll wind up at their destination with a hellacious head of speed to chew up before she can even think about making orbit, but she'll have zigged when whoever tracking her thought she'd zagged. There'll still be the jump flash, though.

If YTU just has ships dropping in and out of jump without regard to stellar relative velocities, but has jump flashes relative to distance and tonnage, then you just have option number one. If you can't read jump flashes that way IYTU, then you're S.O.O.L.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Interesting...

Since the fuel needed (and therefore energy released) is proportional to the ship size and distance jumped, if you know how big the ship is the jumpflash will tell you how far it's going (but not the direction).

OK, on the first part.

Now, to the next part, the SOM mentions charging the JG in a particular fashion to enter/exit Jumpspace. So, if that is true, then one should be able to review the tapes as it were, watch the JG charging make note of the spectra, frequency, etc, and thus give you a direction?

For instance, in your fine mini-Traveller Movie: Getaway the Jump Grid charges and because of my crappy connection I got to watch the Transition to Jumpspace in real slow motion (which was totally cool), and the Jump Flare seems to start on the port side of the Starship.

Now, under my current theory, you could combine the data of the flare size and position to calc a plot. What is your take?
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[Magnus von Thornwood]

Ah, more information, good, good..

IMTU, yes, sometimes.
1) If ship tonnage is known, jump length can be guessed at, which narrows down possible destinations.
2) If the ship ran for jump, and the Navigator knows the the relative speeds of the possible destination systems, then the Navigator should have a relatively easy time of it.
3) If the ship ran for jump using official commercial lanes, it's a no-brainer.
4) Of course, it's possible IMTU for a ship to run for one jump but actually take another. She'll wind up at their destination with a hellacious head of speed to chew up before she can even think about making orbit, but she'll have zigged when whoever tracking her thought she'd zagged. There'll still be the jump flash, though.

If YTU just has ships dropping in and out of jump without regard to stellar relative velocities, but has jump flashes relative to distance and tonnage, then you just have option number one. If you can't read jump flashes that way IYTU, then you're S.O.O.L.

I like this but have question, wouldn't Starship's computer's handle the calcs in such a way as to render stellar motion moot? If not, why?
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[boomslang]

So, I am curious to the thoughts you have on detecting Starships exiting/entering Jumpspace.

If they can be detected, can that information be used to plot probable courses?

Could a savvy Navigator and Com/Scan Officer sit down and review the data logs and use the info gained to tell their Captain "Well, it took us a an hour or so, but we got a plot, Captain, they're headed for Pixie."

The Laws of Thermodynamics should apply to Jump entry/exit; there will be a waste heat signature from all that LH being burned and the phase change as the vessel shifts from normal space to jumpspace and back, not to mention the potential energy (and/or inertia) shift with respect to the mass of the rest of the galaxy.

As for detection, the size of the waste heat signature upon departure/arrival divided by the vessel's displacement might give a clue as to the distance of the Jump; it is not clear if the direction could be similarly deduced. Given that the heat signature will also reflect the change in energy the starship undergoes with respect to being gravitationally-bound to this galaxy, it is theoretically possible that accurate-enough measurement could reveal the precise change in momentum, and by deduction/triangulation, the other endpoint of the Jump.

But IR is long-wavelength, and we're talking pretty precise measurement here, so it might be something that the Zhodani, for example, better task to a clairvoyant instead...

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

SShhhhh!

Sir, one doesn't mention the dreaded Zhodani Far Seer Battalion. We most especially mention the Zhodani Jump Seer Regiment!

It makes the Ratings nervous, hell, it makes Officers nervous too for that matter.
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