They were a TL16 civilization, though. TL17 items were clearly "Early" stage technology.
The Hop and Skip Traveller Universe
- Thread starter rancke
- Start date
They were a TL16 civilization, though. TL17 items were clearly "Early" stage technology.
Here is a TL16, 200 ton Far Trader. Note that its range is two 10-parsec hops in 2 days' time. So it can even reach systems 1 hex apart quickly and more efficiently than with a jump drive.
Far Trader AF-BS10 Achilles MCr68.1
Using a 200-ton, TL16 hull, the Achilles Class Far Trader mounts an Early hop drive-B, maneuver drive-A and power plant-A, giving a performance of hop-1 and 1G acceleration. Fuel tankage supports two consecutive hop-1s and 1 month of operations. Life support is rated for 2.5 weeks at capacity. Attached to the bridge is a Computer Model/1bis std. There are 16 staterooms and 8 low berths. Installed weaponry include 2 T3 Hybrid L-S-Ms. Cargo capacity is 64 tons. The ship has a streamlined hull, with scoops, intakes, and bins for frontier refueling.
The ship has 6 crew, and can carry 10 passengers and 8 low passengers.
Crew comfort: +0
Passenger demand: +0
Far Trader AF-BS10 Achilles MCr68.1
Using a 200-ton, TL16 hull, the Achilles Class Far Trader mounts an Early hop drive-B, maneuver drive-A and power plant-A, giving a performance of hop-1 and 1G acceleration. Fuel tankage supports two consecutive hop-1s and 1 month of operations. Life support is rated for 2.5 weeks at capacity. Attached to the bridge is a Computer Model/1bis std. There are 16 staterooms and 8 low berths. Installed weaponry include 2 T3 Hybrid L-S-Ms. Cargo capacity is 64 tons. The ship has a streamlined hull, with scoops, intakes, and bins for frontier refueling.
The ship has 6 crew, and can carry 10 passengers and 8 low passengers.
Crew comfort: +0
Passenger demand: +0
Code:
Tons Component MCr Notes
------- ----------------------------------- ----- --------------------
200 Streamlined Hull 14 S
0 AV=16. 1 Kinetic Plate 0
10 Fuel (5 months) 0
1 Fuel Scoops 0.1
1 Fuel Purifiers 0.1
1 Fuel Intakes 0.1
1 Fuel Bins 0.1
4 PowerPlant-1 (A) 4 P 1
2 Maneuver Drive-1 (A) 4 1 G
15 Ear Hop Drive-2 (B) 30 H 1
2 2x Vd T3 Hybrid L-S-M 4 #2
1 Computer Model/1bis std 3
1 Life Support Standard 1 10 person-months
2 Clinic 1
12 Spacious Bridge 0.7 2cc 3op 1ws
12 6x Crew Stateroom 0.6 #6 1 crew
16 4x Crew Lounge 0 #4
1 2x Crew Shared Fresher 1 #2 4 crew
0.5 Air Lock 0.1
1 Mail Vault 0 for express contracts
1 Container Handler 1 12t/hr
64 Cargo Hold Basic 0
4 8x Low Berth 0.8 #8 1 passenger
2 Cargo Lock 0
24 6x Passenger Lounge 0 #6
1.5 3x Shared Fresher 1.5 #3 4 passengers
20 10x Standard Stateroom 1 #10 1 passenger
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
You get the same performance with a hop drive A in a 200t hull at TL16.
shadowcat20
SOC-12
To get back to the early comments on changes it would make,
First I think the prototypes could be used for transfering news to collection points further away. Sort of like UPS, all data would go to set points and then X-boats would spread out from there. Connect the data collection points wioth hop or skip drive equiped large info carriers and it should seriously speed up data flow in the Imperium.
Then have a couple of hop or skip drive battle rider carriers made to transport fleet elements further/quicker than the enemy could react. Carry a Jump 4 CruRon to within 2 jumps of target and release. They have fuel to get in, hit, and retreat without refueling. Load up and move out of range of a counter strike then.
Another use could be for small package/Precious cargo transport. Move important items/records/persons from point A to point B much faster then pirates or enemys of state could chase them with no chance of getting ahead of them.
Yep.....lots of uses the Imperium could put even a few proto types to use for.
First I think the prototypes could be used for transfering news to collection points further away. Sort of like UPS, all data would go to set points and then X-boats would spread out from there. Connect the data collection points wioth hop or skip drive equiped large info carriers and it should seriously speed up data flow in the Imperium.
Then have a couple of hop or skip drive battle rider carriers made to transport fleet elements further/quicker than the enemy could react. Carry a Jump 4 CruRon to within 2 jumps of target and release. They have fuel to get in, hit, and retreat without refueling. Load up and move out of range of a counter strike then.
Another use could be for small package/Precious cargo transport. Move important items/records/persons from point A to point B much faster then pirates or enemys of state could chase them with no chance of getting ahead of them.
Yep.....lots of uses the Imperium could put even a few proto types to use for.
Of course, there's an error in my 200t TL16 hopship design. The error is that Hop-2 is a TL18 technology, so its Hop Drive-2 is a prototype, and therefore this is not a production design.
If this ship had an Early Hop Drive-1, I don't know if it would be able to actually Hop, or not. It would not be able to move 10 parsecs. It is possible, but not certain, that it could do a "micro-hop", which is still a considerable 9 parsecs.
If this ship had an Early Hop Drive-1, I don't know if it would be able to actually Hop, or not. It would not be able to move 10 parsecs. It is possible, but not certain, that it could do a "micro-hop", which is still a considerable 9 parsecs.
Hrmmn ..Remember Jump(hop/skip etc) Like Gravitics, Micro Computers, Fission, Fusion, The Wheel and Fire (etc) are Pinnacle Technologies that are not automatic on attaining a tech level. The Search could go for a long time and miss it. Some current cannon interstellar Civilizations exist in the same plane and at the same time as Imperials atm that do not have Jump and wont ever use it ..(The Gas Bags) as they trade with and provide service they inhabit gas giants all across known space and have a significant tech base but are not in compitition for planets habital or even usefull to Humanitii or the other major races.
Attaining Jump on ones own is the primary defining factor between Major and Minor races. The First group to get Hop into production on a LARGE scale will take over all of known space and run into other issues..
The Impies can have it in experimeantal and prototype atm and it has zero effect on cannon to date as the Moot is slower than a glacier when it comes to change ie it would require The Navy to reveal it has faster ships for communications (not a 200 ton ship say a 400 ton ship with hop ie the Naval courier) Which explains how they are able to respond as quick as cannon suggests that the Imperials respond to some war news..
Attaining Jump on ones own is the primary defining factor between Major and Minor races. The First group to get Hop into production on a LARGE scale will take over all of known space and run into other issues..
The Impies can have it in experimeantal and prototype atm and it has zero effect on cannon to date as the Moot is slower than a glacier when it comes to change ie it would require The Navy to reveal it has faster ships for communications (not a 200 ton ship say a 400 ton ship with hop ie the Naval courier) Which explains how they are able to respond as quick as cannon suggests that the Imperials respond to some war news..
OK, so this idea is stillborn. somehow I had gotten the impression that hop drives came along earlier in the tech progression than it does. So no need (and no real possibility) of an alternate-world-creating divergence involving the invention of the hop drive. I suspect that the hop drive can be fitted into the OTU as is. So forget about my original question.
I do want to ask this: Assuming that the Darrians actually managed to build TL 17 hop drives, what performance would they have been able to give a 600T ship? If the answer is 'none', what size ships would they have been able to install hop drives in and what performance are we talking about?
(I'm hoping to be able to retcon a hop drive into my AI-piloted Scout ship Lon Geryen, the last ship built on Darrian before the Maghiz, featured in a couple of my adventures in JTAS Online.)
Hans
I do want to ask this: Assuming that the Darrians actually managed to build TL 17 hop drives, what performance would they have been able to give a 600T ship? If the answer is 'none', what size ships would they have been able to install hop drives in and what performance are we talking about?
(I'm hoping to be able to retcon a hop drive into my AI-piloted Scout ship Lon Geryen, the last ship built on Darrian before the Maghiz, featured in a couple of my adventures in JTAS Online.)
Hans
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Hop... TL
1.......17
2.......18
3.......19
4.......20
etc.
This is from the TL progression table and drive tables.
Note that MgT Darrians has a bit more to say on the AI ships the Darrians built...
1.......17
2.......18
3.......19
4.......20
etc.
This is from the TL progression table and drive tables.
Note that MgT Darrians has a bit more to say on the AI ships the Darrians built...
At TL16, the Darrians would have prototype hop drives which can do Hop-1. For a 600t ship, I assume the drive looks like this:
Prototype Hop Drive F
Design potential: hop-2
Usable potential: hop-1 [p322] = 10 parsecs per hop, 24 hours [p375].
70 tons, MCr 175 [p500].
1.2% hull volume fuel per hop [p338].
The volume and cost are based on those of prototype jump drive F. Because these versions are not mass-produced, some could vary from these stats without breaking any rules ("this one's freakishly special").
I would love to see this.
Sort of reminds me of the original Mad Max movie, when Mel Gibson's character takes the last V-8 pursuit car from the MFP garage.
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The Darrians were moving into TL17. Some of their stuff was TL17. They may have been building TL17 prototypes.
As a prototype it probably has an ordinary jump drive as a back-up. Probably a J2 drive with 20% reserve fuel. How much fuel would it have for standard operation? 6% (five jumps worth)? 12%? More? On the one hand, the Darrian Astrography Service's Area of operation was roughly 40 parsecs across, making Lon Geryen able to cross it in four jumps. On the other hand, it could have been designed for long range missions.
Lon Geryen's origin story is told in the adventure 'Trade Pioneers' and it features in my writeup of the Outrim Frontier in the Year 400. I had... I have a notion to write a Lon Geryen adventure for each milieu from Milieu 0 to the Classic Era.
Hans
I don't think it is stillborn. It would make a great piece of kit for a group of adventurers with their own ship and a mad-scientist associate who just wants to modify their J-drive a little...
Additionally, given the benefits of H-1 drives, even if they have to be hand-crafted (like all the best things owned by the nobility?) then having a squadron of tough couriers would be of immense benefit to the Emperor. Think of having a few 2000t Frontier Transports from the Emperor's courier group retrofitted from J-6 to H-1, enabling better coordination between Capital and the outer Archduchies. That wouldn't be canon-busting, but would make it that much tougher for an external enemy to crack the 3I, as reinforcements could arrive a little earlier to a frontier in order to assist with an existential threat.
Let's rephrase the initial question: "what happens in an alternate Third Imperium universe where" the 3I had a breakthrough in jump technology that gave them early/prototype/whatever-the-correct-nomenclature-is H-drives?
Not much? As posted above, some would exist, but likely not enough to make a difference to the wider 3I.
UNLESS the possibility having been proven provokes immense R&D investment to try and take that line of development from developmental to basic...
Given the strategic advantages of faster interstellar travel, from privileged communications to military reinforcement from centralized locations (imagine a Sixth Frontier War with both H-Couriers and a reserve H-Fleet), I'd suspect such a project would happen almost immediately, for values of "immediately" relative to the circumvention of the usual bureaucracy in the 3I.
So how long would "immediately" take? One year? Five or ten years? 50 years? What does this do to the TL of a world where they attempt to upgrade the FTL drive production facilities form J to H-drive?
Actually, I would call it a Naval Depot, separate from the system mainworld (and accompanying TL), working from the designs created by an Imperial Research Station (likewise). Said differently, rather than any Imperial member world getting a "TL increase", it is a single technology under the direct control of the Imperial government and developed in Imperial facilities.
Should the technology get dispersed to Imperial worlds, then those worlds would be advanced in that single technological field, as some of the later editions of Traveller explicitly allow.
How long would "immediately" take depends on how you view the Imperial bureaucracy and its effects on moving top secret research projects into limited production.
shadowcat20
SOC-12
I suspect the navy would be retrofitting existing ships rather than building new ones first. That would speed up factors from a navy point of view.
C3, and transports would be up there on the list also. You could move faster, but would still need information flow to keep things together. Also I suspect the big shipping lines would grab a piece of the action ASAP to get an edge on their competition. Moveing cargo faster and cheaper would kill a lot of little lines.
Expect a wave of changes radiating out from the production centers making the drives. Or from high tech worlds building and refitting ships. A few years at most for core sectors maybe decades for fringe sectors. Also expect High risks of raiders highjacking non military ships for other empires to reverse engineer the engines.
Banks would also have a much higher risk of skipping due to distances even basic ships could cover with the new drives.
Lots of changes would take place.
C3, and transports would be up there on the list also. You could move faster, but would still need information flow to keep things together. Also I suspect the big shipping lines would grab a piece of the action ASAP to get an edge on their competition. Moveing cargo faster and cheaper would kill a lot of little lines.
Expect a wave of changes radiating out from the production centers making the drives. Or from high tech worlds building and refitting ships. A few years at most for core sectors maybe decades for fringe sectors. Also expect High risks of raiders highjacking non military ships for other empires to reverse engineer the engines.
Banks would also have a much higher risk of skipping due to distances even basic ships could cover with the new drives.
Lots of changes would take place.
I understood that a hop drive at TL 15 would be a prototype. 'Prototype' implies not being ready to be put into general production.
Hans
If the Hop and Skip drive comes into general use, might less desirable systems slowly be abandoned in much the same way rural areas have depopulated over the last half century or so?
Why live in a dome under a poison sky when Hop & Skip puts that many more Earth-like worlds closer to you?
Why live in a dome under a poison sky when Hop & Skip puts that many more Earth-like worlds closer to you?
