In another thread, the following posts were made:
What problems would it introduce with the back story or how the canon-universe functions? Could the Book 5 design system be modified to fit the paradigm, or would the hassle be significant enough to relegate it to a strictly a small-ship universe?
(Note: The idea here is Jump distance, not whether or not the Jump Drive is self-powered or powered by the Power Plant. Assume it is powered by the Power Plant for the sake of the discussion).
CT 81 is similar, but not quite the same.CT'77 limited the drive performance to 1-6 for all drives depending on the size of hull it was put in.
TL allowed you to build certain drives, eg TL9 drives A-G (TL10 is required for a type H drive) and those drives could achieve performance 6 in smaller hull sizes. Oh and there was a rule that you couldn't have drive performance over 6 with these drives...
Point - a TL 9 culture can build ships with jump 1-6 (there was no computer restriction back then either, you just had to be able to run the jump 6 program which takes up 2 spaces)
The OTU setting has adopted the HG derived drive TL paradigm where you don't access higher jump numbers until higher TLs - so there is a rules/setting disconnect right there.
You have to have a computer model at least as high as the jump, so TL 9 is J3, TL A is J4, TL B is J5, TL C is J6, TL D+ are theoretically higher, but you can't build higher than J6 (and J7 won't fit with fuel and bridge anyway).
Also TL 9 is A-D, TL10 is E-H, 11 is J-K, 12 L-N, 13 P-Q, 14 R-U, 15 V-Z...
As an OTU-variant, I was curious as to what people's insights would be concerning the idea of reintroducing the CT '81 version of Jump Drives into the otherwise "canon" universe of the OTU (i.e. Jump-rating is NOT limited by TL, but only by TL of Drive Letter and Computer type).I also like the Book 2 (and Old Mongoose) drive tables and the Book 2/Book 3 drive TLs rather than the Book 5 (and all later Traveller) ones. This makes ship "mass" (volume technically, but presumably corresponding with mass) matter - the heavier the ship, the harder it is to accelerate it to high speeds or to throw it into distant jumps. Also, Book 3 drive TLs are much more nuanced, as you can have faster ships earlier, though they are much smaller and on the other hand on lower TLs ship size is limited; I prefer this over the linear drive progression introduced by Book 5 (which is now canonical).
I agree. And (as an aside) it probably explains why DGP noted that the Vilani of the First Imperium had a "faulty theory of jump drive", that did not allow them to produce drives greater than J-2 performance (if they were using the CT '77 / CT '81 ruleset as their basis for MT); otherwise, the Vilani should easily have been able to make J-4 by TL11 under CT '77 / CT '81 , which would break the canon-history of the Interstellar Wars period.
What problems would it introduce with the back story or how the canon-universe functions? Could the Book 5 design system be modified to fit the paradigm, or would the hassle be significant enough to relegate it to a strictly a small-ship universe?
(Note: The idea here is Jump distance, not whether or not the Jump Drive is self-powered or powered by the Power Plant. Assume it is powered by the Power Plant for the sake of the discussion).
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