Vote Your Canon #1: Empty Hex Jumps (consensus: YES)
- Thread starter robject
- Start date
It's your game you make the rules that work for you.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
It would depend on precisely why they couldn't in the the first place.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Why would it not be possible? You don't need a gravity well to enter or exit jump space, gravity wells just interferes with the process.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
There are no rules to say you can't...
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
And once you're in the desert, can you jump out of it?
Because the other aspect are misjumps.
Because the other aspect are misjumps.
You may need a gravity well to exit where you want to. (T5 early/prototype/experimental jump drives lack both jump governors and distance control.)
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I'm a little foggy on the specifics, since it's a while back when I tried tracking down jump governors.
I think they're only specified once in a Classic second printing, and since then, assumed to be part of the overhead.
I think they're only specified once in a Classic second printing, and since then, assumed to be part of the overhead.
Jump Governors functioned differently in CT:HG'79 than in T5.
In CT:HG'79 Jump Governors allowed you to parse-out your Jump Fuel so as to not use all of it for a less than max-range Jump. After CT:HG'80 Jump Governors of this type were just considered standard across the board and were no longer mentioned (except passingly in DGP: Starship Operators Manual as part of the Jump Drive system).
In T5 a Jump Drive (or Hop, Skip, etc) always makes a Jump of its maximum Jump # unless a Jump Governor is installed to allow it to do lesser range Jumps. Jump Governors do not exist for pre-Standard TL drives (i.e. Experimental/Prototype/Early), and in such cases require the astrogator to plot a full-range jumpline that intersects with the gravity well of the destination to force-precipitate the ship out of Jump at the desired jump range.
In CT:HG'79 Jump Governors allowed you to parse-out your Jump Fuel so as to not use all of it for a less than max-range Jump. After CT:HG'80 Jump Governors of this type were just considered standard across the board and were no longer mentioned (except passingly in DGP: Starship Operators Manual as part of the Jump Drive system).
In T5 a Jump Drive (or Hop, Skip, etc) always makes a Jump of its maximum Jump # unless a Jump Governor is installed to allow it to do lesser range Jumps. Jump Governors do not exist for pre-Standard TL drives (i.e. Experimental/Prototype/Early), and in such cases require the astrogator to plot a full-range jumpline that intersects with the gravity well of the destination to force-precipitate the ship out of Jump at the desired jump range.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
Jumping INTO an empty hex isn't a problem. It's really quite simple.
Jumping OUT of an empty hex depends on your fuel state after arriving ...
Jumping OUT of an empty hex depends on your fuel state after arriving ...
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
So, presumably Tee Five prototype jump drives have no jump governor, so they need to find a large known gravity well to precipitate out of jumpspace.
Doesn't mean they couldn't allow the connected fuel tank to run out of fuel jumping into an empty hex.
Doesn't mean they couldn't allow the connected fuel tank to run out of fuel jumping into an empty hex.
Depends on what color the handwavium happens to be. T5 (for some drives) needs something to run into -- well, if you don't care where you end up, you don't need that. According to the wiki, the very earliest jump drives needed something to bounce away from, and needed to be on the correct side of that thing in order to go in the desired direction.Jumping INTO an empty hex isn't a problem. It's really quite simple.
Jumping OUT of an empty hex depends on your fuel state after arriving ...
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Exactly. It'd run out of fuel anyhow (like '77 ships, they always use 10% per Jn of the drive) though.
it's implied that it is possible to jump into and out of empty hexes.
just looking at the Traveller Map, while taking into consideration the history of Known Space as applied to early space travel and colonizing of planets, some systems require multiple jumps through empty space/hexes to get there. doesn't matter if you are using ships with extra fuel reserves or fuel stashes along the way. and in the Rifts, there are some systems that are 6+ hexes from the nearest system.
just looking at the Traveller Map, while taking into consideration the history of Known Space as applied to early space travel and colonizing of planets, some systems require multiple jumps through empty space/hexes to get there. doesn't matter if you are using ships with extra fuel reserves or fuel stashes along the way. and in the Rifts, there are some systems that are 6+ hexes from the nearest system.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
But the implication is that there is a universal (physics) law that prevents directly jumping into an empty hex,
If we understand what (supposedly) blocks this in the rules, we can make a judgement whether it's justified.
If we understand what (supposedly) blocks this in the rules, we can make a judgement whether it's justified.
I don't think that bit of the wiki commentary was ever formally part of the rules as written; instead, it's likely flavor text that was added later in order to explicitly end the implied no-empty-hex rule. However, it may have been an unwritten assumption in the first edition and early playtests.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
The original
If your Type-S Scout/Courier has 40 tons of fuel, and consumes 20 tons to jump 1 parsec ... you aren't going to have enough fuel left upon arrival (only 15 tons after a week spent in jump space to get there) in order to be able to jump back to your point of origin (20/4=5 tons of power plant fuel consumed during the week in jump).
By contrast, with "jump governors" in play, that same Type-S Scout/Courier still has 40 tons of fuel, but now only consumes 10 tons to jump 1 parsec. Accounting for 5 tons for power plant consumption during the 1 week of jump, the ship still has 25 tons of fuel remaining and can jump 1 parsec back to the point of origin no problem.
The REAL challenge with jumping into deep space is going to be a matter of astrogation/navigator skill so as to program your breakout point relatively accurately and precisely. If accuracy and/or precision isn't all that important to you, because you aren't trying to "arrive" at a specific location, then "anywhere within the 1 parsec hex" works just fine for you.
I can easily imagine that with "prototype tech" in excess of the local tech level, the necessary fine control is not yet available and so you need to "hit the barn door" of a gravity well rather than being able to stop and breakout just anywhere you please. Under such conditions, "must hit gravity well jump shadow to precipitate out of jump" due to experimental/prototype tech functionally means that you can't jump into "empty" deep space hexes (no known gravity well jump shadow to hit there) and the ship would presumably misjump in some form or fashion. So that would be a limitation of technology not being fully proofed out and developed, along with the necessary computer navigation protocols to be able to "breakout on a dime" where you want to be in the absence of a jump shadow.
Counterpoint: The Type Y Yacht. But was it just meant to go out-and-back to worlds without gas stations, or to cross 2-parsec gaps? They didn't say.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
If you need a significant gravity well to initiate a jump in the first place, that's going to curtail a lot of travel in the Oort cloud.
Also, you'd be marooned in an empty hex.
Also, you'd be marooned in an empty hex.
