Vote Your Canon #2: Xboat Route Skipping? (no clear consensus)

[Grav_Moped]

So as to the idea that areas can on occasion be skipped, I actually think would require more than a simple I am an agent and need your boat.

Literally skipping a stop? Not likely. Any rush priority commandeering of an XBoat would just use one of the maintenance spares.

I'm pretty sure the question here is whether XBoat message traffic can either:
1) traverse strings of short jumps through adjacent worlds at J-4 speed; that is, messages are sent to the intermediate worlds but are also relayed onward at higher Jn when possible, (see my post upthread at #9) and/or
2) cross between two worlds on different branches an XBoat route that do not have a declared route between them.

 

[Vargr Breath]

XBoats not only "can skip" intervening systems, but I would argue that they do so on a regular basis.

Here is a map showing all of the possible destinations within Jump-4 of each world on the Express Network within the Jewell, Vilis, Regina, Lanth, Aramis and Rhylanor subsectors.

Worlds with 5+ systems on the Express Network within 4 parsecs (exclusively within the Spinward Marches):

• Efate/Regina (5)
• Boughene/Regina (5)
• Feri/Regina (5)
• Roup/Regina (5)
• Risek/Rhylanor (7)
  
• Celaphina/Rylanor (6)
• L'oeul d'Dieu/Aramis (5)
• Aramis/Aramis (5)
• Margesi/Rhylanor (5)

If seeing all those extra lines explicitly laid out on the sector map starts to look confusing to you (and it certainly does to me!) then you ought to understand why the Express Boat "lanes" on the map are really just a simplification to help keep the layout presentation of the sector map as simple and uncluttered as possible so you don't have lines crisscrossing everywhere covering up important information all over the place.

The other thing to remember is that just like with TCP/IP packets, communications are not going to be "single pathed" through the network between nodes.

The Express Network is less a "railroad" that stops at every station along the "tracks" and more of a "Worlds Wide Web" of communications traffic between multiple star systems simultaneously. It's only in places like the Vilis and Lanth subsectors where there is only a "single path" for communications to take (Denotam to Garda-Vilis and Ivendo to Ghandi) that you don't have redundant routes available.

For example, a message that arrives at Ghandi/Lanth would get routed through Denotam/Vilis *AND* Dinomn/Lanth for forwarding on to Extolay/Lanth, since either route would require 2 jumps in order to reach Extolay from Ghandi.

In the Fifth Frontier War context, hostile fleets showing up in either the Lysen/Jewell or Efate/Regina system will cut Express Network contact with the Jewell cluster, since there are no alternate routes across that part of space.

Note that the smartest shortcut across the Lanth subsector possible without an extensive investment in J5/J6 capability would be for the IISS to establish a Scout Base at Pirema/Lanth so as to connect Dinomn to Rhylanor ... reducing the communication time from Regina to Rhylanor through Lanth subsector from 7 jumps to only 3 jumps. Somehow, the IISS hasn't seemed to figure out this bit of simple logistics yet (despite having centuries to work on the problem).

Look at all the places for Subsidized Starships to deliver the Mail to.

 

[Limburger59]

Unless it is a huge emergency, I'd have them go by their route, otherwise, what happens when they don't arrive?

I would say that Xboats must travel their scheduled routes - and there are priority routes that bypass systems while other routes will cover every system on the route.
In the Netherlands there are Snel (fast) trains and Slow trains. In small towns nobody is fazed by the Snel trains flying through town without stopping as that is not the schedule; but if a scheduled Slow train didn’t stop at the platform all kinds of red flags would go up and every old lady in the village would be gossiping about the missing train.

 

[Enoki]

I would think they always follow a scheduled route. This would be important to each world along it as updated economic, political, and social information would then move at a known and expected pace along the route.
My problem with X-boats has always been the routes, not the schedule. I would think that this system would stop at the most important economic, political, and population centers in a subsector, but it often doesn't.

Outside of that, one of the main things small merchants, mining operators, and unofficially operating scouts could do is pick up some cash moving data from X-boat station worlds to those off the route, particularly smaller less populated worlds. This would be a more irregular but an important function.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Do you think Xboats must follow their routes in order, one world after the other?

Or are they allowed to skip systems under certain circumstances?

I think it depends on how expensive it is to run a particular route, and the urgency of the information. X-Boats were never a big thing in our sessions. When I GM'd I operated them like a Pony Express service; every day or every few standard hours a boat would jump out or one would jump in, dump its data, maybe get serviced if needed, then jump out again.

How much does it cost to finance one boat for one jump? How much of a tax base is there between routes to finance X-boat traffic? That's what you have to figure. From that you can come up with the number of X-boats servicing a route, and the frequency of jumps. A rough example; from Core or Capitol to any nearby systems there's probably an X-boat jumping in and out every few minutes. Go much further our and it's probably one every day, week, or few weeks.

What I could never figure were X-boat routes outside the Imperium. Oh sure, there's an equivalent service, or so one suspects. But why would the Extents have any kind of organized mail/data service? The Solis possibly have a lot of privatized couriers. The Aslan may have rival X-boat clans. The Darriens probably have X-boats that are essentially streamlined scout ships that can refuel themselves. Pick your poison in terms of race and service.

For all that went into defining it I still think the X-boat service as a whole has never been fully fleshed out.

 

[Condottiere]

I wouldn't set my watch by arriving ecks boats.

Unless an exact schedule was ever published, just looking at the routes doesn't really convey exactly how each individual ecks boat was regularly sent off.

 

[Enoki]

The data update rate is the important thing here. For example, financial information would need to move along the route at a known pace. It would have to update likely daily at a minimum for many worlds, especially those trading heavily. Banking data would need to flow so persons moving between worlds, or those persons and businesses that operate / trade on several or more worlds would have data about their accounts and business dealings.

Political would be equally important. A war or revolution somewhere is something the leadership needs to know about ASAP.

X-boats might operate outside the Imperium to a small extent going to worlds that are important partners with the 3I. Other political entities might operate something like an X-boat service in one form or another for the same reasons.