Alternate FTL Drive for my game

[MarcusIII]

This is the rules I will be using for "Hyper-Drive" in my next game. Pretty simple. Base drive drive data from Cepheus/SRD.

Hyper-Drive

A hyper-drive moves the ship into an alternate dimension called hyper-space. The drive is rated by how many parsecs(3.26 light years) the ship can travel per week (7 days) while in hyper-space. Drives are rated 1 through 6. As with a Jump drive one must be far enough away from a celestial body before engaging the hyper-drive. This is generally 100 diameters in distance. The shortest amount of time a ship may travel in hyper-space is 12 hours, traveling a corresponding distance based on Drive size. Courses follow a straight line only. If your course causes you to enter the100 D limit of a star or planet the ship returns to normal space at that point. So a short hop in hyper-space might be required to clear the local system star’s 100 D limit in order to get a straight course for your final destination.


Drive size & cost: The size of the hyper-drive is calculated by taking a Jump drive size of the same rating for the same ship tonnage and then adding the J-fuel tankage required for one jump. E.g. A J-1 drive for a 100 ton ship is 3 tons in size. Requiring 10 tons in fuel tankage for one jump. Therefore a Hype-drive with a rating of 1 for a TL 12, 100 ton ship would be 13 tons. Apply any TL tonnage drive adjustments to the total of the two figures, then calculate cost. The ship’s power plant rating must be equal to or greater than the hyper-drive rating. The cost of a hyper-drive is MCr0.5per ton.


Entering Hyper-Space Procedure
1. Calculate Plot: Entering hyper-space requires a course calculation called a “plot”. Starports rated C or better sell up-to-date plots to nearby populated worlds for Cr1,000 per parsec. A skilled pilot can also calculate their own plot. Throw Piloting/EDU 6+ to calculate a plot, apply a negative DM equal to the number of weeks the ship will travel; this takes1Dx6 minutes (i.e., 1D ship combat turns). Add any positive DM from your Electronics system. It is possible to rush this calculation, to guarantee that it will only take one ship combat turn, but the throw is Piloting/EDU 10+. A failed check requires another attempt, or the ship will have a hyper-space accident (see below). It is possible to calculate a plot in advance, but it will become obsolete within 1D days.
2. Engage Drive: Once the plot is ready, the ship’s engineer must throw Engineering/EDU 8+ to engage the Hyper-Drive. This procedure takes a second and can be done in the same round as the pilot’s throw itself.
3. Enter hyper-space: To succeed, throw 2D with the following DMs. A throw of 0 or less causes an accident. A bad plot causes an automatic accident. DM+the Effect of the Engineering throw to Engage the Drive DM-1 per day the plot is outof date. DM-2 if the Hyper-Drive is damaged. DM-8 if within a hundred-diameter limit of the nearest planet or star
4. In Case of an Accident: An accident causes a Critical Hit on the ship (see the space combat rules) and may destroy it.Furthermore, the ship travels 1D x 1D parsecs in a random direction.

 

[rinku]

Seems solid enough.

One consequence of the 12 hour minimum is that it can't be used for system travel - 12 hours at 1 parsec per week works out to be a 1/4 of a light year, or three light months. That's around 16,000 AU. Although maybe you can throttle the drive back to fractional values?

And plotting an intercept with an in-system body would drop you out of hyperspace as well, I guess?

 

[mavikfelna]

I've never tried to convert my setting to Traveller, but it's an intriguing idea. In my setting, there are 3 distinct types of FTL, each with different sub types, and now a hybrid type Stargate as well. There is Warp drive, a fairly standard Alcubier(sp) type warp drive that moves you through normal space at around 4 LY/day. Then there is hyperdrive, which translates the vessel into an alternate dimension that is trickier to use and bigger but faster at around 10 LY/day, and the finally drive type is basically the jump drive from BattleTech, needing to be 1000+ diameters from the star but functionally instan, it's the largest and most dangerous type of drive. It's good for about 20 LY at a jump but needs refueling after each jump.
The hybrid type is that someone found a way to create a stable jump field in a ring but to open it you need a plasma lance to punch it open, which came from the Reptilonian race that use plasma lances as their translation method to hyperspace. .

I have no idea how to translate this into Traveller.

Anyway, your design looks good, I think it should be pretty workable.

 

[MarcusIII]

Seems solid enough.

One consequence of the 12 hour minimum is that it can't be used for system travel - 12 hours at 1 parsec per week works out to be a 1/4 of a light year, or three light months. That's around 16,000 AU. Although maybe you can throttle the drive back to fractional values?

And plotting an intercept with an in-system body would drop you out of hyperspace as well, I guess?

Yes, on purpose. In system is M drive only. 1/4 of a light year is within the Ort cloud range. So scale is fine for anything players would need. Above 12 hours time you can plot an exit point anywhere. Any body that requires you to move out 100D before jumping in Trav will precipitate a ship out of hyper-space if intersected.

 

[MarcusIII]

I've never tried to convert my setting to Traveller, but it's an intriguing idea. In my setting, there are 3 distinct types of FTL, each with different sub types, and now a hybrid type Stargate as well. There is Warp drive, a fairly standard Alcubier(sp) type warp drive that moves you through normal space at around 4 LY/day. Then there is hyperdrive, which translates the vessel into an alternate dimension that is trickier to use and bigger but faster at around 10 LY/day, and the finally drive type is basically the jump drive from BattleTech, needing to be 1000+ diameters from the star but functionally instan, it's the largest and most dangerous type of drive. It's good for about 20 LY at a jump but needs refueling after each jump.
The hybrid type is that someone found a way to create a stable jump field in a ring but to open it you need a plasma lance to punch it open, which came from the Reptilonian race that use plasma lances as their translation method to hyperspace. .

I have no idea how to translate this into Traveller.

Anyway, your design looks good, I think it should be pretty workable.

Traveller (as distinct from the 3rd Imperium setting) can handle any of those FTL drives. None would pose a problem that I can see. They're pretty cool

 

[rinku]

Yes, on purpose. In system is M drive only. 1/4 of a light year is within the Ort cloud range. So scale is fine for anything players would need. Above 12 hours time you can plot an exit point anywhere. Any body that requires you to move out 100D before jumping in Trav will precipitate a ship out of hyper-space if intersected.

Does precipitation cause damage or is otherwise a dangerous thing? I'd suggest it should, especially if it can be used as a shortcut to get around the 12 hour rule and allow in-system hyper-space travel. Otherwise you just point the ship at where Mars will be in a few minutes and push the button, and everyone WILL use that instead of M-Drive.

PLANNED interstellar hops would avoid it by setting the arrival at a slightly safer distance (maybe 110 diameters). Or maybe just go with precipitation during that initial 12 hours is dangerous, but less so afterwards. For Hyper-reasons.

 

[steelbrok]

I prefer warp drive IMTU.
The warp rating is the Jump rating and there is the same fuel requirement (for wibbly-wobbly techy reasons to do with inflating the warp bubble?)
The difference is in how the drive can be used.

Each level of Jump becomes a level of Warp
Maximum warp speed is Warp level parsecs/week
Fuel use is 10% of ship displacement warp number employed times parsecs travelled
A 200 tonne ship travelling at warp 3 for 2 weeks uses 60% of hull displacement in fuel to travel 6 parsecs so 120 tonnes of fuel would be needed.

An IN courier can then go a short way very fast or a long way without refuelling.

 

[MarcusIII]

Does precipitation cause damage or is otherwise a dangerous thing? I'd suggest it should, especially if it can be used as a shortcut to get around the 12 hour rule and allow in-system hyper-space travel.

Hmm, good idea. I'll work it out. Thanks