Alternative to the 1000D M-Drive limit

[Condottiere]

1. Like a lot of Traveller technologies, it seems the current iteration of the manoeuvre drive seems gravitationally based.

2. However, in the inner system, where a lot of more gravity wells could be in range, wouldn't that be an acceleration multiplier?

3. Also, you wouldn't really need a turn over mid course, you just change the setting from push to pull.

 

[MasterGwydion]

1. Like a lot of Traveller technologies, it seems the current iteration of the manoeuvre drive seems gravitationally based.

2. However, in the inner system, where a lot of more gravity wells could be in range, wouldn't that be an acceleration multiplier?

3. Also, you wouldn't really need a turn over mid course, you just change the setting from push to pull.

Sir! The Megamaid! She's gone from suck to blow!

lol

 

[Styryx]

I see it's been awhile since this thread has had any traffic. With the 1000D M-Drive limit in effect, it could take years for a scout ship to do a system survey. That's my Cr.02. And like it's been said, this is pretty new. I've played CT and MgT1e. It was never a rule in either of them. I'm not changing my ways now.

 

[Condottiere]

Why would it be in factors of ten?

Why would it be based on standard Terran gravity?

Base it on Jupiter standard gravity, and you'd double acceleration.

 

[Galadrion]

Meh. I've come up with a house rule which essentially eliminates the problem for my games. M-drive works to the given rating out to the heliopause (or the local stellar system's equivalent), which I pretty much set as 120 AU times the square root of the stellar system's luminosity - fairly arbitrary, but at least it gives me something to work with. Beyond that, out in interstellar space, M-drive rating is decreased by one, or halved if it's already one or below. Move out into a rift area - something I define as more than nine parsecs from the nearest stellar system - and the M-drive rating drops by another one (or halves again, if already one or below). From there, every time you move out "range band" (another factor of nine from the nearest stellar object - 81 parsecs for the second range band, 729 for the second, which is considerably more than halfway between the galactic arms for the most part), the M-drive rating drops again by the same scheme. It should be pretty clear that dropping to negligible M-drive ratings is fairly unlikely, since you'd run out of jump fuel first (and be well outside the galactic halo).

Barring misjumps, it's something that almost never comes up in my games anyway - my players generally try to stay out of deep space. Not a healthy place, y'know? Space dragons and such...

 

[Sigtrygg]

Just ignore the stupid rule suggestion. Or switch to HEPLaR

 

[Garnfellow]

Weirdly I just posted a blog entry looking at the 1000D limit. I like the concept just fine as an in-setting explanation for how the maneuver drive works, but I don't think for game purposes the juice is really worth the squeeze. I hadn't thought about the havoc it would wreak on Scout surveys, but that's a good point.

 

[Sigtrygg]

And there are adventures that contradict this interpretaion.

 

[Geir]

And there are adventures that contradict this interpretaion.

Almost certainly, but then again all the way back to Kinunir, that's true if a lot of things: there are no Imperial Senators.
But as far as 1000D goes, it does fit into the narrative that j-drive was first used by the Solomani in their own solar system, I assume to get to the ice giants or the Kuiper belt. Saturn works with a little bit of planning (Astrogation check?) and using Saturn's own 1000D limit, so you could pretty much go there on m-drive with accelerate-turn-decelerate.

For other in-system transfers then the planning becomes either:

1) How fast can I go and still slow down inside the destination 1000D bubble? (and yes, that in fact might involve going past the target while still slowing down and the doubling back - more tricks for the astrogator).

2) Does it make more sense time and fuel wise to do a microjump to 100D of the target? As for the velocity vector leaving a jump, that is - and I think I've said it before - pretty much handwaved away, since not only the ship's vector but the relative velocity and direction of the source and target might need to be considered. (vague - but the source and target could be in an orbit around a star or around the galaxy or something shooting off towards intergalactic space)

 

[Condottiere]

1. The problem with microjumps is that they use the same time and fuel as a factor one.

2. Factor six acceleration tends to get you there faster.

3. If you have a fixed destination, you could with a kilodiameter drive accelerate there, and once you hit the destination's kilodiameter limit, decelerate.

 

[Geir]

3. If you have a fixed destination, you could with a kilodiameter drive accelerate there, and once you hit the destination's kilodiameter limit, decelerate.

Yes, but if you leave the 1D1000 of the sun, coast, and enter the 1D1000 of say, Neptune, you'll likely be going too fast (still outward) before you exit out the other side of the 1000D of the planet, so you're turn-over would be prior to the coast phase while still in the sun's 1000D bubble. Depends on where start from, how much acceleration you've got, and math.

 

[Condottiere]

Sounds like astrogation.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Almost certainly, but then again all the way back to Kinunir, that's true if a lot of things: there are no Imperial Senators.

There are no Imperial Senators in Kinunir, the senator is described as a noble and a senator - looks like he is a senetor of a subsector planetary government.
The term Imperial Senator is never used.

Mandela effect and all that.

 

[Geir]

There are no Imperial Senators in Kinunir, the senator is described as a noble and a senator - looks like he is a senetor of a subsector planetary government.
The term Imperial Senator is never used.

Mandela effect and all that.

Mandela was never an Imperial Senator. (No, I understand the reference)
Fair enough, I did just look at it again, and it is sufficiently vague, but when it came out, two years after Star Wars, the implication seemed obvious... at the time... to a 14-year-old.

 

[alex_greene]

1. Like a lot of Traveller technologies, it seems the current iteration of the manoeuvre drive seems gravitationally based.

2. However, in the inner system, where a lot of more gravity wells could be in range, wouldn't that be an acceleration multiplier?

3. Also, you wouldn't really need a turn over mid course, you just change the setting from push to pull.

I think the phrase I used when I first saw this deliberate nerfing of the M-Drive was "Sod that and a stack of Yaskoydray's Monologue albums in vinyl, how do they think interplanetary craft get about between the mainworld and the colonies?"

As far as I'm concerned, there is an alternative to these M-Drives. And the Travellers; ship always has one.

Go wherever you like in system, your M Drive never loses power, just like in Granddad's LBB days. Once in a while, though, you probably have to empty the bag. Just don't do it near food.

 

[Condottiere]

The DEAN DRIVE: How it works - making it better. Inertial space propulsion

Asymmetric Impulse Drive (AID) defies laws of physics ? DEMO at end of presentation. From the Conference On Future Energy Seminar 2020 (COFE12).

Dean Drives are a dynamic and complex multi-dimensional system.

Multi-dimensional. Sounds like sci-fi. But in a way, the Dean Drive is a time machine that appears to snub Newton. When in fact, the machine obeys all of Newtons’ Laws.

Most of us are convinced we know how a Dean Drive works. We don’t. I thought I did – until I actually built a few.

So, the first part of our presentation exposes the secrets of this phenomenal machine.

In the 1950’s Norman Dean did not have the luxury of a huge variety of spring types and rates to experiment with. Nor did he have digital electronics or access to compact and powerful electric motors. (In fact, the motors used on our engines were built in late 1980’s, and though of high-quality Japanese engineering, they do not use rare-earth magnets. Recent designs in motor technology would make our engines even more lighter and powerful.)

Our other contributions to the Dean Drive at this juncture, have been in the dampening of the carriage recoil – shortening the recovery time. We also incorporated an electronic commutator and consolidation of all machine components. Most importantly, we re-configured the suspension system.

 

[MonsterX]

The 1000D limit rule and a minor astrogation error can be combined to make a fantastic mini-adventure set up. I call it the Hunger Game. Say, there are 3 player characters on the ship. No low berths. A missed astrogation role puts the players far from the primary, which is primitive and does not have spacecraft available capable of performing a rescue. Travel to the primary will take 6 weeks. They have 2 weeks of air and no food, except a tin of dog food, a packet of stale crisps and a tube of Bonjela gum ointment (the minty flavour, it's quite nice). It becomes even more interesting if the players have highly destructive and/or armour piercing weapons available. Start by saying, "woops, looks like a TPK...wait... maybe not a total PK."

Of course, you can play the Hunger Game without the 1000D rule also, it just means the players must be further out. So why even have the rule?

I understand that without the rule, using spacecraft as relativistic weapons becomes possible and therefore inevitable if we are being realistic, but I would rather just ignore this inconsistency and just make sure the issue never comes up - I mean, players with the right skill set could probably also make nukes if they want, using high-tech equipment. And armies of self-replicating sentient killer robots. So we are already ignoring a lot of realism problems in how Traveller-level tech could be misused to blow up the universe. I don't see any other reason why the 1000D rule is desirable, besides the relativistic weapons issue, so I'd rather just handwave it away, and avoid hobbling the players and thus ruining the fun of adventures in interstellar space, or in the outer solar system, which have the potential to be full of pathos and interesting ways to die. While it would be quite possible to have fun adventures in those environments without M-drive capabilities, players get used to having their magic reactionless drive capabilities and taking them away for reasons that seem really gamey seems a bad move. Instead, just move the players farther from where they need to be. There's plenty of space out there.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

Hey all! Just an idea I had for greater variations in M-Drives.

D limit for M-Drives as a function of their M-number. (200Dx"Thrust Potential Lost for increased M-Drive sensitivity") This is how far away from a Gravity Well, that the ship can operate. This is built into the design when the M-Drive is built and cannot be changed later. Installing a whole new M-Drive would be required.

The "Remaining M-Thrust Potential" is used as the actual M-Drive number for performance, power consumption, etc.

Total Drive Potential is the M-3 of the drive on the chart in Highguard.

Use the total Drive Potential number for finding required TL, size of the drive, and the drive's Cost, as per the chart in Highguard.

So at TL-16 with an M-drive/10 you could be either;

Zipping around at Thrust/9, but limited to the 200D limit or,
You could be slow-boating it at Thrust/1 all the way out to 1,800D before your performance degraded to 1% of normal Thrust.

At a more modest TL-12 and a M-Drive/7 you could either;
Zip around at Thrust/6 and be limited to 200D or,
slow-boat it at Thrust/1 all the way out to 1,200D.

TL-10 and a M-Drive/3?
Thrust/2 within 200D or,
Thrust/1 within 400D.

What do you guys think of this idea? How do you think it would change the game?

After debating the m-drive limit back and forth in my head, I've decided to resurrect (and re-purpose) a piece of hand-wavium tech from ICE's old Space Master game. 'Jump' capable ships in SM, had something called a 'Relative Inertial Field' generator, that allowed FTL travel with no adverse time dilation, and also prevented the ship from disintegrating at relativistic speeds.
For me, it's going to be the piece of tech that allows a m-drive to get full effect in interstellar space. Available at...i dunno, TL13?
There. Done. Problem solved. ;-)

 

[FreeTrav]

I disagree with the 1000D limit for maneuver drives; I hold with the unrestricted M-drive of CT/MT. Yes, that means near-c rocks are potentially a Thing, but to be honest, I don't play in (or run) scenaria where this is a reasonable solution to the problem(s) posed, so it doesn't become an issue.

What I haven't come up with is an explanatory handwave for how it works. And I don't really care, because it generally doesn't affect play.