Are rift stations able to exist?

[Vormaerin]

You aren't going to find them from a ship that just jumps randomly into the hex and looks around. But we are talking about scanning from a planet with 57th century technology over years as they get the project in motion. They are only looking from 15 ly away. We can spot brown dwarfs, sub brown dwarfs, and exoplanets with our current technology and that's without ships capable of jumping there and back for verification.

The jump map of the Traveller universe is massively depopulated just considering stars, much less rogue planets, comets, and other bodies. The idea that an organization like the IISS couldn't find a place to put a rift station if they decided it was worthwhile seems unlikely.

It's just generally not worthwhile.

 

[Nelphine]

Right but most worlds in the imperium dont have the resources to scan other hexes. You'd need high pop and high tech and high industry. Or of course the occassional small pop world that was 'colonized' by IISS just for that purpose. But odds are, most worlds just dont qualify.

However, i agree - if one of the big players in the imperium decided they needed a rift station somewhere, then in 1-50 years (depending on assumptions about observation tech) they could set up a research station on the nearest world, and scan until they find a rogue world or comet that is suitable.

But thats a massive expense, that is effectively being added to the start up cost of a rift station. There would need to be an extreme reason to do so, as you couldn't effectively pass that expense onto ships travelling through the rift station - it would just be too high.

 

[Vormaerin]

Right. That's why they are few and far between. The Islands subsectors let you bridge the rift with just two stations. That's pretty valuable considering the lag of going all the way around through Corridor.

But most places wouldn't provide that value. There's almost no circumstance where they would be commercially viable, so they'd have to provide value to government and/or the Navy/Scouts. And those organizations are Jump 4+ capable.

 

[Micky]

hesitating to ask at the risk of derailing the thread at best.. and at worst asking a stupid question with an obvious answer . This whole notion of empty space has been hard for me to wrap my head around. Sort of is tied into the existential question so let me ask, I am new the game afterall and that is what we have to do and exist to do. Ask questions of the experienced players haha.

While the whole refueling issue and J-Drives is sort of cut and dried. How do you all explain/rationalize the use of gravatic maneuver drives in common starships, even Imperial Navy starships, Scout Ships, in empty space. Don't they need a 1000D gravity source of substance to function at any kind of real efficiency? One that would be very few and very far between in 'empty space'. That is what I understand about M-Drives. Do I understand those wrong, or am I missing something or it is simply hand waved/detail glossed over. The lack of movement once you jumped into Empty Space would be FAR more problematic than finding fuel to jump back out wouldn't it.. you couldn't even move, or barely (1%??) to a potential source or refuelling spot.

 

[Vormaerin]

So M-Drives are basically just space magic to allow maneuvering around in space without the tyranny of rockets generating excessive unfun-ness particles. For most of Traveller's history, they just worked whereever you were. Relatively recently, they decided it needed a pseudo science description, so this 1000D limit was added that makes a lot of things established previously not work. As a result, the Deep Space book has a new drive add on for operating in deep space...

As you might guess, I'm not a fan of the 1000D limit and just ignore it. It isn't even mentioned in the core rules or high guard. It turns up in other books and other editions (like T5), however. And is "canon" for whatever value you place on that.

As a result, the "official" rules are now that your drives operate, but very very slowly, in deep space. So if you do arrive pretty close to something, you are okay because the brown dwarf or rogue planet would have some gravity. If it's too small for that, you can *slowwwly* crawl to the object if you are close enough. Otherwise, you are just toast.

 

[Geir]

hesitating to ask at the risk of derailing the thread at best.. and at worst asking a stupid question with an obvious answer . This whole notion of empty space has been hard for me to wrap my head around. Sort of is tied into the existential question so let me ask, I am new the game afterall and that is what we have to do and exist to do. Ask questions of the experienced players haha.

While the whole refueling issue and J-Drives is sort of cut and dried. How do you all explain/rationalize the use of gravatic maneuver drives in common starships, even Imperial Navy starships, Scout Ships, in empty space. Don't they need a 1000D gravity source of substance to function at any kind of real efficiency? One that would be very few and very far between in 'empty space'. That is what I understand about M-Drives. Do I understand those wrong, or am I missing something or it is simply hand waved/detail glossed over. The lack of movement once you jumped into Empty Space would be FAR more problematic than finding fuel to jump back out wouldn't it.. you couldn't even move, or barely (1%??) to a potential source or refuelling spot.

The empty Space thing with m-drives is a bit controversial among some here, but, there are ways around it. The obvious one being to use a reaction drive (though you will run out of fuel very quickly). The DeepNight Revelations set of adventures and background introduce the DSMS (Deep Space Maneuvering System) that gives you the ability to bootstrap with a cost in equipment and power, allowing at least a G or two at high tech levels. And then there is the ramscoop option...

It is simplest to assume a gravitational anchorage of some sort, even if it is just a small world, to take into account jump emergences that are not exactly on target. As I understand it, the various planetary diameter drive limits apply to any object with more mass (or, let's say displacement) than the vehicle itself, so even a kilometre-wide asteroid would act as an anchor for ships up to 37 million tons or so. Well out to 100 or 1000 km at least...

Better to find a bigger rock, even a Size 1 planet like Pluto. (And that sort of thing (stopped by a bigger object out to 100D) can be used to explain why starships have to be at least 100 tons... not that you can't make them smaller, but they tend to run into some 100D limit of something bigger than themselves. Thus dies the unlamented jump torpedo (that and a 5 ton +2.5% minimum size, that even on a highly advanced 10 ton j-1 ship would eat (5+0.25) x 0.7 = 3.675 tons, plus a ton of fuel and a power plant or battery to make it go)). I mean you can do it, perhaps, but crossing a parsec begins to look more like a lottery than a routine thing.

Hmm, I like the "anchorage" concept - takes me back to the opening episodes of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.

And as for how common such things are, we've discovered two interstellar objects passing through the Solar system in less than a decade, and a decent deep sky survey should allow us to find a dozen or so a year. Theoretically.

 

[Condottiere]

1. In theory, you have centuries of astronomical observations to draw upon.

2. Setting aside deep space drives, what you could do is identify a likely, promising gravity well, and overjump in that direction; in theory, once you hit hundred diameters, you bounce back (out) into Einsteinian space.

 

[Micky]

The empty Space thing with m-drives is a bit controversial among some here, but, there are ways around it. The obvious one being to use a reaction drive (though you will run out of fuel very quickly). The DeepNight Revelations set of adventures and background introduce the DSMS (Deep Space Maneuvering System) that gives you the ability to bootstrap with a cost in equipment and power, allowing at least a G or two at high tech levels. And then there is the ramscoop option...

It is simplest to assume a gravitational anchorage of some sort, even if it is just a small world, to take into account jump emergences that are not exactly on target. As I understand it, the various planetary diameter drive limits apply to any object with more mass (or, let's say displacement) than the vehicle itself, so even a kilometre-wide asteroid would act as an anchor for ships up to 37 million tons or so. Well out to 100 or 1000 km at least...

Better to find a bigger rock, even a Size 1 planet like Pluto. (And that sort of thing (stopped by a bigger object out to 100D) can be used to explain why starships have to be at least 100 tons... not that you can't make them smaller, but they tend to run into some 100D limit of something bigger than themselves. Thus dies the unlamented jump torpedo (that and a 5 ton +2.5% minimum size, that even on a highly advanced 10 ton j-1 ship would eat (5+0.25) x 0.7 = 3.675 tons, plus a ton of fuel and a power plant or battery to make it go)). I mean you can do it, perhaps, but crossing a parsec begins to look more like a lottery than a routine thing.

Hmm, I like the "anchorage" concept - takes me back to the opening episodes of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.

And as for how common such things are, we've discovered two interstellar objects passing through the Solar system in less than a decade, and a decent deep sky survey should allow us to find a dozen or so a year. Theoretically.

thanks Geir! That helps. A lot! Makes sense even to an idiot like me. Appreciate the reply

 

[MasterGwydion]

To put it in perspective, if we pretend our solar system is the diameter of plutos average orbit, which would make it 80 au, and we pretend it was a square, then you could fit ~6,250,000 solar systems into one hex.

If you scatter 20 rogue worlds in there, you have a 1 in 312,500 of guessing a solar system sized body of space that has a rogue world in it. And even then, its really really hard to find something the size of a planet in a solar system. If you have the resources of a world to find it, sure. A mere starship? Even a tigress sized science vessel would take a long time to find such a thing without a nearby 'sun' for reference.

(If you did somehow know which solar system sized body of space had a rogue world, a tigress sized science vessel could find it before it ran out of power. An average 2000 dton science vessel couldn't. If you don't know the solar system sized body of space, a tigress size science vessel would run out of power years before finding a rogue planet.)

These rules are found in Book 4: Deep Space Exploration Handbook, Chapter 3. "Anomalies, Rogues, and other Objects"

 

[phavoc]

We know from Voyager data that deep space (i.e. outside of our system's heliosphere) that "empty" space is not exactly as empty as first thought. Obviously we still need more data points, but thus far the observations from our first true deep space probes is telling us there is much more interstellar hydrogen than first thought. It could be that where we are in the galaxy is anomalous for how much interstellar hydrogen is found (to either a greater or lesser degree).

We also know that planetary objects such as Omamura can and do pass through solar systems. To what extent objects exist between solar systems (i.e. not orbiting a star) is still being determined. These so-called rogue planets have been found though, and some are the size of Jupiter. But that wasn't the question really. An object like that, especially if it's a rogue gas giant, would be a perfect explanation and reason to anchor a station to cross a stellar rift. Then you'd have all the fuel in the world for ships to use to cross.

However the description provided for some of the rift stations excludes that little proviso. For that matter it also excludes any description of it being in orbit around a rogue planetary object, a brown dwarf or any other stellar object. It's literally a "rift station". Using Occam's razor and avoiding Traveller logic it precludes anything other than a man-made station. I say "Traveller logic" because there is a tendency to sometimes use logical gyrations to explain something away rather than call out the obvious miss in the explanation. In this case a single sentence around a "rift" station would be that it's orbiting a rogue planetary object / gas giant, thus explaining how ships can find it, how they can refuel, and how they can maneuver around it without the retconning of "deep space thrusters". Which, on a personal note, has always been an "ugh! what a useless retcon after decades of it not existing".

So, except and unless these rift stations are located where fuel exists, I still cannot figure out how they can function to refuel ships since there seems to be no reasonably simple and/or logical explanation to account for fuel getting there in the first place. It would be far simpler for an update to the rift station explanation to include the fact that they exist around discovered deep-space planetary objects, which neatly answers the question. Even better if the explanation states "many" rift stations are indeed in orbit around a gaseous object, and those that aren't are located on objects where "mining" or "conversion" of local materials provides the necessary fuel.

 

[Vormaerin]

I'm only familiar with two rift stations in any detail. Chandler station explicitly has all kinds of resources and local fueling sources. Riftspan is basically described as a barebones hell posting that barely keeps functional. But certainly putting them around a sub-brown dwarf or something like it explicitly would make things a lot easier to explain.

Probably the only way to make Riftspan function the way its described is to have an undescribed J2 refueling station between it and Filantred. Which is just as much of an invention as a rogue gas giant for Riftspan to orbit.

But it is true that Traveller often translates MOARN as "Map even less than really necessary" Most everything is 'here's a fluffy shadow of a value. Make it real in the way that suits you."

 

[Geir]

and how they can maneuver around it without the retconning of "deep space thrusters". Which, on a personal note, has always been an "ugh! what a useless retcon after decades of it not existing".

Sorry, had to laugh, since DSMS seem to be retconned to account for the 1000D retcon.
That's okay, TNE got rid of m-drive entirely, and that's the one thing I actually liked about it... G-hours. Drastically altered in-system travel assumptions and made micro-jumps more practical.

 

[Vormaerin]

That's my problem with Heplar. I would love to use reaction drives. But
1) it's more complicated for my players to figure out tooling around the system. "We need to use half a G-hour of thrust, then coast for a hour, then use another 1/2 g hour to decelerate. We'll get there in 3 hours" isn't going to happen with most player groups I've known over the years without a robust look up table..
2) Micro jumps just reduce the opportunities to do cool things. If you are jumping from Earth Orbit to Mars Orbit, there's a lot less opportunity to have pirates, distress calls, strange astronomical (or astrological? ) phenomena. The PCs are just gonna be in isolation land for 7 days.

Sometimes I half seriously think I should just have micro jumps act like stutterwarp...

 

[Condottiere]

1. If microjumps didn't consume ten percent of fuel volume, and lasted less than a week, they would be more attractive.

2. Either default manoeuvre drives function completely in deep space, or they don't - someone has to make up their mind, or we high technologize to keep adding on diameters, just as we substract them with disadvantages.

3. We can make stage posts in every empty hex, and use monojumpers, trading time for (cargo) space.

4. And salaries.

5. Though you'd need less engineering staff.

6. And make do with those of minimal skill.

 

[OriginalCaruso]

For me these complications detract from the role play / game play. I won’t let the obvious flaws detract from the real reason we love playing Traveller

Whilst I prefer an air of reality, it’s not essential in what is a fantasy setting. I’m not recreating hard sci-fi simply using MTU as a setting for everyone to have fun

 

[MonsterX]

The existence of rogue planets and such makes clear that we should probably see MORE "empty hex" stations, not fewer, and the economically viable ones will all be near a fuel source, or built right on it. However, these stations can and would be found by hostile powers, and if not well defended would be very vulnerable. Commercial operations, of course, would need to be easy to find - they probably even advertise (though there might be exceptions if a corporation is trying to keep a shipping monopoly or something).

Given the DNR rules for finding interstellar bodies for refueling, fuel caches for military applications might actually NOT be located near to interstellar objects, because those objects would likely be tracked by the enemy, who would be concerned that they would be used as fuel sources for invasion fleets. Obviously, leaving fuel caches is expensive, but relative to the cost of dreadnaughts, maybe not so much. Get yourself some j3 or J4 million tonne tankers, find some interstellar objects within a J1 of where you want to be, and go to work.

Likewise, system defenses will want to find, and occupy or destroy objects that would make good fuel caches for enemy fleets.

 

[Micky]

For me these complications detract from the role play / game play. I won’t let the obvious flaws detract from the real reason we love playing Traveller

Whilst I prefer an air of reality, it’s not essential in what is a fantasy setting. I’m not recreating hard sci-fi simply using MTU as a setting for everyone to have fun

very true. Traveller isn't considered hard sci-fi but... regarding M-Drives... I don't think that giving them the same attention to game details/rules mechanics as we've got about J-Drives work would necessarily jump the game over intp the realm of hard sci-fi. And that extra detail could and probably should cover how (or if) they work outside of planetary systems/stars with gravity wells, as misjumps into 'empty space' as an example are a part of the game as well as purposefully jumping into them while trying to cross rifts. Seems to me this would have been a perfect kind of Companion Rules kind of addition or something even for a JTAS article. Or even a 2nd volume of the SOM...

Honestly one of the main criticism of the Mongoose Starship Operations Manuel I've read (and do agree with) wasn't as much what it had, but what it could have but didn't have. Covering this would have perfect fit for that book or perhaps a 2nd volume going to more detail about the game mechanics of the actual systems and the operations of a starship in the Traveller game.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I'm really glad the SoM doesn't have rules. The last thing I need is a list of "official rules" that I don't agree with.

As to deep space maneuvering, count me among those that just ignore the ridiculous canon retcon. But then IMTU the m-dive reduces the effective mass of a ship so that an ion engine/plasma rocket can achieve accelerations of 1-9g, no external gravity well required.

 

[Micky]

but what really is an 'official rule' probably no more than the crunchy parts of the Bounty Hunter book I personally didn't agree with as they were presented.. just fodder for your creative side to tweak and alter to what you do agree with or want in your game. Whether as a solo player or running a game with other players. Beats handwaving and much easier than coming up with your own ideas from scratch. Especially in areas of the game like this. It's just material not to be taken as the world of God but fuel for your imagination. To either take fully as presented if you agree or like it, or tweak to what you do want.

just my worthless two cents of course lol.

 

[Vormaerin]

Of course. That's always been the rule of the game. But it is important to know what the 'official rule' is because that has cascade effects on how other things work.

If the 1000D limit (for example) is a rule, that means that Deep space stations are much less likely to be a thing. It means stations on the moons of Uranus or on Pluto are less likely to exist (as servicing them would require the same costs and ships as full interstellar travel.). The Deep Space Maneuvering System only exists because of it. And, since that isn't actually on any published ship, PCs are not going to have it normally.

Obviously, you can fix all that. But the more of these sorts of "rules" get added, the more the rest of the structure is altered and the more difficult it is to use the rules system for other configurations.