Communication lines

[Stattick]

So, I'm getting into this sector map I rolled up. It's gloriously screwed up :lol:.

There's plenty of isolated systems or system clusters that you just can't get to without at least a Jump2 drive. There's big expanses where there's no systems at all. There's big ol' clusters of systems all piled on top of each other. Without at least a Jump2 drive, one literally cannot go from one side of the map to the other. I've plotted out where all of my important systems are - the ones with Navy bases, Bureaus (or did they go with Consulate?), Class A starports, or are high tech... And most of those worlds are in the outer sectors of the systm, away from where I decided the capitol of the sector would be. :lol:

Sounds like an incompetent and corrupt regeme to me, that's been sucking all of the wealth out of its neighboring systems for centuries... And with the strange clusters of Navy shipyards present in certain areas, it suggests something's afoot. Perhaps time for just a bit of interstellar war? :twisted:

Now I have to make sense of all of the following with "communication lines". So, what's the suggested distance between stops for those X boats?

EDIT: I think I just found the answer. I'm guessing by a big ol map I found on the 'net that Jump 4 is what the X boats have?

 

[rust]

I'm guessing by a big ol map I found on the 'net that Jump 4 is what the X boats have?

Yep, that's right.

 

[AndrewW]

From Classic Traveller (for reference):

Communications routes must be determined by the referee; wihin the Imperium, they are approximately jump 2 or 3, and xboats which follow the routes are capable of jump-4.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

If most of the tech in at the edges of your sector, maybe you have several empires advancing into the sector from different sides? The middle of the sector is where these expanding empires are fighting over. The sector capital is an independent world trying to play all sides against each other.

Very cold war feel...

 

[Gee4orce]

I've found that most normal density sectors can be adequately navigated with a J2 drive, but a J1 often leaves you isolated in a chain or cluster of worlds - sooner or later you'll get to a dead end, and even normal navigation often means huge detours that could add months to a journey.

For this reason I think J2 is probably 'standard' in normal density areas of space and J1 is regarded as antiquated or at the very most relegated to ships that only ever need to travel between a specific set of closely-neighbouring worlds.

 

[Stattick]

If most of the tech in at the edges of your sector, maybe you have several empires advancing into the sector from different sides? The middle of the sector is where these expanding empires are fighting over. The sector capital is an independent world trying to play all sides against each other.

Very cold war feel...

Not a bad idea. The only problem is that it doesn't match what I've already told the players. So instead of retconning, I'm going to stick with the whole idea of this being an Imperial sector (as I told them when we started). When we started off, there were some interesting oddities with the PC's homeworld that we decided meant that their homeworld used to rule the local neighborhood, but got knocked off as "king of the hill" a couple of centuries back. Their homeworld is just starting to recover.

I'll couple this with the other oddities in the sector map to say that there was a big nasty civil war in this sector a couple of hundred years ago. The PC's homeworld was just a casualty of war. For the most part, the further one gets from the Sector Core, the more high pop worlds one finds, the more class A starports, and the more naval bases. The sector core (as rolled up) has virtually nothing going for it. It doesn't even have very many consulates. The only thing going on, is a cluster of scout bases clustered around the sector capitol (but not on the capitol itself). Low on D sector and high on H sector is a cluster of 12 naval bases... surrounded by scout bases.

It seems to me that the navy is prepared to send in a massive wave of ships against the sector capitol, and are watching the core very closely. A sector divided against itself.

I decided that the old civil war happened because of the horrendously decadent (and possibly insane) lord of the sector of that time launched a genecidal campaign of ethnic cleansing and purge of the core, working his way outward. The empire of course tried to step in and reign him in, but he turned against them, killed the ambasadors, and declared his sector "free", redoubling his efforts to purge the system of "undesirables". He was eventually killed, and a new noble family was given the feifdom of the sector to rebuild...

However, they're almost as bad as the original. There are dark rumors that two hundred years ago, that the imperials had thought that they'd successfully killed or assasinated the noble on over a dozen occations before they eventually succeeded. Some of these conspiracy theories suggest that the old insane duke had a virtual army of clones ready to pick up the mantle of power if he died, and so the imperials actually were successful on most of those occations. Some even whisper that the old duke is the true power behind the throne, quietly rebuilding to once again throw off the yoke of imperial power, and to restart his rebellion. The rumors also say that the Imperials, uneasy with how things are going in this sector, have built up an immense fleet, to strike at the corrupted heart of the sector once more if it should be nessisary. All of these rumors are true.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

OOHH Me likey!