Deep Space Jumps: Easier than you think

[steelbrok]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-13416431

Looks like deep space refuelling points may not be so hard to find

This would explain how the Zhos got all the way to Ruie without being detected. It also give the Imperial borders a much more porous feel and allows for hiding places for pirates and smugglers, not to mention lots of jobs for Scout ships and the Navy's patrol forces

 

[Captain Jonah]

Yep.

It is possible for a wandering asteroid to find itself a nice dust cloud and slowly build up in size or objects to be thrown from stellar orbit, stars die and the system wanders off, gravitational attractions that pull in surrounding matter and form free floating objects.

Probably more mini gas giants than solid worldlets as a small core can draw in and hold gas faster and more easily than drawing in enough dust and debris to produce something solid.

Given enough time a huge starship wreck in a dust cloud builds up layer after layer of dust drawn to it by the tiny gravity of its mass. Over time you get the wreck becoming the core of a planetoid. This does, of course, take a low of time. Good for an adventure when it drifts close enough to be noticed and players go to investigate the odd shaped asteroid.

Using jump drives to go from a fixed point to a fixed point, calculating jumps from system to system as Traveller does 1% of explored space is actualy explored. 99% of the 3rdI is the space between the systems where no one goes because the jump drive allows them to skip the long boring empty bits.

After all there is a lot of mass in the galaxy that we cannot see, it could be dark matter or it could be we just haven't been able to find all the dark stars, rogues, dust clouds etc that fill the empty bits.

 

[locarno24]

This would explain how the Zhos got all the way to Ruie without being detected. It also give the Imperial borders a much more porous feel and allows for hiding places for pirates and smugglers, not to mention lots of jobs for Scout ships and the Navy's patrol forces

Especially since they're talking about principally gas giants - i.e. fuel sources.
If they're 'twice as common as main sequence stars', then there will likely be two or three of them somewhere near the path of any jump route you'd care to name. They may not be mapped, of course, and finding them can be a bit trickey if you mis-jump - tying to find a gas giant in a star system isn't too bad, but if you mis-jump and the rogue dwarf is outside sensor range (and remember they're no primary star to see reflection from) then you're utterly lost in deep space and going to die.

It also means that people with maps of rogue dwarves can get a hell of a lot further (albeit slower) with jump-1 or jump-2 drives.

 

[DFW]

Given the very imprecise means of measurement they could well be Brown dwarfs also.

"* There’s a lot more ordinary matter in galaxies than we think, but it happens to be dark as in not illuminated or radiant. More red dwarfs, brown dwarfs, more orphan gas giants, even more orphan rocky planets wandering around in between visible stars, perhaps 2, 3, even 10 times as much of this as we guestimated on the basis of our limited ability to see in the past. Who would be surprised by this? Seriously. It’s like being surprised that there are a lot of exoplanets, which are being discovered at something like a rate of one a day now (where there were NO known exoplanets not terribly long ago). It’s not really surprising at all, if you think about it."
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/12/01/the-estimated-number-of-stars-in-the-universe-just-tripled/

But if GG's it would greatly change the nature of the TU. Ships with J1 - J2 could travel routes not previously available.

If a system exists on a 1-3, give a 1-5 chance of a GG or Brown Dwarf in the "empty" hexes. If system chance is 1-2, give 1-4 chance...

 

[locarno24]

Of course, you're not going to find them randomly - which means most are going to be located by some sort of observatory facility.

Given that they're not radiating, that sort of mapping almost has to be done from the closest star(s), so it'll be something located at a planetary level. Which makes sense, because your government-subsidised observatory (in addition to mapping your own system) can potentially unlock a route that allows J1 merchant traffic to reach you.

Of course, not every planetary government is going to have the resources for a first-class scientific observatory. Any with a multi-million population, yes, and any which have been settled long enough for the scout service and/or the navy to set up shop may have been visited by a large-scale survey ship, but, as ever, it's the planets on the fringes, especially newly-settled ones, that won't have a good map of nearby interstellar space.

Meaning they can have even more fun with pirates - I can imagine a pirate group paying very well for the co-ordinates of such a planet. The question is more one of getting those co-ordinates (i.e. from whom) and making sure no-one else gets them from anywhere but the pirates themselves.

 

[DFW]

Of course, you're not going to find them randomly - which means most are going to be located by some sort of observatory facility.

This could also possibly be done with OTU densitometers.

 

[Galadrion]

This also gives the referee reasons to place far outer system Scout bases - say, at the star-outermost planet Lagrange points. If you're trying to detect rogue planets using long-range densitometers or similar instruments, you're going to want an environment as free as possible of background contamination: gravitational fields, EM radiation, and possibly other "noise" of types currently unknown to terrestrial science (handwavium of a similar nature to 3I "gravitational theory"). Now, what could an enterprising referee use such an isolated, remote setting to do...? :twisted:

 

[locarno24]

Now, what could an enterprising referee use such an isolated, remote setting to do...?

An isolated, remote facility with information of extreme interest to persons of a less-than-law-abiding nature....

 

[GJD]

Well, we can detect them now using micro-lensiing, so I would imagime that finding them with 4 or 5 TL's of advancments would be easier. A fullsky scan is a lot of data to crunch with current technology, but for a TL12 computer it might be a routine, but non-trivial matter, instead of a life's work.

G.

 

[steelbrok]

And you can compare scans from different systems which will presumably increase accuracy

 

[steelbrok]

Just thinking, in the Spinward Marches you have about 1 world per three hexes (454 IIRC in 1280).

How about this:

For a new subsector:

1d6 gives

1 Empty
2 Rockball Size 2d6-4
3 Gas giant
4 Brown Dwarf
5 or 6 normal star system

For an established sector such as the Marches roll a d4 instead for empty hexes only and apply the first four results

I believe I'm right in saying that brown dwarfs wouldn't be viable fuel sources which would only increase the number of fuelling points to 1 in 4 empty hexes

 

[DFW]

I just read the entire article. They aren't sure that the planets are not in far orbit around starts...

 

[Hopeless]

Does that mean we could have a Moon Base Alpha out there?

 

[rust]

Detection of rogue brown dwarfs and gas giants should be much less diffi-
cult with more advanced technology. Unless these objects are extremely
old, there will still be internal heating from radioactive decay, so any ad-
vanced astronomical infrared sensor should be able to detect them. How-
ever, depending on their distance it can be difficult and take some time
to determine their orbit around the galactic centre and their current posi-
tion, which is necessary to jump there.

 

[AndrewW]

Does that mean we could have a Moon Base Alpha out there?

Like the earth had two moons and the one with Moon Base Alpha broke away?

 

[Hopeless]

Does that mean we could have a Moon Base Alpha out there?

Like the earth had two moons and the one with Moon Base Alpha broke away?

Or an earth parallel or even a future earth where the events of space 1999 (sorry are they calling it 2099 now?) have happened.

Just imagine a campaign set on that concept... how would you explain a moon being shot out of a solar system with a fully functioning underground habitat... well one that can survive, maybe they have working jump drive capable eagles and are looking for a way home or a new home when things get desperate...

How about a reverse invasion where the inhabitants are just trying to find a refuge but the natives are trying to invade them to steal their tech and in the meantime their former refuge is falling apart and they're becoming desperate as the natives are manipulating events to make the refugees to be the bad guys...

 

[DFW]

Just imagine a campaign set on that concept... how would you explain a moon being shot out of a solar system with a fully functioning underground habitat...

How do you explain it accelerating FTL?

 

[rust]

how would you explain a moon being shot out of a solar system with a fully functioning underground habitat...

Another celestial body passing through the system, for example a rogue
planet or brown dwarf, could cause the moon to be ejected from the sy-
stem, although this would also have serious consequences for the moon's
original planet. Otherwise, and to explain the FTL, there are always the
Ancients and especially Grandfather to blame for strange events.

 

[far-trader]

Just imagine a campaign set on that concept... how would you explain a moon being shot out of a solar system with a fully functioning underground habitat...

How do you explain it accelerating FTL?

In Space 1999 didn't it enter/collidewith some strange wormhole like effect shortly after blasting out of orbit? A rift opened by the combination of the explosion and gravity or some such handwavium? And that effect continued to throw it through a hyperspace effect each week with only a brief window during which they were close to planets/solar system that they slowed enough to investigate and maybe get off if they found a nice place to live?

Or was that just some rationalization supplied elsewhere by myself or someone else?

Still doesn't explain a nuclear waste dump reaching critical mass, exploding, and having enough power to blast the moon from it's orbit, with solar system escape velocity, while not having enough power to simply shatter or crack the moon itself (iirc the various specifics). It didn't even leave that big a crater at the blast sight (again iirc)...

...but then that is all beside the point The point is a flying moon travelling through different alien star systems each week is cool 8) ...or it was at the time to this (then) kid.

 

[DFW]

In Space 1999 didn't it enter/collidewith some strange wormhole like effect shortly after blasting out of orbit? A rift opened by the combination of the explosion and gravity or some such handwavium? And that effect continued to throw it through a hyperspace effect each week with only a brief window during which they were close to planets/solar system that they slowed enough to investigate and maybe get off if they found a nice place to live?

I don't recall that but, it is possible as the show was very light on any type of real science and I could have missed it.