Do jump nets make the Beowulf obsolete?

[paltrysum]

Seems to me you could outfit a Beowulf, Marava, or even a Subsidized Merchant with bigger jump drives, add jump nets to carry somewhere between 200-800 additional tons of freight and speculative cargo (thereby decreasing your jump output from possibly jump-3 to an adjusted minimum of jump-1 perhaps) and really clean up in the tramp trader business. What's to stop you? Is there anything in the rules that limits the types of cargo you can put in jump nets? I suppose using them could make you vulnerable in some ways, but they seem to be a bit of a game breaker without a referee adding some homebrew rules to limit the effectiveness of this approach.

In fact, I even designed a Subby that uses this tech and posted it a while back in this thread:

http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=120533&p=921454&hilit=emerald+crocus#p921454

All PsiTraveller's redesigns of the Rift ships got me thinking about other ways the rules can be leveraged.

 

[PsiTraveller]

That is exactly right. I put together a thread about a tricked out far trader
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=119289&p=904491&hilit=tricked+out#p904491
I also made it the payoff in my "Seed of Doubt" TAS module. The reward for the adventure is an upgraded ship and permanent paranoia.

A few extra tons of Jump Drive and a Jump Net or external cargo mounts allows extra cargo to be taken when opportunity presents itself. It can also allow entire ships to be taken along for sale, repair, salvage etc. This is something most book designs seem to lack. It adds versatility in income. You could get paid to take a ship across a rift, move an SDB and crew to a new system, haul extra cargo if another ship gets damaged etc. All this helps pay the bills.

Nice ship by the way. It will be in my Traveller game.

Looking at the CER of your ship, lets go 850 tons of cargo to move Jump 1. Divided by 157 million is a CER of 5.4. Off the charts profitable. you have 850 000 credits incoming in 1 trip, 1.7 million a month, with expenses of a 650 000 a month mortgage and less than 100 000 a month in salaries and maintenance. You clear 10 million a year if you kept the freight moving. That is pretty darn good.

 

[baithammer]

Make sure to take into account the jump net itself has to be included in the jump calculations at 1dt per 100dt cargo.

Contrast this to an external cargo mount which doesn't have additional dt requirement and only uses the stored value for jump calculations.

 

[PsiTraveller]

I think the 1dt is for storing the net when not in use. The 100 Ton capacity is calculated into the Jump calculation, not 101. That is my reading of it anyway.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

External cargo is very efficient, but there is a slight problem for Free Traders: Free Traders are built for the frontier to service small worlds that probably do not have high ports, hence needs to land, hence streamlined, hence no external cargo.

 

[paltrysum]

Nice ship by the way. It will be in my Traveller game.

Thank you. And I'm happy to hear that. I love the meta-collaborative aspect of different referees incorporating aspects of each other's game realities into each other's games...if that makes sense.

External cargo is very efficient, but there is a slight problem for Free Traders: Free Traders are built for the frontier to service small worlds that probably do not have high ports, hence needs to land, hence streamlined, hence no external cargo.

That's a good point, but therein lies the adventure. Where do you hide your stash that you bought for 35% of wholesale thanks to your Broker's super-great die roll? On a barren moon? At a Trojan Point? Does it get stolen? Who stole it? Let's hunt them down and either get it back or kill them! :twisted:

Also, in the Trojan Reach setting in particular, if you're using it, many of the Void worlds have surprisingly nice starports thanks to the "magnanimity" of the General Development Company. Lots of orbitals to store your goodies while you do more trade planetside.

 

[AndrewW]

I think the 1dt is for storing the net when not in use. The 100 Ton capacity is calculated into the Jump calculation, not 101. That is my reading of it anyway.

That would be correct.

 

[Condottiere]

With a jump bubble, you'll only need a jump net if the cargo extrudes beyond the bubble.

 

[paltrysum]

With a jump bubble, you'll only need a jump net if the cargo extrudes beyond the bubble.

Where in the rules is fine control of a jump bubble explained? And if it is, why did they present the jump net at all?

 

[Condottiere]

Legacy from the Lanthanum Grid times.

 

[baithammer]

Having objects less than ship size near a jumping ship won't prevent the jump but are not added to the jump itself. ( That is where the net is used.)

 

[Condottiere]

I forget the formula, but everything outside the bubble remains behind, everything inside it counts as volume.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Where in the rules is fine control of a jump bubble explained?

T5 defines jump bubbles and old-fashioned jump grids, MgT does not.

 

[baithammer]

everything inside it counts as volume.

Only if attached to the ship via external mounts, external cargo or jump nets. ( Spelled out clearly in MGT 2ed HG from jump nets.)

A jump net consists of special field cables attached to
the rear of a ship that extend the vessel’s jump field
to include additional cargo contained within the net.

As opposed to the mechanics of a drop tank.

Otherwise, it is destroyed
by the expanding jump bubble or warped by the jettison
explosion.

 

[Condottiere]

That's only relevant if the jump drive uses a skintight lanthanum grid.

The drop tanks need an explosive separation in order to escape the expanding bubble, otherwise their volume gets dragged into the rabbit hole, kinda defeating their purpose.

Otherwise, a simple separation would be enough.

 

[baithammer]

Considering the hydrogen fueled bubble has a chance of destroying the drop tank and is called out specifically in both cases, best to go with what is presented.

 

[phavoc]

That's only relevant if the jump drive uses a skintight lanthanum grid.

The drop tanks need an explosive separation in order to escape the expanding bubble, otherwise their volume gets dragged into the rabbit hole, kinda defeating their purpose.

Otherwise, a simple separation would be enough.

Used to be relevant not because of the lanthanum grid but because of the issue with an object being close to a ship when it jumps and causing a misjump. The 100D limit, except not on a planetary scale. It was ever only fuzzily defined.

 

[Condottiere]

That's gravitational mass.

This assumes the jump net is connected to the lanthanum grid.

 

[baithammer]

No mention of the grid but is spelled out in the jump nets description.

A jump net consists of special field cables attached to
the rear of a ship that extend the vessel’s jump field

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, you could drape the starship with a jump net, and not bother with a jump bubble.