Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Maybe the same as railroad construction.
Specialized lines with customized early jump as mountain railways.
Specialized lines with customized early jump as mountain railways.
Earth-Standard Worlds Only
- Thread starter Longboat
- Start date
That might be why the GDW guys ignored the star's masking, for game purposes. I don't think I've ever seen anything official on it. The first I ever heard of it was on the CotI site--or maybe it was the old TML mailing list. It was long after I started playing Traveller.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Diameter distance seems a distinctive property of individual jump drives.
Hence, variance between seventy to one hundred fifty times.
Hence, variance between seventy to one hundred fifty times.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Given that, at least in America, getting the rail line or interstate to pass though your town was often the difference between life and death (of the town, anyway), then I could see where this would make a lot of sense. At least for worlds outside Atmos 4-9, I suspect most mainworlds would be outer system rocks or moons of convenient outer system gas giants (meaning small gas giants without a lot of storms or high gravity).
In the GURPS Interstellar Wars book, it was mentioned that the Vilani where more deliberate in colonization, choosing only good worlds along the main. In between would be pit stop worlds for fuel and maybe repairs, but much like a rural highway in Utah, pay attention when you see that 'last gas in X parsecs' sign.
Really, the only hab zone worlds likely to be really deep within their star's 100D are those around red giants.
Using the tables from MGT2e WBH, baseline hab zones compared to 100D for common star types are:
Star Type, Hab Zone, 100D (star diameter in sols multiplied by Sol's 100D of 0.93AU)
F0 V, 2.85, 1.58 (hab zone well outside 100D)
F5 V, 1.87, 1.395 (ditto)
G0 V, 1.18, 1.023 (comfortably outside 100D)
G5 V, 0.88, 0.8835 (pretty much on 100D;
K0 V, 0.72, 0.837 (a bit inside; about 0.1AU or about 15,000,000 km)
K5 V, 0.45, 0.744 (0.284 AU inside, around 40,000,000 km)
M0 V, 0.29, 0.651(0.361 AU inside, around 53,000,000 km)
M5 V, 0.054, 0.186 (0.132 AU inside, only about 20,000,000 km)
F5 III, 8.37, 4.65 (hab zone way outside 100D for a blue giant)
M0 III, 24.5, 55.80 (THIS is definitely deep within the star's jump shadow)
In context, 1G takes 17.6 hours to go 10,000,000 km, 30.42 hours to go 30,000,000 km, 37.3 hours to go 40,000,000km. So you're looking at a couple of days at most, aside from red giants. The smaller red dwarfs are ironically easier than the orange dwarfs because although the difference is proportionally greater, the absolute distances are shorter.
And of course inner zone worlds usually take longer to get to. Rather than being a major barrier to trade, I would suggest that systems where the points of interest are close to the star might see more traffic from ships with 2G or more M-Drives. And if the trip is worth it, a few extra days transit would be put up with.
You don't have to ever use this stuff, but I like the space terrain it supplies.
Using the tables from MGT2e WBH, baseline hab zones compared to 100D for common star types are:
Star Type, Hab Zone, 100D (star diameter in sols multiplied by Sol's 100D of 0.93AU)
F0 V, 2.85, 1.58 (hab zone well outside 100D)
F5 V, 1.87, 1.395 (ditto)
G0 V, 1.18, 1.023 (comfortably outside 100D)
G5 V, 0.88, 0.8835 (pretty much on 100D;
K0 V, 0.72, 0.837 (a bit inside; about 0.1AU or about 15,000,000 km)
K5 V, 0.45, 0.744 (0.284 AU inside, around 40,000,000 km)
M0 V, 0.29, 0.651(0.361 AU inside, around 53,000,000 km)
M5 V, 0.054, 0.186 (0.132 AU inside, only about 20,000,000 km)
F5 III, 8.37, 4.65 (hab zone way outside 100D for a blue giant)
M0 III, 24.5, 55.80 (THIS is definitely deep within the star's jump shadow)
In context, 1G takes 17.6 hours to go 10,000,000 km, 30.42 hours to go 30,000,000 km, 37.3 hours to go 40,000,000km. So you're looking at a couple of days at most, aside from red giants. The smaller red dwarfs are ironically easier than the orange dwarfs because although the difference is proportionally greater, the absolute distances are shorter.
And of course inner zone worlds usually take longer to get to. Rather than being a major barrier to trade, I would suggest that systems where the points of interest are close to the star might see more traffic from ships with 2G or more M-Drives. And if the trip is worth it, a few extra days transit would be put up with.
You don't have to ever use this stuff, but I like the space terrain it supplies.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Hmm ...
Suburbs, commuting.
Remote work, would have a light speed latency.
Suburbs, commuting.
Remote work, would have a light speed latency.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
It could take ten minutes for someone to tell you you're on Mute.
(Or worse, not on Mute.)
(Or even worse, on camera in clothing Not Suitable For Work - though I don't think this speaks to the intent of the acronym. Unless it does.)
Yeah, like I said before, it has to be more than a day to actually matter. At that point, it starts to pinch the merchants' bottom lines. The difference between 6 and 18 hours doesn't, because that's not any more than the variance of jump arrival. When you are spending 2 days in and 2 days out (or worse!) then you are not able to actually stay on schedule for covering your expenses.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
The reason it doesn't matter much is because Traveller Space is essentially one dimensional within a star system, unless you want to put in the extra work to make it more complex. Which could be fun, but requires math, or at least (even for two dimensions) vectors and illustrations.
But even in the cases where you're outside the 100D, imagine a picture where you're a dot outside the 100D sphere, but still near it. Now draw a cone that starts with you and whose surface is... not sure tangential it the right word... but hopefully you get it. Basically the cone is such that the sphere just barely fits inside it.
That cone is your exclusion zone, so if your destination is anywhere in that cone, you need to move further away to clear the 100D stellar sphere. At 100D, that zone is half the sky, and it will decrease in size the further away you get from it. So your actual path has to take you beyond the point where your destination is blocked, which could be up to half the time. And of course, on arrival, the same problem applies - if your incoming path intersects the 100D sphere, then you pop out potentially as far as 200D from the star as where you want to be.
(I saw an 2D illustration of this somewhere, maybe in a classic JTAS or Challenge?)
And as for giant stars, and conversely for compact objects like white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, I use mass instead of diameter for the 100D stellar limit. That way its more consistent for the life of the star. Now, add in a binary or more stars and there's other blobs in the sky that end up blocking you path to certain destinations.
Some routes could have 'seasonal' availability where the journey is completely unblocked, sort of like catching the monsoon winds to aid your voyage. Probably more fun for a story or particular adventure than something you'd want to consider for more than a pair of systems, though.
Yeah, the straight line obstruction concept sounds neat but is basically unplayable with any level of consistency. I prefer the simpler "You can't emerge inside the sphere but you can cross it in jump space" option because I'm not going to maintain an orrery for every system in my campaign. 
What's silly is to assume most Traveller worlds are not in the habitable zone or all have a certain star type that doesn't mask the main world.
I do agree that star masking was just plain ignored and often still is.
I'd say use star masking if you want. If you don't, heck, it's your game. Ref's call.
I just don't think that you two actually disagree in a meaningful way. Traveller does account for Jump masking in a number of cases, but only when it is significant enough to affect trade. Those worlds deep in a star's jump shadow are either backwaters because of the severe masking or are considered a secondary world to a world outside the shadow. We have examples of both in Traveller. Worlds that are shallowly inside the star's 100D are not meaningfully different from worlds where you jump to the 100D of the world itself. You can make a note of it or not. Traveller's MOARN principle generally means they don't bother to mention things that create no material difference.
The vast majority of traveller worlds have some kind of vaguely breathable atmosphere (4-9) and those are going to be overwhelmingly in the habitable zone. Worlds with the 0-3 or 10+ atmospheres are not necessarily going to be in the habitable zone, though they could be.
The vast majority of traveller worlds have some kind of vaguely breathable atmosphere (4-9) and those are going to be overwhelmingly in the habitable zone. Worlds with the 0-3 or 10+ atmospheres are not necessarily going to be in the habitable zone, though they could be.
Even that is circumstantial. With a low tech world you need to land, physically locate a buyer or seller, and maybe do other stuff. If it's high enough tech for space internet (TL8+ in MGT2e) you can sort out the brokerage side of things during approach, and four days of travel time in and out just means less shore leave for the crew. And does this make some worlds particularly unattractive to visit? Sure. Sounds like a hook you can use.
I take the "2 jumps per maintenance period" as basically a crew right, to allow at least two planetfalls a month. You can waive it if everyone signs off on that, maybe by being paid a bonus. But sometimes it's a week in port, sometimes a couple of days. That's just the spacer's life.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It's porous enough to jump out.
It stiffens enough that when you try to jump in, you bounce off.
It stiffens enough that when you try to jump in, you bounce off.
I would say though, that MOARN should apply before they decide where to go. That is, the necessity to map exists at this level for any system within a couple of jumps in civilised space. It's unfair to spring two days of system travel on players - they should know about such things unless the system is unexplored (in which case they can't jump to the planet anyway).
Otherwise it's like them travelling across plains and suddenly bumping into a mountain.
Otherwise it's like them travelling across plains and suddenly bumping into a mountain.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
There are worse things.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Why am I the only one that ever happens to?
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Hey! I managed to get hit by the same truck twice on the same day walking down the same road. lol
Obviously you should know what the world is like before your players go there. The invocation of MOARN was saying it isn't worth documenting whether it's the 100D limit of the planet or the 100D limit of the star that is causing your 6-12 hours of travel to the starport. When its 36 hours travel to the starport that matters.
As far as the "why it takes a week in system" if you want to decide that, you can do so. But that's not how it is written to work. The crew is not actually on vacation during port stops. Maybe if you are a corporate trader with established contacts at this starport, you can arrange everything by comms. But PCs generally aren't. They are itinerant traders scrounging for cargos that the big leagues don't want. They are not getting priority service at the port, because they aren't paying for it. Unless they are. No one is sitting around saving cargo for them. They are trying to track down people who can't/won't book on a real trader. Either because it's last minute or their paperwork is bad or the cargo is some annoying thing that isn't containerized or they can't afford the rates charged by real shippers or whatever.
The same thing with passengers. They are getting people on standby, people who are having trouble getting tickets on the scheduled liners.
Or they are at a some backwater port with no services and the passengers and cargo are probably scattered all over the city waiting for that once a month surprise ship to turn up.
So the assumption in the game is that it is going to take time to make all these arrangements, to do the maintenance yourself, to buy supplies, to vet these deals you are making, to herd the cats into getting whatever you managed to scrounge onto your ship. To make sure that online broker you signed up is actually legit.
You don't have to play that way. You can make the starports fawn all over the PCs and give them prompt, efficient service. But that's not the way that the default setting operates. It assumes that the players are having to actually bust their humps to scrounge up cargos and having to put up with suboptimal arrangements as a result.
Is it different for big corporations? Of course. But even with all that arranged, they don't want to spend days in real space. Its a waste of money and throws off their staffing calcuations. IRL, merchant mariners often have schedules that are like 28 days on/14 days off. Because they are on the ship for 28 days straight, then they are off for two weeks. So either their ship has 50% extra crew that rotates or they move between ships of the same company operating out of that world. Days in space count as days in space whether you are making any money or not. And an extra 4 days between ports is not making money.
