Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If it were like a string telephone, you could establish a routine between two destinations, that would optimize turnaround time.
RYANAEROSPACE
RYANAEROSPACE
Earth-Standard Worlds Only
- Thread starter Longboat
- Start date
Sure. And if you account for every hour, or discard the weekly cycle to track actual days in system travel and in port (which is a perfectly valid way to do things if that's your thing) you might get several more jumps in per year.
Which might actually be relevant to the conversation if that's what I had been talking about. But all I was saying was that the default week out of jump usually gives you time to do normal out of jump stuff, even if the time to planetfall and the time to locate speculative cargo varies.
My personal idea, which you can embrace or discard as you like, is that the two jumps a cycle ("monthly" as in CT or "per maintenence period" as per MGT2e22, allow for a variable amount of downtime per trip outside the ship and is an important and traditional spacer's right. Possibly a legal one, maybe just a strongly held tradition that Captains break without compensation at their peril. Note that I agree that they will be busy with duties during their shifts in port. But being able to spend their off-watch shifts away from the ship is a treasured thing.
The Crew can't demand any more time in port than the ship needs to stay to make those two jumps per cycle.
The Captain can't demand less.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Starport to starport within the Imperium, you might be able to enforce minimum regulated crew downtime.
If it's a large enough corporation, turnaround could be the minimum required to check out the starship systems, refuel, reprovision, and hustle onboard a fresh crew.
If it's a large enough corporation, turnaround could be the minimum required to check out the starship systems, refuel, reprovision, and hustle onboard a fresh crew.
GabrielGABFonseca
Emperor Mongoose
There's an illustration of the concept in GURPS Traveller: Far Trader (I believe in page 51?), along with rules as how to implement jump masking without having to go full-on "an orrery for every system," as @Vormaerin joked.
Alternatively, and perhaps better illustrated, are the graphics made by NotASnark on his site: https://www.notasnark.net/worldgen/masks
One of them replicated below:
I don't know that I would say GURPS gives you a way to deal with it. It's just roll a die to see how long it takes. It is a nice summary of the situation without having to do your own calcs.
But two things about that chart stand out. First, that unless you have a OBA star, it's almost always going to be irrelevant that the world is masked. Because the travel time is still a day or less. Yes, it's nice to get in in 6h instead of 18h or whatever, but that doesn't really alter the traveller economic system.
Second, its totally random. So if you check this week and then end up not going and check again in two weeks, the worlds have teleported all over the system and now the planet that was on this side of the sun is suddenly on the other side of the sun, even though the Earth (for example) might take 160 days to accomplish that. Hence the joke about an orrery.
The thing is that the characters would have computerized orreries available. So if have a world with a deep shadow and it could be many days travel to the mainworld based on where it is relative to your start point, this would be known fact for traders, as would the changes in that shadow. If in January and February, ships jumping from Earth to Alpha Centauri are going to have to spend 5 days in real space because Sol and Alpha Centauri A/B are in the way, they are going to change the shipping patterns. There will be massive trade in July & August when all three stars are out of the way and you can spend less than a day in Real space and only essential traffic in January/February when the trip is 50% longer.
Because the freight charges will be 50% higher in January. It's fundamentally no different than seasonal travel in earlier era on Earth. You /could/ travel in the winter, but you didn't if you had a choice. Proper use of jump masking (assuming it was significant enough to matter) would do the same thing.
If that were possible to model in a playable fashion that would be hella cool. But its even more of a hassle than reaction drives.
But two things about that chart stand out. First, that unless you have a OBA star, it's almost always going to be irrelevant that the world is masked. Because the travel time is still a day or less. Yes, it's nice to get in in 6h instead of 18h or whatever, but that doesn't really alter the traveller economic system.
Second, its totally random. So if you check this week and then end up not going and check again in two weeks, the worlds have teleported all over the system and now the planet that was on this side of the sun is suddenly on the other side of the sun, even though the Earth (for example) might take 160 days to accomplish that. Hence the joke about an orrery.
The thing is that the characters would have computerized orreries available. So if have a world with a deep shadow and it could be many days travel to the mainworld based on where it is relative to your start point, this would be known fact for traders, as would the changes in that shadow. If in January and February, ships jumping from Earth to Alpha Centauri are going to have to spend 5 days in real space because Sol and Alpha Centauri A/B are in the way, they are going to change the shipping patterns. There will be massive trade in July & August when all three stars are out of the way and you can spend less than a day in Real space and only essential traffic in January/February when the trip is 50% longer.
Because the freight charges will be 50% higher in January. It's fundamentally no different than seasonal travel in earlier era on Earth. You /could/ travel in the winter, but you didn't if you had a choice. Proper use of jump masking (assuming it was significant enough to matter) would do the same thing.
If that were possible to model in a playable fashion that would be hella cool. But its even more of a hassle than reaction drives.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You could zigzag parsecs, pathfinding your way to the least masked approach.
NOLATrav
Cosmic Mongoose
I mean, just keep good notes? Consistency is a big part of the GM’s job. If you determine, randomly or otherwise, that a world is shadowed then make a note of it for the next time the PCs visit. Bump up costs on the world a bit if you want to model the freight economics of real-space travel times.
Also, ignore the T5 straight line/jump occlusion rules. The official setting as presented is highly unlikely if they were fully implemented. Increase the difficulty of the Astrogation check for multi-star systems, it’s already pretty easy RAW.
Also, consider jump shadows as spheres rather than columns or cones. Everything in space is always moving, all the time; elongated jump shadows seem to presume a “stationary” vessel relative to the star/world.
YMMV
Also, ignore the T5 straight line/jump occlusion rules. The official setting as presented is highly unlikely if they were fully implemented. Increase the difficulty of the Astrogation check for multi-star systems, it’s already pretty easy RAW.
Also, consider jump shadows as spheres rather than columns or cones. Everything in space is always moving, all the time; elongated jump shadows seem to presume a “stationary” vessel relative to the star/world.
YMMV
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Maybe you can use gravity wells to bend jump tramlines.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
This actually makes the most sense.
1) My main point was that the amount of note taking necessary far, far outweighs any fun produced by this and the rules just say "Randomize it instead."
2) Since the whole discussion is about implementation of the rules and what it would mean, saying "ignore the rules and do something else" doesn't seem like a relevant point.
We have magic space thrusters because making the rocket equation fun to use at the table is too hard for most groups. Traveller generally ignores stellar jump shadows in practice because making them work in game is too much effort.
I can totally imagine some really cool stuff to do with the jump shadow concepts IN A NOVEL where the author can control the situation and make things work in an interesting way. Doing that in an open world campaign where the information might be needed on the fly much less so. Even with a relatively isolated area of a dozen or two systems, the "good notes" would seem an excessive amount of work for the return.
MT has a nice chart in the back of the original SOM. You roll where the planet is relative to the star. Journey to the world might be close, between jump entry and the star. Or, the ship may have to make the incredibly long journey past the star to the far side to reach the planet.
You can keep track of orbital positions of all the worlds, or just the close worlds, noting how the other worlds affect the flight path.
You can keep track of orbital positions of all the worlds, or just the close worlds, noting how the other worlds affect the flight path.
GabrielGABFonseca
Emperor Mongoose
Second, its totally random. So if you check this week and then end up not going and check again in two weeks, the worlds have teleported all over the system and now the planet that was on this side of the sun is suddenly on the other side of the sun, even though the Earth (for example) might take 160 days to accomplish that. Hence the joke about an orrery.
(...)
If that were possible to model in a playable fashion that would be hella cool. But its even more of a hassle than reaction drives.
Absolutely agreed, yes. The GURPS implementation abstracts away the need for book-keeping by going with a statistical approach instead – but if your characters keep coming back to a given system regularly instead of perpetually moving on it is very, very easy to see the proverbial 'man behind the curtain'. In no way perfect, but imperfect as it is, at least it allows the concept to be featured in play in a practical manner.
The following assumes that we are taking into account the jump line rules (which do predate T5, actually), which like Vormaerin pointed, is kind of the intention of the thread – even if I agree that one can simply ignore it at their table (and arguably should unless narratively important).
The problem is that orbits aren't static things, like you yourself pointed out, and once you have that initial 'is it masked?' determination, you'll then need to update the world's 'masked/not masked' status based on that and the current date – which will also require you to determine the length of the planet's orbital period around its star.
It can be done – make a note of how many angles/day a planet moves along its orbit around the star, make a note of its initial position (and its date), and calculate the new position along the orbit based on the elapsed time between then and now. Definitely doable at the table, but whether or not this is worth the effort is questionable at best.
And this also abstracts away significant parts of the problem, too – the moment a given planet's orbit is not perfectly circular, all hell breaks loose because it becomes utterly incalculable by hand. It would require computational aid to approximate (I am having PTSD flashbacks about having to solve Kepler's Problem...).
And if the star has any companions, then each companion's orbit would also have to be tracked...
So yes, I fully agree with Vormaerin: implementable at the gaming table by making certain abstractions, but laborious and to a marginally questionable benefit, unless you have a computerised system do it all for you like NotASnark did for his Deepnight Revelation campaign.
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
Yes, but it is not quite as bad as it might seem at first, when you recall that the ecliptic planes of the various star systems are tilted at all kinds of jaunty angles and rotations relative to the mean galactic plane. (Sol's is just somewhat shy of perpendicular to the mean plane). So their relative orientations and projections one to another embedded within the 3rd dimension of the galactic disk will give you some more freedom. And your ship need not vector within the local ecliptic plane to clear the blockage, either: perpendicular hyperbolic trajectories are possible
I think this makes for great flavor and story potential. Make sure your Astrogator has his Jump Rutter . . .
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WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
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.
You need more dedication . . .
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
Essentially it is the "X-boat" for physical cargo instead of Comms Traffic (presumably with a Maneuver Drive).
Or a Dune Guild Heighliner . . .
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
I don't know that I would say GURPS gives you a way to deal with it. It's just roll a die to see how long it takes. It is a nice summary of the situation without having to do your own calcs.
But two things about that chart stand out. First, that unless you have a OBA star, it's almost always going to be irrelevant that the world is masked. Because the travel time is still a day or less. Yes, it's nice to get in in 6h instead of 18h or whatever, but that doesn't really alter the traveller economic system.
Second, its totally random. So if you check this week and then end up not going and check again in two weeks, the worlds have teleported all over the system and now the planet that was on this side of the sun is suddenly on the other side of the sun, even though the Earth (for example) might take 160 days to accomplish that. Hence the joke about an orrery.
The thing is that the characters would have computerized orreries available. So if have a world with a deep shadow and it could be many days travel to the mainworld based on where it is relative to your start point, this would be known fact for traders, as would the changes in that shadow. If in January and February, ships jumping from Earth to Alpha Centauri are going to have to spend 5 days in real space because Sol and Alpha Centauri A/B are in the way, they are going to change the shipping patterns. There will be massive trade in July & August when all three stars are out of the way and you can spend less than a day in Real space and only essential traffic in January/February when the trip is 50% longer.
Because the freight charges will be 50% higher in January. It's fundamentally no different than seasonal travel in earlier era on Earth. You /could/ travel in the winter, but you didn't if you had a choice. Proper use of jump masking (assuming it was significant enough to matter) would do the same thing.
If that were possible to model in a playable fashion that would be hella cool. But its even more of a hassle than reaction drives.
Might make it possible for the tramp trader to turn a credit shipping things off season on a main route when the big lines consider it unprofitable.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I usually use the rational that you don't need to travel in a straight line in jumpspace and due to that rational, I just ignore jump shadows.
