Fleet Jumps

[locarno24]

I'd be interested to see, in fact, if Sector Fleet has any discussion of fleet jump doctrine (especially when jumping into a known hostile system).

For jump away from 'drop tanks' - mere fractions of a second would normally cover separation distance. A space station is typically within 100D of a planet, but even if it weren't, 50 km from a 500m diameter one might sound far - but that is nothing compared to orbital speeds (i.e. solar orbit). From the standpoint of precipitating dropping out of Jump - a 100 km dia bubble is also nothing compared to the volume of space in a stellar system.

Also note that if the issue is gravitational presence, the 100D limit is going to be essentially a 'rule of thumb' - since a space station is essentially a hollow shell rather than a big lump of iron, I would imagine you could actually jump a hell of a lot closer to it without it affecting you.

 

[phavoc]

Back to MGT, the rules state that the ship forms a pocket universe which is inflated with Hydrogen and the ship moves into that. The question for a Referee is: If two ships are close enough, can they "share" a pocket universe? IF you say YES, then fleet jumps are possible in that situation, if you say NO, then probably not; but again, it goes back to what causes the variation in the time of a jump. It is not explained (at least not within MGT rules), so YOU have to decide for your game.

Yes, players and game masters are always free to come up with house rules. But it's nice to not have to do that for a lot of things.

As far as merging pocket universes go, I don't think that would work based upon how MgT jump mechanics work. Since you have to be 100D away from an object to jump, you couldn't (or shouldn't) get close enough to another ship. Plus that would violate the long-standing concept of being alone in jump space. All previous systems have been pretty clear that when a ship goes into jump, it's all alone until it reverts to real space.

Since we've been discussing variations on how this may be accomplished, why don't we put our heads collectively together and come up with a mechanism that a) makes sense and b) fits within the existing rule structure. Because the rules are NOT clear on the topic, lets come up with a clarification that CAN become the rule.

 

[rust]

Because the rules are NOT clear on the topic, lets come up with a clarification that CAN become the rule.

I very much doubt that we need any kind of rule for this. Whether fleet
jumps are possible or not can well be left to the individual referee to de-
cide according to the specific needs of his setting.

 

[hdan]

I very much doubt that we need any kind of rule for this. Whether fleet jumps are possible or not can well be left to the individual referee to decide according to the specific needs of his setting.

Agreed, but the Sector Fleet book is for a specific setting, and the possibility of fleet jumps would directly inform the contents of the book, I would think.

 

[rust]

Agreed, but the Sector Fleet book is for a specific setting, and the possibility of fleet jumps would directly inform the contents of the book, I would think.

True, but since each Traveller publication has to be checked and permit-
ted by Marc Miller, I do not know whether the author or Miller failed to
solve this problem - Traveller authors have to deal with a kind of "con-
tent straightjacket" that often prevents clarifications because Miller has
not yet made up his mind one way or the other.

 

[phavoc]

Agreed, but the Sector Fleet book is for a specific setting, and the possibility of fleet jumps would directly inform the contents of the book, I would think.

True, but since each Traveller publication has to be checked and permit-
ted by Marc Miller, I do not know whether the author or Miller failed to
solve this problem - Traveller authors have to deal with a kind of "con-
tent straightjacket" that often prevents clarifications because Miller has
not yet made up his mind one way or the other.

Where are you getting this information? From what I can tell of the excellent series of books published by SJGames, they not only published the core information, but also did a great deal of work towards adding and expanding the original core gaming history and information. There was a time early on when they were putting out a lot of new material.

I could be wrong, but I don't see how Miller could have vetted all of their stuff while still working on his own and still meet their aggressive publishing schedule.

 

[rust]

I could be wrong, but I don't see how Miller could have vetted all of their stuff while still working on his own and still meet their aggressive publishing schedule.

Reading any of the GURPS Traveller supplements takes hardly more than
one or two hours, and I am not aware of any major projects Miller was
working on when the core of GURPS Traveller was published. Besides,
the agreement with Steve Jackson Games includes that GURPS Traveller
is an alternate universe and not a part of the original Third Imperium set-
ting's "canon".

 

[nats]

I could be wrong, but I don't see how Miller could have vetted all of their stuff while still working on his own and still meet their aggressive publishing schedule.

Reading any of the GURPS Traveller supplements takes hardly more than
one or two hours, and I am not aware of any major projects Miller was
working on when the core of GURPS Traveller was published. Besides,
the agreement with Steve Jackson Games includes that GURPS Traveller
is an alternate universe and not a part of the original Third Imperium set-
ting's "canon".

I would guess Marc Miller has asked for the priviledge of having a final say on anything related to ongoing Traveller development and gets the opportunity to look over anything that is going out, but rarely uses that priviledge. He probably doesnt even frequent these forums all that much. Anyone seen any messages on here from him? I havent.

As Ive said before if Traveller 5 in anything to go by he's not even all that into Traveller anymore - its taken him far too long to produce for someone who is actually interested in the subject. And I have to ask, with MGT around now, just what is the point in Traveller 5 anyway? I cant say I would buy it unless it was absolutely the bees knees, and I cant see it having anything remotely different to offer than MGT to be honest. Theres only so much you can do with Traveller and its all been done. MGT are smoothing out years of ragged edges and thats all most people surely want. I would like to see how Traveller 5 could offer anything new.

 

[DFW]

And I have to ask, with MGT around now, just what is the point in Traveller 5 anyway? I cant say I would buy it unless it was absolutely the bees knees, and I cant see it having anything remotely different to offer than MGT to be honest. Theres only so much you can do with Traveller and its all been done. MGT are smoothing out years of ragged edges and thats all most people surely want. I would like to see how Traveller 5 could offer anything new.

From what I've seen. T5 is lower Tech than CT MT or MGT. Weird direction to go. Not my cup of tea.

 

[AndrewW]

I would guess Marc Miller has asked for the priviledge of having a final say on anything related to ongoing Traveller development and gets the opportunity to look over anything that is going out, but rarely uses that priviledge. He probably doesnt even frequent these forums all that much. Anyone seen any messages on here from him? I havent.

He may not frequent these forums but he does have oversight on the Traveller materials Mongoose Publishing releases.

 

[phavoc]

And I have to ask, with MGT around now, just what is the point in Traveller 5 anyway? I cant say I would buy it unless it was absolutely the bees knees, and I cant see it having anything remotely different to offer than MGT to be honest. Theres only so much you can do with Traveller and its all been done. MGT are smoothing out years of ragged edges and thats all most people surely want. I would like to see how Traveller 5 could offer anything new.

From what I've seen. T5 is lower Tech than CT MT or MGT. Weird direction to go. Not my cup of tea.

T5 will have character development, like levels in other RPG's. Haven't seen much else of the stuff though. The T5 site is, umm, wonky to say the least.

One thing that is odd is that regular traveller had a pretty small mix of starship stuff, then along came high guard, then megatraveller added stuff. T4 took it a step further by upping things like laser size by TL. Gurps acknowledged the idea of 'light' and 'heavy' lasers and missiles. MGT went back to the original Traveller with barebones weapons and substituted upgrades for TL.

Will the madness ever end???

 

[DFW]

The T5 site is, umm, wonky to say the least.

...

Will the madness ever end???

If T5 is as "successful" as T4, I don't think so...

 

[rust]

If T5 is as "successful" as T4, I don't think so...

With all the complaints about the editing and proofreading of Mongoose
Traveller, I am almost tempted to start a thread about T4, in order to
demonstrate what truly terrible quality looks like ... :lol:

 

[DFW]

If T5 is as "successful" as T4, I don't think so...

With all the complaints about the editing and proofreading of Mongoose
Traveller, I am almost tempted to start a thread about T4, in order to
demonstrate what truly terrible quality looks like ... :lol:

Which was worse, T4 or MT? I could barely use much of my MT books because it was SO bad.

 

[phavoc]

If T5 is as "successful" as T4, I don't think so...

With all the complaints about the editing and proofreading of Mongoose
Traveller, I am almost tempted to start a thread about T4, in order to
demonstrate what truly terrible quality looks like ... :lol:

Oh, it was pretty bad. The illustrations, at least the ones they did not buy from sci-fi fantasy books from the early 80s was terrible. Deckplans worse than Mongoose (though they did get the size of the cabins right...) for most of the ships.

I did, however, take a gander at a copy of Sector Fleet and there was a section on fleets jumping. According to the book, in order for ships to jump en masse (err, two or more...), a special jump computer is required to do all the calculations. And then it cuts down the error, but doesn't totally eliminate it. However, having your ships pop out around you within a few hours of each is a lot better than say 18hrs for your cruisers and only 2 for the supply ships. Oops.

 

[captainjack23]

If T5 is as "successful" as T4, I don't think so...

With all the complaints about the editing and proofreading of Mongoose
Traveller, I am almost tempted to start a thread about T4, in order to
demonstrate what truly terrible quality looks like ... :lol:

Which was worse, T4 or MT? I could barely use much of my MT books because it was SO bad.

Hard to say. MT had the benefit and curse of being run by hard core traveller gamers, whereas T4 had the benefit and bigger curse of being run by get rick quick business types.....IIRC.

MT was in many ways a better potential set of rules (despite being essentially unplayable without the errata) whereas T4 was (mostly) playable out of the box, but just didn't hang together well system wise when in play.

On the other hand, I liked the version of the 3I from T4 much more than MT, so possibly rules system development/quality and setting development are a zero-sum game.

YMMV

 

[DFW]

I'd have to agree that MT had the best mechanics rules wise.