Fuel Dumps

Fresnel

Banded Mongoose
A corporation want to exploit a system accessible to jump-3 craft. However, they want to allow jump-2 ships easy access the system.

They use a Subsidized Liner to jump to a point 1 parsec closer to the system of interest. They then leave 120 tons of fuel in deep interstellar at a secret location. The liner then jumps home.

Is this already a thing?
 
Several adventures and campaigns use this kind of thing. I'd imagine that jumping in with enough accuracy to hit the fuel dump is challenging, though.
 
Iirc Jumping is quite accurate in terms of in-system distances... I need to look this up.

Ping the coded transponder and it might be a day or so away - hopefully...
 
JTAS#24, "Jumpspace", p35:
One of the benefits of the jump drive is its controllability: jump is predictable. When known levels of energy are expended, and when certain other parameters are known with precision, jump drive is accurate to less than one part per ten billion. Over a jump distance of one parsec, the arrival point of a ship can be predicted to within perhaps 3,000 kilometers (on larger jumps, the potential error is proportionally larger). Error in arrival location is also affected by the quality of drive tuning, and by the accuracy of the computer controlling the jump; these factors can increase jump error by a factor of ten.
 
A corporation want to exploit a system accessible to jump-3 craft. However, they want to allow jump-2 ships easy access the system.

They use a Subsidized Liner to jump to a point 1 parsec closer to the system of interest. They then leave 120 tons of fuel in deep interstellar at a secret location. The liner then jumps home.

Is this already a thing?
It's entirely possible. But the question comes down to tanker support if your station or jump point isn't a location with a fuel.source. that can be hand-waved if you just want to say a government takes care of it at as a way to provide access to the system. Otherwise fuel is a question mark since ships have to haul enough fuel to jump there and back (40% of their mass).

Otherwise ita easier to explain away by having a wandering gas giant or planetpid there that has hydrogen deposits that are ablento be converted to fuel.

There's also the idea that ships need a sizable enough object to come pit of jump- if you want to go with that rule or not.
 
IIRC, it's just that the astrogation roll is much harder, so you are more likely to not end up in that successful close arrival.
 
So you don't reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

 
But 30,000 km is not a long way at Thrust 1...
Look, there's several examples of this sort of thing published. There's also many, many places where they would be sensible yet don't exist. There's highly controversial rules making jumping to an "empty hex" difficult and maneuvering in it even harder. I'm not a fan of those M-drive rules, so I'm certainly not going to argue in favor of them, but you should be aware that this statement isn't valid RAW. You'll have 1/1000th of that thrust.

Leaving that aside, this is the situation in published materials: They exist, they are not common. Presumably there is a reason that these things don't bridge common 2 or 3 parsec gaps like you are doing. Obviously, you aren't limited by that in your campaign. You can put them all over the place, like the Clement Sector setting does. You can say they are technically and/or economically unviable so they don't exist in numbers, but your group can deal with those issues.

My personal explanation for why they aren't widespread is that they are technically possible, but prohibitively expensive so they are not commercially viable. YMMV.
 
IIRC, it's just that the astrogation roll is much harder, so you are more likely to not end up in that successful close arrival.
But 30,000 km is not a long way at Thrust 1
Look, there's several examples of this sort of thing published. There's also many, many places where they would be sensible yet don't exist. There's highly controversial rules making jumping to an "empty hex" difficult and maneuvering in it even harder. I'm not a fan of those M-drive rules, so I'm certainly not going to argue in favor of them, but you should be aware that this statement isn't valid RAW. You'll have 1/1000th of that thrust.

Leaving that aside, this is the situation in published materials: They exist, they are not common. Presumably there is a reason that these things don't bridge common 2 or 3 parsec gaps like you are doing. Obviously, you aren't limited by that in your campaign. You can put them all over the place, like the Clement Sector setting does. You can say they are technically and/or economically unviable so they don't exist in numbers, but your group can deal with those issues.

My personal explanation for why they aren't widespread is that they are technically possible, but prohibitively expensive so they are not commercially viable. YMMV.

Interesting, where are these rules that M-drives are ineffective far from a significant gravity well?

FYI: I am leaning to large (3km) object, mostly rock and ice. Discovered by a vessel that mis-jumped when its path passed within 100 diameters of the object - a very rare event.
 
The Deep Space Exploration book and the World Builder's Handbook both have it spelled out. The Deneb sourcebook has some references that suggest it, IIRC.

As I said, it's a very controversial rule and I certainly don't recommend using it. But it is, currently, a rule. So blanket statements about how things work should account for it, if only by explicitly stating you don't use it.
 
The Deep Space Exploration book and the World Builder's Handbook both have it spelled out. The Deneb sourcebook has some references that suggest it, IIRC.

As I said, it's a very controversial rule and I certainly don't recommend using it. But it is, currently, a rule. So blanket statements about how things work should account for it, if only by explicitly stating you don't use it.

FYI I have the Deep Space Exploration book now. There is no mention of this m-drive nerf...
 
FYI I have the Deep Space Exploration book now. There is no mention of this m-drive nerf...
Hmm. You are right. So I spent five minutes looking around. It's actually in the Deepnight Revelation stuff that they introduce the "Deep Space Maneuvering System". I don't use that or the 1000D limit that necessitates it, so I apparently misremembered exactly when it crept into MgT2e.
 
Hmm. You are right. So I spent five minutes looking around. It's actually in the Deepnight Revelation stuff that they introduce the "Deep Space Maneuvering System". I don't use that or the 1000D limit that necessitates it, so I apparently misremembered exactly when it crept into MgT2e.

Is it also in World Builders?
 
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