Fuel Dumps

[MongooseMatt]

Hey everyone,

With regards the 1,000d limit, we like the idea of it, but think 1,000d is too low. Far too low.

Assuming it should only kick in when we are talking serious deep space exploration and not in the outer system, what limit would you guys place it at?

 

[Sigtrygg]

50-70 AU puts the Kuiper Belt within full m-drive range.
121AU take you to the heliopause
2000-> 20,000AU is the extent of the Inner Oort cloud.
200,000AU largest theoretical boundary of Outer Oort cloud.
178,000->230,000 AU range of calculate Solar System Hill Sphere

 

[Condottiere]

It depends on how much complexity of manoeuvre drive design/customization, you're willing to tolerate.

Of course, that means you'd also have to expand the limits of customization.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Here is what I have found so far in other sources:

MT errata - Maneuver Drive (explanation): An anti-grav unit requires a gravity well to push against, so an anti-grav maneuver drive is less efficient at 10 diameters and beyond. The effective maneuver number of the craft drops by 50% at 10 diameters and beyond; for example, a maneuver-2 drive drops to a maneuver-1, and a maneuver-1 drops to a maneuver-0.5. Thruster units do not suffer these effects.

The same section is in the MT RM 3 ed and Digest 21

 

[Fresnel]

2000 AU, about 200,000 D… (Corrected)

So if you located a 1km rogue in a ‘empty’ hex, you would only need to Jump to 200,000 km (Corrected) of it and your m-drive will work fine.

Is that what is wanted? @MongooseMatt can you elaborate on what you are after here?

 

[Vormaerin]

Isn't 100D slightly less than 1 AU? So 2000AU would be a little over 200,000D, not 2 million?

 

[Condottiere]

This is where all those super secret restricted rutters come in.

 

[Vormaerin]

Hey everyone,

With regards the 1,000d limit, we like the idea of it, but think 1,000d is too low. Far too low.

Assuming it should only kick in when we are talking serious deep space exploration and not in the outer system, what limit would you guys place it at?

If you are going to have a limit on M-Drives, I'd like it reasonably cover an entire solar system. So the heliopause seems reasonable to me.

What I don't find appealing in any limit to the M-Drive is undoing that limit with a Deep Space Maneuvering Drive. Just use Heplar or something already extant. If you are going to say that ships normally can't operate in Deep Space, this should be reflected in how the various deep space locations are discussed. For instance, the space stations between the Imperium and the Islands. Or the aforementioned Grandfather's pocket dimension.

 

[Nelphine]

so, heliopause is 121 ish AU, or 12,000D

So we have suggested numbers between 12,000D and 200,000D

The problem I see is that if we are going to do limits of any kind, they should (somehow) be related to the 100D limit of jump. I realize there's no reason for this, but that's my opinion, because players are going to want to have some kind of 'intuitive' system for the most common types of play, and they won't practically care about the difference between different drives - drives are drives, so shouldn't M and J simply be the reverse of each other?

If we assume jumping at 0D is impossible, 1D is nearly impossible, 10D is a problem, and 100D is fine, this would imply jumping at 1,000D should be easy and 10,000D is actually encouraged (although for practical purposes, anything above 100D is redundant so no point in doing it)

then, maneuvering at 1D is encouraged, 10D is easy, 100D is fine, 1,000D is a problem, 10,000D is nearly impossible, 100,000D is impossible

so for jumping, 10D is a -4 mod, but can be generally done by any starship. This changes from a 91.666% chance to a 41.666% chance.
If we assume 1D is a -8 mod, and should only be done by specialized starships, that would be a 2.777% chance.
Then we could assume that 1,000D is +2 and 10,000D is +4 (which could encourage damaged ships or ships with no engineer and unrefined fuel to limp out much farther in the hopes of a safer jump)

So why not have maneuver drive do the same thing? We make 1,000D not always affect performance (since all starships should be able to do it), but it now requires a check by the MDrive engineer to keep things working correctly (easy difficulty, -4 penalty, if you fail you drop to 50% rating)

- this allows outer system to continue being used as normal, but it requires experienced people to go out there, or it slows you down a bit

10,000D now impacts performance (say, half your M Drive rating by default) and requires a check (easy, -8 penalty, but if you get 10+, you can use your full rating; if you fail the check, you drop to 10% rating) and there would be special drives that allow you to keep the full rating, but would cost more/consume more space/consume more power

- this generally puts anything past heliopause into the realm only of researchers and dedicated explorers, not the general public

100,000D is impossible (drop to 1%. if you want, you can make a -12 easy difficulty and if you manage to get 10+ then you can boost up to 10% of your rating, but failure or normal success still leaves you at 1%, because realistically, we just don't want people to bother making this check), specialer drives

- no Oort cloud for you!

 

[MasterGwydion]

Hey everyone,

With regards the 1,000d limit, we like the idea of it, but think 1,000d is too low. Far too low.

Assuming it should only kick in when we are talking serious deep space exploration and not in the outer system, what limit would you guys place it at?

Okay, so here is the question. Why do you like the idea of this restriction? What does it add to the game? If it was realistically tied to a gravity well, then the size of the object doesn't matter, only it's Mass matters, but in Traveller, We don't use Mass. A Black Hole would have a far greater gravity well than Sol's gravity well. This seems to be a can of worms. I have never found a reason to need to limit My players travel or to restrict the travel in general, beyond the limits already established by the Jump Drive. By the current rules, I could inflate a 100km diameter balloon and it would have the same gravity well as a Black Hole of the same size. So, I just ignore this rule completely and let My players wander where they wish.

 

[Nelphine]

Despite my previous response, I agree with those asking 'why, what is the purpose of the limit?'

If, as has been mentioned elsewhere, its to avoid certain tactical weapon options, I'd be interested in exploring other options, rather than this limit on M Drives.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Despite my previous response, I agree with those asking 'why, what is the purpose of the limit?'

If, as has been mentioned elsewhere, its to avoid certain tactical weapon options, I'd be interested in exploring other options, rather than this limit on M Drives.

What tactical weapons options? Anything you can normally do with an M-Drive, you can still do with an R-Drive, so it actually doesn't prevent anything.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Slingshotting.

2. Two/dee works.

3. One/dee - valleys and depressions.

3. Performance fall off could be logarithmic scale.

4. You could trade acceleration for range.

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

Hey everyone,

With regards the 1,000d limit, we like the idea of it, but think 1,000d is too low. Far too low.

Assuming it should only kick in when we are talking serious deep space exploration and not in the outer system, what limit would you guys place it at?

If you may allow me to play Devil's Advocate? There is an argument to be had in favour of the 1,000D limit as it is in that it encourages the usage of R-Drives in the outer system; the majority of action within a given system will naturally revolve around the habitable zone, after all, so it introduces an active choice with trade-offs when creating ships. 'Will I make my ship be as efficient as possible in the most-travelled areas of space, or do I want to be versatile enough to operate in the outskirts of civilisation as well?'
I, for one, think that's an interesting choice to make, and the Deep Space Manoeuvring kit is that same choice on steroids.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that, beyond the 1,000D of stars, the drive efficiency drops to 1% of normal. That is still 0.1 m/s², which is nothing to be sniffed at especially if you never need to stop thrusting. Will it take longer than a nominal 1G thrust to get places? Yes, obviously, but take a moment to consider: In the Solar System, travelling from Earth to Saturn (just outside the 1,000D limit) using a constant thrust of 1G takes, assuming as their distance 9.5826 AU, 8 days 18 hours 20 minutes 40 seconds. Why would anyone on a schedule not just jump there in the first place? It's faster!*
*Before anyone says anything, I myself can thing of at least three different reasons why one want to do so; there's a cost matrix involved relating jump fuel costs to the ship's thrust and to the monthly/weekly overheads that will determine if the trip is economically worthwhile to undertake without using jump, but that's not the point here.

By simple virtue of the constant time of Jump, the out-system will always be this seldom-traversed backwater anyway. The 1000D limit only makes it seem a bit wilder.

Right, let me get this suit and my little horns out, enough playing demonic litigator for now.

---

When it comes to suggesting a new limit; what if, instead of changing its value, we simply altered what happens once you cross it? We could make it so that at the 1000D limit thrust drops to one-quarter its original value. Each subsequent 10x increase in distance from the star drops it to one quarter, again.

M-DRIVE	1,000D+ (25%)	10,000D+ (6.25%)	100,000D+ (1.5625%)	1,000,000D+ (0.39%)	10,000,000D+ (0.1%)
Thrust 1	0.25 G	0.0625 G	~0.016 G	~0.004 G	~0.001 G
Thrust 2	0.5 G	0.125 G	0.03125 G	~0.008 G	~0.002 G
Thrust 4	1 G	0.25 G	0.0625 G	~0.016 G	~0.004 G
Thrust 6	1.5 G	0.375 G	~0.0938 G	~0.0234 G	~0.006 G
Thrust 10	2.5 G	0.625 G	~0.1563 G	~0.039 G	~0.01 G

For reference, in the solar system these limits would correspond to:

• 1,000D: 9.301 AU – Just within the orbit of Saturn.
• 10,000D: 93.01 AU – More or less Eris' Aphelion, its most distant point to the Sun
• 100,000D: 930.1 AU – Nearly the Aphelion of Sedna, one of the most widest-orbiting objects known in the solar system.
• 1,000,000D: 9,301 AU – A bit beyond the inner boundaries of the Öpik-Oort Cloud
• 10,000,000D: 93,010 AU – No one should have any business coming here.

This is a simple enough change that can easily be calculated at the table if needed (just requires simple multiplication/division), maintains the numerical value of the 1,000D system intact, allows for the people who want to gallivant around the out-system to do so, and is largely compatible with the values given for M-Drive efficiency in deep space.

P.S.: I've noticed a few people have proposed a falloff with distance like this, nice to see I'm not alone in this line of reasoning.

 

[Nelphine]

Another thing I'd like to point out is that, beyond the 1,000D of stars, the drive efficiency drops to 1% of normal. That is still 0.1 m/s², which is nothing to be sniffed at especially if you never need to stop thrusting. Will it take longer than a nominal 1G thrust to get places? Yes, obviously, but take a moment to consider: In the Solar System, travelling from Earth to Saturn using a constant thrust of 1G takes, assuming as their distance 9.5826 AU, 8 days 18 hours 20 minutes 40 seconds. Why would anyone on a schedule not just jump there in the first place? It's faster!

A lot of the rest of your post has strong merits, and I appreciate you taking the time to make these suggestions.

The part of your post I've quoted though is something where I completely agree with Vormaerin:

We don't WANT people to make micro jumps. Players who are in jump space.. are in jump space, and nothing external can influence them. Players who are in normal space.. can run into encounters, and interact with the world, and Find Things.

Micro Jumps are Bad for Gameplay (regardless of how reasonable and practical they are in game). Jump weeks are already glossed over by many groups - having mechanics that encourage extra jumps, increases the amount of in game time that is glossed over.

 

[Vormaerin]

Jumping may be faster, but it uses dramatically more fuel. M-Drive from Earth to Saturn takes up no more fuel than the ship existing in that time frame. Jumping your 200dton ship to Saturn takes 20 tons of fuel. Even in these latter days where refined fuel is pointless, that's an additional Cr2000 spent on fuel (or a day skimming and refining). It only gets more expensive the larger your ship is.

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

A lot of the rest of your post has strong merits, and I appreciate you taking the time to make these suggestions.

How dare you appreciate me!? I'm going to appreciate you for being polite!
[JEST]

We don't WANT people to make micro jumps. Players who are in jump space.. are in jump space, and nothing external can influence them. Players who are in normal space.. can run into encounters, and interact with the world, and Find Things.

Micro Jumps are Bad for Gameplay (regardless of how reasonable and practical they are in game). Jump weeks are already glossed over by many groups - having mechanics that encourage extra jumps, increases the amount of in game time that is glossed over.

The best argument I can raise to incentivise in-system travel to the outskirts of the system without using micro-jumps is the cost evaluation matrix I mentioned in the little asterisk I added to my post as a post-script; if the Travellers aren't pressed for time, as long as the maintenance costs covering the time it takes them to get to their destination is lower than the amount of jump fuel they'd expend making a microjump (equivalent to Jump 1), then there's a financial incentive to travel in real space.

[I got Ninja'd by Vormaerin!]

But it needs to be said, even if there was no efficiency drop-off in the M-Drive whatsoever, certain parts of a big system like the Solar System simply would not be travelled to via M-Drive due to the sheer mind-boggling distances involved; even a military ship with Thrust 6 would take 11 days and 3 hours to reach Sedna. Most Adventure Class Ships available to Travellers tend to have Thrust 2, and for those ships that same trip would take nineteen days.
There just comes a point, irrespective of the efficiency falloff or not, where Travelling without microjumps is just unreasonable.

It is true that the efficiency falloff drops that ""unreasonability"" line in closer than it would otherwise be, but the financial motives I mentioned previously will still exist.

Look on the flipside, though; by being a seldom-traversed, hard-to-delve-into area, one can make the outsystems of stars be spooky as hell. Maybe there's stories of Things™ in the outsystem; maybe said Things™ turn out to be specialised corsairs or intelligence vessels equipped with DSMS.
Maybe these intelligence vessels are forward operators building a base in the Oort belt as a secret launching-off point for a FFW invasion fleet, even.

I understand the frustration at the 1,000D limit, but I also see enough interesting narrative potentials arising from it that, on the aggregate, I'm neutral-but-warming-up to it overall.

 

[Nelphine]

Thoughts on my post above, #69? It kind of goes similar to your quartering idea, although not as extreme.

 

[Arkathan]

If you may allow me to play Devil's Advocate? There is an argument to be had in favour of the 1,000D limit as it is in that it encourages the usage of R-Drives in the outer system; ...

With respect, inventing a limitation to encourage the use of an obsolete and inefficient method of thrust is not good game design.
Deep space refueling stations EXIST, and not all of them are on rogue planets or around brown dwarf stars. Some are constructed space stations. If you cannot maneuver to them, then their existence is pointless.
There is a sufficiently powerful gravity well surrounding the galaxy to trap satellite galaxies into orbit around us.
There is a sufficiently large gravity well encompassing galaxies to bend the light of the galaxies behind them (lensing).
Freefall is not an absence of local gravity, it is the perception of a lack of gravity. That includes freefall around the galactic center of gravity.

The best argument for the continued use of fusion reaction drives is their use as a weapon at dogfight ranges, or as a turbo boost.

 

[Vormaerin]

Honestly, I would prefer the default use of Heplar ala T:NE if it was easier for players to actually use in practice. But I don't generally have players who want to think about whether to use 1 Burn or 2 Burns to accelerate on their trip from Earth to Mars (or whatever). Honestly, I like 2300's surface to orbit being the hard part element, too.

The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation is cool, but not generally fun gameplay.

We have M-Drive because it is straightforward, doesn't focus on elements most players aren't interested in (calculating if we going to run out of fuel and be unable to stop?), and generally lets players go where the adventure is.

If we are going to make M-Drives less effective, I want some value from that which isn't "more time spent in jump space". And I REALLY don't want it just to mean "buy the special M Drive that does work in deep space".