Has anyone used the alternate drives?

[Stofsk]

I was wondering if anyone had implemented any of the alternate FTL drives found in the core rulebook on pp. 109? They seem interesting.

I like the teleport drive and the warp drive. The former because I always wondered why a 'jump' would take a week, independent of the distance travelled, and the latter because I'm a fan of the original Star Trek series.

The methods that FTL work in any particular setting often give interesting consequences. Traveller has a certain 'flavour' that while is usually argued over (sometimes heatedly) there are a few things that seem to stick out - namely, the slow pace in which news and communication travels. Is this really due to the one-week in jumpspace rule? Or is it more to do with the fact that news can only travel aboard a starship, and that therefore news travels fast or slow depending on the speed of that particular messenger craft.

I am trying to imagine a setting where the teleport drive is in effect. Xboat routes could be updated fairly constantly, or at least every day. But if fuel costs and expenditure remain the same, then xboats still need to refuel before jumping to the next system along the route. This can still limit the pace in which news travels, despite the instantaneous nature of the drive. Not to mention, there are still the little planets off the route that rarely receive visitors anyway. Battlestar had a 'teleport drive' which allowed instantaneous as well as sequential jumps, which seemed to only need power from the powerplant rather than 'jump fuel'. A closer fit might probably be the Mote in God's Eye, with its Alderson jump points, instantaneous FTL but slow-ass sublight acceleration (no such thing as inertial compensation or artificial gravity; 3G acceleration is a son of a bitch).

What about the warp drive? An interesting concept. I like how the rating of the drive actually does equal a faster drive anyway. In the standard jump drive, whether you travel one parsec or six, you will stay in jump space for one week. But with this drive, that week can go down by a couple of days depending on just how much distance you DO travel. However, this has a number of different implications.

In space combat, what's to stop someone from warping away? Although you could ask the same thing about the normal jump drive, the fuel costs can tend to prevent 'jump and run' as a tactic. If you spend all your fuel getting to a target, only to find things aren't as easy as you imagined them to be, you can't simply jump away - not unless there's some gas left in the tank. Would you be able to use warp drive in a tactical sense - ie, can you use it for a 'micro burst' use to get really close to a particular target that might have an advantage in long range firepower as well as faster acceleration than you but wouldn't stand up to close-in bombardment from fusion bays? Can you pursue someone by warping after them? If you could, can you force them out of warp somehow? Also, given that you no longer need to carry huge amounts of fuel, is it even worth having SDBs anymore when all your navy could be outfitted with an FTL drive that only needs to be powered by a fusion reactor?

I'd be interested if anyone has any views on the alternative drives mentioned in the core rulebook, and what other implications for their use that you can think of. For instance, say I wanted to introduce jump gates into my setting, to make it similar to either B5 or Mass Effect, which drive would seem to fit best?

 

[AndrewW]

Also, given that you no longer need to carry huge amounts of fuel, is it even worth having SDBs anymore when all your navy could be outfitted with an FTL drive that only needs to be powered by a fusion reactor?

Well there's more advantages to an SDB then just fuel. Even if a drive doesn't take the massive amount of fuel it does still take space and there is cost to consider as well. If a system does not have a need for ships capable of travel outside the system no real need to equip them as such.

 

[Gamerguy]

8)
I've used alternate drives.

No matter which hyperspace drive they use, leaving combat via activation of the hyperspace drive will always happen.

The trick is - destroy or cripple your enemy before they can do that.

In my ATU, the 1st Imperium never fell and won the Terrian wars resulting in a major TL gain from captured Terrian science projects.

Now, 4,000 years later, all known space belongs to the mighty Imperium!

I use various drives for different type of ships, military ones use warp drives and tramp freighters use jump drives for example.

:wink:

 

[rust]

All my recent settings used a hyperdrive, with speeds between 1 parsec
and 3 parsec per day, and in the current setting we use fission reactors
instead of the usual fusion reactors.

As a result the ships tend to have more useful volume (no jump fuel re-
quired) and far more range (theoretically, a ship with a 1 pc/d hyperdri-
ve and a fission reactor could travel 365 parsec non-stop in a year), so
our setting tends to have smaller ships and greater distances than the
Third Imperium.

We also decided that a ship with a hyperdrive can enter or exit hyperspa-
ce quite close to a planet, reducing the in system travel times significant-
ly and abolishing the 100 d limit of the jump drive.

All these changes made it necessary to modify many of the core rules, for
example the trade rules, and they changed a lot of Traveller's usual
Third Imperium-based assumptions - for example, warships with hyper-
drives and fission reactors rarely have to refuel (once every five years
or so in our setting), which makes the military strategies of our setting
quite different from those of the Third Imperium.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I actually made a bunch of small hyperdrive ships and posted them here. Though maybe I should take 'em down and submit 'em to S&P (not that they'd ever get published).

 

[FreeTrav]

I actually made a bunch of small hyperdrive ships and posted them here. Though maybe I should take 'em down and submit 'em to S&P (not that they'd ever get published).

If they're more than just stats - if there's interesting color text about them with the stats - send 'em on to me at submissions@freelancetraveller.com, and I'll put 'em up at Freelance Traveller.

 

[Rex]

Teleport Drive = Battlestar Galactica (new series).

I've used all the drives in the core book, especially to demonstrate System Versatility in Demo Games. It takes very little to modify them for things like the Phase Gates in Cowboy Bebop, Black Hole Jumps (Forever War), Inertialess Drives (Lensman).

You can even mix and match them within the same campaign.

~Rex, The Black Hand, Mongoose Infantry

 

[Woas]

I've been kicking around the idea of introducing multiple FTL drives in my game. The idea stems from my want to make ship design more modular than it is.
Basically have the standard Jump drive which requires long time and significant amounts of fuel be the cheaper, commercial, common FTL drive to the everyman. Then introduce one of the faster FTL as the new and improved FTL that only the military, mega corps and super rich can afford.

Although I'm not sure if it would make much sense economics-wise. But I think it would make for a cool macro-game scenario/hook if warp or hyperdrives were like railroad companies in the tycoon era of American history. Basically super-influential people control these new FTL drives and the 'warp-routes' or 'hyper-routes' that those ships operate along.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Had an idea for a setting with 2 types of drives.

1. Subspace translation.

The ship enters subspace, or a lower (and smaller) dimension, and emerges at its destination. Requires a psionic/implant navigator and a kind of psionic lodestone to interface with based on alien tech. Time runs slower in subspace, so the translation takes some time, perhaps 2 or 3 days. The size of vessels is limited by the skill and number of navigators, so ships tend to be smaller. The navigators have their own guild monopoly with the large traders and navies. Ships are expensive.

2. Hyperspace gates.

Developed after subspace translation, using a higher dimension, or hyperspace, for transit. Hyperspace is larger, but time runs much, much faster there. The journey in h-space can take relative centuries, but the vessel will emerge at the other end the instant it left n-space. Large vessels can generate their own portal, but lesser ones can use established gates (permanent wormholes). Ships tend towards long and thin, so that their diameter does not exceed the gate.

There is no upper limit to size, but there is a major drawback. As inside h-space time runs faster, the crew and passengers would rapidly age and die. Therefore they must spend the trip in a stasis chamber. However, the navigator has to ensure the course is correct after entry to h-space, so he/she must verify the heading before entering stasis, aging by months or even years every trip (and having to cope with the hallucinatory perceptual disconnect of the time differential) even in the time it takes to check the settings and climb into the casket. H-space navigators start young and have a short career. Another side effect is that the vessel is subject to years of wear and tear every trip, meaning they fall apart quickly. Ships are cheaper and have a limited number of trips in them.

Both systems run concurrently. The military need both types to be effective.

I'm not sure how well they'd work as part of a game, but I like it as setting fluff.


In my current OTU game I'm considering changing jump to lasting around 48 hours. 1 week jump has become something of a drag on the story I'm running, as it involves what amounts to a lot of interstellar to-ing and fro-ing along with fine timing.

 

[AndrewW]

I've been kicking around the idea of introducing multiple FTL drives in my game. The idea stems from my want to make ship design more modular than it is.
Basically have the standard Jump drive which requires long time and significant amounts of fuel be the cheaper, commercial, common FTL drive to the everyman. Then introduce one of the faster FTL as the new and improved FTL that only the military, mega corps and super rich can afford.

Although I'm not sure if it would make much sense economics-wise. But I think it would make for a cool macro-game scenario/hook if warp or hyperdrives were like railroad companies in the tycoon era of American history. Basically super-influential people control these new FTL drives and the 'warp-routes' or 'hyper-routes' that those ships operate along.

Not sure this would work this way for cargo haulers. While the jumpdrive may be cheaper the increased cargo capacity means earning more per trip and the faster travel time means more trips can be made in a given time period.

 

[Sevya]

We're in a campaign with a longer range version of psionic space folding and something based on slipstream drive from the TV show Andromeda. with travel being instantaneous, or taking hours instead of weeks, we're having a hard time learning any skills. That's not so bad for the more experienced gamers, since we can gain significant reward from sources other than improving our characters. The less experienced gamers, however, are getting frustrated. Most of our study time for the listed skill improvement system comes from traveling for weeks to get anywhere. Just one often overlooked repercussion of changing the jump drive system.

Sevya

 

[Jame Rowe]

I actually made a bunch of small hyperdrive ships and posted them here. Though maybe I should take 'em down and submit 'em to S&P (not that they'd ever get published).

If they're more than just stats - if there's interesting color text about them with the stats - send 'em on to me at submissions@freelancetraveller.com, and I'll put 'em up at Freelance Traveller.

Aye, there's the rub; I take a lot of time to come up with color text, much less actually write it down... :roll: