High Guard: Are collectors too good?

[Morgoth99]

okay, Collectors appeared in High Guard, and are used on a ship design in the Great Rift: Deep-space exploration handbook, so it appears to be a tech that exists in traveller, rather thana purely optional part.

But is it too good?

you get them at TL14 and:
They consume 1% of a ship’s tonnage multiplied by the maximum jump
number its drive is capable of, plus five tons. They cost
MCr0.5 per ton.

For that, a week of normal spce travel fuels the capacitor, and you can jump. So let's look at say and armored cruiser: 50,000 tons.
The jump collector would weigh 2005 tons.

And after a week of travel, the ship would be charged and ready to make a jump, no matter where it wsa. So there would be no need for any fuel depots among the rifts--the rifts in fact wouldn't be much of an obstacle. In addition, the immense savings in fuel bunkerage would allow the cruiser to carry far more weapons, even if say, you keep enough fuel for an emergency Jump 1.

It just seems like far too much for a TL14 system in Traveller, especially given how everything is wrapped around the issue of needing to find fuel for your ship. (Sure it's expensive, but never having to fuel up again?).

I mean, you have the far more reasonable ramscoop system in the same book,which while not as bad (given the need to include fuel tankage), still give you that "I don't have to worry about refueling" issue.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The original collector had to be close to a star to recharge. I have no idea why this changed.

 

[Morgoth99]

That would make it more reasonable--or just have the collector take a lot longer. If your charge system is say, taking a month to charge, then you jump, it's a very fringe use system, especially for military uses. But as it is, yeah, it just doesn't seem to have many disadvantages compare dto what it gives you.

 

[Vormaerin]

If you want to use Collectors in Charted Space without them completely replacing other drives, you should probably look at the T5 version.

1) TL 14 (or 13, there's two conflicting charts) is Jump 1. TL 15 is J2. TL 16 is J3, etc.
2) Charges 10% per day, so 10 days to Jump
3) Charge is stored in the canopy and discharges after a day if canopy retracted, so no "extra accumulators" shenanigans
4) Canopy has to be replaced after 100 jumps as a non trivial expense.

Though even the Mongoose Collectors are basically unusable for military applications, because jumping into a system and then having to spend a week without using Thrust before jumping again is pretty crippling compared to jumping into the system and refueling from a tanker/gas giant in a day or less. But they would completely replace hydrogen fueled jump drives for most civilian purposes. The week charging is NBD and the massively increased cargo allowance and lack of fuel costs would be irresistible.

Both Collectors (as written by Mongoose) and Ramscoops substantially disrupt established "terrain" issues in Charted Space. As mentioned, rifts and "off main" worlds cease to be serious impediments. The whole idea of gas giant refueling (and its equivalents) becomes significantly less relevant, only something done if you are in a rush if you have ramscoops.

They are both fun technologies to build around, but Charted Space specifically doesn't account for them at all. The Scouts, at a bare minimum, would be radically altered by either tech as rift exploration and cross rift couriers would be as normal as any other travel.

 

[Condottiere]

The answer is yes.

The solution would be keeping it an artefact, like Black Globes.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Not only do collectors violate the iron law of Charted Space - empty hexes are empty and jumping into one without extensive preparation is a death sentence - they are utterly absurd on the physics level. Can't we all just agree that the Annic Nova was a blunder and should be forgotten?

 

[Vormaerin]

In retrospect? Probably. Blunder might be a bit harsh. Those early adventures like Leviathan, Annic Nova, Kinunir, etc are problematic with how Charted Space came to be developed. They are generally a lot of fun as adventures, imho. But they all contain technology or other assumptions that clash with later developments.

Also, to be fair, the Annic Nova's collectors are not nearly as problematic as Mongoose or T5's collectors. While Annic Nova can power the ship with the collectors (unlike later versions), it takes 1-6 weeks to build a charge, depending on distance from a star. There's a bunch of unanswered questions, like how exactly that 1-6 weeks range is resolved and why the ship has a J2 and J3 drive. Does that 1-6 weeks charge both? The main problem with Annic Nova as an adventure at the time was not the the collectors themselves, it was the impact on the campaign. The campaign now probably ought to be "the story of the fancy tech ship that everyone wants to steal from the PCs". More like Airwolf or Knight Rider than Firefly.

 

[MasterGwydion]

okay, Collectors appeared in High Guard, and are used on a ship design in the Great Rift: Deep-space exploration handbook, so it appears to be a tech that exists in traveller, rather thana purely optional part.

But is it too good?

you get them at TL14 and:
They consume 1% of a ship’s tonnage multiplied by the maximum jump
number its drive is capable of, plus five tons. They cost
MCr0.5 per ton.

For that, a week of normal spce travel fuels the capacitor, and you can jump. So let's look at say and armored cruiser: 50,000 tons.
The jump collector would weigh 2005 tons.

Be careful here. The Collector does not "weigh" 2,005 tons. The Collector in your example has a displacement of 2,005 tons. Big difference.

And after a week of travel, the ship would be charged and ready to make a jump, no matter where it wsa. So there would be no need for any fuel depots among the rifts--the rifts in fact wouldn't be much of an obstacle. In addition, the immense savings in fuel bunkerage would allow the cruiser to carry far more weapons, even if say, you keep enough fuel for an emergency Jump 1.

It just seems like far too much for a TL14 system in Traveller, especially given how everything is wrapped around the issue of needing to find fuel for your ship. (Sure it's expensive, but never having to fuel up again?).

I mean, you have the far more reasonable ramscoop system in the same book,which while not as bad (given the need to include fuel tankage), still give you that "I don't have to worry about refueling" issue.

Personally, I like the Collector, but it doesn't fit in Charted Space. What would happen if I used 28% of a ship's tonnage for the Collector? Does this now mean that I can perform a J-4 jump after 24 hours in realspace? It breaks the entire setting since you no longer need most of the volume of your ship for fuel.

 

[MasterGwydion]

What will really bake your brain is this. Make the jump ship with a collector a towed ship with no M-Drive. It enters and leaves j-space at the same velocity, so therefore, won't need an M-Drive in the middle of the multi-jump journey. Launch from Pamraeltan (Reft2932) and head to Cerebin (Reft0217) on the other side of the rift, a distance of 28 parsecs, with a J-4 drive taking up 10% of your ship's volume, and the Collector taking up 28% of the ship's volume. This ship now can make the crossing in 7 jumps using no fuel and taking 8 weeks. Use a Tractor Beam to "catch" the ship at the other end. The ship never uses any thrust as it doesn't have an M-Drive.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Not only do collectors violate the iron law of Charted Space - empty hexes are empty and jumping into one without extensive preparation is a death sentence - they are utterly absurd on the physics level. Can't we all just agree that the Annic Nova was a blunder and should be forgotten?

The Mognoose Third Imperium no longer has empty hexes.

Nope, can't agree the Annic Nova was a blunder, its secrets are very important to the setting.

The blunder is not sticking with the original version of the canopy/accumulator that takes 1d6 weeks to charge while in the vicinity of a star.

 

[Vormaerin]

The Mognoose Third Imperium no longer has empty hexes.

Nope, can't agree the Annic Nova was a blunder, its secrets are very important to the setting.

The blunder is not sticking with the original version of the canopy/accumulator that takes 1d6 weeks to charge while in the vicinity of a star.

What secrets are you referring to? There's very little actually explained about anything in that adventure.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The crew of the original Annic Nova were Vilani merchant/explorers. As the story is told they encountered an advanced alien race that gifted them the secrets of jump 2 travel.
The more truthful story is that they misjumped and the wreckage of their ship was discovered by an advanced alien race far beyond the Vilani technologically, with one exception. They had never discovered the secret of jump travel.
The unnamed aliens reverse engineered the Vilani primitive jump 1, improved it to jump 2 and jump 3, and also developed the Hieronymus Nexus, a device to link two jump drives and increase jump performance by raising one drive to the power of the other.
A jump 3 linked to a jump 2 is capable of jumping 3^2 or 9 parsecs and replaced the fuel tanks with the collector/accumulator system.
The crew were healed (or perhaps rebuilt or even cloned and then memory/personality reuploaded), and after a thorough sharing of culture and history were allowed to return home.

The crew of this ship were all from the same extended family, and when they returned to Vilani space told some of the story. They gifted the secret of improved jump 1 and the new jump 2 technology, but kept jump 3 and the nexus within the family. They may have also returned with memory/personality transfer technological knowledge.

Regardless of this, the power that be within the Vilani government kept the knowledge of jump 2 to Vilani only, and launched a war of conquest and subjugation that would last a thousand years and culminate in the founding of the Ziru Sirka.

As to the fate of the Annic Nova family...

 

[Vormaerin]

Ah, so this is like podcast apocrypha or other unpublished material like the heironymous nexus stuff in general?

 

[Condottiere]

Maybe a breakaway hull, without needing to breakaway.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Ah, so this is like podcast apocrypha or other unpublished material like the heironymous nexus stuff in general?

Yes, it is Marc's story.

I wonder if Mongoose ever get around to a a Vilani supplement if it may get a mention.

Forbidden Knowledge of the First Imperium

Sinister secrets of the Second Imperium

 

[WHULorigan]

The Mognoose Third Imperium no longer has empty hexes.

Nope, can't agree the Annic Nova was a blunder, its secrets are very important to the setting.

The blunder is not sticking with the original version of the canopy/accumulator that takes 1d6 weeks to charge while in the vicinity of a star.

HOUSE RULE MODIFICATION:

# of Weeks to rechrage = [BAD FLUX + 1] + [Orbit #] Weeks to recharge;

maximum 6 weeks, including interstellar space,​

minimum 3 days for result =< 0.​

Mods:​

+1 for each Orbit # beyond habitable Zone Orbit # into cold range​

- 1 for each Orbit # within habitable Zone Orbit # into hot range​

​

Where: [BAD FLUX] = [1d6] - [1d6], subtract higher roll from lower roll. *​

​

* - Note that this produces a probability distribution curve that peaks @ ~ "-1", sharply dropping as one moves toward "0" on one side and dropping more leisurely as one moves toward "-5" in the other direction. ​

EDIT: Updated Nov. 01, 2024 @ 13:30 GMT

 

[Morgoth99]

Yeah, I think, since this is probably gonna go out as a TAS thing, maybe a sidebar on possible implicatoins and how you can take the system as written and give it flaws that provide a good reason why this is strictly a fringe system.

I'd say the system as written should be TL17 or 18--in the traveller universe, largely because of the immense impact it would have on the setting.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Making collector technology 16 means you can have a TL14 collector with two disadvantages, a TL15 collector with one

Disadvantages could be
steller proximity
increased recharge time

 

[Morgoth99]

Thinking about it, in the sidebar, I'll probably list several disadvantages you could take that might make it less attractive.

1. The system isn't compatible with any other kind of fuel. You're using a collector, and if you want a jump drive that can use normal fuel, you need a completely sepderate installation. (this isn't honestly much of a big deal, so it's the lowest level of "issue.").
2. radically increase the time it takes to fuel the drive for a ship. Two weeks means you're likely taking longer than it would normally take to refuel or scoop a gas giant and you're in space and moving all this time. Three weeks makes it less effective save for very niche roles..
3. Assume that the jump drive hooked up to the collector starts at TL-14 J1, and goes up one per tech level from that point, until you hit J6 at... TL19.
4. Maintaining a "hot charge" is very difficult. Once your collectors are charged, you need to use it quickly, and you can't just cruise around with your capacitors filled.
Any of those could explain why, yes, it's a technology but not one the imperial navy is racing to to put on its warships, or Tukara lines is refitting its cargo ships with.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Thinking about it, in the sidebar, I'll probably list several disadvantages you could take that might make it less attractive.

1. The system isn't compatible with any other kind of fuel. You're using a collector, and if you want a jump drive that can use normal fuel, you need a completely sepderate installation. (this isn't honestly much of a big deal, so it's the lowest level of "issue.").
2. radically increase the time it takes to fuel the drive for a ship. Two weeks means you're likely taking longer than it would normally take to refuel or scoop a gas giant and you're in space and moving all this time. Three weeks makes it less effective save for very niche roles..
3. Assume that the jump drive hooked up to the collector starts at TL-14 J1, and goes up one per tech level from that point, until you hit J6 at... TL19.
4. Maintaining a "hot charge" is very difficult. Once your collectors are charged, you need to use it quickly, and you can't just cruise around with your capacitors filled.
Any of those could explain why, yes, it's a technology but not one the imperial navy is racing to to put on its warships, or Tukara lines is refitting its cargo ships with.

Right? So why should we as players have to come up with excuses for the writers? Don't we pay them to do there things? This seems to be a common theme in Traveller. Put out a substandard product and then leave it to everyone else to fix it. Mongoose has been doing far better with this than previous rights holders, but it does still happen from time to time. As far as Collectors go, they are "exotic technology" that doesn't exist in Charted Space except for the occasional plot magic item.