Hop Drives and Skip Drives

The sixth volume of The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society contains an article on a ship with a unique and exceptionally powerful drive, the Hop Drive.

"Hops cover 10 parsecs for each rating. This is a minimum, so jumping less than 10 parsecs takes the same fuel and time as jumping 10 parsecs and 11-19 the same as 20. Hop-2 drives are able to jump merely 10 parsecs for the same fuel use and difficulty as a Hop-1, just as Jump-2 drives can imitate Jump-1. While a Jump-1 and a Hop-1 use the same amount of fuel, astrogation difficulty increases as if a full 10 (or if greater, rounding up to the next multiple of 10) parsecs were to be crossed, even for a short hop."

That includes transitions of between 2 and 9 parsecs.

A ship with even a Hop-1 drive can outperform the Imperium's finest Jump-6 Express Boats easily, and uses Jump-1 worth of fuel for a distance of up to 10 parsecs.

Even taking into account the increased difficulties of using a hop-drive, such as having to travel to 1,000 diameters out and requiring heavy computations which could take days rather than hours or minutes, even a small ship equipped with a Hop-1 drive could accomplish wonders.

And that's before even taking into account the possibility of there being such a thing as Skip-drives, capable of transitions of 100 parsecs per rating per transition ...
 
The area of space currently containing the Third Imperium does not discover the hop drive until around the 1900s, the time setting of the T5 Galaxiad.

The hop drive in JTAS 6 is for a culture a long, long way from the Third Imperium of 1105.
 
And yet Isn't MGT2 (based or more inline) with T5 so the classic "CT" is no longer the "normal" known timeline? In the same article it says that "Duke Norris of Regina possesses another ship capable of long jumps is this a "prototype hop drive or a Hieronymous Device in 1105ish timeline in the Imperium" from The sixth volume of The Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society article and in the aforementioned article this "prototype hop drive" was invented with tech level 16. "TL-16 Hop Drive Age: The Hop drive makes it abundantly available that jump space contains many different layers and vastly more capable forms of FTL transportation are possible. Scientists will continue to explore gradually more advanced FTL technologies until the end of time as we know it." from traveller Wiki. So the Dariens of the past and possibly present (tech level 16+ fleet) could have the hop drive or a Hieronymous Device as theorised that the annic nova "It is believed that the derelict Annic Nova class Far Trader may have once used such a device with a Jump-3 and a Jump-2 drive" since they did develop the "Star Trigger device" ether on their own or reversed engineered it from "ancient technology" because it is mentioned and used in the "secrets of the ancients", there is also several other TL-16 planets/societies within the Imperium. Now talking outside the Imperium what about the High Tech Aslans that mysteriously went missing.. maybe they developed it as well and went on a trip..

Hieronymous Device:

"It is believed that such a device would allow two jump drives to be used together with an exponential effect.
A Jump-3 and a Jump-2 drive would allow for (...three to the second power) Jump-9 travel.
A pair of Jump-6 drives would allow for (...six to the sixth power) Jump-46,656 travel, almost enough to jump from Terra to the nearby Greater Magellanic Cloud galaxy, and far more than enough to reach the Milky Way Galaxy from the Canis Major Overdensity. Assuming the device can only link two Jump drives (not Hop Drive or more advanced), this would be the highest possible performance, and even then only using drop tanks or advanced drives that need less fuel: since both drives must be fueled, a pair of Jump-6 drives would normally require 120% of the ship's mass in fuel." from traveller Wiki

I also believe that the MGT2 version doesn't limit jump drive to 6 any longer as well and this breaks the CT norm as well, so maybe MGT2 scientist's weren't so blinded as they were in CT.

As a side note I would believe that the Dariens society would preform a version of the "Wafers are an electronic storage medium by which the personality of a sophont may be stored and preserved" from Agent of the Imperium, to preserve their wisdom for the future of their people. So here is another way that MGT2 could break the CT norm and develop Hop drives, Hieronymous Device and Makertech.
 
Just to clarify for me as someone who has not yet read JTAS Vol. 6: The hop drive technology still uses the standard jump length of around 7 days?
 
Ursus Maior said:
Just to clarify for me as someone who has not yet read JTAS Vol. 6: The hop drive technology still uses the standard jump length of around 7 days?
Yes. The standard 148 + 6D hours.
 
Ursus Maior said:
Thanks for the clarification! Sounds like a game changer and definitely interesting.
It certainly would be.
If you were a ref, imagine having your crew stumble across an Annic Nova style ship which comes equipped with a Jump-2 and a Hop-1. Power for the drives comes from collectors (High Guard, p. 70), and since the ship spends most of its time in interplanetary space, charging up its capacitors, that gives the crew plenty of time to plot their next destination.
 
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