How good is your Jump Drive?

[PsiTraveller]

Odd semantic question regarding tech levels of ships. Tech level 12 allows for Jump 3 range on a ship. (pg 14 of Highguard). To do this you need enough fuel, and 7.5% of hull + 5 tons of Jump drives.

So a TL 12 Far Trader, with a Jump range of 2 (pg 116 of HIghguard) has 5% of Hull + 5 tons of Jump Drives, and 40 tons of fuel. If the skipper added 5 more tons of Jump drives and some fuel tanks in the cargo bay, upgraded the computer and software, would the ship be Jump 3 capable? Or are the Jump 2 ship designs using Jump Drives that are only Jump 2 capable (Tl 11 on the chart on pg 14).

The reason I am asking is to sort out the cost of increasing Jump capacity on a ship. If a ship is of lower TL, like the TL 9 Oghma Raider from MakerGod by Christopher Griffen (awesome module by the way). The Oghma tech level is TL 9, so their ships are Jump 1. If you got one, and wanted to upgrade the ship you would have to install higher Tech level Jump Drives (I think you would anyway). But a ship with a TL 12 as stated in the ship design sheet. Is the Jump limitation just the tonnage of drives and software?

 

[Reynard]

It's not just about size but the tech level of the materials and components of a drive. Adding higher tech components doesn't overall update the unit. Using the Primitive and Advanced Spacecraft rules from High Guard will improve a drive's efficiency with high tech addon components but don't make it a higher rated drive.

Love the P&AS rules to experiment upgrading iconic designs.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Hmm, I don't allow the P&AS rules to be used to retrofit an existing drive on a ship. My understanding of the entire chapter is a ship can be constructed using more primitive or advanced components. I would not allow a Jump drive that is already in a ship to be 'improved' on to give it an Advantage.

The existing Jump Drive could be removed from the ship and a new Jump drive with whatever advantage or disadvantage the new jump drive was constructed at could be installed into the ship.

The reason I see things this way is from the first few paragraphs on pg 48

It does not always have to be this way, however.
Individuals, corporations or (more rarely) governments
may wish to commission the construction of a spacecraft
that features the latest in advanced materials and
technologies. At the other end of the scale, isolated
or interdicted worlds may construct vessels without
being able to import specialised components from other
systems, while Travellers may run into derelicts or ships
built by more primitive species.

This is all handled by adjusting the Tech Level, price
and tonnage of components while a ship is being
designed using the previous chapters. They will also
have one or more Advantages or Disadvantages applied
to reflect the effect of higher or lower technology

So the P&AS chapter is for the design phase. Retrofitting a ship is possible by removing a component and putting a new one in, but that does not answer the question as to the capability of the ship's existing Jump drive. The standard ship design is TL 12, as pg 48 mentions in the first paragraph.

 

[Condottiere]

I don't think I've ever seen the engineering option specifically for overclocking the jump drive.

It would take two forms:

1. Allowing a larger volume to transition at the rated jump factor, which wouldn't need a higher jump factor programme.

2. Jump further with a lower volume, which would need that a higher jump factor programme, which is purchasable.

3. Always can install a prototype jump drive of the requisite jump factor; don't recall if you can do that for computer programmes.

 

[PsiTraveller]

I'm not sure what you mean by overclocking the Jump drive.

I am looking at a Far Trader Empress Marava class. pg 116 of Highguard. It has 15 tons of Jump drives and 40 tons of fuel for Jump. It has 57 tons of cargo space. The ship is TL12 and has a Jump 2 rating. (5% of 200 tons of ship, plus 5 tons).
Assume the owner put in 5 more tons of Jump Drives of TL 12 quality, and 20 tons more fuel in Demountable tanks in the Cargo hold, and 1 ton of battery for power storage, and upgraded the computer to run Jump 3 software. The ship now has 7.5% of Jump Drive tonnage, +5 tons, 60 tons of Jump fuel. Can the 15 original tons of Jump Drive work to allow a Jump 3? Or if the Jump engines for a ship designed for Jump 2 work be only Jump 2 capable, so the original 15tons of Jump engines would need to be replaced with Jump 3 capable Jump Drives? (at a cost of an extra 22.5 million credits.)

The computer in the TL 12 ship is 5 Bis, which is a TL 7 design computer, so clearly lower tech levels of machines can be installed. So if the builders cheaped out and bought TL 11 Jump Drives capable of only Jump 2, then all 15 tons would have to be replaced, as well as adding in an extra 5 tons of Jump 3 drives. This can result in interesting additions to adventures where the ship that is captured contains some older, less capable tech, so while the ship is nice, it will need a lot of expensive rebuilding to make it be able to Jump farther.


The same question applies to M-Drives as well TL 12 is Thrust 6, while Thrust 1 is TL 9. so if the ship has TL 9 M Drives, adding more M-drives will not make it faster.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Hmm, I don't allow the P&AS rules to be used to retrofit an existing drive on a ship. My understanding of the entire chapter is a ship can be constructed using more primitive or advanced components. I would not allow a Jump drive that is already in a ship to be 'improved' on to give it an Advantage.

Agreed.

 

[Sigtrygg]

What if a friendly group of Droyne dismantle it, upgrade the bits and then rebuild it for you...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So a TL 12 Far Trader, with a Jump range of 2 (pg 116 of HIghguard) has 5% of Hull + 5 tons of Jump Drives, and 40 tons of fuel. If the skipper added 5 more tons of Jump drives and some fuel tanks in the cargo bay, upgraded the computer and software, would the ship be Jump 3 capable? Or are the Jump 2 ship designs using Jump Drives that are only Jump 2 capable (Tl 11 on the chart on pg 14).

Traditionally, the answer is simple: No, two drives can't work at the same time. To get J-3 you have to add a complete J-3 drive. Computers still work this way.

On the other hand if you look at Breakaway Hulls (or T5 nexus) drives can be combined.

So, it is not well-defined in MgT2. I would still require a new drive, based on old prejudice. You don't get a V8 by strapping a few extra cylinders on a V6.


If you take the 15 Dton TL-12 jump drive from a Far Trader and put it into a 100 Dt hull you should get J-3 performance, limited by the TL of the drive, as you note.

 

[steelbrok]

I'd allow the upgrade if the entire Jump drive was ripped out and replaced with one of a higher rating (plus extra fuel/power/computer rating)

 

[PsiTraveller]

Well wait a second there AnotherDIlbert, I was wondering if the TL12 drive on a Far Trader IS a Jump 3 drive. The reason the far trader can only Jump a distance of 2 is that it only has 5% by volume of Drive in it, and is only running Jump 2 software. So your statement of "Traditionally, the answer is simple: No, two drives can't work at the same time. To get J-3 you have to add a complete J-3 drive. Computers still work this way." is missing the point. If the drive is TL 12 it IS a J3 drive, the limitation on jumping 3 is the % of volume not being 7.5% + 5 tons of hull, and the computer running Jump 2 software.

Confusing the issue is the price of a TL 7 computer is only 30 000 credits for 5 bandwidth, and a TL 12 computer is 5 Million for 20 bandwidth. Meanwhile a TL 9 Jump Drive 1 is 1.5 Million Credits per ton, and a TL 12 Jump 3 Drive is also 1.5 Million credits per ton, heck the TL 18 Jump 9 drive is only 1.5 million credits per ton. So there is a price disconnect. If the price is the same, why not build to the highest TL you can? Or import the pieces you cannot build like it says on pg 48.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Perusal of starship deckplans tends to indicate that jump drives can be modularized.

2. Tee Five states that upto nine modules can be combined, and I think the previous versions had eighty one.

3. And breakaway hulls had canonized an even looser association.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Well wait a second there AnotherDIlbert, I was wondering if the TL12 drive on a Far Trader IS a Jump 3 drive.

I tried to address both of your (implied) points:

Yes, a TL-12 jump drive is intrinsically capable of J-3, if it is large enough, i.e. placed in a small enough hull:

If you take the 15 Dton TL-12 jump drive from a Far Trader and put it into a 100 Dt hull you should get J-3 performance, limited by the TL of the drive, as you note.

Note it is large enough for J-4, but limited to J-3 by being TL-12.


No, you can't make the drive J-3 by adding a few more Dt drive:

Traditionally, the answer is simple: No, two drives can't work at the same time. To get J-3 you have to add a complete J-3 drive. Computers still work this way.

With the disclaimer that this is just my opinion:

On the other hand if you look at Breakaway Hulls (or T5 nexus) drives can be combined.

So, it is not well-defined in MgT2. I would still require a new drive, based on old prejudice. You don't get a V8 by strapping a few extra cylinders on a V6.

 

[Condottiere]

Technically, computers take up no space.

Or theoretically, having become virtual this edition.

Core is supposedly distributed.

Breakaways have created a slight discrepancy by making engineering performance total volume.

 

[PsiTraveller]

I like the analogy of not being able to add a couple of cylinders to a V6 engine to make it a V8. That makes sense if the Jump Drive is like an engine.

If however the Jump Drive is like stereo speakers that is projecting sound it is possible to add more speakers to a sound system. This would allow a ship to increase the hull volume percentage of Jump Drives by (as in my example), putting more Jump Drive modules in the cargo hold and wiring them together. So is a Jump drive more like an engine, or a set of speakers? Are you trying to add 2 more cylinders to an engine, or just put in more speakers? It depends on how you view Jump Engines. Are they an engine type effect? like your V6 analogy and the horsepower they put out is the Jump field strength able to move a ship of a certain dton. Or is a Jump Drive more like a field emitter of some sort (speaker analogy) that puts out a field of emissions that creates the bubble of Jump space? In the second case you could add more speakers to an array and increase the carrying capacity of the ship.

I guess I always figured it was more like a Jump field emitter, (the speaker analogy), not a horsepower issue (your V6 to V8 analogy that you used). Partly because I assumed the power Plant of a ship was the engine (V6 or V8) of a ship. And power plants seem to be very modular. Although that does raise a new thought. In your opinion could a ship owner add in an extra ton or two of power plants to produce more power for a ship? Say 2 tons of power plant and 1 ton of battery. Tie the battery into the ships power grid and feed all power from all the power plants through the battery. Or would you say the entire power plant has to be removed and a new V8 plant installed.

Power plant modularity is an important issue if you want to start stuffing turrets with a lot of power hungry weapons. You need to have enough power to last through a fight.

As you said, breakaway ships imply that Jump Drives from different areas of a ship can be controlled and their output combined to increase Jump capacity. A breakaway section could be built to be almost entirely Jump Drives and fuel plus a few batteries to provide power to the Jump Drives for Jump. This would allow for an increased volume to be Jumped.

And to edit and add something else to argue that Jump Drives are modular and not a V6 to V8 conversion. There are ships in Highguard that have Jump Drives in multiple locations, on multiple decks. The Express boat, The Gazelle class ship has two pods with Jump Drives in them. (pg 131 of Highguard), Subsidized Merchant (pg 139) etc. If the Jump drive has to be a single mass, then this would not be possible.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That makes sense if the Jump Drive is like an engine.

If however the Jump Drive is like stereo speakers that is projecting sound it is possible to add more speakers to a sound system.

Traditionally the jump drive is both, a big engine in Engineering and field emitters in the hull (lanthanum grid), and presumably all the equipment that connect the two.

To stretch the car analogy think of an electric car: the battery, electric power distribution system, the recharging system, and the regeneration system is the "Power Plant"; the motor, transmission, and drive shafts is the "drive". Neither is just a single piece of machinery, but several interconnected pieces of machinery and the connecting parts. Just because we add a secondary battery does not mean that we can deliver more power to the motor or that the transmission can handle more power from the motor.

This would allow a ship to increase the hull volume percentage of Jump Drives by (as in my example), putting more Jump Drive modules in the cargo hold and wiring them together. So is a Jump drive more like an engine, or a set of speakers?

How about like a finely tuned audio system? We can't just randomly add more amps or speakers without compromising fidelity. If we change to a bigger amp we will just blow out the speakers. If we just change to higher capacity speakers, the amp might not drive them any louder. At some point we may have to switch the cabling to lower gauge to accommodate higher power transfer. In essence we change many components so we have basically built a new audio system (or drive system).


In the words of ye olde Starship Operators Manual from Megatraveller:

Sometimes people get confused by the way starship hands talk, and "drive" is one of those words that always throws 'em. Passengers on a tour want to see the "jump drive", but they don't realize the jump drive is a collection of components stretching from one end of the ship to the other.
The "drive" proper, or what the engineer would call the drive, is just a big fusion power plant, specially designed to burn real hot and real fast. The rest of it is the power storage and delivery system, and the lanthanum grid throughout the hull. (And I shouldn't forget to mention the computer, either, because without the brains, the brawn won't do a thing.)

Modern T5 disagrees about the details, but perhaps not the principle, and in MgT2 all of this is undefined.

 

[Condottiere]

You have to keep in mind, that engineering performance and volume are mostly linear in relationship.

At least in Traveller.

As regards jump drives, Tee Five gives three primary options in how it's expressed, pretty much establishing it creates a field.

The lanthanum grid, in the audio analogy, would be a pair of headphones.

 

[Subzero001]

Hopefully these and other answers will be available in the Mongoose-universe "High Guard 2022" book coming soon.. The way I see the Jump drive is like how "trains" work you have the electrical power to overpower your engine but it will start slipping after a certain amount of force applied. so you add additional engines to take up the load. i.e you add additional jump drives that work in concert with the original unit to lessen the load overall, their jump bubbles adding to the original jump bubble to make the final jump possible.

The way I see the original question is like adding a supercharger/turbo to your v6 to equivalent your v8 in power.

in the audio analogy, to me would be a LRAD systems

 

[NOLATrav]

In T5, which uses the old letter-based drive system, you can gang drives together for increased performance. Since MgT 2e uses percentage-based drives it seems unlikely you can add them to an existing design. Except perhaps as separate backup systems.

But I too am hoping the new High Guard delves deeper into these questions. Also very curious about the new sensor rules.

 

[Condottiere]

You can in Mongoose.

Breakaway hulls confirmed it.

 

[MasterGwydion]

You can in Mongoose.

Breakaway hulls confirmed it.

I always forget about the breakaway hulls. Cond for the win!