Hyperdrive

F33D

Mongoose
I've been thinking about using hyperspace drive with the following mods: 1 parsec/week/M-Drive rating and 2X PP Fuel consumption of current rules. I'll need to model the cargo rates to ensure that credits aren't too easy to come by.
 
I think we looked at this a while back and the highly scientific back-of-a-fag-packet calculation came out with it being something like ten times more cost-effective...
[cue rummaging noises]
...here we are:

I'd agree; a bubble up to (say) 6 parsecs across becomes a lot more governable - you can ask a question and get a decision back within a week.

Two or three adjacent stars can be managed on a more-or-less daily basis - but, once travelling 6 parsecs or more, you don't see any speed increase. So definitely small knots of systems. Whether they'd be one-man-in-charge, or little leagues of worlds, I don't think it matters.

With regard to warships - they're not inherently more armed or armoured, but obviously the fuel space can be spent on armour. I would imagine small gunships would be more common - if local trade is easier and more profitable, it's worth spending more to protect it, and if local government is centred at the three-four star system group than a subsector, you're going to want cheaper ships. The fact that these are also more capable than a jump-ship on a per dTon basis is just a plus.


WRT trade costs, let's do a quick thought experiment with a modified far trader (the Star Hunter was the first ship to come to hand) with a crew of four - pilot, astrogator, engineer, medic (astrogator and medic doing double duty as gunners where needed).

That leaves two empty staterooms (which we'll ignore or use as common rooms), and the 38 dTons of cargo (which we'll assume you manage to fill every time).


OTU/Jump Drive
Assuming negligible layover time, you can make two return trips between adjacent systems in a month. That means you've shifted 152 dTons.

In doing so you've spent Cr 45,991 on crew salaries, maintenance and life support.

You've also burned 172 dTons of fuel, which, assuming you bought it refined, costs a further Cr 86,000.

That's a net cost of Cr 131,991 to divide up across 152 dTons, or a base cost of Cr 869/dTon

YTU/Warp Drive
Assuming negligible layover time, you can make four return trips between adjacent systems in a month (only takes 3.5 days). That means you've shifted 304 dTons.

In doing so you've spent Cr 45,991 on crew salaries, maintenance and life support.

You've also burned 24 dTons of fuel, which, assuming you bought it refined, costs a further Cr 12,000.

More importantly, assuming your ship is suitably redesigned, the 40 dTons which were used to hold your jump fuel can now hold 40 dTons more cargo, which over your four return trips is another 320 dTons of cargo.

That's a net cost of Cr 57,991 to divide up across 624 dTons, or a base cost of Cr 93/dTon

To translate - in a warp drive universe interstellar commerce has one tenth the overheads, meaning (inter)globalization is far more viable. You're less likely to see a variation in TL amongst the prosperous classes on worlds in a region, because it's so easy to buy the latest off-world software/gadget/etc.
 
locarno24 said:
I think we looked at this a while back and the highly scientific back-of-a-fag-packet calculation came out with it being something like ten times more cost-effective...
[cue rummaging noises]
...here we are:

Thanks but, as the speed isn't going to be Parsecs per day but per week I just need to factor the cargo space difference due to no J-fuel.
 
When I converted a Free Trader it only gained 12% (8 tons of cargo). A Far Trader gained 40% (26 tons of cargo). Considering the anemic cargo rates for J2 I don't think any cargo rate mods are in order.
 
F33D said:
Thanks but, as the speed isn't going to be Parsecs per day but per week I just need to factor the cargo space difference due to no J-fuel.

Do your hyperdrives still have the minimum of 1 week of travel? (1 week in hyperspace as opposed to 1 week in jumpspace.) The hyperspace drives in the core rulebook don't have a minimum amount of time they operate, but you didn't say you were changing that part.

If there is no minimum amount of time a ship spends in hyperspace, a 6 parsec/week hyperdrive essentially becomes a 1.16 parsec/day hyperdrive.
 
Jeraa said:
F33D said:
Thanks but, as the speed isn't going to be Parsecs per day but per week I just need to factor the cargo space difference due to no J-fuel.

Do your hyperdrives still have the minimum of 1 week of travel? (1 week in hyperspace as opposed to 1 week in jumpspace.) The hyperspace drives in the core rulebook don't have a minimum amount of time they operate, but you didn't say you were changing that part.

If there is no minimum amount of time a ship spends in hyperspace, a 6 parsec/week hyperdrive essentially becomes a 1.16 parsec/day hyperdrive.


IMTU Hyperspace trip uses the M-drive in continuous accel/decel manner with a max speed by M-drive rating. Hyperspace greatly increases the accel and has no lightspeed limit. So, based on accelerate / decelerate here are the travel times:
 

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Jeraa said:
Do your hyperdrives still have the minimum of 1 week of travel? (1 week in hyperspace as opposed to 1 week in jumpspace.) The hyperspace drives in the core rulebook don't have a minimum amount of time they operate, but you didn't say you were changing that part.

If there is no minimum amount of time a ship spends in hyperspace, a 6 parsec/week hyperdrive essentially becomes a 1.16 parsec/day hyperdrive.

For communications purposes, this is really the key point. With standard jump drives, two systems can't stay in daily contact, period. Communication lag is a week, no matter what. With a parsecs-per-week hyperdrive, though, you can get daily communication between systems which are a parsec apart. And, naturally, the messenger ships will most likely bring along at least a few small, high-value trade goods, since they're making the trip anyhow, which leads to the earlier comment about tech level homogenization.

On the trade side, just changing over jump fuel tankage to cargo space increases the cargo that can be hauled by about 25% on a Type A Free Trader or Type R Fat Trader, 40% on a Heavy Freighter, and 65% on a Type A2 Far Trader, which is a substantial increase, but probably not economy-breaking on its own.

However, in that context, I would expect most merchant ships to put in the fastest drive they can afford in order to take advantage of the quicker trip times to nearby systems. In standard Traveller, most small traders are J-1 or J-2, with some bulk freighters going up to J-3, because you don't often need to go more than 3 parsecs and a J-6 drive takes just as long to go one parsec as a J-1 drive. With parsecs-per-week hyperdrive, though, every trader with access to TL15 drives will be H-6 because that will let him go to the system two parsecs away, and back, and out again all in one week. Not only is he hauling 50% more on each trip, he can make three times as many trips per week, for 450% of the total shipping volume. Or 900% of the shipping volume between worlds one parsec apart. That is enough of a difference to be economy-breaking.
 
nDervish said:
For communications purposes, this is really the key point. With standard jump drives, two systems can't stay in daily contact, period. Communication lag is a week, no matter what. With a parsecs-per-week hyperdrive, though, you can get daily communication between systems which are a parsec apart.

No, you didn't understand how my version works.

nDervish said:
On the trade side, just changing over jump fuel tankage to cargo space increases the cargo that can be hauled by about 25% on a Type A Free Trader or Type R Fat Trader, 40% on a Heavy Freighter, and 65% on a Type A2 Far Trader, which is a substantial increase, but probably not economy-breaking on its own.

Under the current cargo rate rules, no banks give loans for cargo hauling A2's. This system makes them viable as ships to be built and purchased under compound interest loans.

nDervish said:
...With parsecs-per-week hyperdrive, though, every trader with access to TL15 drives will be H-6 because that will let him go to the system two parsecs away, and back, and out again all in one week. Not only is he hauling 50% more on each trip, he can make three times as many trips per week, for 450% of the total shipping volume. Or 900% of the shipping volume between worlds one parsec apart. That is enough of a difference to be economy-breaking.

I'm afraid that you didn't read my posts on this thread or, didn't understand what I wrote... With an "H-6" travelling 2 parsecs takes 150 hours (6 1/4 days). I don't understand what you are talking about.
 
F33D said:
IMTU Hyperspace trip uses the M-drive in continuous accel/decel manner with a max speed by M-drive rating. Hyperspace greatly increases the accel and has no lightspeed limit. So, based on accelerate / decelerate here are the travel times:

That's very clever - I like it. Do your hyperdrives have to match the maximum M-drive "g" rating, or are they more of an "on/off" type thing?
 
hdan said:
F33D said:
IMTU Hyperspace trip uses the M-drive in continuous accel/decel manner with a max speed by M-drive rating. Hyperspace greatly increases the accel and has no lightspeed limit. So, based on accelerate / decelerate here are the travel times:

That's very clever - I like it. Do your hyperdrives have to match the maximum M-drive "g" rating, or are they more of an "on/off" type thing?

I'm using the tonnage rating system requirements as written in the MRB. So an A rated Hyperdrive works for a ship up to 200 tons... I did create a "AA" rated drive for 100 ton ships and no higher.
 
F33D said:
I'm afraid that you didn't read my posts on this thread or, didn't understand what I wrote... With an "H-6" travelling 2 parsecs takes 150 hours (6 1/4 days). I don't understand what you are talking about.

Looking back, I see that I didn't notice the chart of times was from the original poster; I assumed it was someone else chiming in with yet another option for how things could be done and was still operating on your initial statement that it was 1 parsec per week per drive rating, with the assumption that it was a linear rate (6 ppw = 6/7 ppd).

What's the math behind the numbers in the table you posted? The text suggests that it might have been based on standard acceleration formulas (with increased acceleration and no speed limit), but, if that were the case, a 168-hour trip for H-1 should take around 70 hours for H-6 rather than the 138 hours shown on your chart.
 
nDervish said:
What's the math behind the numbers in the table you posted? The text suggests that it might have been based on standard acceleration formulas (with increased acceleration and no speed limit), but, if that were the case, a 168-hour trip for H-1 should take around 70 hours for H-6 rather than the 138 hours shown on your chart.

1st figure out he G's needed to run 6 parsecs in 168 hours with accel/decel. Then, using that G figure, run the formula to determine the time to go 1 parsec...
 
F33D said:
nDervish said:
What's the math behind the numbers in the table you posted? The text suggests that it might have been based on standard acceleration formulas (with increased acceleration and no speed limit), but, if that were the case, a 168-hour trip for H-1 should take around 70 hours for H-6 rather than the 138 hours shown on your chart.

1st figure out he G's needed to run 6 parsecs in 168 hours with accel/decel. Then, using that G figure, run the formula to determine the time to go 1 parsec...

I did. And got 68.5 hours, not 138.

Edit: And after doing it again, I still get 68.5 hours.
 
Jeraa said:
F33D said:
nDervish said:
What's the math behind the numbers in the table you posted? The text suggests that it might have been based on standard acceleration formulas (with increased acceleration and no speed limit), but, if that were the case, a 168-hour trip for H-1 should take around 70 hours for H-6 rather than the 138 hours shown on your chart.

1st figure out he G's needed to run 6 parsecs in 168 hours with accel/decel. Then, using that G figure, run the formula to determine the time to go 1 parsec...

I did. And got 68.5 hours, not 138.

Edit: And after doing it again, I still get 68.5 hours.

thanks, I did my calcs a couple years ago I'll have look at the original #'s to find the error. What was your G figure for 6 parsecs in 168 hours?
 
thanks, I did my calcs a couple years ago I'll have look at the original #'s to find the error. What was your G figure for 6 parsecs in 168 hours?

You need an acceleration of approximately 2,023,624 meters per second, so about 202,362 Gs.
 
Jeraa said:
thanks, I did my calcs a couple years ago I'll have look at the original #'s to find the error. What was your G figure for 6 parsecs in 168 hours?

You need an acceleration of approximately 2,023,624 meters per second, so about 202,362 Gs.


Found the error in the calc sheet. Here is the corrected chart.
 

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