Impact of Warp Drive on Pirates of Drinax

[Tom Kalbfus]

Sorry, I meant the Traveller rules would need a more complex set of rules so you could create a path above and below the system plane. Again, warp speed is lousy within a system with all those objects coming at you like driving faster than your car headlights at night at top speed.

No reason a warp drive couldn't operate at sublight speeds, so you could see what is ahead of you. It is not real motion anyway, it expands space behind the ship and contracts the space ahead of it, now I'd say it can't do that if there was a significant object ahead within that space to be contracted, you would break the warp drive before you crushed the object.

One interesting side effect of a warp drive is that it compresses the interstellar hydrogen ahead of the ship, that hydrogen gets into the warp bubble and the faster the ship travels at warp the higher the hydrogen pressure gets around the ship. It would be like flying through the atmosphere of a gas giant. The hydrogen would also tend to be very hot and it would glow as if you were traveling through the atmosphere of a star. so all this glowing plasma would surround they ship as you traveled through interstellar space, so you might want to shut it off every now and them and let the hull cool a bit.

 

[Reynard]

"No reason a warp drive couldn't operate at sublight speeds"

The concept of a Warp drive is a trans-light mode of locomotion. It's an alternative to the Traveller standard of the trans-light Jump drive and not a superior combination of trans-light and sub-light. The point is a different type of drive. The description gives the differences and the warp difference is staying in real space, not having a maximum range but requiring twice the fuel rate of the power plant. The Jump drive cannot begin or exit within a 100D gravity well. Nothing says the warp drive is exempt and there's the similarity of the drives. The Jump drops out near it's destination's 100D so, when thinking about it, I could agree a Warp ship could be skipping just above the solar plane so it's time is relative to a Jump with the advantage of picking it's final destination at the time of arrival at the system without any other advantage. At this point, just like a Jump ship, it shift to its sub-light maneuver engine.

As to things in the path of a Warp ship's field, there are game mechanics to keep the game simple. We ASSUME the matter between stars in so negligible it is swept around the field like a boat through water. Notice Traveller universe isn't heavy with dwarf stars. The TU assumes the vast majority of interstellar objects are noticeable to sensors so they are mapped and tracked and your Astrogation roll takes that into account. Remember, once at Warp speed, you are letting the ship computer make course changes for any objects in the path over the time between launch and arrival. Forget Star Trek maneuvers in minutes by a pilot.

 

[Balfuset790]

"No reason a warp drive couldn't operate at sublight speeds"

The concept of a Warp drive is a trans-light mode of locomotion. It's an alternative to the Traveller standard of the trans-light Jump drive and not a superior combination of trans-light and sub-light. The point is a different type of drive. The description gives the differences and the warp difference is staying in real space, not having a maximum range but requiring twice the fuel rate of the power plant. The Jump drive cannot begin or exit within a 100D gravity well. Nothing says the warp drive is exempt and there's the similarity of the drives. The Jump drops out near it's destination's 100D so, when thinking about it, I could agree a Warp ship could be skipping just above the solar plane so it's time is relative to a Jump with the advantage of picking it's final destination at the time of arrival at the system without any other advantage. At this point, just like a Jump ship, it shift to its sub-light maneuver engine.

As to things in the path of a Warp ship's field, there are game mechanics to keep the game simple. We ASSUME the matter between stars in so negligible it is swept around the field like a boat through water. Notice Traveller universe isn't heavy with dwarf stars. The TU assumes the vast majority of interstellar objects are noticeable to sensors so they are mapped and tracked and your Astrogation roll takes that into account. Remember, once at Warp speed, you are letting the ship computer make course changes for any objects in the path over the time between launch and arrival. Forget Star Trek maneuvers in minutes by a pilot.

Precisely my thinking.

One thing I'm still trying to work out is if I'm going to require people to stop in each system along their route. For example, if they're travelling across three hexes on the map, each of which has a system, do they need to drop to sublight, make a new Astrogation check for course corrections and then go to warp again, which would definitely give more oppportunities for pirates to strike en route.

Or, whether when plotting a route, you give your destination point and any system in between you warp through, following some established route through the system which avoids bringing you within 100D of any stellar object within the system. Assuming Astrogation software includes the oribtal paths and velocities of the various bodies in the system and then can run an algorithm to determine where they'll be relative to everything else at your time of arrival. EDIT: I suppose it depends on how large a hex is... the distance BETWEEN hexes is one parsec, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't translate to the hex being ones quare parsec in area. But, if it does, then there's plenty of empty space to fly through that completely avoids going near the system, as even the furthest orbits are only going to be light HOURS away from their star at most... maybe light days for a very eccentric orbit.

I think both work, but the latter is similar to the way Jump works already. As I stated earlier in the topic, most traders probably wouldn't just set their computer to their final destination port and go, but make pit stops to drop off and pick up goods along the way - forming the trade routes as established by the campaign documents - to make extra profit as you might expect, stock up on fuel and supplies as necessary and take shore leave.

 

[Reynard]

As HUGE as we think a stellar system is, it's still taking up very little room in a one parsec hex. Once again, the Traveller system made the game mechanics easy rather than realistic so every star system is one parsec away at the center. Notice if you draw a line between hex points farther than one hex they more often than not pass left or right of a hex center. Even so, systems are known and navigational data is a given in your ship's computer. Thank your Local Scout Service! Whether Jump or Warp, you computer and Astrogator will have the ship bypass obstacles and drop down near your destination's 100D mark.

Nice thing about the Warp drive is it works better if your campaign doesn't use a hex map but either uses real world star data or a grid system 2D or 3D. 2300AD discovered that one.

 

[Balfuset790]

Yeah, though I'll admit, 2300AD was a bit... too crunchy for my taste. The thing that drew me to traveller in the first place was how simple it is, lets me get rules out of the way to focus on character and story.

But yeah, stands to reason that I can ignore intervening systems unless the target has cause to stop there.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Yeah, though I'll admit, 2300AD was a bit... too crunchy for my taste. The thing that drew me to traveller in the first place was how simple it is, lets me get rules out of the way to focus on character and story.

But yeah, stands to reason that I can ignore intervening systems unless the target has cause to stop there.

The 2300 system generation system creates a lot of uninteresting random planets, you create many more of those with 2300 than you do with classic Traveller, so if your doing an exploration campaign and the players want to visit this or that system to find out what's there, the Referee rolls a bunch of dice to determine a bunch of rockballs and iceballs without life on them, and you have to go through a lot of them before you find your first planet with life.

 

[Reynard]

Wait, did I miss the pages for system generation? Had to look at my 2300AD book and the planets use the Traveller UWP codes while the known universe via the Near Star list is already generated. A quick survey of listed worlds seem average for the Traveller sysgen. Some could actually be dirtballs but that would be possible and not a detriment. Look at all the worlds in the Reach and some are not paradise. Our little pirate group has discovered this and we still find things to do.

 

[vladthemad]

Without getting into all the physic-speak, which for the most part is beyond me, the difference between real space FTL and jump space FTL for the Pirates of Drinax campaign would be the ability for authorities to more easily pursue the players. When a ship jumps, it's left real space, and the authorities need to guess where it went, albeit with some educated information gathering to help. If they know the pursued ship was J2 capable, and there are three planets within J2 range, it's going to be a 1 in 3 chance. If they're wrong they are now at least a week behind (not to mention any time they spent searching that system before determining that they are indeed wrong) in their pursuit and not likely to continue. If using real space FTL, they could follow their trail even if they are moving faster than light. Even at FTL, you're still going to leave emissions and reflect light and radiation I assume. At most, your pursuers would only be a few hours or days behind, and at any rate they will at the least know they are going in the right direction.

Does anyone know if the Mongoose 2300 supplement uses stutter warp like the original? If so, those rules might be exactly what the you're looking for if you still want to go with real space FTL, and would probably expand a lot more on the game rules than the little snippet provided for warp drives in the core rule book.

If you'd like a better explanation of jump space and how it works, there's a multi-page explanation of the theories behind it in Compendium 3, which if I'm correct is built from information in Signs and Portents...which are free, but I have no idea which one it came out of. Sadly they didn't bother saying what came from where in it.

The item I noted, and what I've used to explain the 1 week time constant to my players, is stated as "Where time is a variable in travel in normal space, energy consumption is a variable in alternate space; time is a constant. Consequently, distance depends on energy applied." The article is four pages of fluff, no rules, just explanation. Sure, jump space is really just a game mechanic, but it's nice to have a way to explain it to help suspend disbelief.

Maybe you can find it in the archives, or maybe someone can help point you to the right issue. http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/signsnportentsarchive

 

[AndrewW]

Does anyone know if the Mongoose 2300 supplement uses stutter warp like the original? If so, those rules might be exactly what the you're looking for if you still want to go with real space FTL, and would probably expand a lot more on the game rules than the little snippet provided for warp drives in the core rule book.

Yes, 2300AD uses Stutterwarp drives.

 

[dragoner]

The item I noted, and what I've used to explain the 1 week time constant to my players, is stated as "Where time is a variable in travel in normal space, energy consumption is a variable in alternate space; time is a constant. Consequently, distance depends on energy applied." The article is four pages of fluff, no rules, just explanation. Sure, jump space is really just a game mechanic, but it's nice to have a way to explain it to help suspend disbelief.

I use the concept of false vacuum, and the hydrogen is used to create a higher energy state universe, a pocket universe wrapped in the normal universe and coordinates do not match one to one, in a false vacuum metastability event, the week is a failsafe so that while tunneling, the ship doesn't actually reach near c where it's mass and time expand infinitely. The nice thing is I just used the wiki, and some nice graphics that quantum physicists have made:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum

http://scs.viceland.com/int/v18n11/htdocs/the-learnin-corner/false-vacuum.jpg

 

[Jame Rowe]

You could always limit the speed of the warp drive to the speed of jump drive. They just have enough fuel or whatever to keep going, e.g. a Warp 1 drive can go up to 1 parsec in a week, 2 in 2 weeks and so forth and a Warp 6 drive can go up to 6 parsecs in one week, a further 6 parsecs in the second week and so forth.

Just remember to keep fuel requirements in mind (if you have any).

 

[dragoner]

Yeah, though I'll admit, 2300AD was a bit... too crunchy for my taste. The thing that drew me to traveller in the first place was how simple it is, lets me get rules out of the way to focus on character and story.

Traveller is easier to use, and yet still I hear from other rpg'ers that it is too complicated. Oh well.

 

[Reynard]

Jame, the warp drive in the Core Book is equivalent to a jump drive in travel time. The advantage for warp is real space travel with the ability to make course changes and can travel as long as you have fuel. The disadvantage is requiring twice as much fuel. Very simple to calculate.

 

[Jame Rowe]

Jame, the warp drive in the Core Book is equivalent to a jump drive in travel time. The advantage for warp is real space travel with the ability to make course changes and can travel as long as you have fuel. The disadvantage is requiring twice as much fuel. Very simple to calculate.

I may have misread that part. Of course, if I didn't, that would explain why I adopted the hyperdrive as my alternate drive of choice.

But thanks for the reminder. I may take my own suggestion and apply it to the hyperdrive instead, which IIRC does not require fuel - simply use the hyperdrive and have it use the power plant fuel instead. The PP would then be of "infinite" duration, unless it's damaged (fuel would be part of the tonnage a la GURPS).

 

[Reynard]

Remember that the hyperdrive is determined by the ship size for an equivalent jump drive then multiply by 2. They're bigger and eat into the 'saved' fuel space. At 1 PC per day per Maneuver rating, that's not bad except being limited by the days of maneuver fuel carried. Since you're in hyperspace, travel is equal to jump as you are 'flying blind' from point A to Point B but, like warp, you can drop out at any time to change direction. Take something like a scout and try converting to see how they compare.

Each of has advantages and disadvantages so they aren't better than the jump but add alternate flavor. I'll take a scoop of warp myself.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Really it's mostly an aesthetic choice. While there's nothing wrong with Jump Drive in principle, I find it difficult explaining why a Jump-2 (or Jump-3/4/5 etc.) ships still needs one week in Jump space in order to travel only a fraction of the distance that the drive is capable of.

The "science" reason in the OTU is that there is not "one" Jump Space dimension but "six" (possibly more). The time factor for travel remains the same in each dimension: 168+/- hours. The psuedo-distance in each jump space corresponds to a much larger distance in real space. The higher Jump dimensions, moreso.

The energy required to rip/open/access higher Jump Space dimensions and have the protective energy bubble surrounding the ship requires more energy/larger engines/larger software as ALL the Jump Fuel is expended at the same time.

Finally, when a Jump Drive is jumping to a smaller distance in real space than its maximum rating, what the engine actually does is access a lesser Jump dimension which requires less energy to pierce.

Does not mean it you cannot use Warp Drive in your universe, just explaining OTU Jump works. Heck my old American translations of Perry Rhodan used "Hypertrans Jumps" and "Semispace Drives" in the same universe. Similar ideas actually.

 

[Condottiere]

Weber's Honorverse with traversing different energy bands to impart faster velocity is actually more elegant in concept and narration.

Drake's RCN bubble entry but without the part of messing around with the rigging and navigating while on the poopdeck seems closer.

 

[dragoner]

If I were to guess, Traveller's jump comes from Asimov, like Foundation, spacer, and robot series.

 

[Condottiere]

I thought t was a legacy from Space Viking, like the Broadsword and cutters.

 

[Reynard]

For some exercise, I took a scout and replaced the Jump drive with a Warp. That normally would mean 2PC/week warping but there's no room for the extra 20 tons fuel. It's best is 1PC in 3-4 days before refueling. Might need to throw out a few staterooms. I may have to convert all the core adventure ships and see how they fare.