Jump Bubbles

[sideranautae]

In-characters are not saying, "But what about our ship's jump bubble?" while being perused by ships before going into jump.

That depends on whether it has an impact on being able to enter jump or not. Which is what I was referring to.

 

[Condottiere]

Gravitic anomalies, either coincidental or deliberately induced.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

In-characters are not saying, "But what about our ship's jump bubble?" while being perused by ships before going into jump.

That depends on whether it has an impact on being able to enter jump or not. Which is what I was referring to.

Your characters would have a discussion about a ship's jump bubble? What skill level scientists and engineers are they?

 

[sideranautae]

In-characters are not saying, "But what about our ship's jump bubble?" while being perused by ships before going into jump.

That depends on whether it has an impact on being able to enter jump or not. Which is what I was referring to.

Your characters would have a discussion about a ship's jump bubble? What skill level scientists and engineers are they?

Ah! I just Googled your handle. Bu, bye.

 

[Bardicheart]

The bubble isn't a physical object per se as a soap bubble. It's a three dimensional field centered inside the vessel and extending out moving relative to the vessel and holding the hydrogen in place. It can be hard to describe but this field 'draws' the vessel into a hyper universe without effecting the speed, inertia and vector though the field itself is manipulated to vector the ship to the destination as programmed into astrogation. When you pop out, you will still have the speed and direction from the launch point. Even if you shut your engine down at jump you still retain the velocity and direction at that moment.

One big reason to slow down or even stop before jumping you don't know what's in the region of the destination you enter. Space is big but there's still stuff out there. You won't have much reaction time if you come screaming out of the tunnel blind plus you might not be aiming toward your final destination.

The field is, yes. Though I'll address some questions on how that field is formed below. However, according to what we have in the rules as written, that field must be filled with hydrogen, thus its also a physical "bubble" of hydrogen (I'm assuming in gaseous form by reason that when released to the larger volume surrounding the ship it would go from liquid to gaseous states). That bubble of hydrogen, not being physically constrained, would continue on its original vector and velocity if the ship were to change velocity or vector while prior to jump. That's the part I was getting at and why I'm suggesting a ship must either stop completely or at minimum must not change vector or velocity prior to jumping.

That would then seem to raise the question, how long does it take to form and fill this bubble with hydrogen since that amount of time becomes important. It becomes the amount of time your ship cannot maneuver and I would also think would be unable to return fire if fired upon. Given the frequency with which some Traveller's get themselves into... let's call it "interesting situations"... that could become an important point in play.

Now as far as how the field is formed. I've wondered about that too. There's nothing much about it specifically in Traveller that I'm aware of (if there is I'm sure one of you will point it out). And to be honest, its a level of detail I'm personally willing to "hand-wave" away and ignore because I don't think its significant to actually playing. That is it probably won't have any bearing on ship operations, tactics, escaping those patrol ships while you smuggle the daughter of a wealthy noble offworld for a tryst with her lover... or other such "interesting" events. That said...

If the field is formed by creating a micro black hole, I don't think you could create that within the ship (and then expand the field outward). The intense gravity effects would rip your ship apart. There is mention of using exotic particles (which is sci-fi speak for "we made up some mysterious material that pretty much magically does this" and I'm fine with that for this purpose). So perhaps the particles are ejected in front of the ship, and then some form of energy... intense laser, tachyon particle beams, or some other "gadget" is used to excite the exotic particles and form a micro black hole which then forms the bubble while ripping a hole in the fabric of space. Not exactly hard sci-fi, but I'm cool with that, it works for Traveller and its playable. But that still begs the question, the "field" formed must be filled with hydrogen to form the jump bubble. How long does that take and what happens if the ship maneuvers during this process? What happens if the ship and/or the bubble are fired upon (in other words how hard is that bubble to disrupt)?

Those last questions are the essential questions I'm pondering because they do affect play directly and could affect it in some big ways. It could make escaping combat by jumping (a tactic I've seen used a lot over the years) virtually impossible. A ship preparing to jump would... for a few seconds? minutes? tens of minutes? be more vulnerable, making it a tense (and possibly dramatic) moment during play if the ship is in an unsafe area (like unexplored space, a hostile system, being searched for by patrols, chased by pirates, etc. etc.).

 

[Bardicheart]

In-characters are not saying, "But what about our ship's jump bubble?" while being perused by ships before going into jump.

That depends on whether it has an impact on being able to enter jump or not. Which is what I was referring to.

Your characters would have a discussion about a ship's jump bubble? What skill level scientists and engineers are they?

Perhaps no more than someone considering tire pressure, engine temperature, oil and fuel levels while operating a car today. How amazing would those things have seemed to someone in the 1700s, might they to not have thought we were all some sort of scientist to be able to understand those things about that mechanical contraption. Look at the things a pilot checks through to fly a small plane or a passenger jet, but they aren't scientists either. My point being, since jump travel is fairly commonplace in Traveller, and since for characters traveling aboard ships making jumps is also fairly common, then certain aspects of jump travel would be common knowledge to them. They may not be able to do the math behind the formation of the jump field which becomes the jump bubble; but they would understand that, "hey, if the jump bubble is forming and filling with hydrogen and we suddenly veer off that way... it ain't gonna turn with us." That being perhaps a lesson learned the hard way at some point. So yes, I could see characters familiar with jump travel, being pursued by someone hostile who is shooting at them, and them trying to maneuver the ship, evade and escape, worrying about what would happen to that all important jump bubble if they suddenly make a sharp evasive turn while trying to jump. Sorry for the run on sentence, chalk it up to dramatic license.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

My point being, since jump travel is fairly commonplace in Traveller, and since for characters traveling aboard ships making jumps is also fairly common, then certain aspects of jump travel would be common knowledge to them. They may not be able to do the math behind the formation of the jump field which becomes the jump bubble; but they would understand that, "hey, if the jump bubble is forming and filling with hydrogen and we suddenly veer off that way... it ain't gonna turn with us." That being perhaps a lesson learned the hard way at some point. So yes, I could see characters familiar with jump travel, being pursued by someone hostile who is shooting at them, and them trying to maneuver the ship, evade and escape, worrying about what would happen to that all important jump bubble if they suddenly make a sharp evasive turn while trying to jump. Sorry for the run on sentence, chalk it up to dramatic license.

I like your dramatic license. I like your explanation, too.

 

[Bardicheart]

Oh, forgot to add...

I was looking for something within Traveller that might be used to indicate how long it takes to fill the "jump field" with hydrogen to form a "jump bubble" (distinguishing some terms here to indicate separate points in the jump process).

I thought maybe Drop Tanks might give a clue since presumably they'd have high capacity fuel pumps to move the hydrogen quickly. But, alas, no time was given. What I did find interesting is that it mentioned that drop tanks could be destroyed by "the expanding jump bubble" perhaps indicating the stresses the forming field can generate.

Just musing on the idea, exploring possibilities.

 

[Bardicheart]

My point being, since jump travel is fairly commonplace in Traveller, and since for characters traveling aboard ships making jumps is also fairly common, then certain aspects of jump travel would be common knowledge to them. They may not be able to do the math behind the formation of the jump field which becomes the jump bubble; but they would understand that, "hey, if the jump bubble is forming and filling with hydrogen and we suddenly veer off that way... it ain't gonna turn with us." That being perhaps a lesson learned the hard way at some point. So yes, I could see characters familiar with jump travel, being pursued by someone hostile who is shooting at them, and them trying to maneuver the ship, evade and escape, worrying about what would happen to that all important jump bubble if they suddenly make a sharp evasive turn while trying to jump. Sorry for the run on sentence, chalk it up to dramatic license.

I like your dramatic license. I like your explanation, too.

Thanks, glad that came across well. Dramatic license is really at the heart of my original question. Up until now the act of actually jumping has been fairly routine in games I played in (whether as a player or a referee). Making a fast jump after leaving a world, pedal to the metal and balls out, because the players were "misbehaving"... again... lol... the jump itself was fairly routine and a quick way to escape.

For whatever the reason it had just never come up, "hey, what happens if someone shoots at that bubble of hydrogen? Or if we make a sharp turn as part of evasive manuevers?" An then, out of the blue, those very questions hit me. So I thought I'd share and get feedback. Often others have already asked the same question and come up with houserules that address it. Handy to have that feedback. An if not, maybe it becomes a point we write some house rules together.

At this point, for me anyway, the essential remaining question is... how long does it take to form the jump bubble and fill it with hydrogen? Or put another way, "How long do the players-characters have to sweat while being pursued/shot at before they can jump away?" The later kind of directly addresses the effect on play.

 

[sideranautae]

At this point, for me anyway, the essential remaining question is... how long does it take to form the jump bubble and fill it with hydrogen? Or put another way, "How long do the players-characters have to sweat while being pursued/shot at before they can jump away?"

The time increment for the Engineer's skill check to initiate jump may offer a clue...

 

[fireyphoenix22]

two explanations come from the traveller wiki

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Jump_Drive_History

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Jump_Drive

the navigator calculates the exact point in space the jump drive button must be pushed,

the engineer must ramp up the powerplant to generate the power needed for the jump field to be activated,

When all these things come together, the field is activated. boom the jump drive generates a bubble, if you will, of energy which interacts with the time space barrier.
A rift opens in space, a sort of wormhole like opening (think soap bubble wand ), as the ship traverses this opening it creates a bubble of reality around the actual field, around the vessel.
The opening thusly closes behind the vessel, trapped in this alternate dimension, the vessel THEN injects hydrogen into the inside of the field to stabilize the bubble effect.

this, imo, explains away some of the anxiety proir to jump about preforming a bubble and filling it while under combat conditions.

"just PUSH the damn button"!

 

[Bardicheart]

At this point, for me anyway, the essential remaining question is... how long does it take to form the jump bubble and fill it with hydrogen? Or put another way, "How long do the players-characters have to sweat while being pursued/shot at before they can jump away?"

The time increment for the Engineer's skill check to initiate jump may offer an clue...

Good point, I'll take a look at that.

 

[Condottiere]

It seems obvious that the jump drive generates a field that traps the hydrogen, though it's interesting if that field needs to be maintained by requiring the power plant to run at the requisite jump number, or if you could just drift and let the bubble deteriorate.

Though the bubble could also be maintained by a uniform pressure on it's surface by the conditions within hyperspace.

 

[fireyphoenix22]

From my understanding, the plant generates the required energy, which is stored in the jump capacitors, waiting to be triggered all at once.

After the rupture has formed and the ship tumbles through, thats it.

The powerplant does not need to keep generating power to keep the field steady, just to power the ship during the voyage, (ie lights, heat, computer etc.)

The jump dimension and the duration of jump were set at the beginning, now its just coasting along, as you said the jump bubble is sustained by pressure of jumpspace.

Also, too, that bubble full of hydrogen is deteriorating as the time winds down till it finally collapses, kicking the ship back into normal space.

hopefully in one piece and where you wanted to go in the first place.

 

[Condottiere]

The thing is, if you only need that energy for the initial transition, you could either power down or switch to factor one energy output, or install a factor one power plant, add more jump capacitors.

While the second option assumes longer charging time, the money and weight saved would be invaluable.

 

[sideranautae]

The thing is, if you only need that energy for the initial transition, you could either power down or switch to factor one energy output, or install a factor one power plant, add more jump capacitors.

While the second option assumes longer charging time, the money and weight saved would be invaluable.

Or, if the capacitor cannot hold the energy for long enough, the 2nd option isn't an option...

 

[Condottiere]

How long do the jump capacitors hold a charge?

 

[sideranautae]

How long do the jump capacitors hold a charge?

I THINK I remember it mentioned in that MT Star Ship Operations Book. Not sure though.

 

[Reynard]

From the Operator's Manual, the zuchai crystals, which are the storage medium in jump capacitors, will explosively decompose causing significant damage to a ship if not discharged in two to three hours. 100% of the power created goes to creating the field and maintaining it for the duration. The power plant takes care of any needs not related to the jump engine.

The jump drive is a self contained unit built with a dedicated fusion reactor to charge the capacitors and integrated computer to precisely create and channel the energy . I'm sure jury-rigging such a delicate device could be unfortunate.

Go ahead and fly on the cheap. We never do hear from those ships again.

 

[Condottiere]

Besides the fact this variant uses a grid rather than the bubble, if the jump drive had it's own dedicated fusion plant to energize it, rather than draw on the ship's power plant why would you need the ship's power plant's factor to match that of the jump drive, as it would only be required to produce juice for all other ship's functions and could be reduced to factor one?