Jump Engines Recharge Rate

[sarum]

Hi all,

Are the rules anywhere that specify how long a Jump Engine takes to recharge. This was a major plot limitation in Series but seams to be have missed from the rules.

Regards
Dave

 

[lastbesthope]

ACTA Rule Book 1, Page 17, paragraph on Jum Points within the Advanced Rules section.

End of the first para on Jump points:

Once a jump point counter has been removed, the ship that created it may not initiate another one for at least three turns, as its jump engines have to recharge.

LBH
Rules lawyer in training

 

[sarum]

ACTA Rule Book 1, Page 17, paragraph on Jum Points within the Advanced Rules section.

End of the first para on Jump points:

Once a jump point counter has been removed, the ship that created it may not initiate another one for at least three turns, as its jump engines have to recharge.

Thanks for that. How long is a turn in ACTA? Can other race reduce that waiting time?

Regards
Dave

 

[frobisher]

Thanks for that. How long is a turn in ACTA?

Just shorter than a piece of string There's no statement of turn length given in the game. Anyone who says its the same as the RPG, please form an orderly queue top be taken out and shot - the ground scale is not compatible for starters (1" is about 1000km - the Whitestar can cover 15" in a turn, so 15,000km or 15,000,000m, or about half a light second. Now on a six second turn, that would mean the Whitestar is maintaining about 10% of the speed of light, no dice matey). Take it to 1 minute turns and we're getting closer. (Though the ground scale of ACtA is way out of whack with what we see in the series but bears a close resemblence to that of Battle Fleet Gothic...).

Can other race reduce that waiting time?

Not in ACtA, but if you can find the stats for the prior B5Wars game, you'll note that different ships have different jump delays; Minbari delays are shorter than Earth ships, Vorlons and Shadows are a lot shorter. Bigger ships jump quicker than smaller ships (in general), and higher tech ships jump quicker.

A six second turn actually works with the hypothesized ground scale of B5Wars (3km hexes), so a Hyperion has a jump delay of 24 turns, an Omega 20, a Primus or Vorchan 16, a G'Quan 20, a Whitestar 24 and a Sharlin 10 turns! And the Vorlon Heavy Cruiser 8 turns, and the Shadow Cruiser 8. The Walkers of Sigma 957 can jump in and out in 6 turns, but they're very special...

 

[lastbesthope]

Thanks for that. How long is a turn in ACTA? Can other race reduce that waiting time?

Regards
Dave

You're welcome.

A turn is the time between each occurrence of the players rolling for initiative. But within the game it is not stated.

And no, they can't. Not in ACTA, not yet at least.

LBH

 

[LoneStranger]

In B5 D20 a turn is six seconds long.....

In Babylon 5 Wars (the previous wargame) I had heard something about a turn being 10 seconds long which I had used as a basis to help explain a Warlock class vessel jump in and jump out as "quick" as it did.......

In Call to Arms it strikes me that a turn comes across as about 30 seconds......

My evidence is that the ISA Victory class is only down for one turn, if you watch the movie where it's featured they say it shuts down for a minute. You combine that with some of the recharge times for weapons in B5W that don't have slow loading in ACtA and it can make sense.

Having said all that I will also say it's not an entirely clean conversion so yes I am ready for people to poke holes in this.