Jump Precisions

[Vormaerin]

My general philosophy of gaming is that the character should be what matters. I almost never put bonus equipment into play. Equipment lets you make rolls to do things you couldn't do without the equipment or otherwise changes the nature of the roll. But it is still the character's skill that is the determining factor. "Of course the TL 13 screwdriver has a integral expert system. Why do you think you don't have problems dealing with the TL 13 expert system in the screw?" So I am pretty invested in the long standing definitions of what each skill level means. Because they really matter.

Traveller uses a very small skill range. 0-4 for all practical purposes. It is very easy to swamp that with modifiers if you use them.. Which is not how I like to play, as I mentioned. I make those skill differences matter even though they are pretty trivial in terms of dice. If you have a Computer 4 skill, the question the dice are answering is not "Do you hack the computer?" but rather "How fast can you do it?" While a lesser skill might be "It takes you half an hour, but roll to see if you can get in without triggering the alarms." And a low skill might "roll to see if you get in at all, but you are almost certainly going to trigger the alarm at some point in the hack.".

Obviously, that's my house rules so I don't base my analysis of the game in these discussions on it. But I do think that there is nothing in the game that suggests heavily reliance on bonuses is the default of the game.

Things like waferjacks and expert systems are definitely interesting options, but the campaign has to be designed around them existing. Mindjammer (which has a Traveller adaptation) does that. Everyone has a Halo with extra skills from digital sources. Its just another character resource and its factored into the design. Charted Space (and the Traveller Core Rules) definitely don't commit to that.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Only roll the dice when you have absolutely no other option.

The referee describes the situation.

Now look at the terms served by the character, then their skills, then their characteristics then the tools they have and listen to the player describe what their character attempts to do. Most of the time you want need to roll any dice at all. But if you do...

If the player says "I'll roll my pilot skill" make them roll the dice at disadvantage/bane.

If they player says "I'll try to pilot skill us out of this using what I learned in the service" let them roll

If the player says "I'll take the flight controls and attempt to maneuver us to a safer landing spot, I've come across stuff like this before" roll with boon/advantage

Encourage them to say what their character does rather than - which skill should I roll?

 

[Sigtrygg]

The whole jump thing, at least as written in the current contradictory rules, should be tossed and rewritten to maintain logical consistency. Crossing 3ly and emerging within a few hundred thousand km of your planned origin point IS pretty precise navigation if you think about it. It really comes down to just how they want to explain jump and then write the rules so that it is logically consistent within the stated structure.

IF the time of your jump is going to retain its 6d6 time variable AND you want to retain accuracy to your arrival point in N-space AND keeping the whole being pulled out of jump if you hit a significant gravity well AND that you MUST have a gravity well to come OUT of jump space, THEN you have to toss:

The simplest solution (if you want to keep the time variance) is to say the jump takes one week +/- but the time variance is factored into the jump so you arrive within 3000km

1) the idea that your jump bubble will collapse on its own bringing you back into N-space (this contradicts the rule that you cannot jump into a deep space hex without a gravity well as your destination). This then implies that your jump drive has no specific distance associated to it - you'll keep on traveling in jump space for an infinite distance, or at least until you come withing 100D of a significant gravity well.

There is no such rule that you need a gravity well to jump to unless playing pre-Third Imperium and pre-Aslan/terran Dark nebula conflict or it is some rule variant in some fanon source.
Unless it has been introduced and I have ignored it - do you have a reference for it as a rule.

I think it's fair to say that when the grognards sat down to discuss the initial rules of Traveller they never really thought about the realities of orbital mechanics. From the rule point of view all planets have zero orbital velocity, and if you take it from that perspective the rules, as written, will work without too many mental gyrations.

By grognards you mean the GDW authors? I assure you that the player base jumped on orbital mechanics etc forty+ years ago.

To do the least amount of rewrites to the original rules it would simply be better to say time spent in jump space is not 100% aligned with the universe's clocks. That time variable is inflicted ONLY upon the people within the ship. Thus your 160hrs in jump space may only be 150hrs by the clocks of the people in the rest of the universe (or at least who also weren't in jump space). For 99% of all people traveling between systems this is really going to be a non-issue. For people who spend their entire lives jumping, they would experience a very small amount of time dilation - not enough to really affect game mechanics though. This would then allow for ships to enter N-space right on the edge of the 100D limit and the travel time tables would remain intact.

The simplest way is to ignore it, you jump from A to B and it takes 6 weeks.
The next simplest is to say you jump from A to B and it takes 6 weeks +/-, but this was known for the very start so you are within 3000 km of B.

The question of the jump bubble duration AND the gravity well issue cannot easily be rectified. It can't work both ways. If you say your bubble will dissipate based upon your jump drive capabilities, then ships will re-enter N-space at the point their bubble collapses. Period. That means jumping to a deep space hex is entirely allowable and expected based upon your jump distance. That also keeps the 100D occlusion rule intact.

Would that be the bubble of normal spacetime maintained by the jump cables in the hull? Or would that be the jump bubble of normal space maintained by the energy flowing through the above network? Or is it the jump bubble of normal space filled with hydrogen gas?
Jumping to completely empty hexes is allowed, has been since CT'77.

It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to make the rules work, it just takes a wee bit of effort to think through how they work and ensure they stay logically consistent. The idea that "ooh! this sounds cool! Let's put this into the rules" is generally a bad idea if that new rule breaks existing ones. Many other games and settings have published rules bibles that all the designers must follow to retain consistency. New things aren't prohibitited, but deviations from the cannon must first be reviewed and then slotted in so they don't break the system (unless it's, for example, something like laser weaponry becoming the norm over gunpowder-based weaponry).

Or better yet provide the tools and let the referee decide how it works in their universe.

Ideally when publishers or gamers find an error, it needs to be fixed. Don't wait decades to fix things because it's "canon" - if it's wrong don't make it canonically wrong (cough... Gazelle escort... cough).

Thing is the gazelle was legitimate when designed, then the rules changes made it questionable.
Same with TL10 jump 4 100t xboats.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I wonder: how about not allowing the characters to know that they failed the roll, but discover too late when they emerge somewhere else…?

99% of the time if you blow a roll, you will know it immediately. Shoot at a guy and missed? You'll know right away. Fail the Medic check to stabilize your buddy? You'll know right away. Fail a Piloting check? Same thing. Add too much salt to the crew's dinner? Trust Me, you will know quickly. Astrogation computer not agree with your calculations, same thing.

 

[PeterDebney]

The trouble is you are actually arriving at a different time in the real universe. If you arrived after a week but you had experienced the variable time it would be easier (since that planet is actually where it should be).

For extra (real world) complexity: there is no consistent time between different systems. It is relative to the local gravity gradient and how fast you are going.
Also, remember that speed is also not absolute but relative to something else. So your speed relative to the planet you have left is different to the planet or system you are heading towards, and thus your difference in time duration is also different.
Ultimately the game mechanics should consider all the depth, then reduce it back to a couple of die rolls. Discussing relativistic effects is fun, but calculating them for a game is not.

 

[CordwainerFish]

For extra (real world) complexity: there is no consistent time between different systems. It is relative to the local gravity gradient and how fast you are going.
Also, remember that speed is also not absolute but relative to something else. So your speed relative to the planet you have left is different to the planet or system you are heading towards, and thus your difference in time duration is also different.
Ultimately the game mechanics should consider all the depth, then reduce it back to a couple of die rolls. Discussing relativistic effects is fun, but calculating them for a game is not.

Thisthisthisthisthisthis... "Same velocity", in curved spacetime, is only definable in the infinitesimal case...

 

[Condottiere]

If you could calculate the time factor, for either reality, a lot of astrogators would be going for shortcuts.

 

[Anstett]

I have syncing the Ship's Time to System time as a function of the Astrogation roll. A higher success means the crew arrives closer to the system time they wanted to arrive at.
Similar to arriving at a specific point in space, a congruent point in time.
Still a randomness to the arrival time.

Handwaves the bundling of several items into one roll as a function of those who do higher math functions off the top of their head during lunch.

 

[swordtart]

I believe that Charted Space assumes that most of the double checking is done by the automated systems. There are rules for reducing large ship crews because of automation and free traders obviously don't even have enough crew to stand proper watches, so there has to be automation handling things and calling on the crew for emergencies. That's why the crew requirements in 2300, which has less automation, are noticeably higher.

But things get messy because Traveller's rules are designed for a much wider range of tech capabilities than just what exists in Charted Space. Despite the popularity of Charted Space, Traveller is first and foremost a build your own universe game system. So you have a lot of tech capabilities that are not integrated into the examples. Like...waferjacks theoretically exist but no one actually has them in any published material that I recall? I think its T5 where you can just declare that you got a waferjack in lieu of a benefit roll if you were in any imperial service. But waferjacks and expert systems are just..not utilized in Mongoose's content. They exist in the rules. But not in any Charted Space material by Mongoose.

Traveller used to just say "Uhh, yeah, there's automation so you only need a small crew". But now there's a Robot Handbook that tells you what that actually looks like. But it isn't applied to anything in Charted Space. Even the stuff that's come out after it.

On the original topic of this thread, the ship's computer used to have (in CT) a program called Generate that produced jump plots. But if you didn't have that program, you could buy them from the starport. However, eventually someoned decided that if some character was the astrogator, they should be astrogating. So that kind of went away. In Mongoose the program for controlling the jump drives also includes jump navigation aids for the astrogator that...do nothing mechanically. But then rules came out where you could install a robotic astrogation expert system that would be better than almost any PC likely would be. Putting us back to the Generate program by another name. *Shrugs*

LIkewise, the game rules never actually say that the 6+ to land at the starport is only for stressful landings. I, as someone who has been GMing for 45 years, think that's pretty self evident. But it isn't strictly speaking the rule.

I can see a specific setting that either specifically disallows or fails to incorporate rules in the Core Rulebook may present more issues but my perspective is not published settings, since if I use a scenario it is likely to be a Classic or Cepheus one so I am already having to tune it.

Virtual Crew is written in terms of replacing crewmen that you don't have and Virtual Crew/0 is MCr1 which is low in ship terms. If it were instead running alongside a sophont pilot (as co-pilot) I would grant a boon to the piloting roll. Unless you are spending a lot of time transiting Normal Space (like a Belter might) then there isn't much requirement for flight crew skills anyway and you don't even need watches if your transit from jump to orbit is the normal 4-6 hours. Automation (or cheaper a droid) might avoid characters having "useless" skills.

Ultimately it is like wilderness travel in D&D. If you spend a lot of time in Normal space then you might get utility form the skills and as long a everyone has something to do it might be fun, but you might only focus on the dirt side aspects and the transit is just to change the scenery in this case you might as well gloss over it. The journey is just a weeks worth of down-time.

I think the Astrogation check created a lot of heat and perhaps it would have been better if the relevant table in the Companion had simply been a function of the effect of the normal Astrogation 4+ check. If you made the check there would be no Bad Jump and differing degrees of success would put you closer to the 100D ideal (assuming you chose to adopt the optional rule about jump variance in the first place). We moved from a place where Astrogation was easy and safe to where it was often dangerous.

I would be happier if the default Astrogators check was Routine (6+) as well, since it should not be Easy as otherwise someone without the skill would fail half the time on a short jump (maybe this is the effect of the Astrogation element of the Jump software and it is a point and click interface). If it is genuinely that easy then there shouldn't be a skill dedicated to it and it should be bundled into Engineering(Jump) skill set.

The Unskilled modifier is one of the reasons I am not keen on bringing down the difficulty of tasks. It starts to make a mockery of that 4 years of training you did if someone who saw it on YouTube once can succeed with any regularity. The 2d6 scale has always been a bit short for sufficient graduation and a few +1 modifiers can rapidly shift the bell curve. The use of Boons and Banes is nice as it allows a bit more nuance.

It occurs to me as well that the marginal failure (that is the worst outcome of the Level 1 pilot making a routine landing) might simply be the requirement to abort the landing, return to orbit and have to re-negotiate landing permission. This will generally not cause a significant issue but it might have an impact depending on your scenario (you don't want to attract attention, you have already annoyed the person granting landing permission or you passengers are getting antsy). Maybe all Routine marginal failures should allow a re-roll which may introduce an inconvenience depending on the circumstances.

You have about one term on me for GM'ing
Not all of that time was Traveller specifically but Car Wars also uses a 2D mechanic and I ported a lot of Traveller material into it. The Car Wars skill system was a mess, but it at least covered a lot of ground with how 2D6 could be used flexibly.

 

[Vormaerin]

The thing about that jump distance chart is that is it basically giant waste of space. It's really either "bad jump" or "+/- a hour of travel. The number of circumstance where it is actually going to be interesting whether you are 100D or 115D from a world is extremely low. Maybe if you are trying to do a synchronized fleet jump? Otherwise, any situation where an hour or two one way or the other matters will be swamped by the time variance of jump travel itself.

To make a skill interesting, you have to give players decisions points about when and where to use that skill. "Do I fly into the meteor shower to get to the prize or not?" "Do I use up my last autopick or do I try to break the door?" Things the *player* is engaged in. Astrogation essentially fails to do this. It's pretty much just "roll a die to not have something bad happen randomly doing a thing you have no choice but to do." And even then the ACTUALLY IMPORTANT roll is the Engineer, not the astrogator. You are just making the engineer's roll harder or easier. And then there's a chart that says "yeah, you made the original roll, but roll again to see if it was actually bad anyway."

Astrogation IRL would be a super critical skill. But it isn't a very gameable one. Skills that are mandatory for someone to be good at, but don't actually have an active application are bad skills, imho. What's the decision point about whether to jump or not? "Hmm, yeah we have a J6 engine, but that's kind of hard to plot. Here's a 2 x J3 plot that'll be easier. Just takes longer."?

Of course, part of the problem is that there is essentially zero examples in fiction of making astrogation fun and interesting. So players don't have a wealth of tropes on hand for what they should be doing like with Pilot or Engineer.

 

[phavoc]

The simplest solution (if you want to keep the time variance) is to say the jump takes one week +/- but the time variance is factored into the jump so you arrive within 3000km

Right, so the time difference is experienced by the ship travellers. Very few would have to worry about it (though time in jump is what crew gets paid, so some enterprising PC's who are hirelings may be asking for extra pay, but one could make them keep track of their jump dilation and they get a lump sum at the end of the year/voyage.

There is no such rule that you need a gravity well to jump to unless playing pre-Third Imperium and pre-Aslan/terran Dark nebula conflict or it is some rule variant in some fanon source.
Unless it has been introduced and I have ignored it - do you have a reference for it as a rule.

I believe this got introduced with the deep space book that also introduced the 1000D limit on standard M-drives. I don't have the exact reference handy though.

By grognards you mean the GDW authors? I assure you that the player base jumped on orbital mechanics etc forty+ years ago.

The simplest way is to ignore it, you jump from A to B and it takes 6 weeks.
The next simplest is to say you jump from A to B and it takes 6 weeks +/-, but this was known for the very start so you are within 3000 km of B.

Would that be the bubble of normal spacetime maintained by the jump cables in the hull? Or would that be the jump bubble of normal space maintained by the energy flowing through the above network? Or is it the jump bubble of normal space filled with hydrogen gas?
Jumping to completely empty hexes is allowed, has been since CT'77.

Referring to MGTv2 its the jump bubble with gas (as opposed to lanthanum grids in the hull). Or the Hop/Skip/Jump drives and additional variations related to T5. I agree that jumping to empty space has only a recent change.

Or better yet provide the tools and let the referee decide how it works in their universe.

Thing is the gazelle was legitimate when designed, then the rules changes made it questionable.
Same with TL10 jump 4 100t xboats.

I believe the Gazelle violated the rules on Day 1 because of the drop tank allowed a 4th hard point, and when you dropped the tank you should have to drop the turret that the extra tonnage provided. At least that's what I recall from way back in the LBB stages

 

[Sigtrygg]

It was legal in 79 HG in two different ways. Totally illegal in HG80.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I believe this got introduced with the deep space book that also introduced the 1000D limit on standard M-drives. I don't have the exact reference handy though.

I will go and look if I can find the reference unless someone can get there first.

If Mongoose really have introduced this then they have completely changed the setting to match someone's fanon.

 

[Condottiere]

Time dilation being rather important to calculate mental and physical deterioration, in Traveller.

 

[Vormaerin]

I am not aware of any rule that requires a gravity well to jump to. There are certainly plenty of references in the rules to jumping into the middle of nowhere. I believe that the World Builder's Handbook (could be a different source though) makes it harder than jumping to a 100D limit (-2 penalty, IIRC). But it does not prohibit it.

As I said before, I prefer the idea that jump plots are created to move you into a certain relationship with your destination. Not to any specific spot in realspace, but "100D from Saturn nearest to Titan" or "300D from the Sun" or whatever. Then you enter jumpspace and move through time until the two dimensions overlap in a way that allows you to re-enter normal space in that relative position. So it doesn't matter that everything is moving or whether it takes 6 days or 8 days to do that. The 6-8 days is how long it takes to achieve that re-entry, wherever that ends up being.

I find that resolves the various contradictions to my satisfaction. There's probably some reason this is a problem too, but it hasn't occurred to me or my players so I don't care

 

[CordwainerFish]

I am not aware of any rule that requires a gravity well to jump to.

It's not ruleified, but GURPS Interstellar Wars states that, at the time of said wars, neither Terrans nor Vilani knew how to plot a jump ending in flat space - an interpretation I like enough to admit into my personal canon. (It channeled all jump-2 traffic into/out of the Terran Pocket through either Dingir, Kinunir, or Gashidda, so no massive fleets striking from coreward and mobbing the Terrans. (Interestingly and uncharacteristically, it appears the Vilani were the first to see through their shared blind spot in jump physics, but much too late to help them.))

 

[Vormaerin]

Oh, yeah, it was definitely a rule (at least for the Vilani) in the board game that that GURPS based that game supplement on. I thought we were discussing the current ruleset.

 

[CordwainerFish]

I thought we were discussing the current ruleset.

I'm thinking less in terms of rules and more in terms of future history. I don't need a rule to say that "at one time neither of these polities knew how to do something that doesn't seem to have been a problem for anyone else" - especially because there's no way history could have gone the way it did otherwise.

 

[Vormaerin]

Right, but the specific discussion you pulled my quote from was about whether there was a Mongoose 2e rule on the topic and I was saying that I didn't think there was. So I wasn't aware you were switching to a different issue.

 

[CordwainerFish]

Right, but the specific discussion you pulled my quote from was about whether there was a Mongoose 2e rule on the topic and I was saying that I didn't think there was. So I wasn't aware you were switching to a different issue.

Ah, I didn't catch that. I guess I'm someone who always looks for the implied spaces, which are sort of like loopholes but aren't.