jump template

[MasterGwydion]

Yes that is MgT2e and as I said there is on obscure reference with no detail as to what the Jump Template is. So according to that table, strictly speaking, it can only be used to jump to empty hexes.

Strangely, yes. We should ask @MongooseMatt or @Geir what else a Jump Template can do. Maybe there was some stuff that got cut from the final book. Until this book, I just figured they didn't exist anymore in Canon, just like the Generate Software.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Strangely, yes. We should ask @MongooseMatt or @Geir what else a Jump Template can do. Maybe there was some stuff that got cut from the final book. Until this book, I just figured they didn't exist anymore in Canon, just like the Generate Software.

You should head to the Ask Mongoose Matt Anthing!!! thread and find out.

 

[Hardwire]

I don't know why I keep forgetting about the WBH when looking stuff up.

 

[Vormaerin]

Classic Traveller had not yet been Niven-ized by some writers who though there had to be an excuse for people actually being on ships. That whole "AI sucks at jump" is a complete retcon created pretty recently. I had a thread about its origins a while back and no one could find any source in older editions. And even the Robot Handbook author only had a vague reference in the Deep Space Handbook or something for it. (Just to be clear, that Robot Handbook author was making a good faith effort to remain consistent with previous material, not adding fanon to the lore).

The original conception was that the computer calculated the jump using onboard software based on data provided by the ship's crew. If you did not have the software to do this yourself, you could get the plots calculated for you at the starport and just provide the final data once your intended insertion point was established.

That's why astrogators were optional on small ships. Your ship had to be more than 200 dtons before one was required. And, frankly, that was mainly for watch standing purposes more than that specific skillset being necessary. The space navigation skill was actually primarily about real space navigation in Classic Traveller.

Later, they phased out the Generate program and the jump tapes without replacing them with anything, like a lot of the early shipboard operations stuff (like engines getting damaged by unrefined fuel usage).

At some point, excuses were introduced as to why human navigators were necessary. Mongoose Traveller has now made astrogators a necesary role on all ships. And added a task check to the Astrogator's roll (that barely does anything) and all manner of modifiers to make it seem like its actually worth playing one. Including mechanics to make AI bad at it for mysterious Niven-esque reasons (since just being a person on the ship improves the AI's output without any astrogation skill being necessary).

However, at no point has it been made clear what was gained in gameplay terms by all this rigamarole. Or how it accords with the Charted Space conception of space travel being as routine as air travel, not something that gets f'ed up as often as any 2D probability would indicate.

 

[Hardwire]

Classic Traveller had not yet been Niven-ized by some writers who though there had to be an excuse for people actually being on ships. That whole "AI sucks at jump" is a complete retcon created pretty recently. I had a thread about its origins a while back and no one could find any source in older editions. And even the Robot Handbook author only had a vague reference in the Deep Space Handbook or something for it. (Just to be clear, that Robot Handbook author was making a good faith effort to remain consistent with previous material, not adding fanon to the lore).

The original conception was that the computer calculated the jump using onboard software based on data provided by the ship's crew. If you did not have the software to do this yourself, you could get the plots calculated for you at the starport and just provide the final data once your intended insertion point was established.

That's why astrogators were optional on small ships. Your ship had to be more than 200 dtons before one was required. And, frankly, that was mainly for watch standing purposes more than that specific skillset being necessary. The space navigation skill was actually primarily about real space navigation in Classic Traveller.

Later, they phased out the Generate program and the jump tapes without replacing them with anything, like a lot of the early shipboard operations stuff (like engines getting damaged by unrefined fuel usage).

At some point, excuses were introduced as to why human navigators were necessary. Mongoose Traveller has now made astrogators a necesary role on all ships. And added a task check to the Astrogator's roll (that barely does anything) and all manner of modifiers to make it seem like its actually worth playing one. Including mechanics to make AI bad at it for mysterious Niven-esque reasons (since just being a person on the ship improves the AI's output without any astrogation skill being necessary).

However, at no point has it been made clear what was gained in gameplay terms by all this rigamarole. Or how it accords with the Charted Space conception of space travel being as routine as air travel, not something that gets f'ed up as often as any 2D probability would indicate.

What makes it worse is they are taking the inconsistent, in complete, half baked information from LBB, Classic, T4, T5, MgT and even some from Gurps, Hero, CE and various other versions and editions and mashing them together and muddying the waters with it.

I know that it is hard to actually get everything to line up and play nice but at some point you have to say, "<This> is how <this> works" and throw the rest away.

 

[Vormaerin]

That feels like what they are doing, for the most part. Within the reasonable limits of the line editor knowing all the secrets of the universe to catch every inconsistency resulting from a book. Just, obviously, lots of people in the player base have done that in a different way. So there are always these discussions about why isn't it some other way, instead of just fixing it for that table's Traveller game and moving on.

In Mongoose space, there are computers that can jump a ship on their own. They just have a higher risk factor than an equally skilled human astrogator. (Though the AI probably has more skill than most human Navigators if you are going to bother with one, so... *shrugs*). Just like in Mongoose space, they have a hydrogen filled bubble. And the M-Drives stop working effectively at a certain point, unless you by the special "it still works" device. These are all decisions that have been made and generally kept consistent within MgT, even if they wildly diverge from established Traveller stuff.

The main conflict within Mongoose on most of that comes from reprinting Marc Miller's Jumpspace article in JTAS (which is CT era), not from the various Mongoose rules themselves.

This is not a conflict with "jump tapes" or other templates existing, unless you imagine that your astrogator is busy plotting a jump on graph paper or something. They are programming the computer. Templates and jump tapes do a lot of the programming work in advance, so only the final details need to be provided by the astrogator to get a final plot. They are not the same thing as the computer acting autonomously.

 

[Condottiere]

Should be fairly easy for monoparsec jumps.

At three, you'll want someone who's really qualified.

 

[Vormaerin]

Sure, you can say that. But that's a change to the rules from before. And the character generation system does not support the players having a character who can do that. So you've changed the game for the worse by adding in all these difficulties to players doing what players are expected to do: go out in the boonies and do stuff.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I think it would be cool if jump tapes gave you a +4 DM to your astrogation check. Makes most Astrogation Checks in the game no longer necessary, unless you have some serious negatives to overcome.

 

[rinku]

All jump plots are specific to a time and place of jump; if the jump doesn't happen when and where the plot was calculated for, it starts to become less reliable, within a range. But the less precise a jump needs to be, the less this would be of a concern; jumping to an empty hex in order to jump a second time from extra fuel really shouldn't be that hard, especially if the second jump is just to a star's 100D and not anywhere specific.

i.e. "I don't really care if I miss my nominal arrival point in this very empty area of space by a few light minutes."

 

[MasterGwydion]

All jump plots are specific to a time and place of jump; if the jump doesn't happen when and where the plot was calculated for, it starts to become less reliable, within a range. But the less precise a jump needs to be, the less this would be of a concern; jumping to an empty hex in order to jump a second time from extra fuel really shouldn't be that hard, especially if the second jump is just to a star's 100D and not anywhere specific.

i.e. "I don't really care if I miss my nominal arrival point in this very empty area of space by a few light minutes."

The +4 DM seems to degrade at a rate of -1 per week old the jump tape is.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I imagine a guy with a cart going around the Starport "Get your jump templates here, get them while they're fresh!" His competition sells week olds as fresh.