Jumping into empty hexes: some thoughts.

[captainjack23]

Well, I thought I'd start up an oft discussed but seldom resolved topic: jumping into, (or out of) a hex with no system, possible/not possible,if so, how is it done; if not, why ?

Introduction: what is the question again ??

My impression of the canon of this is that one can jump from anywhere, and end up anywhere -except within 100d of a biggish mass.

So, while simple time in transit suggests that one tries to jump as close as possible to the departure and arrival targets, there are lots of reasons why one would not want to do so. First is stealth - jumping in far away from a planet makes one less noticable, jump flash or no; and theoretically, the same applies to jumping out.

Howvever, stealth aside, one of the main reasons to jump into empty space is obviously to cross a gap larger than the jump drive one is using. The current round of rules is (IIRC) explicit in not disallowing this (how's that for a canon-weasle ? ). So, other than the limits of fuel and general endurance, is there any reason to suppose that a jump three across an empty hex is any different from three 1 hex jumps ?

For me, the main argument there is some difference between stellar and non-stellar jumps is found in the Terran wars period, where a distance of jump three is an insurmountable barrier before jump three technology is developed. The starmaps (Just about any version of traveller showing Sol, up to and including imperium) show numerous opportunities for jump 1 ships to penerate into the interior, past the choke points that 'historically' blocked such moves. Perhaps scouts did, but clearly no fleets or even reasonabley big individual ships did this. So....why didn't they ?

BUT, the Vilani were able to spread to lots of places with Jump 1 drives across 1 Parsec gaps. ANd later empty space jumps are in canon. So what was the big deal ?

Simple answer: canon is inconsistent, give it up. My response: where's the fun in that ? The metagame in traveller canon studies is to make it work out..


Next Up: Why are there empty hexes, anyway ?

 

[rust]

Well, I always considered jumps into empty hexes as possible, although
I made them somewhat more difficult for the astrogators in my system
if they wanted to come out of jump space at a certain position (e.g. to
rendezvous with a tanker).

The reason for empty hexes seems obvious to me: No star with a pla-
netary system within one parsec.

 

[captainjack23]

Part One: Why are there empty hexes, anyway ?

In fact, the stellar density in standard space for traveller is (according to our own resident planetologist) about 50% of what the real world has -thus, lots of stars aren't shown.

One possibility is that there are fundamentally no empty hexes, they just aren't mapped; adding in the possibility of jumping to brown dwarves, which should be quite plentiful, any jump is essentially to a stellar hex . Jumps to empty hexes are harder simply because you have to find the damned things, which is hard, particulalry with regards to the Brown dwarfs and super-jovians.

Problems exist with this, however; first, Canon does discuss jumping to empty hexes (deep space calibration points); second, I am skeptical that it will remain hard to find and map the less luminous members of the universe, and heck, the missing regular sequence stars are visible. Third why aint they mapped ? It can't be because 50% of the stellar systems are so useless that even at chokepoints they aren't worth mapping.....particulalry given how god awful useless some of the mapped sytems are.

Finally, there are some pretty strong suggestions in the continuity (such as it is) that there is some difference between a jump 1 into an empty hex, and a jump 1 into a stellar hex.

One explanation for the missing stars (and thus the gaps) on the hex map is this: it only shows jumpable stars. Perhaps the presense of a big enough stellar mass enables jump* - the smaller bodies just don't work well enough. A happy coincidence with this idea is that about 50% + of real main series stars are type M reds - the classic cold embers, with (likely) razor thin habitable zones, if any). So it allows us to assume that the stars marked are not only not jumpable, BUT much more likely to be useful. Contrariwise, the unmapped stars are the ones least likely to be useful even for visit by sublight travel. Its a stretch, and exceptions should exist, but its less of a stretch than assuming that they just aren't mapped out of...laziness ? Spite ?

So, let's start here: The gaps are real with regard to jump travel....the missing stars are the same as empty hexes.

Which unfortunately gets us back to the question: if empty hexes are valid, why aren't they used, even if not mapped. And if not, why not, and why are they sometimes a barrier, and sometimes not.

Coming up: shades of grey.


*yes, I'm aware that misjumps are tied to proximity of mass -but not the actual mass per se. We'll get back to that. For now, my model for the effect is one of a catalyst - a reaction is enhanced by the addition of another ingredient, but too much of it will often shut it down alltogether.

 

[AKAramis]

If one assumes J-space is a construct, then perhaps J-space is only a parsec or two thick... in which case, it is a plane cutting through the galaxy. It might not even be a plane, but a warped "sheet" that functions as a skin across which one travels.

Systems too far off the "skin" don't get picked up.

 

[Quiller]

Has the idea of having a waystation in an empty hex been explored? I was thinking of a world say j2-4 off from a j1 main commissioning a couple of tankers to take turns loitering in an empty hex to encourage trade by allowing free/far traders to refuel and make it there.

Of course, what sort of ship captain would be crazy enough to jump to an empty hex where he'd be out of fuel, no matter what the profit, and no matter how much of an iron clad guarantee he'd got from this isolated world/cluster's trade representitive? yep, PC's.

And after a few successful uses of the way station, it's bound to be attacked by pirates.. or have a captain looking to make some extra profit from extortionate fuel prices.. or of course just not be there.. :twisted:

 

[rust]

We used such way stations in an earlier campaign. When a regional war
broke out, the enemy started it by sending his commerce raiders to
destroy all such way stations, which resulted in a number of merchant
ships being stranded in nowhere, with no fuel and few supplies, and no
rescue mission in sight because of the ongoing war ... :twisted:

 

[EDG]

I think the official explanation in the GT:IW book is that nobody jumped into empty hexes during the Interstellar Wars era because nobody had figured out how to do it at the time - you needed a mass at both ends. At some point after that though (probably in the Rule of Man), the mathematics of it all were figured out and it became possible to jump into an empty hex safely without a mass at the destination point, which is why people can do it now.

(of course one can be hyper-anal about it and say that GT isn't "official", but I'll take any explanation that works and not care about its source)


IIRC SJG had to invoke a brown dwarf to get to Alpha Centauri from Sol in IW though - if you look, Prometheus (Alpha Centauri) is the nearest system to Sol... and it's two hexes away. And Terrans start with J1 drive. So if they couldn't jump into the empty hex, they had to have a mass to jump to that isn't shown on the map. I guess it's not shown on the maps now because it's not necessary anymore, but I think that's a daft explanation. Maybe proper motion over the millenia has caused the BD to drift into an already occupied hex so it's not useful anymore? (I think that'd have to be some really rapid proper motion though...)

I don't think anyone actually tried to see how the Vilani could spread out from Vland with J1 and no empty hex jump capability, but presumably the answer was "brown dwarfs" again.

But yes, it's a huge gaping hole in OTU canon. If the "link" BDs are really there they they darn well should be mapped, but they're not. Go figure.

(incidentally, I have two articles on JTAS Online about Brown Dwarfs and Interstellar Planets/Empty Hexes respectively if you want more info. And yes the "empty hexes" should in reality be chock-full of these things).

 

[Golan2072]

IIRC SJG had to invoke a brown dwarf to get to Alpha Centauri from Sol in IW though - if you look, Prometheus (Alpha Centauri) is the nearest system to Sol... and it's two hexes away. And Terrans start with J1 drive. So if they couldn't jump into the empty hex, they had to have a mass to jump to that isn't shown on the map. I guess it's not shown on the maps now because it's not necessary anymore, but I think that's a daft explanation. Maybe proper motion over the millenia has caused the BD to drift into an already occupied hex so it's not useful anymore? (I think that'd have to be some really rapid proper motion though...)

Hmmm... Is there such a brown dwarf in reality between Sol and Alpha Centauri?

Another solution would be to round down the distance down - after all, a Traveller starmap works in round parsec units (not fractions thereof) and Alpha Centauri is 1.3 parsecs away, so I guess that it could be abstracted.

Also, if I'd run a low-tech, near-earth campaign with J1, I'd simply allow calibration points and jumps through empty hexes; it would just make such trips a bit longer and most hips would carry large amounts of fuel (at least for two jumps). Space travel would be slow, and i might be tempted to make low-berths completely reliable and use Alien-style travel where you spend most of the interstellar transit in cryosleep while the computer does the navigation...

 

[EDG]

Hmmm... Is there such a brown dwarf in reality between Sol and Alpha Centauri?

Not that we know of. But they're really hard to detect if they're floating around on their own...

 

[captainjack23]

I don't think anyone actually tried to see how the Vilani could spread out from Vland with J1 and no empty hex jump capability, but presumably the answer was "brown dwarfs" again.

But yes, it's a huge gaping hole in OTU canon. If the "link" BDs are really there they they darn well should be mapped, but they're not. Go figure.

Ah grasshopper, your points are true, and correct, and yet you speak with haste....be patient, and all will make sense....consider it as a koan - that a hole may be plugged with another hole ...

 

[AKAramis]

IIRC SJG had to invoke a brown dwarf to get to Alpha Centauri from Sol in IW though - if you look, Prometheus (Alpha Centauri) is the nearest system to Sol... and it's two hexes away. And Terrans start with J1 drive. So if they couldn't jump into the empty hex, they had to have a mass to jump to that isn't shown on the map. I guess it's not shown on the maps now because it's not necessary anymore, but I think that's a daft explanation. Maybe proper motion over the millenia has caused the BD to drift into an already occupied hex so it's not useful anymore? (I think that'd have to be some really rapid proper motion though...)

Hmmm... Is there such a brown dwarf in reality between Sol and Alpha Centauri?

Another solution would be to round down the distance down - after all, a Traveller starmap works in round parsec units (not fractions thereof) and Alpha Centauri is 1.3 parsecs away, so I guess that it could be abstracted.

Also, if I'd run a low-tech, near-earth campaign with J1, I'd simply allow calibration points and jumps through empty hexes; it would just make such trips a bit longer and most hips would carry large amounts of fuel (at least for two jumps). Space travel would be slow, and i might be tempted to make low-berths completely reliable and use Alien-style travel where you spend most of the interstellar transit in cryosleep while the computer does the navigation...

Not that I've read about. 4.26LY to the Centauri system, which is still (last i checked, which admittedly was september 2007) the closest system. In CT it is canonically 2 hexes away from Earth.

The GTIW "fudge" was suggested YEARS ago (mid to late 1990's), and shouted at loudly on the TML, due in part to the lack of substellar masses being mentioned.

A much earlier fudge was a 1 parsec/week two parsec limit alternate drive (Can we say 2300 stutterwarp?).

Then again, the Vilani spreading out at J1 was established well before the maps were made... and apparently no one thought to check.

Or, the Vilani used CP's... but the loss of jump travel in the long night also cost the common knowledge of them.

 

[Golan2072]

Not that I've read about. 4.26LY to the Centauri system, which is still (last i checked, which admittedly was september 2007) the closest system. In CT it is canonically 2 hexes away from Earth.

So, in essence, if you "flatten" the real universe to a Traveller starmap, you should round the distances UP. I'll keep that in mind...

 

[EDG]

The GTIW "fudge" was suggested YEARS ago (mid to late 1990's), and shouted at loudly on the TML, due in part to the lack of substellar masses being mentioned.

Well, now those masses are known to exist generally, and given the projected density of brown dwarfs per unit volume of space, it's quite possible for each cubic parsec of volume to contain at least one BD. Add to that the possibility of interstellar planets (planetary objects tossed out of stellar systems by gravitational interactions), and it's quite feasible that a suitable mass exists to jump to in every empty hex.

Given that we also know that 100D limits for planetary bodies will precipitate a ship out of jump, we know that the mass of a brown dwarf (or even a rocky planet) will be more than enough to do that as well. So at the very least, if you can manage to plot your jump path to intersect an interstellar object's 100D limit you'll come out of jump there. Of course that may be easier said than done... (personally I have no idea how a ship can plot its course so accurately that it can arrive anywhere near a planet in another system given all the relative motions and the fact that your observational data from the departure point is several years out of date due to lightspeed lag, but that's another matter entirely ).

The trick would be trying to find said object in the first place, which would be difficult even with OTU tech. Brown dwarfs may just about be detectable from a parsec away, but interstellar planets would be nigh impossible to find unless someone somehow managed to intersect their 100D limits by accident en route to somewhere else.

 

[captainjack23]

Interlude: on the application of Holmesian Canon studies to the Traveller Corpora

Perhaps the best entertainment value ever obtained from canonical study is to be found in the Holmesian society's studies of the works of the master, as recorded by A. Conan Doyle.

One view of the Holmes corpus of literature suggests that it is hasty, inconsistent and often ill considered; thrown together in a hurry by an author who initially wrote for a lark and later simply for money, but who at no time had much respect for the genre or the characters; and certainly had little interest in more than a cursory continuity across his stories....but where's the fun in that , asked the Holmesian society members -a loose UR-fan group formed (I think) before WWII.

Fact is, the Sherlock Holmes stories are REALLY cool, and entertaining, and far more fun when read as if "true", (a conceit of detective and crime fiction, I may add). So, the Holmsian society, in order to maximise the entertainment value of their studies decreed that all their study should derive from the following foundational facts:
1. That Holmes and Watson were real, and ACDoyle was merely a transcriber, or convenient stand in for the real author, Dr. Watson.
2. That The cannon reflects real events, and thus is in fact perfect, and entirely true.
3. Where errors are found, or inconsistencies, these are entirely due to either transcriptional error, or the readers flawed understanding the actual events; contradictions are especially understood to be due to flawed analysis by the readers, who, one must admit, are intellectual dwarfs next to the master himself.
4. Retroactive rationalization is to be preferred to simple transcriptional errors when resolving issues; they must however be internally and cononically consistent, insofar as they must not contradict explicit canon - taking full advantage of omissions in canon, however is much encouraged.


One may argue against an explanitory attempt with appeals to consistency (internal), explicit contradiction with canon or degrees of implication; appeals to common sense are considered the lowest form of rebuttal - unless it is common sense that is illustrated in the canon, or stated as such.

For instance: Watson gives two dissimilar names for his wife, at two different times (in several stories); is this an error by an unconcerned author, blissfully free from internet fandom? Of course it is not; canon is correct. What then, a transcription error or misspelling? Quite unlikely - the names are most dissimilar; the conclusion then (in short -it really is a wonderful argument) is that he has been married twice , which is supported by internal details of the canon, and the fact that nowhere does it specify that he was only married once....(in fact, the final conclusion was that he had three wives, at least, for reasons of internal continuity, and the opportunity to resolve yet another issue by use of this fact and some singularly brilliant rationalization).


Yeah, okay, its an intellectual parlor game, and a big poke at literary criticism and histriography, but hey....it's really really fun, and about the best way I've seen to dissect fictional but real sounding stories.....

So what the deal with all this blather here ? Its a guide to how I try and interpret or solve Traveller canon problems: canon is correct; where it seems otherwise, it is only due to our being flawed poorly informed mortals from a low tech, backwards isolated world. If it doesn't make sense, it is because we did not try hard enough to make it make sense ! So thus, my drive to resolve the whole "empty hex issue" with something other than "They didn't think it through as far as a bunch of bored fans would".

So, then, with the sword of Holmesian Literary Analysis firmly in hand, I shall strike at the tangled knot of jump physics ! Do stay tuned for part 2, "shades of grey".....

 

[AKAramis]

EDG:

For Terra, then, it's really not so bad. Jump out to an oort body, do the scans from there, jump back. Repeat, going further out to another detected body. Repeat until about 1 LY out. Might take a couple years.

IIRC, the oort is a several light-weeks out to about a light year out. Get out a light year in the right direction, and the jump to AC is made.

But, keep in mind also: Terrans had no way of getting out-system without "empty hex" jumps... so progressively farther and farther jumps would likely have been made


Cap'n Jack:
With all due respect...
That kind of mental masturbation is perfectly suited to the Holmesian Societies. I'd rather see a restart. I guess, i'd better start writing, eh?

 

[captainjack23]

EDG:

For Terra, then, it's really not so bad. Jump out to an oort body, do the scans from there, jump back. Repeat, going further out to another detected body. Repeat until about 1 LY out. Might take a couple years.

IIRC, the oort is a several light-weeks out to about a light year out. Get out a light year in the right direction, and the jump to AC is made.

But, keep in mind also: Terrans had no way of getting out-system without "empty hex" jumps... so progressively farther and farther jumps would likely have been made


Cap'n Jack:
With all due respect...
That kind of mental masturbation is perfectly suited to the Holmesian Societies. I'd rather see a restart. I guess, i'd better start writing, eh?

EX-Actly. And until then, I reserve the right to......indulge in....ummmm. Neurobehavioral Onanism.

(ewwwww)


EDIT: I would also note that while a reboot of the whole fershluggin mess would be my real first choice, getting it from the source is about as likely as ACD changing stuff in his stories -even when he was alive. So, yeah, sharpen your revisionist quill-pen, or your heterorthodox Holmesian sword, your choice...

 

[captainjack23]

If one assumes J-space is a construct, then perhaps J-space is only a parsec or two thick... in which case, it is a plane cutting through the galaxy. It might not even be a plane, but a warped "sheet" that functions as a skin across which one travels.

Systems too far off the "skin" don't get picked up.

Speaking of Neurobehavioral Onanism.....

In fact, the empty hexes are still an issue. A 2-d slice, even a wavy one, will still grab a representative sample of actual stars ; so one still needs to account for the number of stars, even though the above allows finessing the actual directions of the stars. And if one postulates that something about some stars causes the sheet to miss them, well, okay. We're back on the same page. Neurobehaviorally speaking, that is

 

[rust]

Forgive me, but I still do not see the problem with those empty hexes ...

For me, the Traveller sector maps are just like typical schematic Auto-
bahn maps, which show only the important places (cities / stars with pla-
netary systems) and the highways / jump routes connecting them - as
far as such highways exist. They show neither the landscape nor the un-
important places off the routes.

 

[zozotroll]

A couple of points in no particular order.

Oort clouds may not exist. Right now they are a theory to account for comets. Of course they may exist after all, but we just donmt know yet. I took a real beating over that a couple years ago so I remeber that well. Unless something has come up recently.....

Jumpable empty hexes make pirates a lot more likely. That is a lot more places to hide, and a lot more for tha navy to patrol.

They can cause PCs to go to them in thier J1 boats, which allows a lot more in the wilds sort of thing to come up. Hard to explain that drifting 60K cruiser in a well traveled system.

Given grav manipulation, it is reasonable (or at least waveable with minimal disbelief) that there will be some sort of long range grav detector to pick them up with.

So IMTU I let it happen. More reasons to than not.

 

[captainjack23]

well, okay. That was a digression -on my part.....

Shades of grey

In which a Traveller Canonographer cannot remember why he chose the title he did for this section.....

Very well, here's the summary:

we have empty hexes, which nonetheless must contain stars and assorted lesser but still large bodies, implying some differentiation in jumpability due to (perhaps) stellar characteristics.

We have one civilization making a double jump with J1 drives, and who may or may not have used some kind of waypoint, which is kind of a kludge , and somehow still unmapped.

We have another civilization which must have had some capacity to expand off of J1 mains with only J1 drives.

BUT, we have both civilizations not using empty space jumps strategically in a fight for survival.

A drive is a drive, and one can get anywhere from anywhere within its range, excepting the 100d limit. Interestingly one can jump from within any distance of a world...it just Isn't Survivable). Computing power is atech limit that outpaces jump drive engines in the LBB version of the OTU, BUT, as this is late in the civilization's development, it may simply indicate that it is easier to retro design jump engines than it is to make the necessary calculations......

It seems to be accepted then, that jump into an empty hex is somehow harder, and possibly more difficult...but howso ? As was pointed out, GT:IW posits that original Jumpdrive had to be star to star - later math made it possible to do otherwise.

Perhaps jumping into an empty hex is both qualitatively and quantitatively different....enough that one needs the next higher tech to begin to be able to do it at all. In other words, there are elements that make it impossible at first, but then difficult thereafter.

So, how bout this. There's that odd burp in the TL/JD progression - J1 is available at TL9 and 10 - thereafter, one gains a JD number each tech.

If one requires that a jump into an empty hex requires jump calculations orders of magnitude more complex than star to star - essentially making star to star the crib version - one can require that empty hex jumps require jump theory one TL higher than the basic star to star. Note that thats not simply saying the next jump number -there is alot of data suggesting that a J2 is entirely different from a J1 device.

This little fiddle allows a few nice solutions:

AT TL9, only star to star jump 1 is possible; at tech 10, J1 is still all that is available, except that now its fully realized - and empty hex jumping is now possible. This allows the Vilani to spread along the mainsin the first phase of expansion with J1, and then spread beyond it at the next tech level while still having J1 drives. It is more hazardous, yes, but back then Vilani society hadn't ossified, and the prize was worth the risk. In fact, once having expanded beyond the J1 mains, and linked new mains with hazardous empty hex jumps, one can see a real incentive for developing J2.

For Terrans, they had J1 at 9 and used it extensively within the solar system - with J1 at TL 10, they would be able to make it out of sytem. So why the waypoint ? Possibly simply for logistical reasons, especially as IIRC the original terran J drive was way less efficient in terms of required fuel.

The IW chokepoints now exist because the two empires were at TL 11 - sufficient for J1 to any hex, but only J2 star to star. For a three jump gap, requiring at least two empty hex jumps, the risks become unacceptable ; particularly if one extends the difficulty in jump calculation to jumping out of an empty hex; either by increasing the magnitude of risk for a misjump, and adding yet another TL requirement. This creates an absolute wall that one cannot pass no matter how much risk one is willing to take.

So, here's the above gibberish in rules terms (for MGT):

Minimum TL required to compute a jump to an empty hex +1 TL of introduction

Minimum TL required to compute a jump from an empty hex +1 TL of introduction

If the above are met, add the following modifiers to the jump roll:

For jumping into an empty hex -2

For jumping out of an empty hex -2

Now. Why empty hexes ?

Okay, that ties into my pseudoscience explanation of how jumpspace and jumpdrive works, and why the above makes sense in terms of complexity and canon......but thats for a bit later. I have a sunny day, a hammock and an ice cold beer awaiting me....

and two kids to jump on me by surprise...