Jumping into empty hexes: some thoughts.

[captainjack23]

Fundamentally, the need for deep space jumps doesn't occur to the J1 Vilani, and even when they get J2, they still have a huge range.

Terrans, however, just to get out system, needed deep space jumps. Therefore, since the contact was outsystem, the simplest is that Terrans could and did use them. Or, the Terrans simply used J1 as an in-system drive.

And the fact that the maps in Supp 10 support this...

And EDG's map work shows the vilani had no need for CP's at J1, so until they actually NEEDED them, given that probably 300 of them were readily colonizable, that's a long time.

Okay, they had lots to be busy with without empty jumps, and got everywhere else with jump 2 from there. Does the mapping cover the (eventual) subject worlds we know they visited with jump 1 ? Genoee and etc. ?

Part of the issue is that the expansion into other areas doesn't jive with jump 2 technology -which was the new in the unification wars.

Also, That isn't the actual canonical distribution of the vilani, is it ? In any case, removing the need for vilani waypoints is fine.

So, then, sure, I can live with the vilani not knowing it was possible....but why would the Terrans ? Why in a war to the death, why didn't empty jumping EVER show up. It is possible, and according to the game, no harder than any other kind ? Okay, back then, it was the math. Which, really is my point. It need to be at a more advanced level to solve empty jumps. TL increases allow a way to deal with it.



A solution which just adds in substellar bodies when convenient, and disallows them when not, is rather inelegant, and somewhat magical. Either they are there, and pretty much anyone can jump anywhere, or they aren't (or are impossible to find at TL 15) and they cant be used to explain empty jumps. Which is fine, and surely has much to offer. One magic waypoint, fine. I'm just trying to suggest that it need not be the only solution to empty jumping, jump gaps, and various canon issues about early travel.

But the other issue still is, why are there empty hexes, and thus gaps, at all ? Okay, traveller is broken and/or non realistic. Not a good solution as (so far) all seem to agree.

 

[EDG]

A solution which just adds in substellar bodies when convenient, and disallows them when not, is rather inelegant, and somewhat magical. Either they are there, and pretty much anyone can jump anywhere, or they aren't (or are impossible to find at TL 15) and they cant be used to explain empty jumps.

I'm not entirely sure how many times I need to repeat "substellar bodies are really difficult to detect" here...

There's no "magic" or "inelegance" here. If people need to find a substellar body to cross a gap (which they'd only need to do in the IW era anyway, which is TL 9-12) then they have to make a concerted effort to find it and even then probably would miss most of them. If they look hard enough and get lucky, they may find one and then they have a link to use. If they don't look, they won't know its there and so it's not available. There's nothing magical about that.

The ones they do find would undoubtedly get used for military purposes obviously (given that it's during a major war with a hostile alien power) and thus would not be revealed to any civilians for fear of the data falling into enemy hands and giving THEM a shortcut to the other side's space.

When J2 is discovered, the J1 substellar bodies suddenly aren't so essential anymore (because it can now take one week to get from A to C without the intervening B, instead of the two weeks it took to do two jumps before). So those can remain as secret bases that nobody but the military knows about though.

And after empty hex jumps are found to be possible, the whole issue becomes moot anyway. Ships can now jump to wherever they want (perhaps with a slight increase in risk of misjump) if they have the fuel to do it. Astrographic chokepoints would become a non-issue, and borders basically get reduced to "the space around the planets in each system" because ships can now jump in from anywhere.

 

[captainjack23]

I'll skip the technobabble because to be honest I didn't understand a word of it...! :shock:

yee ha, I win !......well I barely did, either, so you're forgiven.:wink:

Since at least 50% of all stars are missing from the map, we can set the limit there -bodies smaller than a particular size of M type stars (which are about 50% of the stellar population) are too small to be useful (and luckily, are also some of the least likely to be useful for anything).

Small problem with that idea - the mapped systems can have M8-M9 V stars. In terms of mass, they're around 0.1 solar mass, and in terms of actual size, they're a couple of hundred thousand km in diameter. And obviously they have 100D limits at they're at the bottom end of the mass and size scale for stars.

Well, crap. That pretty much shorts it out on that level. Now I have no idea at all where all the stars went. Good spot, really. And an argument entirely consistent with canonical analysis...... :twisted:

Brown Dwarfs and Gas Giants are smaller and less massive than that, and we know they have 100D limits that can act as your "beacons". Heck, even rocky planets like Earth have 100D limits too. So the problem would more likely be that these smaller "beacons" are too small to be detectable at lower Tech Levels.

yeah, that can work. It was just a more parsimonious explanation if it also accounted for the missing stars.

I guess at the end of the day I'm not convinced that your explanation is any better than the ones we have already. It just seems like a much more complicated way to explain what we already know and I'm not sure it really adds anything to it.

Me, I liked the bit about explaining where the stars went - and with that knocked out, it isn't much of an improvement.

I'm still not convinced that the Vilani never had to do jump 1 into empty hexes; but I can't top the work you pt into the mapping - although I do note that where they could have gone, is not the same as where they did go....and I'm pretty sure, but currently unable to verify that they went other places outside of that before they had jump 2. The actual early map of the vilani empire does need some empty jumps to take the shape that it had.
But as I'm unwilling and/or unable to put the work into verifying that, I shall withdraw gracefully for now, and point out that your evidence may well help eliminate an assumed error in canon. Ta !



At the end of the day, you can always take home the rules I posted to model the GT:IW math argument.

Empty jumping takes a higher TL than star to star, and that it should be more difficult, even when it is possible.

However, I do have to say that if this discussion kills the need for ever having more than one substellar waypoint, I can live with that, just fine and dandy. Easy and common waypoints really do screw things up. And I remain unconvinced that they wont be found, or if found, completely forgotten. Better they should just remain as junk -possibly useful for positional calculations, and supply caching, but not t enable jumping.

Perhaps the terran target was both somthing rare, and made a good beacon for other reasons....didn't Niven postulate the possibility of an OLD neutron star that had shed its rotation near earth ?

And perhaps they had the empty jump stuff down or even jump 2 before they made it out -the planet was logistical only. That was actually what I assumed before GTIW, anyway. Shows what I know......

And in any case, thanks for a mainly pleasant discussion !

 

[EDG]

Okay, they had lots to be busy with without empty jumps, and got everywhere else with jump 2 from there. Does the mapping cover the (eventual) subject worlds we know they visited with jump 1 ? Genoee and etc. ?

The Geonee homeworld is apparently in the Massilia sector, which is the one coreward of the Core sector. The Vilani definitely can't get there with J1 alone, but they can get there with J2 (or with J1 and some empty hex jumps).

 

[captainjack23]

As we are both onine, our posts are out of sequence....

I'm not entirely sure how many times I need to repeat "substellar bodies are really difficult to detect" here...

well, as many times as you want. problem is, I'm not accepting that they wil always be difficult to detect. we cant know who is wrong for another few tech levels, so perhaps we should just leave it there ? We are not going to agree. Tis the root of my post about "unverifiable opinion argued as fact"(UOAF). Its abad idea, and leads to shouting.

There's no "magic" or "inelegance" here. If people need to find a substellar body to cross a gap (which they'd only need to do in the IW era anyway, which is TL 9-12) then they have to make a concerted effort to find it and even then probably would miss most of them. If they look hard enough and get lucky, they may find one and then they have a link to use. If they don't look, they won't know its there and so it's not available. There's nothing magical about that.

My point is at that time, there was a vast body of jump 1 mainers that could slip over and compete quite effectively if such points were found - at the very least, mains would be MUCH longer, and jump 2 much less profitable. Monetary need, + 1000 + years will find them, as I see it. So, again, we are arguing UOAF.

The ones they do find would undoubtedly get used for military purposes obviously (given that it's during a major war with a hostile alien power) and thus would not be revealed to any civilians for fear of the data falling into enemy hands and giving THEM a shortcut to the other side's space.

When J2 is discovered, the J1 substellar bodies suddenly aren't so essential anymore (because it can now take one week to get from A to C without the intervening B, instead of the two weeks it took to do two jumps before). So those can remain as secret bases that nobody but the military knows about though.

And after empty hex jumps are found to be possible, the whole issue becomes moot anyway. Ships can now jump to wherever they want (perhaps with a slight increase in risk of misjump) if they have the fuel to do it. Astrographic chokepoints would become a non-issue, and borders basically get reduced to "the space around the planets in each system" because ships can now jump in from anywhere.

Which is exactly what the IW wasn't. The problem really isn't with J1 jumps into empty hexes, but rather J2 jumps made sucessively to cross J3 & greater gaps. Okay, I'll buy that the vilani didn know about empty jumps, perhaps even substelar waypoints. BUT, If all the terrans need is waypoints to get around the vilanii or their fleets, and they've already found one, why wouldn't they be able to do it again ? They have lots of time AND the motivation of racial destruction after the third war. Even ONE would have made a vast difference. And it didnt ever happen.

Thats the magical part I dislike . That we found one when we needed it by accident , and can't find another literally to save our lives. And the vilani can't be bothered ....well, maybe. They are smug gits.
And then, the one we found is gone.
Later (and earlier) there are numerous places where a single such waypoint could vastly extend mains. But they aren't there, and cant be found, not for (literally) a million MCr.

And if any such waypoints are ever found, they are gone. Never to be seen again. Forgotten, supressed, unlooked for.

No, that don't work for me. But, UOAF, and if it works for you, fine...I actually do appreciate your trying to clear me up on this, but, and no reflection on you, I remain unconvinced, and, to answer your initial question repetition won't help....my two children have innoculated me against that. :wink:

 

[captainjack23]

Okay, they had lots to be busy with without empty jumps, and got everywhere else with jump 2 from there. Does the mapping cover the (eventual) subject worlds we know they visited with jump 1 ? Genoee and etc. ?

The Geonee homeworld is apparently in the Massilia sector, which is the one coreward of the Core sector. The Vilani definitely can't get there with J1 alone, but they can get there with J2 (or with J1 and some empty hex jumps).

I'd love to point and yell "AHA ! I WAS RIGHT ! " but since I have no idea how to find out if they had J1 or J2 when they contacted the Genoee, I can't, dammit.
How 'bout the Suerrat or the Newts. Or those guys who don't sleep and wear bad eyeliner they turned into sepoys......or the psycho crazy thingies that they keep drugged all the time...

Hmmm. Did I can the vilanii Gits ? Allow me to upgrade that to bastards.

Still, empty hex jumps are the issue. Did they or didn't they ? Anyone ? Canonistas ? Bueler ?

 

[rust]

Ah, there was quite some traffic on this thread while I slept ... :shock:

According to GURPS Humaniti (page 69) the Vilani scouts contacted the
Geonee around - 9,000, and the Vilani developed the Jump 2-drive
around - 7,100, while the Geonee did not - which enabled the Vilani to
use this advantage to demolish the Geonee Confederation after - 5,100.

So, the Vilani scouts obviously contacted the Geonee with Jump 1-drives.

Hope that helps ...

 

[Supergamera]

A possible handwave - deep space Jumps are possible somewhere between developing J1 and J2, as sensors and computers improve and the understanding of Jump navigation grows. However, there are two major limitations:

1) at least one end of the jump must be anchored to a sufficiently sized stellar body
2) a maximum of J1 is possible, even after J2 is developed

This allows:
1) Vilani expansion prior to J2, including meeting the Geonee and Vegans
2) Terran deep space jumping to Barnard
3) J3 gaps stay as barriers

 

[EDG]

well, as many times as you want. problem is, I'm not accepting that they wil always be difficult to detect. we cant know who is wrong for another few tech levels, so perhaps we should just leave it there ? We are not going to agree. Tis the root of my post about "unverifiable opinion argued as fact"(UOAF). Its abad idea, and leads to shouting.

Yes, but my opinion on the manner is at least based on fact, which puts me on more solid ground than you here. Yours isn't - you have no basis for assuming that as TL goes up we should be able to detect every body that could be jumped to in what is otherwise an "empty hex". I'm saying - based on general physics - that this can't be the case. You'd need equipment that magically detects things that aren't reflecting another body's light and are emitting a truly feeble amount of heat from several lightyears away, and that is damned near impossible.

Some substellar bodies can be detected, sure. More can be picked up at higher TLs, sure. But there's no way you'd be able to detect all of them in every empty hex.

 

[simonh]

Firstly I don't see why empty hex jumps shouldn't be possible from the get-go with jump technology. The justifications I've seen so far for disallowing or limiting it seem to me to be highly implausible.

Simon Hibbs

 

[EDG]

Firstly I don't see why empty hex jumps shouldn't be possible from the get-go with jump technology. The justifications I've seen so far for disallowing or limiting it seem to me to be highly implausible.

AFAIK it's largely because they were never explicitly possible at the start. The Imperium board game (that GT:IW is based on) assumes that you can't jump into an empty hex I think, because that'd really screw up the passage of the wars. So publishers had to think of a reason why that couldn't be possible.

 

[rust]

The higher the resolution of a sensor, the smaller its field of view - you
only have to look through a normal scope to see what I mean.

In order to find a dim, small object with a high-resolution sensor over a
significant distance, you almost have to know in advance where to search
for it, because otherwise you will spend a lot of time staring at nothing at
all, unless you have incredible luck.

So, even with sensors theoretically able to discover such objects, it would
not be a trivial task to really find them.

And once you have found such an object several light years away, you on-
ly know where it has been several years ago. In order to determine its
movement and become able to calculate its current position, you have to
observe it for quite a while.

In the end we are writing about a long-term project with high-end techno-
logy, not about something done quickly and easily.

I very much doubt that any government would be willing to fund more
than one such project without a serious national interest in it, and I am
convinced that every other possible approach would be preferred.

 

[AKAramis]

I think we are all looking at it the wrong way

Jumping to empty space shuld be no harder.

Jumping FROM empty space, now that's harder.

Remember, it's complex calculations of where you are and where you want to be. And you can put your "where you want to be" in places you can't reach, and you pop out (possibly violently) as close to where you wanted to be as the gravity wells permit.

The problem with "empty hexes" is knowing where you ARE, while we've been focusing on where you want to be.

Where you are in a space environment is all about accuracy of observation. the further you are from your references the less accurate your positional fix.

 

[rust]

The problem with "empty hexes" is knowing where you ARE, while we've been focusing on where you want to be.

Yes, this could very well be the core of the problem.

Edit.:
On second thoughts: Or not, because the situation would not be much
different (if at all) from the situation after a normal misjump. If you
can find "your way home" after a misjump, you should also be able
to calculate a route from an empty hex, I think ?

 

[captainjack23]

well, as many times as you want. problem is, I'm not accepting that they wil always be difficult to detect. we cant know who is wrong for another few tech levels, so perhaps we should just leave it there ? We are not going to agree. Tis the root of my post about "unverifiable opinion argued as fact"(UOAF). Its abad idea, and leads to shouting.

Yes, but my opinion on the manner is at least based on fact, which puts me on more solid ground than you here. Yours isn't - you have no basis for assuming that as TL goes up we should be able to detect every body that could be jumped to in what is otherwise an "empty hex". I'm saying - based on general physics - that this can't be the case. You'd need equipment that magically detects things that aren't reflecting another body's light and are emitting a truly feeble amount of heat from several lightyears away, and that is damned near impossible.

Some substellar bodies can be detected, sure. More can be picked up at higher TLs, sure. But there's no way you'd be able to detect all of them in every empty hex.

Fine. All it needs is one somwhere in the hex. May I pull back and suggest that my intent wasn't (and isn't)to argue that evey single one will be found in every hex -but rather at least one will be found in a hex that needs one. If I was unclear about that, apologies, although it seems a tangent.....

As to general physics forever limiting it, well, Well, okay. You have FTL and Gravitics* as okay, but not sufficient improvements in EMS detectors. Fine. We've hit your physics comfort level. I get your point -it's even IRL correct, I'm sure. But not neccesarily for Traveller. okay. Can we leave that part of our disagreement there while allowing the liklihood of often finding one body and move on?

Or, I suppose we could do another thread on either EMS Detectors in specific or at what level what things in traveller become magic for each person -(no dig intended - it's a valid Traveller issue). But not here, as it is otherwise staying pretty much on track....and now we have the Genoee discovery documented at Jump -1, again.

*Hey there's the answer - gravitic scanners. Long range, high sensitivity. Sure. Why not......

 

[captainjack23]

Ah, there was quite some traffic on this thread while I slept ... :shock:

According to GURPS Humaniti (page 69) the Vilani scouts contacted the
Geonee around - 9,000, and the Vilani developed the Jump 2-drive
around - 7,100, while the Geonee did not - which enabled the Vilani to
use this advantage to demolish the Geonee Confederation after - 5,100.

So, the Vilani scouts obviously contacted the Geonee with Jump 1-drives.

Hope that helps ...

Yes. yes it does.


Okay, problem unsolved....how'd they do that ?

 

[rust]

Okay, problem unsolved....how'd they do that ?

No problem at all. They damaged their jump drive and kept jumping
around until they finally misjumped one parsec in the right direction,
and from there they calculated a jump to the nearest system ... :shock:

 

[captainjack23]

The problem with "empty hexes" is knowing where you ARE, while we've been focusing on where you want to be.

Yes, this could very well be the core of the problem.

Edit.:
On second thoughts: Or not, because the situation would not be much
different (if at all) from the situation after a normal misjump. If you
can find "your way home" after a misjump, you should also be able
to calculate a route from an empty hex, I think ?

My first thinking on this was similar, too. That jumping required a high precision of knowing where you were relative to something - and normal locational fixes in deep space were not good enough. As your tech and calculation and theory improve, it becomes possible. Unfortunately, The idea of having a quantitative difference between jumps, that would allow empty jumps at one number, but not at the next (which the IW period seems to need, ) didn't really work, but it is still a possibility.

I think a solution that simply limits jumps out of an empty hex could work - As to misjumps, before he required accuracy of calculation (or whatever) is developed, its just the equivilent of rolling "destroyed". It just doesn't come up very often (only with J6 voids)anymore.

 

[captainjack23]

Okay, problem unsolved....how'd they do that ?

No problem at all. They damaged their jump drive and kept jumping
around until they finally misjumped one parsec in the right direction,
and from there they calculated a jump to the nearest system ... :shock:

Ouch ! No wonder they gave up on exploration........

 

[captainjack23]

Firstly I don't see why empty hex jumps shouldn't be possible from the get-go with jump technology. The justifications I've seen so far for disallowing or limiting it seem to me to be highly implausible.

AFAIK it's largely because they were never explicitly possible at the start. The Imperium board game (that GT:IW is based on) assumes that you can't jump into an empty hex I think, because that'd really screw up the passage of the wars. So publishers had to think of a reason why that couldn't be possible.

Yes.....pretty much on the money. And a grim reminder of the dangers of Retconning or genre mixing (in this case a boardgame and a mostly generic RPG)....and now, we are stuck with it. DAMN you GDW !

(the denouncement of GDW above is firmly tongue in cheek; of Retcon ? Well, less so. )