Yeah, I think we're all fairly certain it crept in after CT, and given vampire ships, after TNE almost for sure (unless 'fully sentient, aka conscious intelligence negates the restriction). It could be an obscure reference in some odd adventure. Given the lack of m-drive, 'pilot' seems like an essentially unnecessary skill or position.CT S7, p9 (Look under crew):
View attachment 1506
That absolutely NEVER made any sense to me. A gravity well that can keep planetoids and planetesimals in orbit more than a light year out, but you can't use your M-Drive on a jaunt to Pluto. No. Just. No.Put it in the category where we recently put the 1000D M-Drive limit.
It already made it to the file...Put it in the category where we recently put the 1000D M-Drive limit.
I saw the rule in a Challenge magazine a couple days ago (I bought the pdfs). It states that the issue is solved by TL 11.That absolutely NEVER made any sense to me. A gravity well that can keep planetoids and planetesimals in orbit more than a light year out, but you can't use your M-Drive on a jaunt to Pluto. No. Just. No.
That's the difference between agrav and "thruster plates" ≈ M-drive in MT; agrav is limited, thruster plates available at TL-11 are not.I saw the rule in a Challenge magazine a couple days ago (I bought the pdfs). It states that the issue is solved by TL 11.
MR RM, p56:
The second major breakthrough is artificial gravlty. Created by manipulating subatomic forces, artificial gravity is not anti- gravity but is instead a unique force that acts upon the natural gravity field created by all matter. Artificial gravity can be made to either push or pull. Because of its nature, artificial gravity is not a very efficient means of locomotion in deep space where there are no strong gravity wells to push against
...
The fourth significant development came from the search for a starship maneuver drive that did not lose efficiency when away from a strong gravity well. Artificial gravity and damper technology led to yet another sub-atomic force-based technology. This new, artificially generated force pushes against a vessel's "thrust plates" themselves, which make true reactionless thrusters a reality for starship-sized vessels.
This is the quote from T5:Yeah, I think we're all fairly certain it crept in after CT, and given vampire ships, after TNE almost for sure (unless 'fully sentient, aka conscious intelligence negates the restriction). It could be an obscure reference in some odd adventure. Given the lack of m-drive, 'pilot' seems like an essentially unnecessary skill or position.
Huh - guess I need to relearn how to parse XML and find those 5 hex links.occasionally 5-parsecs.
I wouldn't be shocked, because the published Xboat routes in general don't make a lot of sense. There are worlds in sensitive locations, both on the Xboat network and within four parsecs of each other, that are ten vertices away from each other. Worse, the network itself is not connected - there are at least two sections that do not join with the main grid.I don't know that those actually exist because the publicly known X-boats are all Jump 4. I think any Jump 5 links are sekret imperial squirrel boats.