Precipitating Out of Jump - Damage?

[tdsharkey]

So looking at the Traveller Companion it is referenced that being precipitated out of a jump by a gravitational field causes "bad things" in some fashion. At one point stating "It is not possible to hit a precise emergence point within
the 100-diamter limit. Most commonly, attempting to do so will cause the ship to precipitate out of jump (with damage to the drive) at the 100 diameter limit." Within the same material it also reads "If the variance indicates the emergence point is closer to the target than the 100 diameter limit, the vessel is precipitated out of jumpspace at the 100 diameter limit, suffering the effects of jump precipitation on page 141."

Okay...so clearly the effects of jump precipitation are something to be dreaded, hence the word suffering, so let's look at page 141 for what horrible things that can happen to a ship pulled out of Jumpspace by getting to close to a gravity well: "JUMP PRECIPITATION Jump precipitation can occur if a plot is too tight and the ship hits the 100-diamter limit before emergence, or if the jump shadow of an unpredicted object lies across the vessel’s path. This usually happens due to very poor astrogation, creating a path which takes the ship through the 100-diameter shadow of a star or planet. It can also occur if there is an uncharted object such as a rogue planet on the ship’s course. A vessel would have to be very unlucky to be precipitated out of jump by a comet or other relatively small object, but it does happen from time to time.

A ship that is precipitated out of jump in this manner still takes the normal time for a jump; it just does not go as far. Thus a vessel attempting a 6-parsec jump but is precipitated out of jumpspace by an object encountered 1.5 parsecs from the starting point still takes the normal time for the jump. The crew may have no warning that this has occurred until they re-enter normal space."

So per page 141 the effect of jump precipitation is that they are precipitated out of jumpspace....

I feel like there is a table or something missing giving some sort of 100 diameter gravity well precipitation damage? Bad Jumps and Misjumps can result in drive damage - but those results don't always mean jumping to the edge of a gravity well.

Am I missing something, or is indeed something missing?

 

[NOLATrav]

Interesting.

Perhaps use the Critical Hits table from Core, Space Combat? Maybe every 2 pips the jump roll failed by is a +1 crit. So missing the roll by 2 or 3 is a Severity 1 crit on the J-Drive, miss by 4 or 5 it’s Severity 2, etc.

IMTU I have a table for misjumps, basically the more you fail by the farther away you precipitate from your destination. Usually it’s just a day or two of N-space travel but a bad roll could land you in the outer system and you could be weeks away from fuel or aid. Adding jump drive damage to that could be deliciously evil

 

[Reynard]

Notice physical ship damage is pretty much all or nothing. Either just the drive that does the actual interaction with jump space is affected or the ship is rendered into subatomic particle by the total devastation of the jump drive. A bad jump event doesn't actually affect the ship directly.

 

[Condottiere]

1. It's not a hard and fast law of physics, since you can tweak your jump drive to shrink the diameter it can operate within.

2. I've always wondered if you can curve your flight path, but essentially it is as the crow flies.

3. So aim high, or low.

4. Sudden stop; good thing in Mongoose the jump drives are turned off.

 

[tdsharkey]

It just seems like something was missing in the final edit. It happens.

 

[Condottiere]

1. You're basically hitting a wall, considering that you could initiate a jump after ten diameters and reasonably expect to come out in tact at the other end.

2. Also, consider how you would calculate the gravitational influence of a black hole.

3. Let's call it astrography, the study and measurement of space objects, which would be rather useful for the calculation of interstellar jumps.

 

[bklokis]

Full disclosure, as a referee I have not dove very deep into jump physics, but doesn't the idea of precipitating out of jump-space due to objects in the regular universe seem antithetical to the point of jump-space physics?

This may be where my complete lack of physics knowledge collides with the necessarily Swiss cheese logic of fictional far future technology, but isn't the whole idea that you're in an isolated pocket universe? How is it that a pocket universe is impacted by the regular universe in a way that is basically the same as just driving your ship really fast toward your destination and hoping you don't run into a tree on the way?

It seems to me the only way to precipitate out of a pocket universe that makes any sense is from failures internal to that pocket universe (ie. J-drive or power failure). Otherwise how is this any different than warp speed without star streaks?

 

[Reynard]

Never put it in absolutes. Whoever first said "The ship is completely cut off from the outside universe whilst in jumpspace." was being a bit too focused. That fact that real world physics allows entry into a separate set of dimensions means there is a natural interaction and I suspect it's tied in with gravitics. The 'force' of gravity follows rules unlike the other forces we use to interact with out universe. Gravity may be the thread between universes.

 

[Condottiere]

Might be a reflection.