Question about gas giant piracy, escape windows, and playable intercept rules

[Condottiere]

It's a little too volatile to make an encounter abstract.

If you're going to do wilderness refuelling, it's usually because you don't have a choice, so if you try and make a run for it once spotting the Jolly Roger, odds are you'll be overtaken, and you don't have enough gas in the tank in the first place, to make a jump.

Which leaves us with fight.

If legally, you aren't allowed to have barbettes, nor anything other than sand, missiles, and lasers, have a triple turret with three pulse lasers, customized to long range.

If you have a second turret, beam laser, caster, and missile launcher, that can switch between offence and defence.

There really is no one size fits all solution to this.

Piracy tends to work by surprise, in that the intended target gets too close to be able to escape, and doesn't have adequate armament to deter pirates.

 

[MonsterX]

I disagree with this statement. To minimize encounter length, here is the table: roll 1-3 robbery succeeds 4-6 robbery fails.

Your system has more dice rolls than this, but not much different otherwise.

You've designed an abstracted rule system which, as others have pointed out, doesn't really cover all the contingencies, or give the options the players might have. It won't I think produce the feel of really being a ship crew operating in this environment. Maybe you don't care about that. No reason why you should. Perhaps the real action is elsewhere for your group, and this is just an annoying roadblock on the way to the adventure.
I think most of the advice in this thread is about ways to try and square the circle of diving into the environment, while making it playable but still staying true to the interesting dynamics of a gas giant's orbital space. This is because it is really interesting being one of the few places where there is "terrain" for space combat: atmospheres to fly through, things to hide behind, "weather" to deal with compared to fight in open space, which has none of that: but if you really just think all this stuff is annoying complications, then why even do it? Instead, just don't have these kind of encounters. Maybe the players are in settled spaces, there are SDBs everywhere, or the systems where they roam don't have good GG refueling options anyways, and they are better off refueling elsewhere - it is the case in most places that either there's no good reason to refuel at GGs, or it is safe to do so anyways.

As a referee, focus on the aspects that you and your players enjoy, and if ship to ship combat is not one of those aspects, just do other stuff. There is a lot of other stuff to do. If, on the other hand, it is interesting, it makes sense to figure out how a ship engagement in an orbital space would really work out. Or if it is just background colour, 1-3 robbery succeeds, 4-6 fails is fine too.

 

[SolarGlitch]

I am not trying to reduce gas giant piracy to “roll once, pirates win or prey escapes.” I agree that moons, rings, storms, sensor shadows, ambushes, negotiation, boarding, etc. are all interesting.

My issue is that unless these things enter a playable procedure somewhere, they remain narrative stuff, to be randomly interpreted by the GM.

Personal combat is also richer than the combat rules, Players can kick over tables, bluff, flee, surrender, shoot lights, call allies, etc.
But we still have a procedure: initiative, range, attacks, modifiers, damage, armour, tactics, leadership, and so on.
The fiction modifies the procedure; it does not replace the need for one.

I do not want the players to feel that piracy is arbitrary when they are the victims, or effortless when they are the pirates. I also do not want every encounter to become drop some cargo and the problem is over. There should be rolls, stakes, bad outcomes, partial successes, and meaningful choices.

So I would really like to see one complete table procedure from ship begins wilderness refuelling to combat / negotiation / boarding / escape is resolved, assuming the referee picked a sensible opposing ship for the encounter. What are the rolls? What can go wrong? What keeps the encounter tense without it feeling like pure referee fiat?

 

[MonsterX]

I do not want the players to feel that piracy is arbitrary when they are the victims, or effortless when they are the pirates. I also do not want every encounter to become drop some cargo and the problem is over. There should be rolls, stakes, bad outcomes, partial successes, and meaningful choices.

So I would really like to see one complete table procedure from ship begins wilderness refuelling to combat / negotiation / boarding / escape is resolved, assuming the referee picked a sensible opposing ship for the encounter. What are the rolls? What can go wrong? What keeps the encounter tense without it feeling like pure referee fiat?

There is a procedure: the ship combat system in the core book. Also in HG. These don't capture the complexity of the GG situation, but neither would your abstract rules.

Then there is another procedure using vectors which does do justice to the situation, but it involves more prep, and take a long time to resolve and requires everyone involved to make tactical decisions they might not understand the implications of.

Which is exactly the same dilemma faced in ground combat. If it is simple person to person, just throw some dice, theater of the mind, its quick and close enough. But if it involved terrain and multiple combatants, you need a battlemap, and it takes prep and can take a long time, and not everyone is conversant in small unit tactics., or in the combat mechanics of Traveller.

So it is the same trade off and you get out what you put in.

There are many shortcuts to have you cake and eat it too, and many have been suggested in this thread, but these all depend on the scenario: just figure out how the merchant ship is coming in (i.e. its vector, deceleration), see where the pirate ship is, see how the refueling will have to go, and make some tactics and sensor rolls (or whichever are relevant), and then set up a combat scenario based on those from time of first (mutual) detection. Use CRB or vector based, or improvise theater of the mind, depending on what you need to do to make it feel real and tense, what captures the situation, and your read on your table's preferences. And if you want to do it one way on one occasion and another way on another, that's fine too: just say, "this combat is straightforward, so we use the theater of the mind this time," but maybe make a battlemap with vectors next time, or whatever it is. If the players want to do some fancy tactic they thought up from seeing the moon system, then make sure whatever you do they have the chance, but if they are just running at the other ship, guns blazing (or running away) and they don't have big vectors when they meet, then just use the CRB RAW, count the distances because that's all that matters.

 

[SolarGlitch]

Thank you again for your comment. I agree there are so many variables involved. The simple RAW approach of "use range bands and thrust difference" clearly does not do GG piracy justice. Still we want to avoid vector calculus at the table.

Traveller repeatedly presents gas giant refuelling under threat as a classic adventure situation - even the name of the book High Guard refers to the vulnerability of ships refuelling in a gravity well and the need to protect them!!!

Yet RAW can easily turn the actual escape into something like 100 six-minute combat rounds unless the referee invents a procedure. Your suggestion of

make some tactics and sensor rolls (or whichever are relevant), and then set up a combat scenario based on those from time of first (mutual) detection.

is exactly what I would like to have concrete, repeatable and playable from both sides. And not completely leave the referee improvise the whole encounter engine.

Would you be against a baseline gas-giant encounter procedure that abstracts the main advantages and disadvantages of the environment into a few fixed phases, DMs, and consequence tables? Or do you think such a procedure is impossible or undesirable for Traveller?
How did you play your last GG pirate encounter? Can you tell me what rolls you asked for, and what effect they had?

 

[MonsterX]

Thank you again for your comment. I agree there are so many variables involved. The simple RAW approach of "use range bands and thrust difference" clearly does not do GG piracy justice. Still we want to avoid vector calculus at the table.

Traveller repeatedly presents gas giant refuelling under threat as a classic adventure situation - even the name of the book High Guard refers to the vulnerability of ships refuelling in a gravity well and the need to protect them!!!

Yet RAW can easily turn the actual escape into something like 100 six-minute combat rounds unless the referee invents a procedure. Your suggestion of

is exactly what I would like to have concrete, repeatable and playable from both sides. And not completely leave the referee improvise the whole encounter engine.

Would you be against a baseline gas-giant encounter procedure that abstracts the main advantages and disadvantages of the environment into a few fixed phases, DMs, and consequence tables? Or do you think such a procedure is impossible or undesirable for Traveller?
How did you play your last GG pirate encounter? Can you tell me what rolls you asked for, and what effect they had?

you don't need to do the calculus, just spitball it, give everyone a vector which is more or less around the speed and direction they should be going.

There may be lots of rounds involved, but nothing combat-related happens for most of them. The actual combat only starts when you get detected and in weapons range, and also someone starts shooting, so you don't have to play out 100 rounds. Even if you did, someone is going to blow up or surrender or get boarded first. If nothing is happening, just fast-forward.

I would do it case by case. My campaign is DNR, and their last encounter with pirates was theater of the mind, since the DNR is a heavy-cruiser sized ship, so the pirates just pretended not to be pirates and left them well alone, and the DNR pretended not to care and let them do that.

The last GG combat encounter the DNR had made a deal with a merchant clan to get rid of a slaver clan who had a base-tender parked around a GG. From the slavers, there were also several pirate raiders and a destroyer in the system. The players used their small craft to scout and lured the destroyer away from the GG with a subterfuge. Then they jumped close (from the outer system) to the GG, and came in with a large vector - they slowed down but planned an overshoot from where they knew the tender was - the intention was to close the range fast, and get by them in case they hid behind the GG moon (to avoid an overly extended missile engagement where the DNR is a bit weaker). There were several turns of missile fire, but it went fast since the DNR was moving fast, and basically very little damage was done to either side because of PD batteries and ECM. The slaver tender only had a 1G drive while the DNR is 4G, so it couldn't get away but it hid behind a large moon when the DNR got in spinal mount range, with the idea it could force the DNR to get close and use its battery of short range plasma guns, and avoid the DNR's long range spinal mount. Which would have worked, except the DNR had initiative, and hit the tender with the spinal mount before they could get a shot off. (If they had got a shot off they would have done some damage, but they were outclassed by the DNR and would still eventually have lost the fight - if their destroyer had been there to help it would have been a different story) The slaver ship could have fired anyways, but it was badly damaged - Jansa - from Theta Borealis sector aren't the type to fight to the death so they surrendered, and got boarded by the DNR. Most of the rest was social skills and investigate and recon by the DNR's security contingent to make sure the little buggers weren't hiding in their closets and ventilation shafts.

 

[swordtart]

I'd break it into phases.
Work out how many space rounds on approach from the 100D that they will be in each range band from where the pirates would lurk. Make sensor checks each round using the appropriate sensors that work at that range and any range penalties (include any disruption due to weird EM or thermal effects etc.) Make a note of how long that sensor op is glued to the screen and take account of fatigue as well. You can make all the rolls or work out what the overall probability average out over the range band would be and just roll when transitioning between bands.

I would suggest that the pirate will lurk until the target is distracted and its sensors degraded by refuelling operations. That means you don't need to roll to see if it spots the target at this stage.

At some point the target will detect a pirate (if there is one) or they won't, arrive at the refuelling point and will have to assume there isn't one.

If they detect the pirate then you have a known range for using either vector combat (which needn't be hard with a bit of practice) or the default rules or whatever homebrew version you want. There are too many possible outcomes to explore with that but you are just using normal combat rules at this point (with maybe some extra DMs to reflect diminished visibility due to being in the atmosphere).

If there is no pirate then just proceed to refuelling. Making people make rolls for no reason prevents them from second guessing the outcome, but if your players are fair and can act like their characters don't suspect anything then you might forgo nugatory rolls.

If there is a pirate and the target hasn't been detected it, you can then see if the pirate detected the target. You could make this a single sensor check or just assume the pirates will succeed (as if they don't then this becomes a non-encounter and GG piracy doesn't happen).

The exciting bit is when the pirate detects the target and the target remains unaware. Allow extra sensor checks as the pirate closes to effective range and matches vector (with a DM as the target will be distracted looking at other things). Keep track of how much fuel the target is accumulating. The target is likely making piloting checks etc. just for the refuelling aspect. Once the pirate is at its preferred range (depending on weapons, and their own sense of adventure) you can decide if they fire a warning shot, go straight for disabling shot or just announce their presence expecting a surrender and dumping of a few tons of choice cargo in return for leaving the target alone to continue their refuelling.

If the target decides to flee you can allow a few opposed astrogation rolls to chain with sensor checks to try to dodge about in the murk. The companion also gives options for diving deeper which allows quicker refuelling, incurs some risk and likely messes up sensors (visual sensors particularly) and the pirates may not choose to follow and end up losing track of the target allowing escape. If the target breaks contact the pirate will have to find them again and sensor range is not infinite and not even that far for many of the normal sensors. Astrogation could again be used in an opposed sensor check as the target uses gas giant emissions to mask their own signature and to plot a course to emerge on the opposite side of the gas giant to the pirate allowing a gap to open up (maybe enough that it cannot be closed before the target jumps).

But, if it comes to an actual combat you may need to blunt the pirates in someway to offset any disadvantage the merchant has.

I am using Astrogation here rather than piloting as you are not really taking evasive action so much as using astronomical phenomena to conceal you (and it is pretty much a useless skill otherwise). It makes sense to combine it with sensors as that is the skill the pirates will be using to find you. It also allows a character with the skill a rare opportunity to exercise it and contribute to the game.

You may decide that the deeper you are in the atmosphere (and the more risk you run), the shorter the effective range of weapons (or maybe each layer between you and the pirate subtracts 1 from every damage dice for lasers). Thus even if you are in combat range, a heroic dive into the soup combined with evasive manoeuvres might buy you enough time to finish refuelling.

Specific environmental variables could be thrown in for spice. Maybe there are weird life forms that create ghost images on sensors and targeting scopes meaning the pirates target them instead of you. Maybe laser fire ignites an anomalous gas pocket. Maybe there are wrecks or fragments etc. These can be tuned in advance and allow players to use them to their advantage.

Smart players might throw out decoys, lay mines or try to spoof the pirates sensors.

If you want this to be a thing, dry run it a few times to gauge the risk factor. If you mess it up it could become the thing that kills the campaign for one reason or another.

 

[Anstett]

As an example of a Gas Giant encounter with pirates that I ran (and most who have run PoD have) is First Prize. The Players have the Harrier.

That relies on two things already mentioned in this thread.

1 - superior ship to the merchant
2 - prior knowledge about the merchant

The Harrier arrives at Marduk and lays in wait in the gas giant layers. Time frame of how long to wait varies, but is in days to more than a week
The merchant arrives within the window their intelligence says, they know they do not have fuel to jump
The Harrier lets the merchant start scans and to start skimming
The Harrier does not care if they are discovered as they a vastly better ship than the merchant
The Harrier moves, radios, fires a warning shot
The merchant surrenders because it is suicide not to

Optional things that the referee can do:
The merchant arrives at a much different time frame, will the players wait around that long?
The merchant knows the details of their schedule are out so they depend on a SDB for assistance
Simply have a second merchant arrive as part of a mini convoy

 

[SolarGlitch]

Thanks, everyone. I think I understand the point much better now.

I think, part of my confusion came from thinking about this as a random encounter table result: the ship goes to a gas giant, the referee rolls an encounter, boom, pirates. In that framing, I assumed the encounter itself should have some built-in balance, because the players did not necessarily have a chance to do all the recon beforehand.
The core rulebook also mentions GG refueling as a fast way to get to the next jump, or move undetected, or continue if there is no suitable starport. So I was expecting a somewhat faster cool minigame.

I now see that many of you are treating gas giant piracy more as an entire operation, where the important decisions happened before combat starts. By the time the encounter becomes tactical, it is already be one-sided.

The actual play examples helped a lot, if you have more, please keep them coming

I still think a small table/procedure for "what is the situation when the encounter becomes relevant?" could make random gas giant encounters easier to run. Not to force balance or simulate every vector, but to quickly establish who has advantage, whether escape is plausible, what terrain matters, and what choices the players still have. Just some list for some rolls and DMs for hiding in atmosphere, using moons, sensor DMs, intercepting a faster target, etc.

 

[LangyMD]

You don't need prior knowledge about a specific merchant; prior knowledge of "this gas giant is used for refueling by 1 merchant every 24 hours on average" is sufficient. How long they'd be willing to lie in wait depends on what rate of return they're aiming for.

I don't see any reason the 'hang out at a known transfer point and attack the merchants when they're unable to jump away' method would be problematic. The pirate ship would need to be faster than the merchant or catch them completely unaware, but that's not a hard thing to do when most merchants are slow.

Fuel can be one of if not the most expensive parts of working a merchant ship, so doing wilderness refueling may be more common for people trying to avoid having to pay for fuel than "there was no option to do anything but wilderness refuel" situations.

EDIT: One-sided combat encounters are the vast, vast majority of them in Traveller or games like them in my experience. If they're not one-sided, then you've fucked up by agreeing to get into that situation/combat at all.

 

[SolarGlitch]

If the referee rolls “pirates at the gas giant,” the players did not necessarily choose a bad tactical situation, but the procedure created one, so I think it is fair to ask what initial situation that roll produces.

My point is not that combat should be balanced, but that random encounters benefit from a quick way to establish why the situation is one-sided, how one-sided it is, and what meaningful choices remain.

Also, in a functioning ship market I would expect many ships to be broadly similar, especially common cheap merchant hulls, so the asymmetry often has to come from position, surprise, readiness, or intent rather than wildly different ship stats. And likewise, desperate pirates are probably not showing up in Imperial super-fighters, right? Rather cheap, modified, stolen, obsolete, or poorly maintained ships?

 

[Vormaerin]

You don't need prior knowledge about a specific merchant; prior knowledge of "this gas giant is used for refueling by 1 merchant every 24 hours on average" is sufficient. How long they'd be willing to lie in wait depends on what rate of return they're aiming for.

If there is such a place. Gas Giant refueling by merchants is not normal. Unless the main world is on a gas giant moon or some such thing, a typical merchant will lose more money due to time spent in travel and take more risk moving from the gas giant to the main world than the cost of buying fuel.

Legitimate merchant vessels are only going to fuel at a gas giant if there is no starport (Class E) or they are passing through the system to somewhere else and have no intention of visiting the starport. And even then, that's probably because there is no starport or the mainworld is seriously unpleasant/hostile to the merchant in some way.

A 1G M-Drive starship is going to take around a week to get from Jupiter to Earth. If you do that regularly, yeah, you'll save on fuel. But you'll drop from 25 cargo loads per year to around 17. That's a huge loss of revenue for any sort of actual merchant. Obviously, a system like Regina where the mainworld is a moon of the gas giant is a different situation, but it is illegal to skim there and pirates are not going to be bothering you there anyway.

The people who are skimming fuel are folks who don't have a reason to visit the starport for trade purposes. Like, for example, pirates! IMO, the most likely reason a PC visiting a gas giant encounters a pirate is because the pirate is ALSO there to skim fuel. The pirates' prey is probably elsewhere in the system and they want to arrive where their jump flash doesn't alert the system to their arrival, they can refuel so they can escape police or navy patrols, and they can then slide up to the actual trade routes quietly to find their targets. YMMV.

 

[Condottiere]

Pirates tend to avoid raiding each other, since they tend to be on equal footing, armament wise.

Usually, if it is just a gas stop, one would assume that the crew involved is fully aware of the potential risks.

 

[MonsterX]

And likewise, desperate pirates are probably not showing up in Imperial super-fighters, right? Rather cheap, modified, stolen, obsolete, or poorly maintained ships?

These will probably be most pirate encounters. The pirate ship might even be a small craft (but high M drive if so, since the only way to get away is to fly away). It will be crap, except (possibly) unlike the prey they are hunting it will be up-gunned. They might not have very good skills. They hope their target will just dump some cargo to pay them off. They might even frame it as a "toll." They might back down if they feel like they can wait for the next merchant to come along. Or they might fight if they have to and feel like it is better to die now than starve later.

 

[MonsterX]

These will probably be most pirate encounters. The pirate ship might even be a small craft (high M drive if so, since the only way to get away is to fly away). It will be crap, except (possibly) unlike the prey they are hunting it will be up-gunned. They might not have very good skills. They hope their target will just dump some cargo to pay them off. They might even frame it as a "toll." They might back down if they feel like they can wait for the next merchant to come along. Or they might fight if they have to and feel like it is better to die now than starve later.

The way I describe it they sound more like over-aggressive space pan-handlers than heroic Robin hoods or diabolical Red Beards. The might just need a social worker to help them get food assistance. There will be a whole spectrum. If you want to balance your encounter there are lots of options.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Fuel can be one of if not the most expensive parts of working a merchant ship, so doing wilderness refueling may be more common for people trying to avoid having to pay for fuel than "there was no option to do anything but wilderness refuel" situations.

It adds the issue of time. Lets assume that Sol System is typical and use rounded off numbers to approximate travel times.

Jupiter on average is 788 million km from Earth at 1 g it takes 6.5 days to get there. It has a diameter of 143,000 km. 100 diameters is 14.3 million km at 1 g that takes .9 days to get to jump distance ignoring time scooping and processing fuel that becomes 7.4 days before you jump compared to about .25 days if you fuel on Earth. You could be nearly to your next destination (and next profits) before you even jump if you use the gas giant. It isn't so bad if your destination was a moon of that giant or a nearby asteroid/habitat.

It gets worse if the star is a giant and better if the star is small like a K type.

Longer time in system delays your next income and allows fewer jumps/year to pay that mortgage and other expenses. Add in the threat of pirates and it is even less cost effective. You'd be better off paying more for fuel from a local fuel station that runs higher g fuel skimmer/tankers to the giant or other hydrogen source. If there is no local source closer a free trader might well be better off carrying return fuel in such cases.

 

[bartlebyfosco]

I do not want the players to feel that piracy is arbitrary when they are the victims, or effortless when they are the pirates. I also do not want every encounter to become drop some cargo and the problem is over. There should be rolls, stakes, bad outcomes, partial successes, and meaningful choices.

So I would really like to see one complete table procedure from ship begins wilderness refuelling to combat / negotiation / boarding / escape is resolved, assuming the referee picked a sensible opposing ship for the encounter. What are the rolls? What can go wrong? What keeps the encounter tense without it feeling like pure referee fiat?

As a small aside I have appreciated reading your opinions. I say that because while I disagree with your suggestion, you have done a good job of explaining an approach to the rules that I usually push back against.

Essentially, I don't want another flowchart/set of charts/repeatable process. I (as the referee) want to be able handle it within the simplest basic rules we already have (most of which I ignore anyway). And I admit when I see people arguing for more procedures I tend to tune them out with a handwave of "these new role players today want everything handed to them"

But your position is more nuanced than that and it does deserve some more consideration than I may have given in the past. I appreciate your suggesting the alternative to a process is GM arbitrariness and, more importantly, players fearing arbitrariness when things go for or against them.

It goes to show the dynamic of the players with the GM can often dictate how the table feels about a decision. And, I think something that is often overlooked, the experience of the players in the game system. If you are playing with players that know Traveller (and GM their own games) and there is a procedure there, then it would make things better. I can see that now. Everyone would know what to expect and how to handle it without complaint. In my case, with one exception none of my players knows the system or owns the books. They trust me to run everything and tell them what they need to roll in every situation. So EVERYTHING I do seems arbitrary. So at my table I suppose the players do not share the concern you noted. At least not often.

So I want to credit you with defending your position with an intelligent example and something that made me stop and think about an opinion I originally dismissed. I admit it could be beneficial.

I will leave you with a something that helps you understand my minimalistic preference. There can be a lot of space between a repeatable procedure and referee arbitrariness. My sessions often unfold based on the outcome of previous sessions. And if the PCs were warned not to brag and spend money in a starport of scum and villainy, and they ignore that warning, and then when leaving the system face a disadvantage on the way out that I have designed without a procedure, they know they have themselves to blame and not a nefarious arbitrary GM.

 

[SolarGlitch]

It adds the issue of time. Lets assume that Sol System is typical and use rounded off numbers to approximate travel times.

Mini note: I think you are using flip-and-burn travel-time formula, so the travel time might be a bit faster.
Also, where exactly does one actually exit jump space? If you are not interested in the starport, maybe one would try to get closer to the GG from the start?


@bartlebyfosco
Thank you, I really appreciate this reply, and thank you for taking the time to consider my argument.

Your explanation helps me understand the other side much better. Your point about table trust and player experience is very well taken. Actually, my main group also does not know the rules very well, so from their side, probably everything I do is a little arbitrary anyway. Even if in my own head I distinguish very carefully between rules, situation-based consequences, and things I make up on the spot, they may not experience those as very different at the table. That is a neat point, and I had not thought about it that way.

I also think I sometimes get too much into my own head with rules questions, and I am still lacking table experience. Many of these guardrails are probably much more useful for beginners like me, without a feeling for the game yet. Thanks again for engaging with the argument so generously.

 

[Vormaerin]

Mini note: I think you are using flip-and-burn travel-time formula, so the travel time might be a bit faster.
Also, where exactly does one actually exit jump space? If you are not interested in the starport, maybe one would try to get closer to the GG from the start?

You exit from jumpspace around the 100D mark from your destination unless your astrogator choked.

Jupiter's 100D mark is about 10x the distance of Earth's. So instead of appearing a few hours from the starport, you appear a day from the gas giant.

Worlds that are inside the star's 100D or worlds on gas giant moons are inherently disadvantaged by that extra jump shadow, since it adds significantly to the cost of doing business at that world. May be worth it, but even a couple days would add up over the course of a year to a smaller number of cargo deliveries (aka paydays).

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Mini note: I think you are using flip-and-burn travel-time formula, so the travel time might be a bit faster.
Also, where exactly does one actually exit jump space? If you are not interested in the starport, maybe one would try to get closer to the GG from the start?

First you need to use it to get from Earth to Jupiter in the example if you are going to skim for fuel. Then of course it does appear to me to be the official standard. It also applies if you jump in and go directly to the gas giant from its 100 diameter limit to skim.

Doesn't do you a lot of good to get to the 100 diameter limit only to find that when you come out of jump your destination is behind you and you need much longer to get there then you would have if you just decelerated first.