Star Trek Warp factors versus Traveller Warp

[Tom Kalbfus]

Seems to me Traveller warp factors where the number indicates how many parsecs are travelled in a week seem to make more sense that the Star Trek/Prime Directive Warp scale.

For one thing a straight forward warp that indicates how many parsecs you travel in a week tells you have fast your going, however with Star Trek's/Prime Directive warp scales, you plug the warp factor into a warp equation to determine how fast your going. Usually traveling a parsec a week is fairly practical. So Warp 1 means you travel 1 parsec in a week, however in Star Trek/Prime Directive, Warp 1 means you are traveling at the speed of light, and it would take 3.26 years to travel 1 parsec, at warp 2 you are traveling 10 times as fast.

So I wonder why did the creators of Star Trek make their warp factors so complicated? Why was it so important to them to keep the warp factors between 1 and 10, instead of having a warp 32 if you wanted to go really fast. I never understood that.

 

[Greg Smith]

Possibly because it was easier for a TV audience to understand 1-10.

Similarly it is easier to understand Jump 1-6, ( and correspondingly planets exactly a parsec apart in 2D) than actually calculate a speed of 0.0194 lightyears per hour.

Notably actual warp speeds were never actually established in the original TV series. Although the warp equation is canon in the Star Fleet Universe, because it was in the Technical Manual.

 

[Reynard]

Complicated? The original formula was velocity equals warp factor cubed times the speed of light, very simple. The big difference between Traveller and Star Trek was digital( distance is set for the unit of time) vs. analog (distance is variable to velocity chosen). When Traveller added alternative locomotions. the universes purposely came a little closer because some wanted Star Trek real time real space velocities.

The big thing with Star Trek WD is the physics of the drive corresponds to a very regular formula (above) of energy curves so the developers had an easy way to calibrate the measurements. Traveller WD does something similar but saw the regularity in increments of a standard week and used that for naming convention. Since Traveller warp is variable compared to Jump and engine physics set velocity maximums I could see them referring to that distance per week standardizing the terminology as Jump increments and velocities either as distance unit/ time unit and/or a percentage of that engine's jump maximum. I would assume Traveller warp ships would power up to max for those interstellar journeys the majority of the time since there's no wear on the power or drive system as there is in Star Trek which is why they have cruise and maximum.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Lets see warp factor cubed times the speed of light
1 1 28557.6
2 8 3569.7
3 27 1057.688889
4 64 446.2125
5 125 228.4608
6 216 132.2111111
7 343 83.25830904
8 512 55.7765625
9 729 39.17366255
10 1000 28.5576


The first column is the old Star Trek Warp factor
The second is the number of times the speed of light
the third is how many hours it takes to travel 1 parsec.

Warp 6 is the Star Trek equivalent to Traveller Warp 1 it takes 5.5 days to travel 1 parsec.
At warp 5 it takes 9.5 days to travel the same parsec
It takes 18.5 days to travel 1 parsec at warp 4.
I don't see anyone seriously considering using warps 1 through 3, warp 3 takes 44 days to travel 1 parsec, no way! As for warp 10, it takes 28.5 hours to travel 1 parsec, the tendency would be for everyone to want to travel at warp 10, unless you can find a good reason not to.

 

[Reynard]

I kind of remember Star Trek always talking about days, weeks and MONTHs to get anywhere and yet they got to their destinations on time. Communications also took days and weeks. That's why the original premise was a starship as a representative of the government and captains had to be damn good at solving problems on their own. And yet people bemoan the time frames and isolation in Traveller.

Even with Traveller warp, it takes a lot of time to get from place to place and you're still on your own in between. All you really get is flexibility of movement as if the commanding officer gets a sudden craving for Aperion V coconuts three quarters from their original destination and orders a course change, if you have the fuel. Still no reason to slow down between star systems.

Just remember, Traveller warp is a What If alternative balance against the jump drive.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I kind of remember Star Trek always talking about days, weeks and MONTHs to get anywhere and yet they got to their destinations on time. Communications also took days and weeks. That's why the original premise was a starship as a representative of the government and captains had to be damn good at solving problems on their own. And yet people bemoan the time frames and isolation in Traveller.

Even with Traveller warp, it takes a lot of time to get from place to place and you're still on your own in between. All you really get is flexibility of movement as if the commanding officer gets a sudden craving for Aperion V coconuts three quarters from their original destination and orders a course change, if you have the fuel. Still no reason to slow down between star systems.

Just remember, Traveller warp is a What If alternative balance against the jump drive.

Warp Drive is just a multiple of the speed of light, whatever techno-babble you use to justify it A warp 2 will get you to the same destination in half the time as a warp 1, a Jump 2 will take the same amount of time to go somewhere that a Jump 1 will go. This sort of quantumizes travel times in intervals of one week and no less.

Another quibble is the star field on the Enterprises main viewer moves too fast for the warp factor they are traveling at. Warp 10 for instance is 1000 times the speed of light, that basically means you travel 1 light year in 8 hours (or 1000 light years in a year), one would have to spend hours looking at the main view screen to see stars move as the ship passes, them, but on the show the stars move past in seconds!

 

[Imeanunoharm]

Everyone knows that Star Trek warp ships travel at precisely SoP (the Speed of Plot)!

 

[Reynard]

Of course! It was fans and the tech manual that imposed actual numbers to warp then subsequently howled for decades that the numbers didn't work. Sounds a lot like Traveller fans.

And yet we still love both.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Captain: "Set a course for Meriden Three, Warp Factor One!"
Vulcan First Officer: "Captain that will get us there in 4.72 years!"
Captain: "What else are five year missions for? Lets not be hasty, this is not an emergency, so we'll go at Warp Factor One."

 

[Reynard]

Another Star Trek - Traveller and Abrams solved it for all those fans constantly whining about time and distance. Ito the Darkness featured personal transporters that teleport from Earth to Q'onos while starships warp instantly through interstellar distances. At least Enterprise NX took 4 days to reach the Klingon home world (60 parsecs) at warp 3.

We could always compare Star Wars hyperspace with jump travel. There's another Speed of Plot invention. First movie has getting to the next destination take a few days then, by the end of trilogy, ships could go from the Outer Rim to the galaxy core in the speed of a fade out. You think Abrams will think that's to slow too?

As with Jump, I'll keep that Traveller warp as downtime to read a book.

 

[simonh]

I don't see anyone seriously considering using warps 1 through 3, ...

Warp 1 is fantastic for in-system travel, and if you have a binary star system warp 3 would be useful to get from orbit around one star to it's partner. It's in-system travel where having a warp drive becomes so much more useful than jump drive.

Simon Hibbs

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

So I wonder why did the creators of Star Trek make their warp factors so complicated? Why was it so important to them to keep the warp factors between 1 and 10, instead of having a warp 32 if you wanted to go really fast. I never understood that.

And why do earthquakes use a Richter Scale? So complicated.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

Another Star Trek - Traveller and Abrams solved it for all those fans constantly whining about time and distance. Ito the Darkness featured personal transporters that teleport from Earth to Q'onos while starships warp instantly through interstellar distances. At least Enterprise NX took 4 days to reach the Klingon home world (60 parsecs) at warp 3.

We could always compare Star Wars hyperspace with jump travel. There's another Speed of Plot invention. First movie has getting to the next destination take a few days then, by the end of trilogy, ships could go from the Outer Rim to the galaxy core in the speed of a fade out. You think Abrams will think that's to slow too?

As with Jump, I'll keep that Traveller warp as downtime to read a book.

Imagine your playing Traveller and the player, after evading the pirates has reached the 100 diameter limit and then activated the Jump Drive. The Referee then asks the players, "What do you do now?" and they say, "We wait for the ship to emerge from Jump Space." So the referee says, "Okay then, see you next week. The Jump drive of course takes seven days, so we'll meet again same time next week, when your ship finally arrives at the destination. See ya later!"

 

[Reynard]

That is a fallacy. Jump time should have opportunities for RPing too. Many times it is a fade out-fade in event if the players and referee have nothing planned but it can be a great moment for something to happen on board involving a challenge. Barring that, or in addition to, this is the time player characters have exclusive interaction moments.

If you're training to get that new skill or improve an old one, jump time is a natural event to act out the training. Same goes for warp time when staring at red and blue shifted stars get very boring.

As to warping within a system, I reserve that to outer regions since gravity wells can come up on you fast and thick as you close towards greater solar object density and you may not want to have the pedal to the metal. It would make sense to say you angle you ship's trajectory above or below the plane of the system until you reach your destination's 100d zone then dive in. Interplanetary travel should be a bit hazardous for warp. Get used to it and fire up that maneuver drive.

Another interesting note. Ort clouds, those pesky spherical shields of solar matter. A jump drive bypasses them but a warp drive still operates in real space. We suspend belief to have interstellar gas and micro particles sweep away from the ship like a warp bow wave but large lumps of rock may prove less so. Shall we concur such matter is also bent around a warp field and continue or would a ship have to slow to sub light and wade through the cloud?

 

[simonh]

Another interesting note. Ort clouds, those pesky spherical shields of solar matter. A jump drive bypasses them but a warp drive still operates in real space. We suspend belief to have interstellar gas and micro particles sweep away from the ship like a warp bow wave but large lumps of rock may prove less so. Shall we concur such matter is also bent around a warp field and continue or would a ship have to slow to sub light and wade through the cloud?

I think 'wading' is putting it a bit strong. It's extremely sparse. The Oort cloud makes the asteroid belt look like a rush hour traffic jam.

On the other hand: http://xkcd.com/1297/

Simon Hibbs

 

[Reynard]

Ah, so no Ort issue. Fine by me. Still, no warping in the belts.

 

[sideranautae]

Another interesting note. Ort clouds, those pesky spherical shields of solar matter. A jump drive bypasses them but a warp drive still operates in real space. We suspend belief to have interstellar gas and micro particles sweep away from the ship like a warp bow wave but large lumps of rock may prove less so. Shall we concur such matter is also bent around a warp field and continue or would a ship have to slow to sub light and wade through the cloud?

The matter is so dispersed in the Ort "cloud" that you could traverse it a million times and not hit anything larger than dust.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

That is a fallacy. Jump time should have opportunities for RPing too. Many times it is a fade out-fade in event if the players and referee have nothing planned but it can be a great moment for something to happen on board involving a challenge. Barring that, or in addition to, this is the time player characters have exclusive interaction moments.

If you're training to get that new skill or improve an old one, jump time is a natural event to act out the training. Same goes for warp time when staring at red and blue shifted stars get very boring.

As to warping within a system, I reserve that to outer regions since gravity wells can come up on you fast and thick as you close towards greater solar object density and you may not want to have the pedal to the metal. It would make sense to say you angle you ship's trajectory above or below the plane of the system until you reach your destination's 100d zone then dive in. Interplanetary travel should be a bit hazardous for warp. Get used to it and fire up that maneuver drive.

Another interesting note. Ort clouds, those pesky spherical shields of solar matter. A jump drive bypasses them but a warp drive still operates in real space. We suspend belief to have interstellar gas and micro particles sweep away from the ship like a warp bow wave but large lumps of rock may prove less so. Shall we concur such matter is also bent around a warp field and continue or would a ship have to slow to sub light and wade through the cloud?

Well if warping is pseudo-motion, there is no inertia or kinetic energy.

Take this example, your warping along in interstellar space when suddenly, "Wham!", your ship drops out of warp. You run up to the bridge of the starship, there is no one their at the moment since the ship is on autopilot. You look out the window of the bridge, turning off the ship's interior lights, so you can see the stars, there is no stars nearby. You look at the ship's sensors, you detect a planetary mass ahead, spacial curvature indicates a body with 15 Earth masses, the infrared sensor shows a rogue gas giant ahead, you ship is at the 100 diameter limit, which is why it dropped out of warp. "Oh how delightful!" the captain states, "an unexpected refueling stop. What do you say we skim this gas giant for fuel. Oh and lets get some astrogation and sensory readings. We'll want to put this gas giant on our charts so we can come here again some time. The chances of encountering it again are slim to none unless we can record its location accurately enough. Oh I see it has two large moons, one 3500 kilometers the other 7600 kilometers in diameter. Oh and watch out for that ring system as we move closer, The smaller of the two moons has an exposed rocky surface, and oh, volcanoes! Must be due to tidal heating." The astrogator takes further readings, "Uh captain, the planet we're orbiting is not rogue, there is another gravitational object about 11 AU away, gravitational sensors give a reading of 21 solar masses! The x-ray spectrometer is detecting a black hole, radiation is minimal, probably due to in-falling interstellar gases. There are two other gas giants in this system, one is rather large."

This discovery would not have been made if the ship had a Jump Drive.

 

[sideranautae]

This discovery would not have been made if the ship had a Jump Drive.

At 21 solar masses it would have been discovered because of gravitic lensing from 100 light years away..

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

This discovery would not have been made if the ship had a Jump Drive.

At 21 solar masses it would have been discovered because of gravitic lensing from 100 light years away..

If they knew where to look, if it is at the edge of inhabited space, their might not be a nearby telescope that looks in that direction, and gravitational lensing requires a light source behind it that can be lensed