Starship Encounters: are there any more detailed 2e rules beyond the Core Book?

[MarcusIII]

One of my specific questions is why is it only ever a 6 on 1D per day for an encounter?

I don't think the reason I'm going to give is why the rules are the way they are but here goes: When you jump to a planet you are not exiting at the same place, relative to the planet, that other ships are. The planet is of course always in motion (Earth is moving at 29.8 km/s, or about 66,615 mph) The timing isn't likely the same either. Therefore, the likelihood that your ship's route to the planet is close to that of another ship is remote. The odds of you being within "encounter distance" of any other inbound or outbound ship is close to nil.

 

[Yenaldlooshi]

I don't think the reason I'm going to give is why the rules are the way they are but here goes: When you jump to a planet you are not exiting at the same place, relative to the planet, that other ships are. The planet is of course always in motion (Earth is moving at 29.8 km/s, or about 66,615 mph) The timing isn't likely the same either. Therefore, the likelihood that your ship's route to the planet is close to that of another ship is remote. The odds of you being within "encounter distance" of any other inbound or outbound ship is close to nil.

Flotilla's and Fleets typically need a reasonable expectation that, barring mis-jump, they show up roughly in formation and in proximity to each other. I believe I read somewhere where an astrogator can plot jump for multiple ships. So this is a situation where you should have 2+ ships in the encounter.

Also, most jumps are from one 100D limit to another planets or GG's 100D limit, this limits that to a spherical area that you could expect ships to randomly appear. A small size 1 world would have a much more limited area than a large GG would have at 100D's. The jump emergence target of a planet set within the jump shadow of a star would typically be the closest point at the edge of that jump shadow to the planet's current orbital position. That position is the same for everyone really so the more you think astrogators can narrow that down, the more likely you might encounter more ships near to that point.

This is all not to mention that encounters do not have to be a jump entry/exit. They can also occur during the transition from 100D to the planet, which again means the closer you get to the planet the more likely an encounter. Technically speaking, you should have multiple multiple encounters near a class A highport of a High Population world on a busy trade route.

With all these potentials, it seems odd to make it 1 chance in 6 once a day everywhere.

That said I know and I take your point about the planets being in motion, but my advice? Ignore all that. Pretend that via the magic of jump travel you arrive at 100D's from your destination in a slow orbit of 100D's due to the effect of something something Quantum something. I say this because if you don't accept the logic of setting a planet as a fixed point for jump emergence, then what is your velocity relative too? The star? Our star is travelling (with us) at 828,000 km/h. At some point you have to say frak it.. it's a game.

 

[NOLATrav]

High Guard has rules for synchronized jumps, sorry don’t have a page reference right now.

I agree, ship encounters should vary based on expected system traffic. I use 1-in-6 for D ports, 2-in-6 for C, etc. E and X are at my whim as GM. These are blips at maximum sensor range but may be closer and there may be more than one. 1D2 for D ports, 1D for C ports, 2D for B, 4D for A. Usually it’s just minor in-system traffic but at the higher level ports there are of course other jump-capable vessels flitting around.

This is just what the PCs can detect when they drop out of jump space. There’s a lot more craft out there at the C+ ports that are out of range of their sensors unless they take some time and survey the situation. Eventually they’ll see every ship that’s out there if they want to but for story purposes I usually just give them the initial sensor readout and see what they do with it.

Always fun to add a +DM to the traffic roll when the gang is trying to slip in unannounced as it were…

 

[MarcusIII]

Flotilla's and Fleets typically need a reasonable expectation that, barring mis-jump, they show up roughly in formation and in proximity to each other. I believe I read somewhere where an astrogator can plot jump for multiple ships. So this is a situation where you should have 2+ ships in the encounter.

Also, most jumps are from one 100D limit to another planets or GG's 100D limit, this limits that to a spherical area that you could expect ships to randomly appear. A small size 1 world would have a much more limited area than a large GG would have at 100D's. The jump emergence target of a planet set within the jump shadow of a star would typically be the closest point at the edge of that jump shadow to the planet's current orbital position. That position is the same for everyone really so the more you think astrogators can narrow that down, the more likely you might encounter more ships near to that point.

This is all not to mention that encounters do not have to be a jump entry/exit. They can also occur during the transition from 100D to the planet, which again means the closer you get to the planet the more likely an encounter. Technically speaking, you should have multiple multiple encounters near a class A highport of a High Population world on a busy trade route.

With all these potentials, it seems odd to make it 1 chance in 6 once a day everywhere.

That said I know and I take your point about the planets being in motion, but my advice? Ignore all that. Pretend that via the magic of jump travel you arrive at 100D's from your destination in a slow orbit of 100D's due to the effect of something something Quantum something. I say this because if you don't accept the logic of setting a planet as a fixed point for jump emergence, then what is your velocity relative too? The star? Our star is travelling (with us) at 828,000 km/h. At some point you have to say frak it.. it's a game.

I'm talking non military fleet traffic.

100D sphere around a world means you are unlikely to be within encounter range for most planets unless you drop in at same time and close to same place.

While transiting you have the problems already mentioned by relative movement to/from the world and NOT being on the same course at all unless one leaves with a ship at the same time.. You are going too fast to have a meaningful encounter with a ship going the opposite direction at continuous thrust.

No, don't ignore reality when trying to actually figure out the odds. What you make for a rule is different of course because of game narrative. But don't start by ignoring reality.

 

[Yenaldlooshi]

100D sphere around a world means you are unlikely to be within encounter range for most planets unless you drop in at same time and close to same place.

There is a factor you might be ignoring here. Probably because it is mainly only mentioned and rules made for it are in a JTAS article. It's called Jump Flash. It is something that occurs when a ship emerges from j-space. Sensors can pick up on it at far greater ranges than just 300,000km distant. If you have a ship appear around most planets, their jump flash has a minute chance of being detected and from that a ship could try to close range.

While transiting you have the problems already mentioned by relative movement to/from the world and NOT being on the same course at all unless one leaves with a ship at the same time.. You are going too fast to have a meaningful encounter with a ship going the opposite direction at continuous thrust.

Actually, I have thought about this a great deal. IMTU, I interpret the very fact that I rolled for an encounter and that an encounter came up to mean that it had to be done in a way that at the very least has the potential to turn into a meaningful encounter. So no, it will not count as two ships that meet at a mid-flip point from planet A to Planet B and thus only on each other's screens for a milisecond. There could have been a ton of those non-encounter encounters, but that is not what is represented when rolling and an encounter comes up positive. Rather it could be any of these:

1) Ships meeting at end points (High ports, GG's, planets or by rare luck the same 100D point). The assumption being that they are just maneuvering to stop or start from where they are at and thus velocities are not so fast relative to each other.
2) A slow ship is caught up by a faster ship enroute to same destination.
3) A fast ship catches up to a slower ship enroute to the same destination.
4) Tightly controlled systems that require legal traffic to use standard departure and entry points into their system.

NOTE: IMTU, except for jump-flash detections, all my encounters start at max range 300,000km distant at which point ships roll sensor checks to see if they see each other. If they both fail the check, then it is assumed they are still moving closer to each other and then on the next range band decrease, sensors are roll again, and again, till one sees the other. Then the ones that detect go into combat timing and roll initiative.

I have created tables for jump-flash detection based on the JTAS articles and the area size of the planets 100D limits, if anyone is interested.

No, don't ignore reality when trying to actually figure out the odds. What you make for a rule is different of course because of game narrative. But don't start by ignoring reality.

Easy there, I am not talking about throwing out reality wholesale. How realistic is it to have a variety of ship encounters?: Very, I think, and that is the baby.
Trying to figure out relativistically, what a ship's speed must be vs the movement of the target 100D of a planet upon leaving jumpspace taking into account the planets orbital speed around its star? Ok that right there is bath water.

Throw the bathwater out and keep the baby... unless you are Belle Delphine.

 

[MarcusIII]

There is a factor you might be ignoring here. Probably because it is mainly only mentioned and rules made for it are in a JTAS article. It's called Jump Flash. It is something that occurs when a ship emerges from j-space. Sensors can pick up on it at far greater ranges than just 300,000km distant. If you have a ship appear around most planets, their jump flash has a minute chance of being detected and from that a ship could try to close range.

Doesn't really matter because that doesn't get you any closer to make an encounter. And any ship within the 100D making such a intercept course change is going to stand out and be the subject of a call to anti pirate authorities.

 

[Condottiere]

Most likely, astrogators would be aiming for the one hundred five diameter limit, which gives enough leeway, before hitting the wall.

 

[swordtart]

Knowing where a ship was at one instance doesn't tell you a great deal about where it will be. None of the sensors provide course and speed. That can only be inferred from repeat observation. To do that you need to be in range of a sensor that can provide that capability. Even when you have done that plotting a course to intercept is not trivial. Miss one sensor check and you might lose track of the ship entirely since you need to point your sensors where you think it will be to even pick it up.

A sensible incoming ship will vary their thrust fractionally so their velocity is not as predictable and in the initial few minutes can fly off to the side to further mask their course without it affecting their transit time unduly. They could perform the classic evasive "gentle drift to the left and back again" by sacrificing a small percentage of their thrust and it will make their course entirely unpredictable. Unless you are on the same vector as them a few km/s out will completely mess up your positional prediction and vector movement means it is not trivial to course correct.

It would also be possible (and sensible) to spoof the sensors by hiding in clutter. I am not sure exactly how much heat ships are producing. I hear a lot about it being impossible to shift heat in space, but given we have gravitic thrust and cold water fusion reactors, where is the heat being generated? I think a lot of our preconception is based on fiery-arsed rockets of TL7-8 not TL9+ gizmos.

Most of the time you are in a vast unlit olympic sized football stadium navigating blindfolded to a bell ringing in the centre that represents the main world. Your sensor consists of a 4ft stick to hold out in front and swing around. You are unlikely to notice anyone else is even in the stadium until they shout boom on arrival. Trying to find them after that point is going to be next to impossible but you might bump into them if they arrive at the planet at the same time as you.

 

[MarcusIII]

but given we have gravitic thrust and cold water fusion reactors, where is the heat being generated? I think a lot of our preconception is based on fiery-arsed rockets of TL7-8 not TL9+ gizmos.

At the VERY best a ship is radiating 22°C (room temp) which when placed against the temp of interplanetary space of about (2.7 Kelvin, -270°C or -455°F) means one is a torch in a field on a pitch black night. But you don't get that automatically. One must be doing continuous scans of the entire spherical region around your own ship looking for a new heat source

However that gets you little. It doesn't give one range, direction or speed without multiple observations over time. So pretty much what you said.

 

[swordtart]

At the VERY best a ship is radiating 22°C (room temp) which when placed against the temp of interplanetary space of about (2.7 Kelvin, -270°C or -455°F) means one is a torch in a field on a pitch black night. But you don't get that automatically. One must be doing continuous scans of the entire spherical region around your own ship looking for a new heat source

However that gets you little. It doesn't give one range, direction or speed without multiple observations over time. So pretty much what you said.

Is it even radiating that? If you have a suitable material between the 22 degree ambient and the -273 of space (like an internal vacuum) then there will be a temperature gradient. If it is not radiating heat then there is no heat to detect.

 

[MarcusIII]

Is it even radiating that? If you have a suitable material between the 22 degree ambient and the -273 of space (like an internal vacuum) then there will be a temperature gradient. If it is not radiating heat then there is no heat to detect.

Yes, if you don't radiate it then it builds up and you literally bake then melt the ship. Inescapable physics.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Is it even radiating that? If you have a suitable material between the 22 degree ambient and the -273 of space (like an internal vacuum) then there will be a temperature gradient. If it is not radiating heat then there is no heat to detect.

In which case how are you maintaining the temperature inside?

The waste heat from all the electronics will eventually cook the crew without someway of dumping waste heat into a heat sink or radiator - not to mention make the electronics overheat and shut down.

 

[swordtart]

Yes, if you don't radiate it then it builds up and you literally bake then melt the ship. Inescapable physics.

You just need a suitable thermal store. You can insulate that from the rest of the ship in the same way. As long as the overall energy remain constant you can move it where you want. It's basically just a fridge with the cold bit on the outside rather than the inside.

There is nothing stopping you periodically ejecting the thermal store. It still moves the excess heat away from the ship making targeting the ship more difficult.

What is generating the heat? Normally we use heat to make electricity, but cold fusion evades that restriction. We don't need to get rid of the 98.4 that a human radiates completely, we just need to get rid of the excess plus some from friction?. If we generate 1 Watt of waste heat we just need to sink that somewhere. We can carry pre-cooled heat storage modules, move the waste heat to them and once they get warmer than we can handle, we eject them to space. It doesn't need to be permanently radiating and we could even insulate the thermal store so that doesn't radiate.

None of this breaks the laws of thermodynamics. You are still pushing heat to cold and none of it is disappearing, you are just controlling when you release it outside the ship and making it intermittent. It would make detection harder and tracking far more difficult.

 

[swordtart]

In which case how are you maintaining the temperature inside?

The waste heat from all the electronics will eventually cook the crew without someway of dumping waste heat into a heat sink or radiator - not to mention make the electronics overheat and shut down.

TL7-8 electronics generate loads of excess heat but then we are not using super-conductors regularly.

I am just saying dump the (much less) heat than TL7-8 electronics produces into a heat sink and periodically eject the heat sink.

 

[MarcusIII]

You just need a suitable thermal store. You can insulate that from the rest of the ship in the same way. As long as the overall energy remain constant you can move it where you want.

Nope, doesn't exist. Physics again.

 

[swordtart]

Nope, doesn't exist. Physics again.

You'll need to do better than that. What doesn't exist (and by extension can never exist since we are talking about the future?)

 

[MarcusIII]

You'll need to do better than that.

Nope. Can't do better than basic physics as taught in Grammar school. https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/heatrad.php

 

[Sigtrygg]

You just need a suitable thermal store. You can insulate that from the rest of the ship in the same way.

And when your heat sink melts then expands and or explodes... you can not just heep shifting heat into a heat sink either since you have to have a temperature gradient...

As long as the overall energy remain constant you can move it where you want.

Not so, every transfer makes more waste heat, there are some laws all about it...

It's basically just a fridge with the cold bit on the outside rather than the inside.

Except you are putting the hot outside bit also in the inside...

There is nothing stopping you periodically ejecting the thermal store.

Which is a tell tale thermal signature...

It still moves the excess heat away from the ship making targeting the ship more difficult.

Not really, ejecting the heat sink generates more waste heat, and all you need to do is track it back to where it appeared from...

What is generating the heat?

Well your fusion reactor is producing at least megawatts, likely gigawatts, if energy conservation is maintained then your gravitic motors require gigawatts

Normally we use heat to make electricity, but cold fusion evades that restriction.

No it doesn't, the electricity still produces wast heat.
A 1GW cold fusion reactor is producing 1GW of electricity with no waste heat?
That 1GW of electricity then generates waste heat in every system that draws power from it.
Some of that energy is being transferred to kinetic energy, some to internal gravitics, but the waste heat builds up none the less.

We don't need to get rid of the 98.4 that a human radiates completely, we just need to get rid of the excess plus some from friction?.

And to do that we need a way of shifting the waste heat, which must be powered since it is doing work, that generates waste heat...

If we generate 1 Watt of waste heat we just need to sink that somewhere. We can carry pre-cooled heat storage modules, move the waste heat to them and once they get warmer than we can handle, we eject them to space.

And you just set off a beacon saying look over here.

It doesn't need to be permanently radiating and we could even insulate the thermal store so that doesn't radiate.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, if you do work, you generate waste heat, to remove waste heat you must radiate it or eject something hot, both of which give away your position.

An insulated heat sink would be a sizable chunk of payload space.

None of this breaks the laws of thermodynamics.

You have broken them in at least a couple of your statements.

You are still pushing heat to cold and none of it is disappearing, you are just controlling when you release it outside the ship and making it intermittent.

Which requires work, which requires power, which generates more waste heat.

It would make detection harder and tracking far more difficult.

The gravitic heat sink is how I do it...

that was for the benefit of others who are expecting it to get a mention

 

[MasterGwydion]

And when your heat sink melts then expands and or explodes... you can not just heep shifting heat into a heat sink either since you have to have a temperature gradient...

Not so, every transfer makes more waste heat, there are some laws all about it...

Except you are putting the hot outside bit also in the inside...

Which is a tell tale thermal signature...

Not really, ejecting the heat sink generates more waste heat, and all you need to do is track it back to where it appeared from...

Well your fusion reactor is producing at least megawatts, likely gigawatts, if energy conservation is maintained then your gravitic motors require gigawatts

No it doesn't, the electricity still produces wast heat.
A 1GW cold fusion reactor is producing 1GW of electricity with no waste heat?
That 1GW of electricity then generates waste heat in every system that draws power from it.
Some of that energy is being transferred to kinetic energy, some to internal gravitics, but the waste heat builds up none the less.

And to do that we need a way of shifting the waste heat, which must be powered since it is doing work, that generates waste heat...

And you just set off a beacon saying look over here.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, if you do work, you generate waste heat, to remove waste heat you must radiate it or eject something hot, both of which give away your position.

An insulated heat sink would be a sizable chunk of payload space.

You have broken them in at least a couple of your statements.

Which requires work, which requires power, which generates more waste heat.

The gravitic heat sink is how I do it...

that was for the benefit of others who are expecting it to get a mention

Just out of curiosity, if in some far future we can convert 100% of thermal energy into electrical energy, wouldn't that fix the heat issue?

 

[Endie]

I'm talking non military fleet traffic.

100D sphere around a world means you are unlikely to be within encounter range for most planets unless you drop in at same time and close to same place.

While transiting you have the problems already mentioned by relative movement to/from the world and NOT being on the same course at all unless one leaves with a ship at the same time.. You are going too fast to have a meaningful encounter with a ship going the opposite direction at continuous thrust.

No, don't ignore reality when trying to actually figure out the odds. What you make for a rule is different of course because of game narrative. But don't start by ignoring reality.

I'm prettty sure that The Starship Operators Guide says that you don't randomly come out at any point in space near where you targeted, but that there are specific jump-in points dictated by the position of the bodies in the system in which you arrive. That's pretty much what I have always used as a reason why people end up nearish each other when they arrive in system: there are the Jump equivalent of Lagrange points: places where gravoty or whatever other mysterious forces govern the interaction with jump space dictate arrival to be likely.