Synchronized Jumps

[Reynard]

Can merchants afford the extra bandwidth to be regular parts of a convoy or better (costly) engineers to coordinate a synchronized jump from their ship. Are there enough dangerous pirate situations to justify the costs? Military synchronize jumps involve attack situations and are well justified.

 

[phavoc]

I don't think it should be difficult, or expensive, just time consuming. Making it time consuming means all merchants can do it. And really, it's all automated, so even the navigator shouldn't have to roll any mods. And engineering? That makes no sense. If he has to throw a switch to do it, well, that's getting even more sillier. One would think that the 52nd century would have figured out how to get away from purely manual actions don't ya think?

 

[-Daniel-]

One would think that the 52nd century would have figured out how to get away from purely manual actions don't ya think?

Never underestimate man's ability to slow down progress. :lol:

On a more serious note, I agree, it should be possible for a merchant to do it. But as some have pointed out, the real question is not can it be done, but rather is it done. :mrgreen:

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A good military crew* might achieve a +6 DM on the roll (+2 skill, +1 skill augm, +1 Characteristic, +1 Characteristic augm, +1 expert system).

If we take our time to decrease the task difficulty we can achieve success on a roll of 2+, so almost automatic success.

Large military formations can synchronise their jumps, and probably routinely will.


Small civilian ships, like Free Traders, do not have the computers to handle jump synchronisation as default. A m/10bis is rather cheap and should be affordable even for small merchantmen, so after a small refit even Free Traders could try to jump synchronisation.

A decent civilian crew* might achieve a +2 DM on the roll (+0 skill, +1 Characteristic, +1 expert system).

If we take plenty of time and reduce the task difficulty thrice we succeed on a roll of 2+, allowing even large convoys of merchantmen to jump together. The disadvantage is that the jump synchronisation task will take a day or two to complete.

So, convoys of civilian ships are possible. In a war zone, or other high risk area, convoys are likely to be implemented.


* Personal assumptions without official basis.

 

[Reynard]

If the universe is so dangerous merchants and freighters need to travel in convoys and need to pay for computer upgrades straight out for the privilege, there won't be many convoys. Those merchants are already operating on slim profits so buying computer upgrades (and maybe paranoid weapon upgrades) will be a long way off. That means they will be operating solo for a long time and most likely those dangerous pirates you need convoys for will cut them down long before. Most commercial vessels also won't have maxed out engineers so no easy synching. You want the computer, sell your soul to a mega-corp and your free trading days are over. Oh, by the way, the pirates will easily get wind and moved elsewhere to prey on the merchants trying to save for a computer upgrade. You just bought a useless upgrade and work for Big Freight. Have to pass the costs on to the customers from now on.

This is why convoys operated by governments for military operations on the taxpayer's Credit make far more sense.

 

[phavoc]

If we take plenty of time and reduce the task difficulty thrice we succeed on a roll of 2+, allowing even large convoys of merchantmen to jump together. The disadvantage is that the jump synchronisation task will take a day or two to complete.

So, convoys of civilian ships are possible. In a war zone, or other high risk area, convoys are likely to be implemented.

Days seems far too excessive for what is a routine operation. Interstellar travel is as common in the Traveller universe as getting on a plane is today. Yes, there is a lot of behind the scenes work going on, but it's not THAT extraordinary. Or at least nothing in the materials would lead me to believe it should be that difficult to do. There needs to be a reasonable amount of limitations, but beyond that it's just an unreasonable penalty on the players.

If the universe is so dangerous merchants and freighters need to travel in convoys and need to pay for computer upgrades straight out for the privilege, there won't be many convoys. Those merchants are already operating on slim profits so buying computer upgrades (and maybe paranoid weapon upgrades) will be a long way off. That means they will be operating solo for a long time and most likely those dangerous pirates you need convoys for will cut them down long before. Most commercial vessels also won't have maxed out engineers so no easy synching. You want the computer, sell your soul to a mega-corp and your free trading days are over. Oh, by the way, the pirates will easily get wind and moved elsewhere to prey on the merchants trying to save for a computer upgrade. You just bought a useless upgrade and work for Big Freight. Have to pass the costs on to the customers from now on.

This is why convoys operated by governments for military operations on the taxpayer's Credit make far more sense.

And that's always been a bit of a question. From a playing perspective, the idea that you might be the victim of piracy, or engage in it yourself leads the gaming system to make conflict common. But if our own history shows us anything, arming merchants and liners is going in the other direction.

In a war you would see more convoys. But the reality of the spaceways is that you can't hide your squadron of destroyers at the 100D limit in the hopes of picking off ships that you have no idea when they are going to show up. Not to mention that space is B-I-G. It's akin to trying to police the oceans using sailing vessels. It's more chance that you will encounter another ship on the high seas. Your best best is to wait around a port for where you know ships are going to arrive.

I just don't see the need to make synchronized jumping so damn difficult.

 

[rust2]

Would there ever been a need for non-military ships to jump together like that?

Perhaps not a need, but I remember a situation in one of my campaigns where an explorer starship led a convoy of starships to a recently explored planet in order to found a colony there.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Days seems far too excessive for what is a routine operation.

I wouldn't call it a routine operation. Every ship in the convoy must succeed at a Difficult task at the same time, or the operation fails. Note that if we introduce automatic fail on a roll of 2 it a group of 20 ships only has a ~50% chance of success even with skilled crew and taking plenty of time.

Interstellar travel is as common in the Traveller universe as getting on a plane is today.

I don't think so. Regular people makes something like Cr 10 000 / year (or less), the cheapest return Mid passage outsystem is Cr 12 400. In other words a J-1 mid passage is much more expensive than intercontinental first class flights today.

 

[phavoc]

Days seems far too excessive for what is a routine operation.

I wouldn't call it a routine operation. Every ship in the convoy must succeed at a Difficult task at the same time, or the operation fails. Note that if we introduce automatic fail on a roll of 2 it a group of 20 ships only has a ~50% chance of success even with skilled crew and taking plenty of time.

So what's the reasoning behind that? Why is it so difficult to do? The only thing being worked out here is the timing of the jump. So either it's possible or it isn't. Even a Model/1 starship computer is going to be lightyears ahead of anything we have today, and if jump travel is truly that complicated then it's certainly not reflected in the rules or setting. The complication seems arbitrary for no real reason. Canon says it's possible to plot your jump while underway and under power. THAT is far more complicated than coming to a complete halt and maintaining your relative positions while your ships do their own jump calculations and compare the answers.

Interstellar travel is as common in the Traveller universe as getting on a plane is today.

I don't think so. Regular people makes something like Cr 10 000 / year (or less), the cheapest return Mid passage outsystem is Cr 12 400. In other words a J-1 mid passage is much more expensive than intercontinental first class flights today.

People traveled in sailing vessels, in early liners, and now in aircraft. Humanity has spread out across hundreds of light years. Interstellar trade and travel knits the Imperium together. If the cost is so prohibitive then there can't be that many starports to handle the little traffic that planets can afford. So either travels costs are broken, or the base economic model is broken. The idea here is that there should be a lot of travel between planets.

Average income for a US family was $53,000, from a CNN article in 2015. Assuming that $3 USD = 1 Cr, that's about Cr17,600. That does put regular travel outside the realm of many people. Here's some examples of wages from the days of the Titanic to provide a different perspective:


First Class (parlor suite) £870/$4,350 ($83,200 today)
First Class (berth) £30/$150 ($2975 today)
Second Class £12/$60 ($1200 today)
Third Class £3 to £8/$40 ($298 to $793 today)

In 1912, skilled shipyard workers who built Titanic earned £2 ($10) per week. Unskilled workers earned £1 or less per week. A single First Class berth would have cost these workers 4 to 8 months wages.

Then again, in 1912 the wages paid to people varied hugely based upon class. The captain earned $125,000 equivalent, but a stewardess earned only $4,100. Assuming the Traveller universe doesn't have such wide class/wage barriers, the average income would me more akin to what people make today. At least that's along the lines of the published salaries in the books.

Needless to say the costs of things and incomes of things don't necessarily correlate well for a game.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

So what's the reasoning behind that? Why is it so difficult to do? The only thing being worked out here is the timing of the jump. So either it's possible or it isn't.

Jump drives works in mysterious ways. Possible ≠ Easy. Note that jump synchronisation was impossible in previous editions that I have seen.

Even a Model/1 starship computer is going to be lightyears ahead of anything we have today, ...

A m/1 (or m/5 in MgT) is a TL7 machine. Your smartphone is likely to be around that fast?

... and if jump travel is truly that complicated then it's certainly not reflected in the rules or setting. The complication seems arbitrary for no real reason. Canon says it's possible to plot your jump while underway and under power. THAT is far more complicated than coming to a complete halt and maintaining your relative positions while your ships do their own jump calculations and compare the answers.

Jump drives are not completely understood. Sometimes (very rarely) ships misjump. We have rules of thumb such as 100D and maintaining a steady power-flow (unrefined fuel) to avoid that. (Better understanding leads to Hop and Skip drives?)

Calculating the time a jump takes is impossible beforehand. At a guess Jump synchronisation is not just lining up and making similar jumps.

People traveled in sailing vessels, in early liners, and now in aircraft. Humanity has spread out across hundreds of light years. Interstellar trade and travel knits the Imperium together. If the cost is so prohibitive then there can't be that many starports to handle the little traffic that planets can afford. So either travels costs are broken, or the base economic model is broken. The idea here is that there should be a lot of travel between planets.

I have no idea if there should be a lot of travel or not. We know there are some travel, we do not know how much. If I understand you correctly you find the economic model broken because you want more travel than it implies? I generally follow the other direction, a rather poor Imperium leads to relatively little travel. But relatively little travel multiplied by trillions of people is still quite a lot of travel...

If you want more travel, just lower the price of starships?

I use a much wealthier Imperium than the official setting (hence more travel), but that has no bearing on the official setting.

 

[phavoc]

Nuclear power is not well understood, but it's understood enough. Hell some people say internal combustion is magical and don't have a clue about maintaining engines. So I acknowledge you point there, but I don't think it would be as misunderstood as being presented. Misjumps DO occur, but so do other things in real life today. That's the exception, not the rule. If jump travel were that dangerous, still, then with the amount of ship traffic in the Imperium hundreds or thousands of ships would be misjumping on a regular basis. And I don't see that indicated in any of the literature. It's a possibility, much like an aircraft crashing, a ship sinking, a train derailing or a car going over a cliff. Can you point me to something out there (article, source material) that leads you to believe jump travel is anything other than regular? I have T5 but I pretty much refuse to do much with it because it's just a mess.

Jumping wasn't impossible to synchronize in previous editions. It was overlooked, however. Or simply omitted. Early supplements had it as a norm (then again the earliest stuff had jump torpedoes too, so that's not saying a lot). Like much in the Traveller universe, it was left unaddressed until enough noise was made about it to either officially address it or to ignore. So people have house-ruled it for a long time.

On the timing of the jump, I agree that it's not terribly well defined anywhere. Jump IS somewhat random, but then again jump can be done while a ship is accelerating, and even within the 100D limit. What's not said anywhere is if you come to a complete stop can you refine your calculations enough to overcome the randomness. And is the randomness because a ship is moving, or not? I haven't done a literature search or gone back to the the original CT article by Miller to see if there's anything in there that may point this in a different direction. I HAVE them, just not in front of me.

The reason I'm saying there is an issue with the economic model is because there are simply too many Class A/B starports out there to justify anything less than a robust trading economy. And if it's cheap enough to ship that volume of goods between star systems, it's got to be cheap enough to ship people as well. Not to mention the Traveller game system postulates that it's possible for players to earn a living flying a tramp freighter looking for speculative cargoes and passengers. It's a game and sometimes trying to model the real world is just not that fun in a game, so I'm ok with some thing being loosey-goosey. I just want things to be somewhat orderly and somewhat reasonable - for good reasons other than "because!". I'm paying for a product that should have more logic and thought process behind it than what you tell your 3yr old.

 

[Reynard]

"I just don't see the need to make synchronized jumping so damn difficult."

No one does convoys "In Real Life' except during war and very special occasions during said wars. On so many levels it make no sense today on the high seas or 5000 years from now in space for almost the same reason. Synching jump so well SHOULD be a burden on the computers as well as making it unique and where It has always belonged and not in the hands of overly wealthy, paranoid players (unless the ref agrees - Rule Zero). It should be an immense strain on computing power for what is expected to do. Why should players have it so easy? Why should very complex calculations needing extremely powerful ship computers suddenly be a snap to compute because some players want to mega-play with their own massive merchant fleets daring a corsair to attack them?

Traveller has always been about the Travellers focusing on their world. They have a ship or maybe two. They explore and travel and trade and have thrilling encounters one on one. Making synch jumps for military fleets and explaining how they don't end up fish in a barrel makes them awesome in war which players can be part of. Just because something exists in a game doesn't immediately become an Entitlement for players such as easily handing out PGMPs or meson ship weapons because players are afraid they might get hurt, it's often a descriptor for story background and plot devices.

 

[Reynard]

" What's not said anywhere is if you come to a complete stop can you refine your calculations enough to overcome the randomness. And is the randomness because a ship is moving, or not? "

From what the editions, supplements and magazines have stated or hinted over the years, you are making calculations, as precise as possible, not just determining the vector of the destination point, which is not the crude location of just the system itself, but also you ship's vector and tracing the known properties within jump space, most likely THE biggest strain on Astrogation and computing power and probably the big factor in 'randomness' otherwise known as all the factors we didn't want to list. Your ships' vector is part of the calculation whether stopped or moving.

Mongoose folds it all together and simply says you calculate jump, you jump, you will get to the destination within a time frame because all the factors and x factors play into it including misjump, you arrive.... mostly. Ships of governments and corporations can pay to refine the chance of jumping more precisely. Yes, it's simple and it works.

MegaTraveller brings up ship vectors and jump travel.

 

[-Daniel-]

I am glad I asked this, this has been quite interesting to read through.

Thanks Folks. :mrgreen:

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If jump travel were that dangerous, still, then with the amount of ship traffic in the Imperium hundreds or thousands of ships would be misjumping on a regular basis.

I didn't mean to imply that misjump was common. Even a tiny chance would upset the starship model. But a microscopic chance of misjump still remains.

Jumping wasn't impossible to synchronize in previous editions. It was overlooked, however. Or simply omitted. Early supplements had it as a norm (then again the earliest stuff had jump torpedoes too, so that's not saying a lot). Like much in the Traveller universe, it was left unaddressed until enough noise was made about it to either officially address it or to ignore. So people have house-ruled it for a long time.

I may have used an overzealous interpretation of the "jump time is random" texts.

The duration of a jump is fixed at the instant that jump begins, and depends on the specific jump space entered, the energy input into the system, and on other factors. In most cases, jump will last a week.

JTAS 24, p36, "Jumpspace"

To jump, a ship creates a bubble of hyperspace by means of injecting high-energy exotic particles into an artificial singularity. The singularity is driven out of our universe, creating a tiny parallel universe which is then blown up like a balloon by injecting hydrogen into it. The jump bubble is folded around the ship, carrying it into the little pocket universe.

MgT2 Core, p148.

I have not formalised this, but I have interpreted this along the lines "each jump is unique, each duration is random". I agree that it is not very well defined.

On the timing of the jump, I agree that it's not terribly well defined anywhere. ... What's not said anywhere is if you come to a complete stop can you refine your calculations enough to overcome the randomness.

There is no "complete stop" in space. There is no absolute movement, only relative movement, and hence speed. You can be stationary relative a nearby planet (probably requiring acceleration to remain so) but still moving relative the local star, or nearby stars. The star systems you are jumping from and to are likely to move quite rapidly relative each other, so even if you are not moving relative the origin star, you are moving relative the target star.

The reason I'm saying there is an issue with the economic model is because there are simply too many Class A/B starports out there to justify anything less than a robust trading economy.

Not that there are not problems, but I have never seen that as much of a problem. The spaceport classification tells us that certain services are available, but generally nothing of the scale of the operation, it might be built to handle a handful, or perhaps a few hundred, departures a day. Class A or B generally means that there is a shipyard in the system, but tells us nothing about how large ships, or how many ships, can be build or serviced locally.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Mongoose folds it all together and simply says you calculate jump, you jump, you will get to the destination within a time frame because all the factors and x factors play into it including misjump, you arrive.... mostly. ... Yes, it's simple and it works.

Quite, we get some details that we need to do something specific, but no overall exact description of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

And then the next edition frequently overrides some details in previous editions.

 

[Reynard]

Like the exit of a jump, it will come when it comes.

 

[-Daniel-]

Like the exit of a jump, it will come when it comes.

Quite the deep and philosophical quote there. I like it. :lol:

 

[phavoc]

"I just don't see the need to make synchronized jumping so damn difficult."

No one does convoys "In Real Life' except during war and very special occasions during said wars. On so many levels it make no sense today on the high seas or 5000 years from now in space for almost the same reason. Synching jump so well SHOULD be a burden on the computers as well as making it unique and where It has always belonged and not in the hands of overly wealthy, paranoid players (unless the ref agrees - Rule Zero). It should be an immense strain on computing power for what is expected to do. Why should players have it so easy? Why should very complex calculations needing extremely powerful ship computers suddenly be a snap to compute because some players want to mega-play with their own massive merchant fleets daring a corsair to attack them?

Traveller has always been about the Travellers focusing on their world. They have a ship or maybe two. They explore and travel and trade and have thrilling encounters one on one. Making synch jumps for military fleets and explaining how they don't end up fish in a barrel makes them awesome in war which players can be part of. Just because something exists in a game doesn't immediately become an Entitlement for players such as easily handing out PGMPs or meson ship weapons because players are afraid they might get hurt, it's often a descriptor for story background and plot devices.

The early CT stuff abounds with examples of ships needing to jump together. The King Richard, which was a luxury liner with it's own escorts, the Sky Raiders adventure series, to name a few. Plus I believe it was the original Mercenary that talked about tickets players could get that involved escorting ships. You can't escort a ship to another system unless you can time your arrivals to be the same.

And that's very true, "In Real Life" you rarely see convoys except in times of war, or through pirate-infested waters (such as the Indian ocean for a number of years, but not so much today now that they have gone in and smashed some of the pirate infrastructure and ships are carrying armed guards AND there are naval vessels out there doing inspections). However the issue is "In Real Life" you don't have ships disappearing from one star system and appearing in another. Nor "In Real Life" is just about every starship seeming armed with offensive and/or defensive weaponry (not to mention the crew).

Traveller has always been focused on conflict. Canon allows for corporations to engage in trade wars, to hire mercs to get contracts, or for planets or sector dukes to have little armed spats. "In Real Life" you see a great deal of armed conflict around the world on any given day. Just not all of it makes the nightly news. So from a practical perspective for the gaming setting it makes sense. Why you would think the argument for something practical being considered a Monty Haul style reward escapes me.

WHY should it be a "immense" strain on the computer? It's not currently for jump programs and ships computers. Computing the jump is relatively routine as evidenced by the immense amount of ship traffic the Imperium has (or would have to have to support such a star-spanning empire and to GET billions upon billions of people from planet to planet).

Traveller has always been about the Travellers focusing on their world.

I'm going to have to fundamentally disagree on this one. Traveller, as the name implies, has always been about adventure among the stars. Instead of a dungeon crawl you had entire star systems to explore, with many planets, moons, asteroids and everything else.

 

[phavoc]

" What's not said anywhere is if you come to a complete stop can you refine your calculations enough to overcome the randomness. And is the randomness because a ship is moving, or not? "

From what the editions, supplements and magazines have stated or hinted over the years, you are making calculations, as precise as possible, not just determining the vector of the destination point, which is not the crude location of just the system itself, but also you ship's vector and tracing the known properties within jump space, most likely THE biggest strain on Astrogation and computing power and probably the big factor in 'randomness' otherwise known as all the factors we didn't want to list. Your ships' vector is part of the calculation whether stopped or moving.

Mongoose folds it all together and simply says you calculate jump, you jump, you will get to the destination within a time frame because all the factors and x factors play into it including misjump, you arrive.... mostly. Ships of governments and corporations can pay to refine the chance of jumping more precisely. Yes, it's simple and it works.

MegaTraveller brings up ship vectors and jump travel.

Millers' original article on jump travel specifically states that a ships retains its speed and heading that it enters jump space with, and the idea that ships calculate the exit trajectory to carry their momentum towards their destination to minimize how much time they have to maneuver to get to their destination. CT and all versions of Traveller have said you calculate jump, you jump, you arrive within a +/- of your arrival time. MGT didn't originate the idea. The core book rules rarely touched on it (I'm trying to recall if GURPS did, but I'm drawing a blank).

I'm not at all opposed to simple and works ideas. If you will recall, the books don't differentiate between civilian and military computers or programs. The only difference in that sense is with some weapon systems being military only, and some sensor systems being used more by military than civilians (following the age old idea that merchants are cheap and fighting takes away from making money). Beyond that civilian and military vessels are considered the same.

So if we have no real differences between military and civilian tech, why draw the line here? If you don't like the idea, that's fine, it's a valid viewpoint. What I'm trying to discover is what is the logic behind making it difficult and how you justify letting military ships do it and not civilians. I'm NOT saying ships will ALWAYS travel in convoys between systems. But there WILL be times when there is a need.