IMTU, Jump Filters need you to be in Close range, because it needs EM sensors at Full capacity, and range extending hardware doesn't work because the fundamental particles involved have half-lives of less than 35 microseconds, so too many decay (assuming they travel at very close to the speed of light in a vacuum) to perform the calculation after about 10km.
The software gives a bearing and range to the nearest parsec. So if they jump out within 10km of you to an apparently-empty sector then you can guess that they have a fuel cache, or a tender, or they have extra fuel in their hold etc.
If you follow them then you'll end up in the same hex, and you'll drop out within a few hours of them, most likely. Great.
I'm sure that it's canon (but God knows where I read it in the last couple of weeks! JTAS?) that the Imperial Navy are performing experiments to improve this capability, but I don't want people able to track each other accurately, or there would be no pirate bases or the like in-game. So with a lot of effort you can get some basic info that doesn't break the core Traveller universe model.
The software gives a bearing and range to the nearest parsec. So if they jump out within 10km of you to an apparently-empty sector then you can guess that they have a fuel cache, or a tender, or they have extra fuel in their hold etc.
If you follow them then you'll end up in the same hex, and you'll drop out within a few hours of them, most likely. Great.
I'm sure that it's canon (but God knows where I read it in the last couple of weeks! JTAS?) that the Imperial Navy are performing experiments to improve this capability, but I don't want people able to track each other accurately, or there would be no pirate bases or the like in-game. So with a lot of effort you can get some basic info that doesn't break the core Traveller universe model.
