Tracking ships

[MasterGwydion]

Probably not. 1) the pursuing ships can't always just tell the Starport authorities what to do - unless they can. Most PCs can't, most of the time, but even governments will have jurisdiction issues. 2) the Starport may not have detected their jump Detection is rarely automatic, and it does not tell you anything about the ship. In a busy port you will get 100s of hits, so useless. You can check the transponder signals, of course, but if you are doing that, you don't need the jump flash. 3) By the time you get to check out any jump location, the ship is long gone. 4) the starport needs to have the equipment for this, which poorly resource facilities will not have. It doesn't really seem like something even a well resourced starport is likely to have. Local system defense or IN or Scouts will have this when the tech is available because clusters of ships jumping in during wartime likely signals an attack, but unless you are part of their organization, they're not going to share. 5) if the ship is evading the PCs or if it just need to go somewhere far out in the Oort Cloud, the signal might take days to reach the starport, so it will be a long time before you even get started on the search.

1) Have you never played a scout or an agent of the Imperium?

2) There are more starports controlled by the Starport Authority than there are capital ships in the IN. Are you trying to tell Me that a multi-million-ton starport doesn't have a gravity sensor? Automatic detection range on those is 1 parsec. Notice that it says "automatic detection range".

3) You are assuming that the ship left for another destination, which is by no means a guaranteed. Also, even if it did, if you can contact the Starport as in #1, they just ask where the ship went.

4) A GAS is the single most powerful tool for gathering information available to the Third Imperium. It allows them to track every ship in Imperial Space that doesn't have Stealth Jump.

5) Yes, that is possible, but all it does is delay the pursuit.

Okay, so you have come up with a bunch of edge cases where none of this would work, but in 90% of cases it will work for those operating the ships and starports or their agents, like the IN, IMoJ, the IISS, the SPA, megacorps and regional corps, etc. Hell, even the TAS can probably do it.

Your problem is that you are only taking the microview, the player-scale view. I am looking at the marcoview, how all of these different technologies can affect the setting as a whole, not for just player characters and individual ships. I mean, seriously, it is like you are suggesting that because you can't get access to flight tracking data from the airport, that airports shouldn't have that technology or that it shouldn't matter because even agents of the government shouldn't have access to it, because you can't?

 

[MonsterX]

Okay, so you have come up with a bunch of edge cases where none of this would work, but in 90% of cases it will work for those operating the ships and starports or their agents, like the IN, IMoJ, the IISS, the SPA, megacorps and regional corps, etc. Hell, even the TAS can probably do it.

Your problem is that you are only taking the microview, the player-scale view. I am looking at the marcoview, how all of these different technologies can affect the setting as a whole, not for just player characters and individual ships. I mean, seriously, it is like you are suggesting that because you can't get access to flight tracking data from the airport, that airports shouldn't have that technology or that it shouldn't matter because even agents of the government shouldn't have access to it, because you can't?

No, this is not the true. Gravitic Analysis suites cost 12MCr are TL 13, and for reasons which I and others have explained have limited usefulness to anybody except explorers and scientists, and maybe the Navy - though they might get better info by other means. Having a record that someone jumped in somewhere at some point out in some direction or other, and maybe they're long gone or in some other part of the system, or something, is not useful information except to perhaps track traffic volume. So you won't see them at starports, generally, since the info is nice to have but maybe not worth 12MCr, plus the cost to rent the space, and the salary or the operator. And if they do have it, which they don't, no, they aren't giving it out to random deseparados wandering through, just out of equity because someone with an Imperial Warrant might be able to convince them to. And no, most PC don't have Imperial Warrants, but if you did have one finding the right person to approve your access to such data - if it existed which it doesn't - this would take long enough that the ship you are hunting would be millions of kms from the jump entry point already, and so its not like you've found them or are likely to .

You can make all the crazy rule interpretations you want to turn the Charted Space into a panopticon in your Traveller universe, but 1) none of it is realistic given physics, astrography and the premise of the setting, 2) it is not consistent with the political organization of the setting, 3) it is not consistent with what most referees and players want to have, 4) it is not a reasonable interpretation of the RAW. Therefore, IMTU, it doesn't work that way. I've explained my view that it is theoretically possible to get some information this way on some occasions, but no, it is not a practical way to track ships in the setting.

But if you want to do it the way you describe, then you do you.

 

[MasterGwydion]

No, this is not the true. Gravitic Analysis suites cost 12MCr are TL 13, and for reasons which I and others have explained have limited usefulness to anybody except explorers and scientists, and maybe the Navy - though they might get better info by other means. Having a record that someone jumped in somewhere at some point out in some direction or other, and maybe they're long gone or in some other part of the system, or something, is not useful information except to perhaps track traffic volume. So you won't see them at starports, generally, since the info is nice to have but maybe not worth 12MCr, plus the cost to rent the space, and the salary or the operator. And if they do have it, which they don't, no, they aren't giving it out to random deseparados wandering through, just out of equity because someone with an Imperial Warrant might be able to convince them to. And no, most PC don't have Imperial Warrants, but if you did have one finding the right person to approve your access to such data - if it existed which it doesn't - this would take long enough that the ship you are hunting would be millions of kms from the jump entry point already, and so its not like you've found them or are likely to .

You can make all the crazy rule interpretations you want to turn the Charted Space into a panopticon in your Traveller universe, but 1) none of it is realistic given physics, astrography and the premise of the setting, 2) it is not consistent with the political organization of the setting, 3) it is not consistent with what most referees and players want to have, 4) it is not a reasonable interpretation of the RAW. Therefore, IMTU, it doesn't work that way. I've explained my view that it is theoretically possible to get some information this way on some occasions, but no, it is not a practical way to track ships in the setting.

But if you want to do it the way you describe, then you do you.

So, just out of curiosity, a starport wouldn't find it useful to detect every ship that exited jumpspace in its parsec? I can think of lots of defensive reasons why they would want to. It is an early warning system if a system is attacked. If a fleet jumps to the outsystem, the starport would know it hours before the fleet could reach them. This gives time to prepare defenses. So, why is this not useful given this is how the rules say the technology works. Also, with the total cost of a starport, in the billions or trillions of credits, you think they would quibble over a measly 12 million? With thousands of workers, you think 1 more matters economically? You seem to also think that an Imperial Warrant is the only way to get cooperation. I never said that, you did. You could have a contact. You could have a contract with the starports as a bounty hunter. There are a million story reasons how access could be gained to starport records. Heck, this is even part of the adventure on Paal in PoD.

1) I have already disproven this multiple ways.
2)Yeah, because fascist political organizations and corporations never want to surveil those inside their borders/their customers. You are right, not realistic at all... /s Show me a law enforcement organization, major corporation. or a major port that turns down vastly more accurate information having to do with their exact fields of interest for pennies? Just the analysis of traffic flow patterns over a cluster or subsector could be worth billions of credits each year. How much money do companies make on Earth analyzing traffic patterns on roads, flights, and shipping? Hint - It is a 9 billion dollar industry
3) I will leave that up to the individuals to say for themselves.
4) It is an exact, direct reading of RAW. What is being interpreted? I am quoting mechanics as they are written in the book. You can say it is not reasonable and is not that way IYTU, but that is just your opinion and not what the rules say.

 

[Anstett]

This does make an additional case for why Astrogation is important.

The ability to enter a system with a planet between your ship and the starport, the ability to have a ship heading that indicates one jump direction then quickly change to a different one, the ability to shorten or lengthen the time in jump {within the random amount}, arrive at a specific time synced to the night shift for the starport, etc.

 

[Vormaerin]

The first of those seems reasonable given the rules as written. The rest seem like house rules. It isn't clear that anything about your real space heading says anything about your jump space travel, but you could say that it does without contradicting anything. Controlling jump times would be a substantial expansion of the capabilities of ships, though not entirely unreasonable given that you can apparently do some engineering gimmickry to sync jump duration of different ships making the same jump. Arriving at a specific time seems to have been what Arbellatra's fleet attempted in CotI with some success.

But there is absolutely nothing in the rules that make that seem like something you can actually do in practice without house rules..

 

[Talon Greyfeather]

No, but should be updated and consolidated regularly. RPGs are no longer only print media, so updates can be a thing now.


That is not what it states that it does. It states that, "With detailed analysis, this allows a prediction of which star system a ship has jumped to" (not which potential star system), so no. The rules say it tells you what star system, so you are giving the technology less credit than is clearly stated in the rules. At your table you can do what you like, but don't try and pretend that the book doesn't say differently. Now, you could argue that the prediction isn't 100% accurate, but that is a different discussion and may be a valid one. Then We need to figure out how accurate it is, and how your skill check affects that accuracy. Right now, I am not sure the skill check affects anything other than granting a pass/fail type thing.

It says it predicts the star system(s) they may have jumped to. Using your example of the feared secret base reveal - why would it predict jumping into nothing and not one of the star systems --- just like the rule, as written, states? Perhaps you should read the rule closer "and don't try and pretend that the book doesn't say differently".

 

[MasterGwydion]

It says it predicts the star system(s) they may have jumped to. Using your example of the feared secret base reveal - why would it predict jumping into nothing and not one of the star systems --- just like the rule, as written, states? Perhaps you should read the rule closer "and don't try and pretend that the book doesn't say differently".

I agree that you can read it that way or you can look at that as an example of its accuracy. It cannot tell you where the ship went more accurately than an area the size of a star system. I would say one is more likely than the other, but by RAW, you are correct.