Warp Drive

[Darzoni]

I finally condensed my notes on using warp drive as it pertains to my Traveller Universe. At least, the game mechanics. The socio-economic parts haven't been worked out except for the fact that warp drives make a joke of normal subsector and sector sizes; I ended up using 16x16 parsec subsectors.

Anyway, I put it on the blog.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

One possibility is to change the size of a hex.

Instead of using a parsec, use something like 5 or 10 light years.

 

[Prime_Evil]

One possibility is to change the size of a hex.

Instead of using a parsec, use something like 5 or 10 light years.

Using a larger scale also has the advantage of being more realistic, since it makes habitable extrasolar planets much rarer.

 

[nDervish]

The socio-economic parts haven't been worked out except for the fact that warp drives make a joke of normal subsector and sector sizes; I ended up using 16x16 parsec subsectors.

How so? According to the blog entry that you linked, you were using warp drive speeds that are the same as jump drive speeds (1 parsec per warp number per week), so it should have taken just as long to cross a subsector with a warp drive as with a standard jump drive.

 

[LimeyDragon]

Or you could wait for the Traveller Prime Directive RPG that comes out this fall..? I hear it's going to be a fantastic book.

 

[Darzoni]

The socio-economic parts haven't been worked out except for the fact that warp drives make a joke of normal subsector and sector sizes; I ended up using 16x16 parsec subsectors.

How so? According to the blog entry that you linked, you were using warp drive speeds that are the same as jump drive speeds (1 parsec per warp number per week), so it should have taken just as long to cross a subsector with a warp drive as with a standard jump drive.

Warp drives allow you to stay in warp for a much longer period of time than a week, meaning you care far less about how big a gap is between this system and that one and more about "Well, when's maintenance due?". The movement pattern becomes 4 weeks of travel, 1 week spent doing maintenance. A Frontiersman with 52 tons of fuel has a range of 16 parsecs in four weeks.

Jump drives, because they require fuel equal to 10% of the ship's displacement per parsec, tend to enforce a week's travel and a week spent fueling/dealing. We all know that with Jump Drives the number of parsecs from planet to planet is a big hairy deal, otherwise places like Browne out in The Borderlands would be not so isolated. That same Frontiersman under that pattern travels only 8 parsecs in four weeks. If you want to count the full five weeks, then it travels 12 at most.

Then there's the distinct effect a warp-capable x-boat would have. You could have x-boats with warp 6 drives and small maneuver drives, eliminating a vast amount of overhead in x-boat tenders and increasing the maximum speed of the network by at least a third.

There is also the possibility that using the Hard Sci-Fi world generation rules has distorted my thinking on the subject. :\a

 

[Labmonkey]

I also use warp drive in mtu but require navigational checks based the jump software.

 

[nDervish]

Jump drives, because they require fuel equal to 10% of the ship's displacement per parsec

I was about to object to your explanation on the basis that your blog post said the warp drive used twice the fuel of standard jump drives (so, 20% of dtonnage per parsec), but, when I went back to find the quote, it turned out to be "A warp drive is taxing on the ship’s power plant, however, causing it to consume twice as much fuel." If it merely doubles the rate that the power plant consumes fuel, rather than taking twice as much fuel as a standard jump drive covering the same distance, then I understand completely. All just a minor misreading on my part...

There is also the possibility that using the Hard Sci-Fi world generation rules has distorted my thinking on the subject. :\a

Having done a lot of sector generation lately with the hard SF variant rules as my starting point, I'm confident that it wasn't the cause. Hard SF worldgen tends to produce a lot more low-pop worlds with low grade (or no) starports than standard worldgen does, so it would tend to make it harder to get around rather than easier.

 

[Treebore]

...your blog post said the warp drive used twice the fuel of standard jump drives (so, 20% of dtonnage per parsec)...

If the theories in this real article on Warp Drives proves to be true, power consumption for Warp Drives is going to be much smaller than previously believed. Much, much, much smaller.


http://news.yahoo.com/warp-drive-may-more-feasible-thought-scientists-161301109.html

 

[Darzoni]

...your blog post said the warp drive used twice the fuel of standard jump drives (so, 20% of dtonnage per parsec)...

If the theories in this real article on Warp Drives proves to be true, power consumption for Warp Drives is going to be much smaller than previously believed. Much, much, much smaller.

http://news.yahoo.com/warp-drive-may-more-feasible-thought-scientists-161301109.html

No, the warp drives just make the power plant use twice as much fuel.