jump · Traveller Mailing List Archive

A thread of 2 messages, 8 February 1994 to 11 February 1994, in the order they were sent.

#6766 jump

Joni M Virolainen · 8 February 1994

I have a little problem conserning the jump drive system. I have understood
that the malfunction check has to be made for every 8 hour period in which
the star ship is constantly used (am I right?). In that case it is very
propable that the ship would have at least one malfunction per jump.
T:TNE says that if the malfunction occurs, it can cause the jump drive to
malfunction. Now, if the jump drive malfunctions it usually ceases to work
and shuts down.

The real problem I have is: what happens next? Does the ship need constant
output from the jump drive, then the ship would drop out from the jump space
in the middle of nowhere. If the ship only needs the start boost and then
drops out from the jump space according the course, then the ship would
return from the jump space normally at the destination and is not able to
jump before the repairs are made.

I think that the ship only needs the star boost or there would be lots of
wrecks between the stars and star travel would not be very cost effective.
But I hope somebody can tell me how the jump drive -officially- works.

Thanks,

Joni Virolainen

[email removed]

#6787 jump

Joni M Virolainen · 11 February 1994 · reply to #6766

TNE says:
> Each piece of equipment has the potential to break down each time it
> spends an 8 hour period in use.

Every jump takes about a week. In that time a starship can have about 21
potential breakdowns. A starship with wear value of 6 have a 60% chance
of actual malfunction 21 times per jump. So it suffers averagely 1.26
malfunctions every time it jumps from one system to another.

TNE als says:
> A starship can malfunction. The two major malfunctions are drive failure and
> misjump.

Because misjump usually occurs when using unrefined fuel, I think that most
malfunctions occur in (jump) drives. If the malfunction occurs in jump drive,
what happens next? A malfunctioned jump drive propably shuts down and ceases
to work and drops down from jump space (if jump needs constant output from
the jump drives). In that case the poor ship (and its crew) ends up somewhere
in space and can't jump because nobody knows where they are and don't have
enough jump fuel. Have you ever considered how many starships are out there
ended up in space between stars because their jump drives malfunctioned?

Anyway I'd like to know how the jump drive works -officially- in TNE and
how to handle the malfunctions.

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* Joni Virolainen  *
* [email removed]*
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