TNE drives

I have some thoughts on the multiple drive systems in TNE.

The _2300AD_ stutterwarp drive was theoretically limited to 7.7 light years
before discharge. Presumably, the version in TNE will have the same limitation.

However, there are several ways to dodge this limit. First, another ship can
carry the first part-way to the destination, where the drive of the carried
ship is brought online--offline stutterwarp drives are not subject to buildup.

Second, a suitable gravity well can be found (such as a brown dwarf) to
discharge at.

Third, a skilled engineer can delay the discharge by one day, during which time
a fast ship can travel a considerable distance.

Fourth, an option not open in _2300AD_--use stutterwarp only as a maneuver
drive and use a conventional jump-drive for long distances.

Stutterwarp drives must discharge into a 0.1G gravity well, which takes 40
hours. Stutterwarps cycle hundreds of thousands of times per second--compare
this to a flicker rate of 29.97 frames per second for NTSC video. Each
individual stutter carries the ship only a few hundred meters at most.

As Steve pointed out, conventional maneuver-drive ships are motionless when
compared to a stutterwarp ship. The _Kennedy_ class cruisers, a good example
of a fast stutterwarp ship, can manage an in-system speed of .3c, and a deep-
space speed of 1755.65c. Compare this to a jump-2 ship, which has an FTL speed
of 339.04c. Although a J-3 ship or better can go places a stutterwarp ship
can't, the stutterwarp ship can (if discharge points exist) cross 6 parsecs
about as fast as a J-6 ship can.

Most of the systems in the Imperium are accessible by stutterwarp without even
considering those "worthless" stars that were omitted from the maps.

Stutterwarp ships are actually "not there" along most of there flight path--
they only occupy a small part of the space they pass through. In addition,
they are fast enough to outrun any weapon that does not travel at the speed
of light, or use a faster stutterwarp. A ship with stutterwarp is very hard
to hit--sort of like a factor 9 black globe that never overloads. Therefore,
all ship weapons in _2300AD_ are either lasers or particle beams that can be
aimed precisely enough to hit a target when it "is there".

All of this means that the introduction of stutterwarp into the Imperium (or
remains thereof) would have some very drastic effects. First, any non-
stutterwarp ship becomes instantly obsolete as a warship. Second, merchants
with J-1 or J-2 ships are put out of business overnight, and captains of
ships with better jump drives will have to either find a route with stops 3
parsecs or more apart, or go out of business as well. J-6 merchants are fast
enough to compete with even the fastest stutterwarp ships, and J-3 to J-5 can
cross distances as fast as the slower stutterwarp ships, but wherever the route
has distances of 2 parsecs or less the stutterwarp will be faster.

Obviously, stutterwarp having existed all along in the background is a totally
absurd idea, and I suspect that the people at GDW must realize this. I think it
is safe to assume that stutterwarp in the Imperium will be a recent invention.

This raises another point--whoever invented it would, logically, use it to go
out and stomp all over everyone else until they had reunited the Imperium. GDW
has already pretty much said that nobody has done so, however. Therefore,
either stutterwarp was invented by some highly idealistic planet which has
never shared the technology and would never dream of conquering their neighbors
(yeah, right!), or GDW is ignoring logic again. Based on what I have heard of
the virus, and the whole TNE setting, I am forced to conclude that the latter
is more likely.


                                    Lord Krieg

Internet:  [email removed]
America Online:  Empr Krieg