[ I apologize for bringing up an old subject; I'm catching up on old TML
articles -chk ]
StutterWarp drives are great; I can't see any reason (including safety) for
not using them over even jump drives.
RANGE:
The stutterwarp distance limit is 7.7ly; if I remember correctly, that's
about Jump-2. If you don't stop in a >0.1G gravity well at this distance,
then the ship is bathed in lethal radiation, yes, but:
There are few areas of space surrounding Terra that are unreachable at the
7.7ly limit. Increasing this limit even slightly makes the set of stars
surrounding Terra completely connected.
Even in 2300AD several different options are being explored to extend the
range:
- - stuttertugs - drag one ship with another to 3.8ly, then assemble the towed
ship's drive and continue; this extends the range to 11.5ly. At 11.5ly
there are no unreachable areas in the 2300AD starcharts.
- - brown dwarves - these are very difficult to detect, but once found may be
used to discharge like any other gravity well. Two of these, of strategic
importance, have been found by the American Space Forces (although I won't
say where they are :-)
- - extended range - a competent engineering crew can delay the discharge time
by up to one full day. even a slow ship travels at 2ly/day, giving an
effective range of 9.7ly when necessary; again this distance completely
connects the known stars.
- - extended range II - There is evidence to suggest that the 7.7ly limit is
not a hard limit; there are rumours that one of our Alien neighbours has a
stutterwarp drive with a longer range...
SPEED:
As has been pointed out previously, any reasonable StutterWarp equipped ship
is *fast*; anywhere from Jump-2 to Jump-9 equivalent, with the additional
bonus that it doesn't take a week to make every link; instead travel time
depends on distance travelled.
COMBAT:
StutterWarp equipped ships are untouchable by anything other than faster
StutterWarp equipped ships/weapons. It is trivial to outrun anything slower
than you, and it is exceedingly difficult to hit a stutterwarping target at
the best of times. (The reason that weapons do so little damage in 2300AD is
not because they're wimpy. Instead, it's because of the techniques used to
counteract StutterWarp; you fire a laser in a wide spread at where the
target should be, and hope that one or more individual bursts hits the
target. So, only fraction of the energy pumped into a weapon is actually
striking the target).
Non-energy weapons are useless against StutterWarping ships; you simply
can't hit an object that isn't in normal space most of the distance it
travels:
A StutterWarping ship is leaping through space. The drive cycles at a
certain frequency, and at each cycle the ship "jumps" to a new location,
*without crossing the intervening space*. The stutterwarp frequency isn't
specified, but at 10kHz the distance travelled is 21900km/cycle, and even at
1 GHz the distance travelled is 219m/cycle. It's exceedingly unlikely that a
StutterWarping ship is going to hit an object in it's path.
A StutterWarping ship retains it's realspace velocity vector, so even if it
were to impact an object in it's path, it would do so at whatever it's
current realspace velocity is, so it's unlikely to take much damage from the
collision.
Ships without StutterWarp drives are sitting ducks...
Why would anyone want a Jump drive instead of a StutterWarp drive?