In his most recent posting, Steve Higgenbotham makes the complaint that
Stutterwarp, if introduced into Traveller: The New Era, would eliminate
piracy. Obviously, if the 100 diameter limit is kept in the game, this is
true. A ship can travel to 100 dimeters of even the largest primary star
in a few minutes using a Stutterwarp drive. This will hinder piracy, as
the response time of any system patrol craft will be so fast as to leave too
little time for plunder. My solution: away with the 100 diameter limit.
The 100 diameter rule is an aspect of TravPhysics only, a creation for game
purposes, to make the travel time to jump point about 3 days for the most
common (1G) craft. The TravPhysics argument is that only at this range is
gravity weak enough to allow a safe jump. But, why 100 diameters, as opposed
to say 1000 diameters, or 10,000 diameters? In Traveller/MT, it takes far too
long to travel this far on even 6G. But in TNE, even an emasculated Stutterwarp
can travel to 1000 diameters in less than three days. I suggest that the
diameter limit be explicitly set so that a ship equipped with the most common
type of Stutterwarp drive takes about three days to travel that distance.
This would allow us to have our Stutterwarp and Piracy too. So, maybe the
diameter limit has increased by a couple of orders of magnitude. Like it
really matters. This can even be worked into the MT/2300AD background, like
so:
There was an article in the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society several
years ago, in which Marc Miller suggested that nothing was known about Jump
Drive physics in our era because a society could not begin to do the proper
research until it had set up permanent bases beyond 100 diameters from its
primary star. In the case of the Terrans, this meant not until they had
developed bases in the Asteroid Belt.
In Traveller: The New Era, this becomes: Nothing was known about Jump
Drive physics in our era because a society could not begin to do the proper
research until it had set up permanent bases beyond N diameters from its
primary star. In the case of the Terrans, this meant not until they had
developed deep space bases beyond the orbit of Pluto. (I assume hear that
N will be quite large, placing any ships attempting to jump in deep space).
The best thing about this retcon, is that it leaves things largely unchanged.
Travel time from port to jump-point will be unchanged. Travel time from
port to gas-giant will be much shorter, but travel time from gas-giant to
jump-point should be approximately the same, perhaps a bit longer. Travel
between planets in a system will be much shorter, but the most common form
of travel in Classic Trav is interplanetary, the time for which should
remain unchanged.
And finally, it will make piracy a realistic option. Pirates will be able
to lurk in deep space, waiting for the unsuspecting merchant ship, and then
pow!
Lewis Taylor Goss