J Roberson [email removed] writes:
>No offense meant to any of those groups, of course. Besides, I don't play
>*any* form of Traveller; I just hang out here for the sci-fi. ;)
INFIDEL!!!!!!! :)
Cynthia Higginbotham [email removed] writes:
[many very useful comments on deep-space refueling deleted]
>I also venture to add that Impy merchants consider deep-space jumping
>as risky a practice as burning unrefined fuel in your jump drive, and
>discourage it. So do their insurers. Someone else can explain why
>the Imperial Navy and Zho Navy don't do it very often...
To illuminate why merchants would find deep space jumping dangerous,
consider this. When you jump into a deep-space hex, you have no
"landmarks" to orient by -- normally, in a stellar system, you have a
nearby star and some planets to fix your location, but for a deep space
station, you are dependent on an accurate jump and the station's
radio beacon/radar reflector. On _Brilliant Lances_ scale, a ship
jumping 100 diameters from a size-8 world is a bit over 40 hexes away
from target. Finding a lone station at even that close a range could
be tricky. And if the station isn't where you think it is or your
calculations are substantially off, you and your ship may be waiting a
long time to be found.
My guess as to why the IN and ZN don't seem to use deep space refueling
much is two-fold. First, it may be tricky to maintain fuel levels in
the cache without tying up too many fleet tankers, especially if it
is in a forward area. Cynthia, what's your experience with this? It
may also be that we just don't hear much about them -- our usual source
of info is the TNS, and such bases would usually be secret installations.
I think that such stations have been used -- my interpretation of the
4FW "Battle of Two Suns" which was "midway between Yres and Menorb"
as depicted in the CT adventure _The Kinunir_ sounds a lot like a
fight over a fueling and resupply base in deep space. It would explain
why the fates of Efate, Yres, and Menorb hung in the balance over the
outcome, and why afterward the Zhodani supply lines were too long.
It would also explain why the battlefield may still have ships from which
parts could be salvaged.
Steve Bonneville
[email removed]