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Subject: Deep Space 2: More comments
Gerald williams says:
>[email removed] writes:
>> There is nothing in GDW's current (or past) Traveller series technology that
>> requires a celestial body for jump.
>Except the background, that is.
Beg to differ with you. Such jumps are done in several places in GDW's own
adventures. In fact, the J5 route across the Great Rift includes more than one
such station. Such jumps and deep space stations are PART of the background.
How do you get to the Islands Clusters without them? (Must be, otherwise the
Islands would have been rediscovered by the 3I LONG before the 900s. (See
Trillion Credit Squadron for details.)
However, note that costs of operating a series of Deep Space stations increases
geometrically! Assuming the cost of operating 1 station is 4 times as expensive
as operating an orbital port (probably more like 8, but 4 will do). To operate
the
second one, you need to do the same operation from the first! Setting up that
second station into the depths is 16 (or 64 starting with 8) times as expensive
to
build and operate! Note that regardless of whether they are used for commerical
purposes, building and maintaining something by anyone (including the military o
r by
Vampires) has a cost in logistics and energy spent for that purpose. That's the
cost I'm discussing. Governments cannot set these babies up deep into the Rift
all
over the place. This is also why the Vamps are unlikely to "flank" the Regency
through
the Rift - it requries to many resources to do.
>An example from TNE (which I don't own) is the Regency's defense
>against the virus. I guess TNE claims they are covering every
>cubic meter in a shell 6 parsecs thick around the Regency (which
>is ludicrous--they would have to be able to INSTANTLY destroy any
>ship coming out of jump in that area and NEVER fail).
Ah, you have hit upon another of the reasons why the Regency cannot really exist
given the Virus (and why I didn't buy TNE). You're correct - they cannot mainta
in a perfect
seal. Actually, it's even worse
than you describe; see my upcoming discussions of the Regency's naval problems).
Nor can they defend against misjumps - given several hundred ships set to purpos
ely
misjump, several could easily penetrate the Regency. There should be several Tr
in's Veil
type occurrences if not a wholesale rampage.
However, the technologic capability has ALWAYS been available as part of the Tra
veller
milieu.
Steve Bonneville says:
>On Deep Space Stations:
>It's possible they don't often make much economic sense. (Maybe I'll do
>a quick analysis sometime.) But they might make very good military
>sense, as a refueling depot. All you need are the hulls for holding
>the LHyd fuel, tanker/tugs to haul them around and fill them up, and
>a parsec or so to hide them in. I don't know whether the logistical
>assets to support such a venture would be worth tying up or not.
It does, of course depend on your circumstances. GDW's adventures include cases
of smuggler bases, ancient's bases, and naval bases (The Darrians have a major
naval base hidden in deep space) as well as a few commercial stations. Note:
The question was whether it could be done.
My comments on COST are trying to point out that it rarely is, because it is qui
te
expensive. The sole reason the Aslan sought for their route over the great Rift
was that
(for the clan in question), the only other routes for expansion lead to Imperial
and Solomani
space.
John Bucsek says:
> Now that we
>are back to somewhat realistic thrusters, I find that I need more
>fuel for my M-drives than for the J-drive. So if you are willing
>to sacrifice maneuverablity when you exit from jump, most TNE ship
>already have the capability to do a deep space stopover without
>carrying extra fuel.
Even in CT & MT, any ship capable of more carrying more than 1 jump's worth of f
uel can
make deep space jumps. That's stated several places explicitly.
>I disagree that it creates a big problem with the Virus and the
>Regency blockade. The Virus doesn't have the refueling capability
>to move a large fleet by the way of a deep space stop,
No? Why not? As described by GDW, various forms of the Virus are perfectly cap
able of
coordinating a fleet of several hundred vessels (networked over comm links) as e
asily as you move your hands and feet. These include vessels of all shapes and
sizes - including space tankers. So, as Mr Virus, I pop a jump2 fleet to somewh
ere between two stars. I refuel some vessels from teh tankers - including some
of the tankers. The tankers jump back to "vamp space" and refuel. They come ba
ck to the fleet hole up point, and refuel more of teh fleet.
Some of the vamp fleet (fully loaded) leaps further into Regency space within te
h dark between the stars. Spare fuel is forwarded to only some ships. The rest
are told to wait. Do this a fwe more times and some ships appear behind the Re
gency's wall and turn on their transmitters. Uh oh! For a more elaborate invas
ion, a tanker squadron makes a few leaps back and forth. It takes time, but if
the Regency doesn't ever patrol the dark between the stars, they will get their
fannies wacked.
>It makes even less sense for merchantmen to use smaller J-drives
>as this increases the travel time and decreases the profit.
Unless I had something particularly valuable or time critical someone was paying
extra for.
>One last point, In Arrival Vengence the ship rendevous with a deep
>space comet for refueling on the way back to the regency.
>But the location and orbit of the
>comet was a state secret for such an emergency.
Uh, stored in a what? Computer memory or three? In imperial military computers
(sure in security sites, but networked). Mr. Virus can find these too :-)
David Johnson says:
>I've always considered that jump calculations use gravity wells as `targets'.
That's not what various elements of the background material describe, though
I will grant they have some effect - try to jump too close to a grav well and yo
u
don't come out. Jump drive is described as going from point A to point B throug
h a medium (jumpspace) other than our space time continuum where the travel time
is much shorter.
There's nothing in the mechanics that gives you a bonus or minus
for trying to get closer or further from a grav well beyond. I have to presume
it doesn't
matter then. If anything, since if you flub a navigation skill roll (In TNE), m
eaning you used
less skill than required for success, you come out further away, I presume its e
asier to
jump further from a star than close to the 100 diam limit.
All the targeting information for Navigation is based on your data bank. Up to
date
nav data includes information about the orbits and locations of bodies in the s
tar system.
I'd imagine that the first fella jumping into s star system comes in well away f
rom the star
and spends a while observing, so that the next fella will know where is permissa
ble and
not permissable to jump in.
But I'll grant that for t
>My fleet can probably all emerge in orbit
>about a system's major gas giant but it will have to maneuver afterwards
>to regain its formation.
If your fleet tries jumping into orbit around system X's gas giant, odds are goo
d
they ain't coming out. :-)
The problem is more likely one scale. Consider interstellar distances. Now, le
t's add extremely small perturbations in the EXACT attitude of your ship as it e
nters and travels through
jumpspace. Things like the speed able spacer Jock Strapp is jogging at while ex
ercising in the ship's corridors, or the effect on the drive mount of engineer K
appappappappadan's boom box while he play Beethoven's 5th. These have a small e
ffect - enough to move the ship at most a couple hundred klicks - like the space
generally occupied by a fleet while maneuvering! Since these are not all known
in advance (some haven't occurred; what if engineer K switches to the
Beatles instead (ah, those longhaired Solomani...), they cannot be completely co
mpensated for. Of course your fleet disperses a bit during jump - it's safer th
an appearing interspersed or appearing close enough to risk collision in those f
irst moments.
>Jumps to deep space are difficult because there is no gravity well to serve
>as a target.
But you don't target a gravity well! Traveller does not include gravity detecto
rs, and certainly not
ones that work at interstellar distances. However, you are on to something...
> Even if I stage some sort of refueling post it will be
>difficult to get close - the lack of any other significant gravity wells
>in the vicinity helps but I'm still targeting something *much* less
>massive than a star, gas giant or planet.
I agree with the effect, but not the reasons, Remember, gravity wells do
not affect the Navigation plot! Certainly, a station of any size (smaller than
those
purported to house 1 million or more, but something that size is prohibitively e
xpensive for
a deep space station) will not produce enough of a gravity well to be noticed.
However, as I said before, due to the need to know exactly where gravity well ge
nerators are
(stars, planets, planetoids, etc), known systems are well mapped. You can targe
t to the
nth degree and appear (with luck) say anywhere within a 10,000 km bubble without
much
effort because you have a vast body of data available to you, prompting you to a
ccuracy.
In a jump to a deep space point, there are few such references. So, instead of
accuracy to
the .000001th degree, you may only be accurate to the .001th degree. The coordi
nates are just
not that carefully defined in the navigation data until several hundred jumps ha
ve been made, the general jumpspace perturbations along the route have been docu
mented, and any deep space bodies have been located and recorded.
To recap:
It can be done. It is part of the canon that it has been done. It will be done
if the costs justifies it, but that probably won't be very often.
Ted7