Author Topic: Jumpship travel fast/slow in 3025 Era?  (Read 1972 times)

Domino

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Jumpship travel fast/slow in 3025 Era?
« on: 04 January 2017, 14:18:10 »
Named after the News travels fast/slow in 3025 Era? topic   :)

I need a little help in understanding interstellar travel times.  How long does it take to get from A to B?

My characters are in New Samarkand and need to journey to Butte Hold.  How long will it take them to get there?



guardiandashi

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Re: Jumpship travel fast/slow in 3025 Era?
« Reply #1 on: 04 January 2017, 16:47:48 »
Named after the News travels fast/slow in 3025 Era? topic   :)

I need a little help in understanding interstellar travel times.  How long does it take to get from A to B?

My characters are in New Samarkand and need to journey to Butte Hold.  How long will it take them to get there?
using http://iscs.teamspam.net/pdf/iscs_jp_3052.pdf
I count it as about 30 jumps and if averaging ~1 week between jumps it would take about 7 months to get there if you were willing to jump to uninhabited systems you could get it down to around 20 or 21 jumps which would be about 5 months but its more risky.  the other issue is if you are headed there after ~3048ish the routes go right through clan space... do you think they MIGHT have a problem with that?

now if you use the minimum charging time rules I think you can safely get the charge time down to around 5-6 days without too much risk which doesn't sound that impressive but over the course of 30 jumps shaving 1-2 days per jump starts to add up IE getting it down to 150hrs per jump ~6 days means you would save about a month in transit.  shaving it down to 125hrs would save ~2 months of travel time

worktroll

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Re: Jumpship travel fast/slow in 3025 Era?
« Reply #2 on: 04 January 2017, 16:51:32 »
If you're going between well-travelled planets, you can try and swap JumpShips along the way for someone just about to leave. Maybe roll a d6 per switch to indicate delays; still faster than one JumpShip needing a week to recharge at each stop. OTOH, there may not be something going your way.

Governments can set up "pony express" chains of JumpShips sitting around until needed for priority jobs, but PCs are unlikely to have that sort of pull. So the 7 months figure is a good one; unless you choose to make things more interesting for them along the way with side quests, bandits, or space eels, that sort of thing :)
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Tai Dai Cultist

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Re: Jumpship travel fast/slow in 3025 Era?
« Reply #3 on: 04 January 2017, 18:50:45 »
The farther you get from civilization (major regional capitals, terra) the harder it is to find a jumpship that is going the direction you want to go in at all, much less ready to jump just waiting for you to dock.

The closer you get to Butte Hold, the slower the going will be if you don't have your own JumpShip.

Domino

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Re: Jumpship travel fast/slow in 3025 Era?
« Reply #4 on: 04 January 2017, 20:03:16 »
Thanks guys.  Very helpful.  Needed that big picture look. 

The date is indeed 3148ish.  The players will have an opportunity to assist in the exploration operations of the Comstar Explorer Corp. 
They will be involved with the mission of the Merchant-class JumpShip, Outbound Light.  How involved will be up to them.

Plenty of side quests, pirates and Kraken.

As a side note, the players I have so far are not familiar with the story of the Outbound Light but are aware of the basic history of the Clan invasion era.   >:D
« Last Edit: 04 January 2017, 20:05:26 by Domino »

worktroll

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Re: Jumpship travel fast/slow in 3025 Era?
« Reply #5 on: 04 January 2017, 20:18:20 »
Sounds good!
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

massey

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Re: Jumpship travel fast/slow in 3025 Era?
« Reply #6 on: 18 January 2017, 23:54:38 »
If you're traveling as a simple passenger, likely you can get the travel down to a much more reasonable time frame.  I'd say 2 or 3 months.  There probably exists some sort of travel agency that plans your route for you.  Just think of it like taking a plane today.  You catch connecting flights and it speeds your journey considerably.

So you talk to your travel agent on New Samarkand, and she works out how long its going to take.  And she's got info on regular jump routes where ships are going back and forth.  If it's just you and your buddies, it shouldn't be too hard to reserve some beds on a cargo dropship.  Your travel agent wouldn't book you the most direct way, she'd book you the fastest way.  You're probably going to be switching dropships quite frequently.  You probably get a bunch of layovers at weird places.  But as long as everybody stays on schedule, you should be able to make it fairly quickly.  It will still be expensive though, no way getting around that.

If you are bringing heavy equipment with you, like mechs, then it gets a whole lot more complicated.  You can't just hitch a ride on some dropship with an empty broom closet you could hang a hammock in.  Every ship you take has to have space for your stuff.  Then you're probably looking at seven months to a year, depending.

 

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