Author Topic: Salvaging Jumpships  (Read 14544 times)

Takiro

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Salvaging Jumpships
« on: 02 March 2011, 22:00:28 »
Hey gang, I was pondering this idea today and wanted to run it by you. Following the 4th Succession War the InnerSphere is swept up in a technological renaissance that encompasses aerospace as well as ground based technologies. Since the start of the Succession War thousands (?) of Jumpships have been lost to combat (see the first 2 wars) and increasing technical failures (the 3rd). This means a huge pool of derelict Jumpships is just waiting to be salvaged. Forget warships I'm talking the standard KF cored ships that were the life blood of Star League commerce and transit activity. Would refurbishing said fleets be a wise move? New construction seems to take a long time and be difficult but with the growing science base could restoration of these old vessels be a faster solution. Or at least a stop gap solution for a House wanting to gain an edge? Love to get your thoughts!

black magic battalion

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #1 on: 02 March 2011, 22:13:21 »
it might be a good idea to refit the broken down jumpships if they are in a central location but if they are left in the star systems where they break down then it might be uneconomical to have to travel all over the joint refitting them

but refitting broken down jumpships could be a stop gap until new ships are built

cray

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #2 on: 02 March 2011, 22:14:06 »
Hey gang, I was pondering this idea today and wanted to run it by you. Following the 4th Succession War the InnerSphere is swept up in a technological renaissance that encompasses aerospace as well as ground based technologies. Since the start of the Succession War thousands (?) of Jumpships

Thousands of JumpShips? Individuals owned more than a thousand JumpShips in the 2300s. By the Star League era, there were enough JumpShips to move billions of people per year. That's not something done with mere thousands of JumpShips.

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This means a huge pool of derelict Jumpships is just waiting to be salvaged.

I guess I don't follow the leap in logic that such derelicts would be left. After all, JumpShips use standard zenith and nadir jump points - stationary positions over a star's poles. Once a ship runs out of gas for its stationkeeping drive (to say nothing of being blown to hell), it will plummet into the local star within a few years due to gravity (pg124 Strategic Operations, or pg115 DropShips & JumpShips). Or just a few months for dimmer stars.

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Would refurbishing said fleets be a wise move?

Do you have some way of sorting their atoms out of the star's plasma?

Also, refer to Strategic Operations (pg130) for the difficulty in refitting damaged JumpShips. You need to repair them on site.
« Last Edit: 02 March 2011, 22:20:27 by cray »
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
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Lord Cameron

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #3 on: 02 March 2011, 22:44:10 »
I guess I don't follow the leap in logic that such derelicts would be left. After all, JumpShips use standard zenith and nadir jump points - stationary positions over a star's poles. Once a ship runs out of gas for its stationkeeping drive (to say nothing of being blown to hell), it will plummet into the local star within a few years due to gravity (pg124 Strategic Operations, or pg115 DropShips & JumpShips). Or just a few months for dimmer stars.

Do you have some way of sorting their atoms out of the star's plasma?

JS do use "Pirate Points" occasionally though, and usually for raids/invasions etc. These would be the type of mission more likely to have enemies firing on the JSs as well, possibly crippling the JS.
Or the crew of a JS that is damaged beyond repair might put it into orbit around some moon or planet, so the they might land in a shuttle.
Or, a derelict JS might be dropped into orbit around one of the planets. (with intent to salvage it later)
Similar to the Warships that were derelict and left forgotten in orbit in various places, there may be JS in that condition as well.
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jazzjr

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #4 on: 03 March 2011, 02:19:46 »
Also, one would expect that in the case of a jumpship lost to combat that the people who won said combat would strip it for parts for their own ships rather than leaving it.  So rebuilding would probably require more parts than it's worth.

Gabriels_Sword

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #5 on: 03 March 2011, 03:29:00 »
Or go to Bobs Used Jumpship Lot - you want it we got it  ;D

Look at what Wob did - they bought up loads of older jumpships and refitted with lfb's to super jump - probably find that C* had already got there hands on loads of them - also who are you gonna get to refit them? where are you getting the parts, you have to find it asses it and then order the parts and get them shipped - too much of a paper trail, then you got to worry about that "derelict" dropship someone drops in your path to take you out or one rigged to blow!!! lots of lovely people out there  am afraid :)
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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #6 on: 03 March 2011, 06:16:53 »
I would imagine any ship worth salvaging was towed somewhere where it could be kept before it fell into the star. Isn't that what happened to a number of Warships in the FWL during the first two Succession Wars? It helped them kickstart their Warship program in the 3050's.

Those Jumpships that were not salvageable were probably stripped of everything useful and scuttled. I would imagine this was a majority of the losses.


Takiro

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #7 on: 03 March 2011, 06:32:39 »
Interesting stuff guys. The numbers sure seem to be there for such derelict fleets but I suppose space is a pretty dangerous space. Clearly the gravity well of stars would be just one way such space junk could be damaged further or completely destroyed. Obviously jump points would be cleared especially in heavily travelled star systems. Is there a stable place where relics like this could be kept? Are there salvage yards already present in the InnerSphere? Could it follow that the more heavily travelled systems might have the most derelicts present? Given the scavenger economy of the InnerSphere I would think that efforts would be taken to save as much as possible. What about vessels lost in voidspace between stars?

HavocTheWarDog

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #8 on: 03 March 2011, 06:35:52 »
Arent jump points BILLIONS of miles from their stars? I would think that natural gravity would take more than a few years to fall into the star. I could be wrong though.
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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #9 on: 03 March 2011, 07:03:27 »
Interesting stuff guys. The numbers sure seem to be there for such derelict fleets but I suppose space is a pretty dangerous space. Clearly the gravity well of stars would be just one way such space junk could be damaged further or completely destroyed. Obviously jump points would be cleared especially in heavily travelled star systems. Is there a stable place where relics like this could be kept? Are there salvage yards already present in the InnerSphere? Could it follow that the more heavily travelled systems might have the most derelicts present? Given the scavenger economy of the InnerSphere I would think that efforts would be taken to save as much as possible. What about vessels lost in voidspace between stars?
  Well, only the L1 LaGrange points of a star-system are viable jump-points, but I would think (Cray, correct me if I'm wrong?) that the L4 and L5 points are relatively stable and would require minimal maintenance as 'storage orbits', compared to anything else.  Otherwise, towing these ships into synchronous orbits over planets suggests itself (assuming that the orbital insertions are performed proficiently enough that ships stored this way don't need caretaker-crews to perform periodic boost-burns to prevent orbital decay).
  If you're worried about those 'mothballed' ships becoming a traffic-obstacle, store them over a world that doesn't see a lot of traffic (in the case of RL Earth, Mars might be a good choice); if you're worried about those ships being looted or stolen, it might be better to keep them closer to home (and your garrison forces).  YMMV.

Moonsword

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #10 on: 03 March 2011, 07:54:50 »
Are there salvage yards already present in the InnerSphere? Could it follow that the more heavily travelled systems might have the most derelicts present? Given the scavenger economy of the InnerSphere I would think that efforts would be taken to save as much as possible. What about vessels lost in voidspace between stars?

The problem here is that the cost of salvaging them is frequently above the cost of building a new vessel due to the infrastructure necessary to accomplish it.  With WarShips, where there are so few new hulls coming into service, salvage becomes more attractive, but JumpShips are generally more of a pain in the neck to salvage (as opposed to strip for parts) than they're worth.  There are some salvage yards (Odessa, for instance) but generally they're also compact core designs, not standard core JumpShips.  Further, ships lost in the void are unlikely to be found unless you have exact coordinates.  This is not a cheap, easy option to get more JumpShips, especially compared to the future dividends that would be paid by investing the same amount into building up your existing yard infrastructure and your capacity to build and maintain them organically.

Keep in mind that if it was a relatively simple repair, it likely would have been done, either at the time or by future scavengers.  This means that the vast majority of stranded JumpShips you might come across need new K-F cores.  That in turn means you either need a YardShip (something the Inner Sphere in general doesn't have anymore) or you effectively wind up building an entire new tiny shipyard, diverting workers and resources from the main, more efficient yards.  Otherwise, bring some relatively simple industrial processors, melt it down for materials after stripping the hull of worthwhile parts, process them to do something else, and take the whole mess of lithium-germanium in a few Mammoth loads to your yards to reforge into a brand new shiny core of a type that you actually own a large number of, increasing your economies of scale in your fleet.

cray

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #11 on: 03 March 2011, 08:00:22 »
A general point about JumpShip salvage:

By the Third Succession War, JumpShips were rare and precious. They were, per Strategic Operations, the targets salvage when previous eras would not have been bothered and would've instead built new ships. The Successor States would not have left such valuable salvage drifting in space.

Therefore, the number of JumpShips in operation in the 31st Century reflects the best possible results of salvaging operations. You're not going to find many more repairable ships drifting in space. The old Merc book provided rules for buying and repairing salvage ships, implying they'd already been gathered by - as Gabriel said - the equivalent of Bob's Used JumpShips.




I would imagine any ship worth salvaging was towed somewhere where it could be kept before it fell into the star. Isn't that what happened to a number of Warships in the FWL during the first two Succession Wars? It helped them kickstart their Warship program in the 3050's.

As I understand the FWL's salvaged WarShips were recovered by WoB, probably based on SLDF records. They weren't salvage the FWL had kept.




Interesting stuff guys. The numbers sure seem to be there for such derelict fleets but I suppose space is a pretty dangerous space.

See above. If there was anything left to salvage, it would've been salvaged. The Inner Sphere spent better than 150 years in a scavenger mode. Only dregs and pre-stocked junk yards would be left.

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Clearly the gravity well of stars would be just one way such space junk could be damaged further or completely destroyed. Obviously jump points would be cleared especially in heavily travelled star systems.

Gravity will clear jump points pretty quickly. It takes years to fall into a star, but a lot less time to get inside the proximity limit.

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Is there a stable place where relics like this could be kept?

Orbit. It won't take much effort to nudge a smoking hulk falling from a jump point into a stable solar orbit. That'd result in a comet-like orbit circling (ellipsing?) the star's poles with no major risk of disruption for some decades. It'd take more work to park them in planetary orbit or a solar orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, but BT's fusion engines can manage it.

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Are there salvage yards already present in the InnerSphere?

They're implied in the Mercenary rules that let you buy destroyed-quality ships and repair them.

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economy of the InnerSphere I would think that efforts would be taken to save as much as possible.

Yep. And you see the results in the 31st Century merchant stellaris of the Inner Sphere: tiny compared to the Star League era. That small number of ships is, in all likelihood, the result of the most intensive possible scavenging of wrecked JumpShips.

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What about vessels lost in voidspace between stars?

If, for some bizarre reason, a JumpShip wandered off into interstellar space, then call your insurance company and write them off. BT's sensor ranges are too short to find them.




Arent jump points BILLIONS of miles from their stars? I would think that natural gravity would take more than a few years to fall into the star. I could be wrong though.

Sol's jump points are 10AU from its poles (1.5 billion kilometers, 930 million miles), about the same distance as the radius of Saturn's orbit. Therefore, a fall from the jump points should take about 1/4 of Saturn's orbit: 7.5 years. The jump points of dimmer stars, like M-class stars, may be less than 1 AU from a star, with plummet times of months.

If you want to know the distance between the star and standard jump points, refer to the Proximity Point tables in DropShips & JumpShips, Battlespace, Explorer Corps, AT2, AT2R, and Strategic Operations. Zenith and Nadir points are special cases of proximity points.




The problem here is that the cost of salvaging them is frequently above the cost of building a new vessel due to the infrastructure necessary to accomplish it. 

That's noted in Strategic Operations, as is the fact that salvaging was still performed in the Succession Wars era for lack of production of new JumpShips. Salvaging might be more expensive, but when you can't build enough new ships...

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Keep in mind that if it was a relatively simple repair, it likely would have been done, either at the time or by future scavengers.

Good point. I agree.

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  This means that the vast majority of stranded JumpShips you might come across need new K-F cores.  That in turn means you either need a YardShip (something the Inner Sphere in general doesn't have anymore) or you effectively wind up building an entire new tiny shipyard, diverting workers and resources from the main, more efficient yards.  Otherwise, bring some relatively simple industrial processors, melt it down for materials after stripping the hull of worthwhile parts, process them to do something else, and take the whole mess of lithium-germanium in a few Mammoth loads to your yards to reforge into a brand new shiny core of a type that you actually own a large number of, increasing your economies of scale in your fleet.

Don't forget the means of delivering a new core discussed in Strategic Operations.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

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**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
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Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

Moonsword

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #12 on: 03 March 2011, 08:11:51 »
Right, you can deliver it.  Forgot about that.  On the other hand, you still have the old core to deal with, so you might as well melt it down for scrap value.  You also have to be able to make a new core to ferry it.  Salvaging an Invader or Merchant is going to be a lot easier than making Monoliths or Star Lords because the cores are more common and more commonly built.

With cost, I'm not referring to raw C-Bills alone.  There's the cost of diverting workers and resources out of your existing programs to consider.  If the cost of that to ongoing construction work is low enough, salvaging JumpShips becomes more viable.  If the yard space doesn't exist to handle new construction but the core construction is more manageable, it becomes more viable.  If you know where some of the hulls are and the exact status it's more useful.  Being able to melt the old cores down to pay for some of the costs is probably helpful too.  I was trying to get at the whole range of tradeoffs you make doing this.

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #13 on: 03 March 2011, 09:52:27 »
As I understand the FWL's salvaged WarShips were recovered by WoB, probably based on SLDF records. They weren't salvage the FWL had kept.

Well, per FM:FWL, they were located with the assistance of WoB in some cases, but largely recovered by the League.  (In the case of Olympic, it is implied that the FWL found it itself.)  In accordance with your other points, it is specifically noted in the Field Manual that two of those hulls were located adrift in the outer reaches of systems (FWLS Olympic in the Tania Borealis system, SLS Oslo, later FWLS Raven, in the Elgin system).  I suppose the implication is that these derelicts fell into stable orbits after being disabled and remained unnoticed due to their remoteness.

The case of SLS Nelson, later FWLS Xanthos, is interesting also, specifically that the SLDF deemed it impractical to salvage and sent it into "a long-term elliptical orbit around Castor."  That begs the question: if you deem it impractical to salvage, why leave it intact at all?  (I suppose they could have been planning to come back for it after the Amaris Coup was put down... but then, why not leave it at a Trojan point rather than sending it into an inconvenient orbit?)  Also, unless the orbit was very long-term indeed, one would think the people of Castor were aware of the presence of the wreck.

As a final note from FM:FWL, a sidebar informs us that the League "restored eight vessels and salvaged parts from another fourteen between 3054 and 3058."  (Two Vincents, three Essexes, two Aegises and a Black Lion, for anyone who's counting.)  While the WoB assistance was no doubt key in making this happen, the access of the League of 22 hulks in four years raises some interesting questions about the density of repairable WarShip salvage across the Inner Sphere.

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #14 on: 03 March 2011, 10:03:35 »
True and that also begs the question as to why the other 4 successor states couldn't find similar amounts of salvage within there systems.

cray

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #15 on: 03 March 2011, 10:06:58 »
In accordance with your other points, it is specifically noted in the Field Manual that two of those hulls were located adrift in the outer reaches of systems (FWLS Olympic in the Tania Borealis system, SLS Oslo, later FWLS Raven, in the Elgin system).

They would've been parked there by their crews or the FWLM in an earlier era. It is far too easy for BT spacecraft maneuvering in a star system to reach local solar escape velocity - more than 2 or 3 hours at 1G will do it, and movement around a star system entails days spent at 1G.

True and that also begs the question as to why the other 4 successor states couldn't find similar amounts of salvage within there systems.

Comstar did a better job of sweeping them up during its tech purges in the Succession Wars.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

The Hawk

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #16 on: 03 March 2011, 10:41:21 »
They would've been parked there by their crews or the FWLM in an earlier era. It is far too easy for BT spacecraft maneuvering in a star system to reach local solar escape velocity - more than 2 or 3 hours at 1G will do it, and movement around a star system entails days spent at 1G.

Interesting.  I guess I don't have a good sense of the prospects that a vessel destroyed in combat would drift into a sustainable orbit (or at least, into an area of a system where it could be located and recovered) rather than out into interstellar space on the one hand, or into the sun on the other.  Can you clarify?

Clearly, if these vessels are being parked after being disabled, it implies the opposite of what you suggested, i.e. that the relics recovered by the FWLN were salvage intentionally kept by the League.  (This conclusion would also be inconsistent with the text of FM:FWL, which implies these ships were drifting derelicts only recently located.)  It also begs the question of why this practice was apparently unique to the League, and why the other Successor States don't have records of local parked hulls and, when it comes time to build WarShip fleets again, why they don't have ship graveyards full of Succession Wars salvage to draw from.

Comstar did a better job of sweeping them up during its tech purges in the Succession Wars.

Well, the same FM:FWL sidebar previously mentioned notes that WoB "provided the League with the locations of several WarShips that ComStar had mothballed as not worth salvaging".  I can't imagine why their practice would have been different in the FWL than elsewhere (and indeed, the ultimate FWLN recovery of the Oslo/Raven, adrift in a former Capellan system, implies that it was not.)  Contrast that with the one known intercession of ComStar in a WarShip recovery scenario -- the Tripitz affair -- and it would imply that ComStar's practice was to simply leave derelicts drifting so long as 1) they could not be conveniently recovered, and 2) it seemed unlikely that the Successor States were going to recover them as well.

Post-3052, it could be that the WoB used the same knowledge they gave to the FWL to seize the WarShips located in the other Successor States and thus build the fleet they turned out to have during the Jihad.  That has the twin benefits of explaining why the other Houses don't seem to have recoverable derelicts while the FWL does, as well as explaining where the WoB's Jihad fleet came from.

cray

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #17 on: 03 March 2011, 11:31:14 »
Interesting.  I guess I don't have a good sense of the prospects that a vessel destroyed in combat would drift into a sustainable orbit (or at least, into an area of a system where it could be located and recovered) rather than out into interstellar space on the one hand, or into the sun on the other.  Can you clarify?

With BT fusion rockets being what they are, there are two circumstances that would leave a small craft, DropShip, or WarShip in a stable orbit following combat:

1) The vessel was attacked in an existing orbit before it could fire its engines.
2) The vessel was deliberately moved to a stable orbit after battle.

There are two other general circumstances in which you might find a BT spacecraft, both deleterious to salvage:

3) Parked at a standard jump point and unable to fire its engines much.
4) Moving through the star system very quickly.

The stable orbit in circumstance 1 is likely to be around a planet, since BT vessels tend to park in two locations: at a standard jump point or in planetary orbit. See circumstance 3, below, for details of ships parked at jump points.

Circumstance 2 can start anywhere in a star system - at a jump point, at a planet, during system transit. The ship is somewhere, gets busted up, and then someone moves it to a stable place. Maybe the crew did it, maybe salvagers did it, maybe the military did it during a crew rescue operation, whatever fits the plot. The end result will either be a stable orbit around the star or around a planet, whatever the movers of the ship want to fit their circumstance (a desperate crew on a busted ship will take any orbit, while salvagers might want to hide their loot, while mothballers might want a distant solar orbit away from thieves.)

Circumstance 3 results in the derelict ship plummeting into the local star.

Circumstance 4, like 2, can happen anywhere. Maybe the ship was at a jump point and, during battle, built up lots of speed. Maybe the ship was making a system transit and was ambushed. Maybe the ship was still some hours from a planet when its drive failed. Either way, once BT ships get moving, they very quickly exceed a local star's escape velocity - there is no return unless the situation changes to Circumstance 2 (someone with a working engine puts them in orbit.)

Now, when I say, "BT fusion rockets are powerful," I mean: It takes chemical rockets 20 minutes of work to fling a probe out of Sol's grasp at solar escape velocity...but it still takes decades to finish the escape. New Horizons is taking 8 years to get to Pluto at a bit above solar escape velocity. A typical BT spacecraft can make the same journey (and stop at the end) in 20 days if it doesn't try hard. With a few hours of modest acceleration, a BT spacecraft is never going to be captured by anything, and it will be moving like a bat out of hell.

Another thing to note about "being captured by a planet's gravity" involves active thrusting. Derelict, drifting objects do not get captured without some very weird circumstances. (Unassisted captures happen [over 4.5 billion years, Jupiter and Saturn have captured a few dozen asteroid moons], but they're statistical anomalies). This is because when you approach a planet or moon on an interplanetary flight, if you do not brake in some way, then gravity dictates that you'll end up passing the object at its escape velocity. The fall from an "infinite" distance (effectively a few thousand kilometers or more) is sufficient for the object's gravity to accelerate you to its escape velocity. As you fly away from the object, gravity will then gradually remove the added velocity until you end up with a net-zero gain in velocity. But while you're near the object, you'll end up with a lot more velocity. You need to cancel some of that speed to be captured. If you look at the flight plan of Apollo missions and all interplanetary missions entering something's orbit, there's an important "orbit injection" burn.

As a result, the only way to be “captured” is per Circumstance 1 or 2: either you were already in orbit, or you later deliberately moved to an orbit.

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Clearly, if these vessels are being parked after being disabled, it implies the opposite of what you suggested, i.e. that the relics recovered by the FWLN were salvage intentionally kept by the League.

Alright. And you gave some good references. I didn’t recall those.

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  (This conclusion would also be inconsistent with the text of FM:FWL, which implies these ships were drifting derelicts only recently located.)

A theme of the Succession Wars is losing information. The FWLM might well have logged the locations of its derelicts in the First Succession War at, oh, “The Admiralty Center,” only to have the Admiralty Center nuked. The records are nuked and the survivors aren’t necessarily the folks who knew what the back-up of the records contained. Hence, the location of warships are lost after deliberate salvaging..

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Post-3052, it could be that the WoB used the same knowledge they gave to the FWL to seize the WarShips located in the other Successor States and thus build the fleet they turned out to have during the Jihad.  That has the twin benefits of explaining why the other Houses don't seem to have recoverable derelicts while the FWL does, as well as explaining where the WoB's Jihad fleet came from.

Most of WoB’s fleet appears to have come from the Ruins of Gabriel, where the Amaris-era SLDF parked its derelicts.

I can explain why most of the Houses did NOT have recoverable WarShips: Comstar working its evil take-down-civilization plans. What I can’t explain too well is why the FWL had so many viable derelicts.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

cray

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #18 on: 03 March 2011, 11:39:02 »
To clarify the "captures are rare" point in my last post:

The sun, Jupiter, and Saturn (and Earth, for that matter) frequently capture lots of material with their gravity. However, these captures involve an outside braking force: the material smacks into the Sun or planet in question. Look at Luna, and then consider Earth has taken an estimated 25 times as many hits as its moon. Jupiter is an interplanetary vacuum cleaner, while the Sun-watching spaceprobe SOHO has discovered 2/3 of all comets ever seen by mankind - SOHO sees them on their death plunges into the Sun.

But when a freeflying object (like an asteroid or spaceship) really gets into the gravity well of a larger object WITHOUT being on a collision course, then it is very unlikely to stop. You need to actively brake, and demonstrated methods of doing so include:

1) Rocket braking
2) Aerobraking
3) Lithobraking
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

ChrisSmith

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #19 on: 03 March 2011, 15:37:34 »
Well there is one more situation that might result is salvagable jumpships and it's something that is at least hinted at and in a couple of cases discussed.

A colonization group, buys a beater goes to it's destination, parks it, and promptly dies off.

Yes there are logical gaps, better to charter, and use the funds for the colonies,  On the other hand the novel (yes it's outside of BT) Seeker by Jack McDervitt makes a good read for a GM or a player for a scenerio that might lead to a Jumpship being found "derelict".

When in doubt charge, when in retreat charge, and when in a bar order a double.


cray

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #20 on: 03 March 2011, 17:33:15 »
Randall Bills also wrote about the discovery of a very ancient JumpShip lost in the 2120s.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

ChrisSmith

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #21 on: 03 March 2011, 17:40:18 »
Which one?
When in doubt charge, when in retreat charge, and when in a bar order a double.


RedMarauder

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #22 on: 03 March 2011, 17:53:57 »
When you find a classic car that's little more than a rusted-out body, with a non-functioning motor in it, it's going to take a lot of love, time, and money, to get that beast running again.  Even if you Rat-Rod it.  The universe is a massive fractal; what works on the micro, works on the macro.  It's been proven time and again and to argue any other way is futile when you look at the evidence, which is by the way, EVERYWHERE, so if you were to find a JumpShip in much the same condition, and you will; by that period, they were numerous and available to whoever could find and fix/scrap them.  If you have to travel to get there, and have to do a lot of it, then it may not be so practical anymore.  Though, selling one to a small Periphery power, might yield considerable profit.
Save the Humans.

Dirk Bastion

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #23 on: 03 March 2011, 18:03:37 »
Randall Bills also wrote about the discovery of a very ancient JumpShip lost in the 2120s.
Would this be the Liberator?
« Last Edit: 03 March 2011, 18:32:03 by Dirk Bastion »

cray

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #24 on: 03 March 2011, 20:37:35 »
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.

Moonsword

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #25 on: 04 March 2011, 07:55:20 »
[snip, summary of the last two posts: Rocket Science!]

Thanks, Cray.  As always, that was very insightful into how these things work... and puts the relative power of real world and BattleTech engines into perspective.

Baldur Mekorig

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #26 on: 04 March 2011, 08:52:01 »
Echoes in the Void.

Yes.

 Yep, sadly, it was the Liberador.  :'(
Oh my brother, with your courage we can conquer,
In your sword I put my trust that you will honor
I will be the higher ground should you concede it
And my body be your shield if you should need it.

Dirk Bastion

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #27 on: 04 March 2011, 16:46:02 »
Why "sadly"? It's kinda nice to know just what happened to it, considering its role in history.

Baldur Mekorig

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #28 on: 04 March 2011, 16:50:06 »
Why "sadly"? It's kinda nice to know just what happened to it, considering its role in history.

 It was sad to me to know that the Liberador was lost. First, because once i wrote a fan history about what happened to the people of the Liberador (Cray helped me to make it readable).
 Second, because as a citizen of a south american country, i would love to see more planets colonized by people of a culture similar to mine, and not soo many colonized by Europeans and the USA as the current historyline shows. Yes, there are some planets, but for each Buenos Aires or Aconcagua, you get tons of scot or english named planets, if you understand what i mean.
Oh my brother, with your courage we can conquer,
In your sword I put my trust that you will honor
I will be the higher ground should you concede it
And my body be your shield if you should need it.

cray

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Re: Salvaging Jumpships
« Reply #29 on: 04 March 2011, 19:54:44 »
Of course, while those South American planets survive - and South American cultures color the Capellan March - you can't find the USA anywhere except in degenerate situations like Annapolis (ATOW) because they were nuked out of existence. There's something to be said for low profiles. ;)
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

**"A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything." --Wash, Firefly.
**"Well, the first class name [for pocket WarShips]: 'Ship with delusions of grandeur that is going to evaporate 3.1 seconds after coming into NPPC range' tended to cause morale problems...." --Korzon77
**"Describe the Clans." "Imagine an entire civilization built out of 80’s Ric Flairs, Hulk Hogans, & Macho Man Randy Savages ruling over an entire labor force with Einstein Level Intelligence." --Jake Mikolaitis


Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.