BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => Strategic Combat => Topic started by: Notsonoble on 21 October 2019, 12:14:34
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There's a lot of systems cut off from each other because they're at 30.1 or 30.2, does it break the game to have a max range of 30.25?
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Break? No...
CHANGE? Certainly!
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Those are just inhabited systems. There's systems in between which can be jumped into. Actual locations don't matter too much aside from noting there's an extra jump involved.
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Max jump range is ca. 30 ly, not exactly 30 ly, as demonstrated by several instances (all in Keith novels iirc). No-one ever said that any specific two systems 30.1 ly from each other are "cut off". There is no canonical jump map.
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I would assume that there are plenty of uninhabited systems that serve as shipping lanes, so using those doesn't have the risk factor of going off into the Deep Periphery alone. If your helium seals blew on a shipping lane, there'd be other ships along before too long to help out.
Notably, when the GDL leaves Galatea in Mercenary's Star, their first stop is an unmapped, presumably uninhabited system.
If you look at the 3025 map, Dixie is a Lyran world, but is more than 30 LY from any other Lyran world. If only inhabited systems were allowed to be used, the Lyrans would have to get in and out of Dixie through FWL space.
Of course, the existence of uninhabited systems for transit breaks some of the plot points from early books, which talk about various sides blockading systems by occupying the zenith and nadir points at inhabited systems between them and friendly systems. If you can just go through uninhabited star systems, those blockades are utterly pointless. (Likewise Janos Marik's order to "blockade the border" with the LC to prevent Snord's Irregulars from getting back into Lyran space with their recovered booty.)
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What was the Götterdämmerung, again?
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What was the Götterdämmerung, again?
A JumpShip (Sarna article) (https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Götterdämmerung_(Individual_Star_Lord-class_JumpShip)) that jumped from Skye to Glengarry in one go, a jump that according to our maps seems to exceed the 30ly threshold as the systems are 32.35 ly apart on the 2d map. If memory serves it was the flagship of an entire fleet.
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There’s also the matter of the Black Thorns’ transit from their Lyran garrison to Luthien in what appears to have been portrayed as a single jump.
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My guess is more than 30LY is possible, but the nav calculations start to go wonky & the KF Drive deals with more stress. Etc etc.
So the 30LY is the "safe" zone for the Jump.
Possible to still have a misjump but the risk there is much lower than when you start to go further.
Fixing those KF issues & better navigation methods could have been the goals that lead to the Manassas, IU, & WoB drives.
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My guess is more than 30LY is possible, but the nav calculations start to go wonky & the KF Drive deals with more stress. Etc etc.
So the 30LY is the "safe" zone for the Jump.
Possible to still have a misjump but the risk there is much lower than when you start to go further.
Fixing those KF issues & better navigation methods could have been the goals that lead to the Manassas, IU, & WoB drives.
In fact, isn't that almost just what they said about those systems in the rules? It's disengaging the safeties?
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Of course, the existence of uninhabited systems for transit breaks some of the plot points from early books, which talk about various sides blockading systems by occupying the zenith and nadir points at inhabited systems between them and friendly systems. If you can just go through uninhabited star systems, those blockades are utterly pointless. (Likewise Janos Marik's order to "blockade the border" with the LC to prevent Snord's Irregulars from getting back into Lyran space with their recovered booty.)
That's contradicted by later books onthe Clan invasion, so I'd just go with "the writers were assuming capabilities that didn't exist."