Jump Drive/meta

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Notes (2019)

Jump drive handwavium varies from version to version. IIRC Classic Traveller and Mega Traveller just require a lanthanum (or barium, but it's less efficient) jump grid in the hull of the ship that is charged with lots of energy to initiate the jump, which then proceeds unstoppably. Whether or not the jump drive still needs to be supplying any power to the jump grid during the jump is unspecified (but I always inferred not, otherwise you could do an emergency 'crash out' mid jump, albeit in the middle of interstellar nowhere). The energy is supplied from the jump fuel by the jump drive via the Zuchai crystals (which I always inferred to be a very highly efficient and specialised fusion plant and the capacitors of the gods respectively).

Mongoose Traveller is different - there at least part of the hydrogen jump fuel is used to physically create a jump bubble around the ship (my guess being that somebody somewhere did the maths on the energy flows for a CT jump drive and decided it would melt the jump drive, the engineering compartment, the engineers and most of the ship).

For the former case, where the energy comes from would seem to not be a critical part of the process - you could beam it in from outside, store it in the Zuchai crystals and use it with no problems (apart from coping with the rate of power flow, and being even more doomed than usual in the case of a misjump).

For the latter case - you'll still need whatever proportion of the jump fuel is needed to inflate your pocket universe jump bubble.

To clarify the above:

  • Barium as an alternative to lanthanum for jump grids is in 'The Traveller Adventure'.
  • Jump drives containing capacitors is from 'High Guard'.
  • Zuchai crystals as the high efficiency capacitor of choice is from MegaTraveller 'Imperial Encyclopedia' IIRC.
- Matt Fitzgerald
- Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 13:51, 8 February 2019 (EST)

Notes (2016)

Jump-Drive-Traveller-subtjump.gif


HIGHER ODER JUMP SPACES (T5.10)

Also see article: Jumpspace

While they are not currently known to Imperial Science as of the 1105 era, there are actually at least 9 tiers of "hyperspaces", or "Tau-spaces", of which Jumpspace is only the lowest tier. The actual values and performances of the Drives that access them and their names are listed below.

Drive Acronym Key

STL-FTL Acronyms
Acronym Full Name Remarks
RD Relativistic Drive Conventional N-space travel.
JD0 Jump Drive Unconventional FTL J-Space travel.
HD1 Hop Drive Unconventional FTL H-Space travel.
SD2 Skip Drives Unconventional FTL S-Space travel.
LD3 Leap Drives Unconventional FTL L-Space travel.
BD4 Bound Drives Unconventional FTL B-Space travel.
VD5 Vault Drives Unconventional FTL V-Space travel.
D6 Six Drives Exotic supra-FTL 6-Space travel.
D7 Seven Drives Exotic supra-FTL 7-Space travel.
D8 Eight Drives Exotic supra-FTL 8-Space travel.
D9 Nine Drives Exotic supra-FTL 9-Space travel.


Higher Order Drive Types - Specifications

Jumpspace & Conventional Space Travel in 1105
Minimum TL Space Order of Drive (Magnitude) † Drive
Names 		FTL Travel Duration Travel Distance † Remarks
6 Relativistic Space
(N-space) 		-- None Conventional Drives
(Relativistic) 		NAFAL Conventional Space-Time limitations. Unlimited
(Fuel limitation)

Pre-FTL or NAFAL Technologies.

  • Conventional Einsteinian Spacetime.
  • Fairly well understood.
9 Jump Space
(J-space) 		0th-Order (100) Jump Drives

J-1 to J-9

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 1-9 pc Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in parsecs of travel.
  • e.g. A J-1 drive can travel one parsec, or about 3.261 light-years or 206,265 Astronomical units.
  • 100 diameter gravity well limitation.
  • Not well understood.
17 Hop Space
(H-space) 		1st-Order (101) Hop Drives

H-1 to H-9

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 10-90 pc Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in 10s of pc of travel.
20 Skip Space
(S-space) 		2nd-Order (102) Skip Drives

S-1 to S-9

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 100-900 pc Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in 100s of pc of travel.
23 Leap Space
(L-space) 		3rd-Order (103) Leap Drives

L-1 to L-9

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 1000 pc
to
9000 pc 		Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in 1000s of pc of travel.
26 Bound Space
(B-space) 		4th-Order (104) Bound Drives

B-1 to B-9

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 10,000 pc
to
90,000 pc 		Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in 10,000s of pc of travel.
29 Vault Space
(V-space) 		5th-Order (105) Vault Drives

V-1 to V-9

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 100,000 pc
to
900,000 pc 		Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in 100,000s of pc of travel.
31 "6-space" 6th-Order (106) 6th Order Drives
("Six Drives")

D6-1 to D6-9 (?)

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 1 million pc
to
9 million pc 		Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in millions of pc of travel.
32 "7-space" 7th-Order (107) 7th Order Drives
("Seven Drives")

D7-1 to D7-9 (?)

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 10 million pc
to
90 million pc 		Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in 10s of millions of pc of travel.
* Generally not available.
33 "8-space" 8th-Order (108) 8th Order Drives
("Eight Drives")

D8-1 to D8-9 (?)

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 100 million pc
to
900 million pc 		Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in 100s of millions of pc of travel.
* Generally not available. - Note that Singularity occurs at TL33, so only an "Early" Eight-Drive is possible at TL32.
(34) "9-space" 9th-Order (109) 9th Order Drives
("Nine Drives")

D9-1 to D9-9 (?)

FTL 168 hours [± 10%] 1 billion pc
to
9 billion pc 		Drive rating are equal to the maximum travel distance in billions of pc of travel.
* Generally not available. - Note that Singularity occurs at TL33, so only a "Prototype" Nine-Drive is possible at TL32.

† As a House Rule, some prefer to use Base-6 instead of Base-10 (i.e. Jump = 1-6; Hop = 6-36; Skip = 36-216; etc).

T5 TL Expanded Notation Correlation

Jumpspace & Conventional Space Travel by TL
Tech Period TL FTL-1 FTL-2 FTL-3 FTL-4 FTL-5 Min-TL Remarks
Ur-tech 6 Relativistic Drive RD-6 6 Only STL available.
  • The first chemical rockets make space travel possible.
Ur-tech 7 Relativistic Drive RD-7 7 Only STL available.
  • Ion drives expand space travel.
  • Basic Nuclear Thermal Drives possible
Ur-tech 8 Relativistic Drive RD-8 8 Only STL or NAFAL available.
  • Better hypergolics become available.
  • Advanced Nuclear Thermal Drives (Early P-Drives)
  • Antimatter Thermal Drives (Alt P-Drives)
  • Orion Drives (O-Drives)
Ur-tech 9 Relativistic Drive RD-9 Prototype/Early JD0 9 FTL becomes available as a prototype.
  • Prototype/Early JD0
  • HEPlaR Maneuver Drives (P-Drives)
  • Early G-Drives
Stell-tech 10-A JD0-1 10 Early M-Drives
Stell-tech 11-B JD0-2 11
Stell-tech 12-C JD0-3 12 Early Reactionless Thrusters (T-Drives)
Stell-tech 13-D JD0-4 13
Stell-tech 14-E JD0-5 14
Stell-tech 15-F JD0-6 15
Stell-tech 16-G JD0-7 Prototype HD1 16 The Prototype HD1 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.
Stell-tech 17-H JD0-8 Early HD1 17
Stell-tech 18-J JD0-9 HD1-1 18
Ultra-tech 19-K HD1-2 Prototype SD2 19 Hop Drives entirely replace Jump Drives.

The Prototype SD2 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.

Ultra-tech 20-L HD1-3 Early SD2 20
Ultra-tech 21-M HD1-4 SD2-1 21
Ultra-tech 22-N HD1-5 SD2-2 Prototype LD3 22 The Prototype LD3 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.
Ultra-tech 23-P HD1-6 SD2-3 Early LD3 23
Ultra-tech 24-Q HD1-7 SD2-4 LD3-1 24
Ultra-tech 25-R HD1-8 SD2-5 LD3-2 Prototype BD4 25 The Prototype BD4 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.
Ultra-tech 26-S HD1-9 SD2-6 LD3-3 Early BD4 26 Skip Drives entirely replace Hop Drives.
Ultra-tech 27-T SD2-7 LD3-4 BD4-1 27
Dei-Tech 28-U SD2-8 LD3-5 BD4-2 Prototype VD5 28 The Prototype VD5 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.
Dei-Tech 29-V SD2-9 LD3-6 BD4-3 Early VD5 29
Dei-Tech 30-W LD3-7 BD4-4 VD5-1 Prototype D6 30 The Prototype D6 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.
Approaching Singularity
Omni-tech 31-X LD3-8 BD4-5 VD5-2 D6 Prototype/Early D7 31 The Prototype D7 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.
Omni-tech 32-Y LD3-9 BD4-6 VD5-3 D7 Prototype/Early D8 32 The Prototype D8 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.
Omni-tech 33-Z BD4-7 VD5-4 D8 Prototype/Early D9 33 Singularity:
The Prototype D9 brings an order of exponential advance to FTL travel.


EXOTIC DRIVES (T5.10)

Other EXOTIC DRIVES available in the OTU (presumably at very high TL) that are generally not available (and TL is not known):

  1. Hieronymous Drive
  2. "Inertialess Drives":
    1. Inertialess Drive ("IM -Drive")
    2. Triplanetary Drive ("IT -Drive")
  3. Alcubierre Drive:
    1. "Albuquerque Drive" (@ Trav RPG Wiki)
    2. Alcubierre Drive (@ Wikipedia)
  4. Improbable Drive
  5. Reality Drive



This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.


Jump-Drive-Traveller-subtjump.gif

Also see article: Jumpspace

Notes (2007)

The Jump Drive is the device that allows faster-than-light travel for starships in the Traveller universe.

  • Lanthanum is not very uncommon on present day earth, priced at around $360/kg.
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