Difference between revisions of "Jumpmax class Courier"
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On long, multi-jump trips, the operator's manual recommends the following duty cycle: | On long, multi-jump trips, the operator's manual recommends the following duty cycle: | ||
| − | + | # Enter jump. | |
| − | + | # Take a 6-day dose of [[Fast Drug]], available from the automated galley. Nap through this period for a subjective 4-5 hours. | |
| − | + | # Wake up somewhere from a fraction of a day to just over a day from breakout. Do a maintenance check while the ship is in jumpspace. Nap again (with breakout alarm set) if breakout does not occur soon. | |
| − | + | # Upon breakout, confirm location then head for the destination world (a gas giant or a world with water). If there is system traffic control, hail to get permission. | |
| − | + | # Skim for fuel. | |
| − | + | # Head for 100 diameters away from the planet and start the fuel purification. | |
| − | + | # Nap or sleep, depending on how long it took after waking up last time to reach breakout. | |
| − | + | # Compute astrogation to the next system, targeting another gas giant or world with water. This may take multiple attempts, but there should be more than enough time before fuel purification is complete. | |
| − | + | # Do another maintenance check while waiting for fuel purification to complete. | |
| − | + | # Enter jump, beginning the cycle again. | |
=== Class Naming Practice/s & Peculiarities === | === Class Naming Practice/s & Peculiarities === | ||
| − | ''Ship Interior Details:'' Part of the proof of concept is just how small a space a single crew member can be crammed into. The main crew-accessible space consists of a bunk bed (one bunk usually folded into the wall), fresher (with door just in case there is a second crew member, though permanently left open on most Jumpmaxes), small biosphere (serving the same limited selection of food, though the selection can be changed out by cloning from food available on most inhabited worlds), cargo niche (usually packed with maintenance parts that start out well-packed and inevitably wind up strewn about), bridge (often fitted with an exercise machine, as well as 2 consoles - 1 of which is usually hidden behind a tarp or panel so as not to constantly remind a lone crewmember of what not being all alone was like), and airlock with ventral and dorsal exits and extendable lift. | + | ''Ship Interior Details:'' Part of the proof of concept is just how small a space a single crew member can be crammed into. The main crew-accessible space consists of a bunk bed (one bunk usually folded into the wall), fresher (with door just in case there is a second crew member, though permanently left open on most Jumpmaxes), small biosphere (sometimes called an "automated galley", serving the same limited selection of food, though the selection can be changed out by cloning from food available on most inhabited worlds), cargo niche (usually packed with maintenance parts that start out well-packed and inevitably wind up strewn about), bridge (often fitted with an exercise machine, as well as 2 consoles - 1 of which is usually hidden behind a tarp or panel so as not to constantly remind a lone crewmember of what not being all alone was like), and airlock with ventral and dorsal exits and extendable lift. |
There is a half-meter crawlspace under the floor (accounting for the extra thickness of the central part of the saucer) to get at the [[maneuver drive|maneuver]] and [[jump drive|jump]] drives, fuel purification (which sucks and pushes unrefined fuel through the jump drive's tubes; one must be careful not to operate the jump drive and fuel purification at the same time), jump batteries, and power plant to replace worn-out components. | There is a half-meter crawlspace under the floor (accounting for the extra thickness of the central part of the saucer) to get at the [[maneuver drive|maneuver]] and [[jump drive|jump]] drives, fuel purification (which sucks and pushes unrefined fuel through the jump drive's tubes; one must be careful not to operate the jump drive and fuel purification at the same time), jump batteries, and power plant to replace worn-out components. | ||
Revision as of 06:03, 17 February 2020
| Jumpmax class Courier | |
|---|---|
 The fastest jump messengers | |
| Type: XC Courier Vessel | |
| Category | ACS |
| Size | 100 Tons |
| Hull Configuration | Saucer Hull |
| Streamlining | Lifting Body Hull |
| Tech Level | TL–15 |
| Engineering | |
| Computer | Model/7/Bis |
| Jump | J-6 |
| Maneuver | 2 G |
| Armaments | |
| Hardpoints | 1 |
| Accommodations | |
| Staterooms | 0 |
| Personnel | |
| Crew | 2 |
| Enlisted | 2 |
| High/Mid Passengers | 0 |
| Payload | |
| Cargo | 1 Tons |
| Fuel tank | 0 Tons |
| Construction | |
| Origin | Third Imperium |
| Manufacturer | various |
| Year Operational | 986 |
| End of Service | Examples still operate post-Collapse |
| Price | |
| Cost | MCr60.55. MCr54.495 in quantity. |
| Architect fee | MCrAdrian Tymes |
| Statistics | |
| Quick Ship Profile | XC-AL26 |
| Images | |
| Blueprint | Yes |
| Illustration | No |
| Source | |
| Also see | Express Boat |
| Canon | Published, fan design |
| Era | Third Imperium |
| Reference | None |
| Designed with Mongoose Traveller High Guard rules, but portable to other versions. | |
The Jumpmax class Courier is a Courier Vessel.
- Despite its military value, its complete lack of combat capability qualifies it as a civilian ship.
Description (Specifications)
Given how long it took the ancient Vilani to discover Jump-2, and that they did not discover Jump-3 until contact with the Solomani, there has been understandable and persistent skepticism at claims that Jump-6 is as far as jump drive can ever be pushed, and that faster travel will require some fundamentally different approach. Regardless, attempts to make a 100 ton Jump-6 courier vessel have shown that even if Jump-7 might be theoretically possible, it is probably not practical without significant refinement. In any case, Jump-6 is as high as the Third Imperium has achieved in any production model of ship.
Even the attempts to make a 100 ton Jump-6 courier vessel have largely run into the same limits. The Jumpmax "ship class" is a less formal ship class than most, grouping together certain independently designed classes that resulted in roughly the same ship. Production has been limited; many Jumpmaxes are essentially proofs of concept.
Carrying messages over long distances appears to be what the original designer had in mind. The interior offers a bare minimum of amenities, less even than on a typical Express Boat, and the operator's manual recommends taking small amounts of Fast Drug to skip 6 days out of each jump; the biosphere is set up to provide said doses in addition to food and water. Assuming gas giants, water, or ice can be found at each stop to skim fuel from (then wait a day for the purification plant to work), and assuming the crew does not go off-mission due to insanity or boredom, the ship's endurance is limited to the maintenance supplies that can be crammed into the tiny cargo hold, coming to about 19 months. Jumping 6 parsecs once every 9 days (at worst) is enough to cross about 9 sectors coreward or rimward, or about 11 sectors spinward or trailing during this time, assuming optimum placement of systems to refuel at.
The cramped bridge makes certain tasks - most notably astrogation - measurably more difficult than on most ships. To compensate, the operators' manual advises bringing aboard personal computers running expert assistance programs. The bridge consoles even have adjustable mounts for said personal computers. Although they are not official ship equipment, in practice almost every Jumpmax in operation has such a computer, and most of the exceptions are operated by highly skilled hotshots who need no such assistance.
Image Repository
Not available at this time.
General Description & Deck Plans
- Deck Plans for this vessel.
Basic Ship Characteristics
Following the Imperial Navy and IISS Universal Ship Profile and data, additional information is presented in the format shown here. [1]
| Basic Ship Characteristics [2] | ||
|---|---|---|
| No. | Category | Remarks |
| 1. | Tonnage / Hull | Tonnage: 100 tons (standard). 1400 cubic meters. Lifting Body Saucer Hull.
|
| 2. | Crew | Crew: 1 Pilot, 1 Astrogator. Usually the same person. |
| 3. | Performance | Acceleration: 2-G maneuver drive installed.
|
| 4. | Electronics | Model/7/Bis. |
| 5. | Hardpoints | 1 hardpoint, unused. |
| 6. | Armament | None. |
| 7. | Defenses | None. |
| 8. | Craft | None. Vacc suits required for EVA (extra-vehicle activity). Rescue Balls for crew escape not normally carried, as the entire crew is assumed to have ready access to vacc suits at all times. |
| 9. | Fuel Treatment | It is equipped with a fuel purification plant and fuel scoops. |
| 10. | Cost | MCr60.55 standard. MCr54.495 in quantity. This is for certain versions for which freely available plans exist (and thus have no remaining architect's fees); other versions have different exact costs. |
| 11. | Construction Time | 9 months standard, 6 in quantity. Rarely constructed in quantity. |
| 12. | Remarks | A dedicated courier vessel made to deliver messages across long distances quickly, faster even than an Express Boat, but only in limited service in the Third Imperium. |
History & Background (Dossier)
The first Jumpmax ship was developed and tested in Sol Subsector in 986, just prior to the Solomani Rim War. Arguably this makes the origin the Solomani Confederation, though Imperial historians insist that the area was still formally part of the Third Imperium at the time. It is certainly the case that the prototype ship, and its design files, wound up in Imperial custody. War-related records damage has made it impossible to determine if the design files were deliberately made public and free of charge as a punitive measure against the architects who fled to the Confederation, if they were merely leaked by opportunists with no official prosecution possible due to lack of solid evidence, or if the original architects made the design files public as a protest against the war.
Regardless, the mere availability of the design did not preclude copycat attempts, a number of which came up with designs that were hard to distinguish from the original. In many cases, it was not possible to determine whether a new design had even been attempted, rather than a clever attempt to hide use of the original design. So, naval bureaucrats decided to make an exception: those copies that were close enough were deemed to be the same design.
The class name appears to be a reference to pre-spaceflight Terran naval ship classes, named for the maximum size that could fit through certain important waterways. In this same vein, the Jumpmax (or any ship rated at Jump-6) is "the fastest ship that goes through jumpspace".
In actual use, Jumpmaxes tend to only connect important worlds, or operate within a few subsectors that their owners care about, though a few are used to cross the Great Rift or other long distances. Even the longest Jumpmax trips rarely take more than a year, and tend to be IISS there-and-back operations covering no more than 3 sectors each way, or communications runs to and from distant IISS bases such as Geokha in far-off Thaku Fung Sector.
On long, multi-jump trips, the operator's manual recommends the following duty cycle:
- Enter jump.
- Take a 6-day dose of Fast Drug, available from the automated galley. Nap through this period for a subjective 4-5 hours.
- Wake up somewhere from a fraction of a day to just over a day from breakout. Do a maintenance check while the ship is in jumpspace. Nap again (with breakout alarm set) if breakout does not occur soon.
- Upon breakout, confirm location then head for the destination world (a gas giant or a world with water). If there is system traffic control, hail to get permission.
- Skim for fuel.
- Head for 100 diameters away from the planet and start the fuel purification.
- Nap or sleep, depending on how long it took after waking up last time to reach breakout.
- Compute astrogation to the next system, targeting another gas giant or world with water. This may take multiple attempts, but there should be more than enough time before fuel purification is complete.
- Do another maintenance check while waiting for fuel purification to complete.
- Enter jump, beginning the cycle again.
Class Naming Practice/s & Peculiarities
Ship Interior Details: Part of the proof of concept is just how small a space a single crew member can be crammed into. The main crew-accessible space consists of a bunk bed (one bunk usually folded into the wall), fresher (with door just in case there is a second crew member, though permanently left open on most Jumpmaxes), small biosphere (sometimes called an "automated galley", serving the same limited selection of food, though the selection can be changed out by cloning from food available on most inhabited worlds), cargo niche (usually packed with maintenance parts that start out well-packed and inevitably wind up strewn about), bridge (often fitted with an exercise machine, as well as 2 consoles - 1 of which is usually hidden behind a tarp or panel so as not to constantly remind a lone crewmember of what not being all alone was like), and airlock with ventral and dorsal exits and extendable lift.
There is a half-meter crawlspace under the floor (accounting for the extra thickness of the central part of the saucer) to get at the maneuver and jump drives, fuel purification (which sucks and pushes unrefined fuel through the jump drive's tubes; one must be careful not to operate the jump drive and fuel purification at the same time), jump batteries, and power plant to replace worn-out components.
The maneuver drive is ringed around the crew space to optimize acceleration in any direction. Outside of an atmosphere it is most common for Jumpmaxes to treat "forward" as "up" relative to their artificial gravity, shifting to horizontal flight inside an atmosphere.
Having been designed by multiple independent parties, there is no common naming scheme among the Jumpmax class, though more than a few reference long trips. There are at least 4 known Jumpmaxes going by the name Voyager, though they operate in distinct sectors and are unlikely to ever encounter one another.
Selected Variant Types & Classes
References & Contributors (Sources)
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This ship was designed using Mongoose 2nd ship design rules.
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- Citation Missing - High Guard (Design Sequence Used)
- Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
- Author & Contributor: Adrian Tymes
- ↑ Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.
- ↑ Timothy B. Brown. Fighting Ships (Game Designers Workshop, 1981), 10.