This actually leads to a question I have wondered about. Drop tanks let you cross "too long" distances to permit deep strike into enemy territory. Naturally, any interstellar navy would very much like to prevent (or at least know of) any such manoeuvre. My first thought about this would be for the navy to place outposts with sensors and a high-jump courier ship out in interstellar space.
I figured this would make strategic sense, but most importantly serve as a convenient reason for someone to be there to rescue the players when they inevitably manage to strand themselves in deep space. Of course any such rescue would be incredibly awkward for the navy, since the precise location of the outpost is probably top secret.
Jonathan Clark
The problem with that is that, as said upthread, interstellar space is big. You might think that the walk down to your local chemists is a big distance, but that's peanuts to space.
The chances of the drop-tank ship(s) coming out of jumpspace anywhere near the listening station is hideously unlikely. Remember, the emissions that sensors pick up travel at c, so by the time you see someone they'll have already jumped again to wherever they're going. You'd have the outpost's courier showing up to warn about an attack that happened nearly a year ago.
Unless of course jumping into a hex of interstellar space will always spit you out at roughly the same point in that hex for reasons or whatever
William Flores
>My first thought about this would be for the navy to place outposts with sensors and a high-jump courier ship out in interstellar space.
Why? What use is it?
>>I figured this would make strategic sense,
No it wouldn't. You're unconsciously presuming FTL sensors & comms while forgetting about jump time.
Let's say there's a listening post. The enemy exits jump space "only" one light-hour away, are detected, and the courier jumps away with the news. That news will take ONE WEEK to reach it's recipient. If a force is somehow dispatched IMMEDIATELY upon receipt of the news, it will arrive TWO WEEKS after the enemy was spotted. You want to bet that the enemy is still there?
Picketing empty hexes doesn't do squat and, or the most part, the time for needed for any jump is the reason why.
Carter Phillips
I figure it is a case of deciding how quickly you want to get the alarm vs. how much money you are willing to spend. If you consider the 3,26 light years figure, it is about 1190 light days. If the maximum time to alarm is 10 days, then the outpost (given good enough sensors) sees everything within 10 lightdays, for a 20 lightday detection diameter. To make a line of such stations across the hex you need 60 outposts. If you covered the hex in a grid pattern you need 60 such lines, for a total of 3600 outposts. This is a big number, but not astronomically big. Less if you use a more optimal placement than a grid, but I'm a bit too lazy to deal with the math at the moment.
If each outpost cost you, say, 100 million credits, then each hex you cover costs you 360 billion credits. This is expensive, but not inconceivably expensive for a wealthy interstellar polity to purchase.
This all of course relies on the Traveller maps being 2d. If you include the third dimension the cost goes through the roof. Covering a cube with such a net requires 216000 outposts, which is going to put the cost to 10,8 trillion credits if you somehow slash the cost of each outpost to a mere 50 million credits. While the cost of a single hex is affordable to a wealthy polity, it is unlikely that covering just a single hex is going to provide much strategic benefit.
Aaron Cruz
>sees everything within 10 lightdays
And then needs ANOTHER SEVEN DAYS to send the message. That's the part you're continually forgetting or ignoring.
If you want a grid which produces a 10 day detection & report "alarm window", your outposts need a 6 lightday detection diameter rather than a 20 lightday one.
>>This all of course relies on the Traveller maps being 2d
As you correctly note, 3D makes the problem much nastier.
>>While the cost of a single hex is affordable to a wealthy polity, it is unlikely that covering just a single hex is going to provide much strategic benefit.
Agreed.
Daniel Jenkins
A maximum of 10 days to alarm at the outpost, not at the naval base. While the message then spends a week traveling to the naval base, the enemy also spends a week traveling to their target. Instead of getting a week to burn the whole system to the ground, they will have to contend with reinforcements from the naval base.
Matthew Richardson
*an extra week
Gavin Edwards
>A maximum of 10 days to alarm at the outpost, not at the naval base. While the message then spends a week traveling to the naval base, the enemy also spends a week traveling to their target.
That doesn't matter because...
>>Instead of getting a week to burn the whole system to the ground, they will have to contend with reinforcements from the naval base.
... you don't know WHERE to send the reinforcements.
Assume 3I/SolCon/ZhoCon tech with their (mostly) jump4 fleets. You spot the enemy refueling 10 or fewer lightdays away from your outpost, send a courier to the naval base, and then what?
All you know is that that force was HERE on such and such a day. A week later it can be ANYWHERE within a 4 parsec radius. So WHERE do you send your reinforcements?
Is the enemy force spotted heading for the naval base which was warned? Or is it a piece of misdirection? Feint towards the base, freeze the forces there in place, and then attack elsewhere?
If you haven't yet played Classic's "Fifth Frontier War" game, let me strongly suggest you do so. It's a real eye-opener with regards to comm lag and how it controls operational and strategic planning. If you can arrange to play the game double-blind it will be better yet.
Ethan Mitchell
>tfw forget to print double-sided >tfw only realize halfway through
Benjamin Wright
Ohhh... how may times have I done the same thing...
You want a membership card, user? I'm the fucking president of that club.
