On 15 February 2016 at 20:39, David Jaques-Watson <xxxxxx@pcug.org.au> wrote:

Dear Folks –

Lots of people replied to Greg:
xxxxxx@orffenspace.com xxxxxx@orffenspace.com replied to Kelly:
>
>On February 14, 2016 at 7:03 PM "Kelly St. Clair" <xxxxxx@efn.org> wrote:
>>
>>On 2/13/2016 11:22 PM, Greg Chalik wrote:
>>>
>>> On 13 February 2016 at 14:26, Craig Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com
>>>>
>>>> It's well established by canon that 100dt is the lower boundary on
>>>> what can enter Jump.
>>>
>>> Why can't at TL15 the IN not produce some way of tracking their ships
>>> backwards in Jump space?
>>> I'm having a real hard time accepting that in a TL15 world, travel works
>>> based on 17th century concepts (its not even Lord Nelson)
>>
>>You've already been told: Because Marc (and the LBBs, and all the
>>Bigger Not-Black Books since) say so. There's really not much more
>>reason nor logic to most of the OTU than that. You either accept it, or
>>go play something else. (Or have a psychotic episode.)
>
>I was about to respond along the same lines :)

Greg, FWIW there’s a variant rule for MegaTraveller that says if you can get within visual range of a starship entering jump, and successfully lock on and scan it’s jump grid as it is energising, you can use that data to get a pretty good idea of where the ship is going to.

This works because the jump grid, as postulated in MT, is not energised all at once, but in sequence depending of the jump vector the navigator is trying to hit. The rules also suggest that one reason for having a rear-guard while retreating is to prevent enemy ships from getting close enough to get a good “read” off the departing ships.

It’s in the Starship Operator’s Manual, from memory.

Of course, and as always, YMMV.

Thank you David!

I had never owned MT or the Starship Operator's Manual.

So, for civilian traffic, an array of automated visual scanners of system space can perform the tracking fairly effectively, ensuring no civilian ship is ever really lost.

For military ships a drone can be launched prior to jump to perform the same function, and act as a possible S&R waypoint.

Probably suggests that space of the 3I is littered with quite a bit of space junk, and among this are the ships' tracking drones, that may self-destruct after a given time-on-station, maybe the period of years mentioned earlier.

If this is the case, the insurance requirement would be to carry enough of such disposable tracking drones to obtain insurance.

And, perhaps there are 'salvage' operators out there going around collecting such drones before their self-destruct time, and 'recycling' them. A dangerous job, but someone has to do it :-)

Interesting potential for a storyline here I think...

One such 'salvage' operation recovers a drone, and while downloading its databank before 'recycle', they realise its the last known drone from a missing Tigress-class warship...and they are now in possession of the only known possible search area for the ship...

Should the PCs sell the find to the Navy for a possible reward...or a term in jail, or try to find the ship themselves, for a salvage job opportunity of a lifetime?

Cheers

Greg

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.tip.net.au/~davidjw xxxxxx@pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"

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