Or… back to some Traveller.
Back in the day, the Traveller starter set, my introduction to the game, had the most useful starship system travel formulae in the main book, but these have been removed by Mongoose from their versions. There is a good argument that you don’t really need to bother as long as you are within a close enough extrapolation, and that is doubtless true. Nevertheless, to give in to some slightly overwrought verisimilitude, I have dug out the formulae, including both the ‘accelerate to the midpoint and then decelerate to stop at destination’, where acceleration and distance are known but time/duration is required, and ‘pedal to the metal for a set distance (usually the jump point)’, again looking for time/duration.
I picked up both over here.
These are now plugged into a little Google Sheet to give me the numbers to pointlessly exacting detail. Whilst at it I have a jump point calculator forming, based on the simple ‘100 diametres’ rule, but keeping a weather eye on the orbits and the overbearing effect of the star. Oh yes, the stars! Back to looking at star types and relative Sol sizes, what fun. Oh, oh, and gas giant types and some rule that I never knew about that requires a certain manouevre thrust for skimming different sizes of giant. When did that happen? Is that a T5 thing? Did I miss it before?
Next, a simple sheet that takes the higher of the star 100 diametres and the homeworld 100 diametres (plus stellar orbit), to get an overall safe jump distance for the system for a tyarget world. This assumes the rule that the star’s 100 diametres always counts, and needs to be compared to the relative position of the homeworld that the players are arriving or leaving. Playing with the LT, lower than, function to return the higher of two values.
The nostalgia! It hasn’t been that long I suppose, but hopping down these thought rabbit holes brings back such fond memories of the classic Traveller solo universe building fun I used to have, way back in the 80s. Mostly, I am enjoying drawing gas giant moon systems and finding cool images to use in the game. A side order of Foundry VTT assimilation provides some visual flair and technical enablement that fits the Traveller vibe.
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| Needless Maths |
Character, plot and situation need to stay at the heart of course, most of the above being window dressing, of the delightfully ‘console flashing lights’ variety. I’m enjoyng the lights. The Wavemaker application has provided some nice plot tools. The timeline builder has given me a neat visual way of mapping out the events that have led up to the convention scenario start point, and I’ll follow-up with a mindmap to plot out the interconnections. There won’t be that many, it’s a simple enough tale.
The physics will be invisible to the players, and now replicable with ease thanks to the Google Sheet. The things you do for a forgotten princess.