Tar pit question indeed. Ive always assumed that jump-bubbles cannot be
spherical because the volume of n-space they contain is *not* dependant on
the longest dimension of the ship inside the bubble. I have also always
assumed that their shape cannot be tied to anything in the hull of the
ship because a ship with extreme damage to its hull can still jump without
issue (apart from, you know, the vacuum of n-space itself).
The easiest solution, in my mind, was to assume that the extent and shape
of the bubble was simply projected from the jump-engine into n-space
through a gap in the hull which the jump engine enclosed (hence the need
for surface area for jump engines, and why its always tied to one
specific spot on the damage tables and not spread over all 20 hull
locations).
This addresses pretty much all the issues I know of (which, granted, is
likely not *all* the issues), but does fail to explain why there would be
a minimum hull size (which Ive decided to ignore anyway).
As far as jump nets go (which I just found out about today), perhaps they
allow the bubble to be extended in odd, unpredictable shapes. For
example, a vessel designed to tow another one through jump-space would not
know ahead of time what the shape of the carried ship would be.
>
>
> --- In , daryl@... wrote:
>>
>> I follow the reasoning for minimum size of the jump drive (must maintain
>> a set size for jump bubble), but I don't see why the hull size would be
>> restricted. Unless the jump buble is maintained with nodes installed on
>> the hull. Couldn't a smaller ship be designed to use a jump drive for a
>> 100 DT ship?
>
> It would depend on how the jump bubble is created/maintained. If it
> requires the equivalent of a hull then you don't save anything. If it's a
> field projection that can extend beyond the hull to make up the minimum
> displacement instead then yes a smaller hull would be possible, but you're
> sill going to have to use the minimum 100tons for fuel calculation as that
> is your bubble size.
>
> CT did have "jump nets" that allowed ships to carry external payloads
> through jump. There was no solid info afik to the cost, mass,
> displacement, etc for the jump nets. You did have to have enough jump
> drive and fuel to "carry" the extra displacement though. That was about
> the extent of the rules.
>
> Likewise there was no real issue for carrying externally mounted craft
> beyond their displacement and any mounting hardware. Either the jump drive
> extended to include them, some function of the mounting permitted it (like
> jump nets), or the craft hulls had the required jump grid or whatever
> included in them at the basic cost of manufacture (meaning it was a
> redundant feature for non-jump use*).
>
> * except that I figured the hull grid/field was a standard feature/part of
> the required hull that included not just jump space protection but also
> normal space radiation protection and debris shielding, wrapped up with
> the artificial gravity and contra grav lifters (before such items were
> broken out into defined components)
>
> Problem is this is one of those tar-pit questions that once you start into
> it you're stuck inventing all kinds of increasingly stretched ideas to
> explain your way out of the mess, only you just find yourself sinking
> deeper as you struggle harder :-)
>
>
> Dan "far-trader" Burns
>
>
>
>