Classic Traveller: The Empty-Hex Jump Dilemma

 

During research for my Box-Centric Classic Traveller blog post, the question arose: can Box-Centric Classic Traveller jump into, and from, empty map hexes? That means jumping into deep space, where no major gravity well exists, and jumping from it to another major gravity well.

This subject was, if I recall correctly, hotly debated in the past, together with Jump Torpedoes and the nature of Traveller Maneuver Drives. I vaguely recall reading about it in Traveller Mailing List (TML) archives from the mid-1990s, which I read in the early 2000s - a few years after the action.

The Book 2 rules as written do not explicitly forbid or allow empty hex jumps, and thus a purist Proto-Traveller approach will permit them. Such jumps, alongside dismountable "drop tanks" (see JTAS #3) for carrying fuel externally, potentially for empty-hex jumps by ships otherwise limited to a single jump.

Such jumps are later explicitly permitted, given additional fuel tankage, in A5: Trillion Credits Squadron, which (on p.13), states that:

"The typical use for collapsible tanks is to allow a short-jump ship to cross a gap in two or more jumps. For example, to cross between two worlds located four parsecs apart, jump-4 drives are needed. With collapsible tanks, a ship with jump-2 could negotiate the distance in two sequential jumps, the first to deep space half way across, where the collapsible tanks provide the fuel for the second jump."

But even with these options, and despite JTAS #3 stating that Drop Tanks can serve for commercial purposes, I suspect that most commercial traffic will avoid empty-hex jumps for safety reasons. If anything fails while in deep space, there is no possibility of rescue, other than entering low berths (if available) and setting the Maneuver Drive to relativistic travel to the nearest star system - a matter of years. And that assumes a working Maneuver Drive.

Thus, I envision the two alternatives, namely no-empty-hex-jumps and empty-hex jumps, as follows:

1) Ships may jump into, and from, empty map hexagons, with the entailed risks. This leads to an age-of-sail "maritime" feel to the setting: you can either stick to the shore, for added safety (travel between actual stars), or brave the high seas to travel theoretically unrestricted (travel through deep, empty space). Or an Alien(s) feel, where you can travel anywhere but at a slow pace, with the risk of jumping into dangerous places (e.g., jumping into an "empty" hex containing a rogue planet or brown dwarf where nasty things lurk. There are no "hard" chokepoints, as a military fleet can go anywhere given sufficient fuel. Space is "flatter", though Mains still matter for commercial traffic due to the aforementioned safety concerns. It is also beneficial for lower-tech pocket empires, who are not restricted to "mains" with their bigger ships, even though their available drives only grant them Jump-1.

2) Ships may not jump into, or from, empty map hexagons. This means that you need a solar-scale gravity well on both sides of a jump. This gives space a "topography", leading to "arms" as in 2300AD. This also creates "hard" chokepoints, granting certain world a strategic importance far above and beyond local conditions. Finally, such a rule favors higher-tech empires, who can manufacture big Jump-2-capable ships, while confining lower-tech empires to Mains and Clusters.

My heart goes to the second option, as it creates a "topography" of space, lending extra "texture" to worldbuilding...