CharlesShoults
08/26/08 07:24 PM
64.47.54.5
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I know of the Inner Sphere Cartography project and a number of others, producing very good Inner Sphere maps along with marked travel routes. Does anyone know of, or ever seen a site that listed the number of jumps from place to place? I am in need of the information and would prefer not to spend the hours necessary to compile the information myself.
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Frabby
08/28/08 11:17 AM
87.164.233.148
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The answer is not as easy as you may think. There are just too many variables.
It has been established that for every inhabited system on your map there are at least 9 others that are uninhabited. Using those uninhabited systems, you can go more or less straight lines across the map, and jump the full 30 lightyear capacity at almost every interval.
Most JumpShips keep to inhabited systems though, not only for safety reasons but also to ensure that they are used to best efficiency. As of 3050 there are only roughly 3000 JumpShips operating in the Inner Sphere!
Mind that travel time depends a lot on the star types of the systems where you jump through. A JumpShip with a Lithium-Fusion Battery can make best use of systems that charge you quickly, and allows you to jump on from a system where you would take very long to recharge. Therefore, having a L-F battery would likely cut the travel time considerably.
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Cray
08/29/08 10:52 PM
68.205.198.74
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Quote:
The answer is not as easy as you may think. There are just too many variables.
It has been established that for every inhabited system on your map there are at least 9 others that are uninhabited.
In the Inner Sphere, there's about 1000 uninhabited systems per inhabited system. A 500 light-year radius from Earth holds about 2 million stars. The number of uninhabited to inhabited systems climbs exponentially in the Periphery.
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As of 3050 there are only roughly 3000 JumpShips operating in the Inner Sphere!
Nope. The 3025AD number of jumpships given in the Dropships & Jumpships Sourcebook was 2000 operating jumpships, but that has been thoroughly dismissed by BT's writers. BattleTech features far too many planets dependent on food imports and transportation of bulk goods like iron ore and oil for 2000-3000 jumpships to be sufficient. Keeping the planet Irian fed would require several hundred jumpships alone.
At a minimum, a very bare minimum, the correct number is closer to about 30,000 jumpships in 3025.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Edited by Cray (08/29/08 10:54 PM)
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Frabby
08/30/08 09:42 AM
87.164.199.147
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Sorry Cray, but that does not work out.
While I do agree that a Retcon may be called for, I feel it has to be applied on the other end of the problem, namely on how many imports are required to keep worlds like Irian running (or rather, to what extend such worlds can sustain themselves).
Granted, there may be more than 3000 JumpShips after all (as I recall it this was the number of *registered* ships in the Inner Sphere as of 3057). I am fairly sure that I took this number from TRO3057 but just had a quick glance and could not find it. Maybe elsewhere (BattleSpace rulebook perhaps?).
A) Reasons why 30,000ish JumpShips does not sound right:
1. It does not tie in with other (canonical) data, especially the notion that some 1400 JumpShips accompanying Kerensky would constitute a notable fleet.
2. It would require shipyards to churn out a JumpShip every other month, and very much more than that if you factor in combat losses in the early succession wars, and attrition afterwards (while the shipyards were being deliberately wasted left and right, i.e. the production capacity was crashing down).
3. It devaluates the individual JumpShip and their LosTech status. With each House having some 6000 operational JumpShips available on average (wow - that means cluttered Jump Points for a House spanning 300 systems!), I somehow cannot imagine they would be recognized as non-combattants.
4. We have discussed in another thread here ("Transport") how many DropShips it takes to move a FedSuns RCT as of 4SW, and the estimate is below 40. That's some 10-15 JumpShips per RCT. Now recall how Davion gutted his infrastructure by procuring civilian JumpShips for military service in the 4SW. It does not work out, considering each attack wave required some 150-200 JumpShips, unless that was really a significant share of the total ships in the FedSuns. Which is believable based on 600 JumpShips, but looks somewhat silly if they had 6000 available.
B) Reasons why I do not think the reasoning why there should be more JumpShips holds water:
1. Yes, many planets are fluffed to require regular imports. These (broadly) fall into two categories:
- "Mining Worlds" are inhospitable and only colonized for their ore yields (or gems or other products). If the ore is a bulk commodity then the amount of goods (DropShips) going out determines what goes in, which in turn determines the size of the resident population that can be supported. The same ships that move out the ore move in the supplies.
Conversely, if the ore (or whatever) is not a bulk product then I'd expect the population to be very small anyways.
- "Overpopulated Worlds" are those that can hold a colony, but somehow cannot support their current population. I find it hard to believe that the population would not seek to create further arable land, or at least install industrial yeast farms to keep themselves fed. The notion that Irian needs hundreds of JumpShips to keep its population fed cannot be taken at face value imho.
So in the end I say the import requirements are overestimated, and can be explained away much more easily that a tenfold increase in the number of the near-mythical JumpShips.
2. Many systems have several inhabited planets and do not need a JumpShip to ship goods between one and the other. The Liao Housebook explicitly states that the Capellans (as of 3025) have an average of two inhabited worlds per system, and that is not counting jump point stations. (Example: Hostile mining world Kali, in the Algol system, and breadbasket world Algol IV).
3. Only very few planets in the BT universe have a populatin exceeding 1 billion, at least judging from the data I have. (I will eventually post the population figures given in the MechWarrior computer game for the 110 or so worlds they have in the database, although I know it is tedious canon at best.)
4. Import-dependent planets should not really exist. Given the course of the first three Succession Wars they should have starved away long ago; those that survived into the 31st Century therefore obviously can do with whatever can be delivered with the number of JumpShips available. Following up on what I wrote above, you cannot simply add up the population, compute their daily food requirement and state that would be the daily import requirement of the planet. Every community, anywhere, will strive to be as self-sufficient as possible and that includes waste recycling, food production, mining and about every other requirement thinkable. I am not saying they are self-sufficient, but probably rely on much less trade volume than suggested.
Edited by Frabby (08/30/08 09:56 AM)
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Cray
08/30/08 11:57 AM
68.205.198.74
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Quote:
3. Only very few planets in the BT universe have a populatin exceeding 1 billion, at least judging from the data I have. (I will eventually post the population figures given in the MechWarrior computer game for the 110 or so worlds they have in the database, although I know it is tedious canon at best.)
The average is 3 billion over 2000 planets.
The House Kurita SB Atlas gives 2.3 billion average from its sampling.
MW3 RPG. Look up the farmer lifepath. If you're a farmer, you're one like "trillions of others in the Inner Sphere." With 2000 planets, that calls for an average of Billions per planet.
The FCCWSB gives an average population of 1.9 billion from a sampling of 48 worlds.
The Liao Sourcebook gives an average population of 3 billion from a sampling of 54 worlds.
The Marik Sourcebook gives an average population of 3.1 billion from a sampling of 28 worlds.
The back of the Star League SB indicates the First Lord ruled trillions. Again, that calls for Billions per planet.
The new House Steiner Handbook indicates that when the Star League formed, there were trillions of people in the Inner Sphere already, which can be achieved with reasonable growth rates. Again, that calls for Billions per planet.
The INN interactive map (considered canon) gives a 3 billion average.
Even if assume that every other planet in the Inner Sphere has a population of 0, then the given planetary populations are sufficient to produce an average in the hundreds of millions.
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Sorry Cray, but that does not work out.
Granted, there may be more than 3000 JumpShips after all (as I recall it this was the number of *registered* ships in the Inner Sphere as of 3057). I am fairly sure that I took this number from TRO3057 but just had a quick glance and could not find it. Maybe elsewhere (BattleSpace rulebook perhaps?).
As I said in my last post, it was from the Dropships & JumpShips SB.
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A) Reasons why 30,000ish JumpShips does not sound right:
1. It does not tie in with other (canonical) data, especially the notion that some 1400 JumpShips accompanying Kerensky would constitute a notable fleet.
1400 jumpships IS a notable fleet when there's 30,000 jumpships. Where else are you going to find the equivalent of 5% of all 3025-era JumpShips in one place? The Third Succession War probably never saw more than a couple dozen JumpShips in a fleet. 28,000 of them would be dispersed between 2000 star systems, carrying the bare necessities and leaving just a couple thousand for House military uses and free traders.
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2. It would require shipyards to churn out a JumpShip every other month, and very much more than that if you factor in combat losses in the early succession wars, and attrition afterwards (while the shipyards were being deliberately wasted left and right, i.e. the production capacity was crashing down).
There were hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jumpships during the Star League era. Even in the 2300s, it wasn't unknown for individuals to run a merchant fleet of 1000 jumpships (like one of the Liao family). Compared to that, 30K jumpships is a sad reduction in both numbers and shipyard capacity.
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3. It devaluates the individual JumpShip and their LosTech status.
I disagree. When 95% of your only starships are tied up with basic survival of the Houses (i.e., 2000 planets and 4.5 trillion people), then you have exactly the situation described in BT: jumpships are rare, precious, necessary commodities whether there's 3,000 or 30,000. You have scant room for a House lord to rip away hundreds of jumpships to make a multi-RCT invasion of a neighboring realm without massive damage to the interstellar economy (as in the case of the 4th SW).
30,000 jumpships means that there's only 1 jumpship per 150 million people in the Inner Sphere. That's even rarer than the number of manned spacecraft the US had from 1981 to 2008AD. For comparison, there were 31,000 merchant ships operating Terra's oceans in 2005AD (and they move much more total tonnage of freight than BT's 30,000 jumpships).
30,000 jumpships is vanishingly rare against the scale of the setting. If you're only focusing on the 10:1 proposed increase in jumpship numbers, then you're overlooking far too much of the rest of canon. 2000 planets and trillions of people in an allegedly interstellar civilization would make 300,000 jumpships look like rare lostech. 30,000 is a conservative value.
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4. We have discussed in another thread here ("Transport") how many DropShips it takes to move a FedSuns RCT as of 4SW, and the estimate is below 40. That's some 10-15 JumpShips per RCT. Now recall how Davion gutted his infrastructure by procuring civilian JumpShips for military service in the 4SW. It does not work out, considering each attack wave required some 150-200 JumpShips, unless that was really a significant share of the total ships in the FedSuns. Which is believable based on 600 JumpShips, but looks somewhat silly if they had 6000 available.
6000 are not available. 6000 exist. There's a difference when 95% of your merchant marine is involved in keeping critical planets alive. Taking away 200 jumpships from the available 300 will bring any commercial traffic to a screeching halt, just as described in the 4th Succession War guides.
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With each House having some 6000 operational JumpShips available on average (wow - that means cluttered Jump Points for a House spanning 300 systems!)
A zenith or nadir jump point is larger than the volume marked out by Mars' orbit (and blurs out into the vastness of the viable jump space beyond the proximity limit of a star). That volume is enough to hold 4 planets, 1 star, 99.99% of the Solar system's mass, countless thousands of asteroids (many of them more massive than a jumpship) and it's still mostly empty space.
Per the sensor rules (ranges) of AT2R or Combat Operations, the jumpships at a standard jump point aren't even likely to be VISIBLE to each other except from their one-time emergence waves. They can't see each other by radar, radio triangulation, drive flares, or anything else unless they deliberately move together.
That's not cluttered.
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B) Reasons why I do not think the reasoning why there should be more JumpShips holds water:
1. Yes, many planets are fluffed to require regular imports. These (broadly) fall into two categories:
- "Mining Worlds" are inhospitable and only colonized for their ore yields (or gems or other products). If the ore is a bulk commodity then the amount of goods (DropShips) going out determines what goes in, which in turn determines the size of the resident population that can be supported. The same ships that move out the ore move in the supplies.
Do you know what tonnage of iron ore and oil is shipped today? Billions of tons. Please think about that when trying to imagine how a planet in the Lyran Alliance (average population 3 billion) can find it viable to import iron ore from the Rim Commonality, or why the Federated Suns found it worthwhile to export oil from Okefenokee to other planets.
And look at the tonnage capacities of the average freighter DropShips. If you dropped a Mule into the hold of an Emma Mærsk-class container ship, the local coast guard would need a week to find the DropShip (pardon the hyperbole). BT's tiny dropships and jumpships just don't move a lot of freight, but they get tasked to move ores and products generally moved by the billions of tons on a single planet.
With that perspective, it should be no wonder that 6000 jumpships is hardly adequate to sustain a House's interstellar shipment of necessities, and diverting hundreds to a large invasion would cripple profitable trade.
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- "Overpopulated Worlds" are those that can hold a colony, but somehow cannot support their current population. I find it hard to believe that the population would not seek to create further arable land, or at least install industrial yeast farms to keep themselves fed. The notion that Irian needs hundreds of JumpShips to keep its population fed cannot be taken at face value imho.
Irian has a population of 2 billion and "imports the majority of its food," per the Marik SB. Even if Irian is not taken at face value, there are many other examples of planets importing extensive quantities of food. New Avalon is known for feeding a good half dozen neighboring planets.
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4. Import-dependent planets should not really exist.
I understand your point here, but I think you're taking it to an unnecessary extreme. The planets that were unable to survive without outside support died off in the Succession Wars; those that survived, even those needing imports, are at a level sustainable even in the Succession Wars. There might've been 10 Irians in 2780AD in the FWL; now there's just Irian.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Frabby
09/05/08 02:36 PM
87.164.212.127
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Found the source for my quote: Mercenary's Handbook 3055 (FASA#1670), p. 23 under "Jumpships". It states from an omniscient view that, "as of 3055, approximately 3,000 JumpShips operate in the Inner Sphere".
Sound as your arguments may be, and regardless of what you may think of it, this number of JumpShips is as canonical in the BT universe as BattleMechs, portable fusion reactors, weapon ranges of less than a kilometer, jump sails, dropship drive specific impulse rates, the Clans, the Tetatae, and a lot of other faerytale stuff.
If there has been an official retcon then I have missed it.
That's why I think even heavily populated planets do not import such huge amounts of goods. And really, disbelieving the total number of available JumpShips is not any better than disbelieving the percieved import requirements of certain planets or the overall cargo volume.
Your example about the volume of trade moved on Earth today may not be applicable, as we are only talking about JumpShips, i.e. shipment between star systems. Many breadbasked worlds will supply worlds in the same system, for example, which requires DropShips but no JumpShips.
The House Liao book states the Capellan Confederation as of 3025 has 217 systems with an average of two populated worlds in them (426 worlds in the 217 systems).
Finally, the average population is a very vague thing. Keep in mind that the Steiner HB explicitly states that for every inhabited planet, at least five to ten others are either uninhabited, inhospitable, or with populations too small or private to be recognized. The average across all inhabited worlds can thus be expected to be far lower.
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Christopher_Perkins
09/08/08 01:27 AM
24.125.201.167
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the issue is that cray (as a writer of other canon materiel) is able to say that even the PTB are saying that the canon figure of 2000 - 3000 jumpships is inadequate to keep supplied the large number of planets that require a significant portion of its food be imported...
Granted this would leave it open for things like the Honorverse's Grayson Space-Farm Habitats to be in system and imported to the world from the rest of the system...
but over and above what ever number is required for basic subsistance, there is the amount required for Military Transport and private transport of luxury items.
Christopher Robin Perkins
It is my opinion that all statements should be questioned, digested, disected, tasted, and then either spit out or adopted... RHIP is not a god given shield
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Kovax
11/13/08 02:13 PM
75.146.193.46
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The Objective Raids sourcebook shows the times from jump point to planet for many major worlds. If you're trying to plan a "route", those times need to be added to the ends of the run. For a few stops along the way, they might even wait a few extra days while the dropships make the round trip to and from the inhabited worlds, seeing how they already need to wait most of that time just to recharge.
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