Questions about Jump ships/engines/gates FAQ

[Vanigo (OP)]

For the combat transit, can you use multiple jump ships for a larger squadron - say, use two squadron size 3 jump ships to bring a task group of six ships over, or do you have to split the task force into two separate groups first?

[Beersatron]

For the combat transit, can you use multiple jump ships for a larger squadron - say, use two squadron size 3 jump ships to bring a task group of six ships over, or do you have to split the task force into two separate groups first?

Two separate groups.

[sloanjh]

Moved from FAQ to The Academy.

[Micro102]

For the combat transit, can you use multiple jump ships for a larger squadron - say, use two squadron size 3 jump ships to bring a task group of six ships over, or do you have to split the task force into two separate groups first?

Two separate groups.

I don't like that.....this also gonna be fix'd in 5.0?

[MoonDragon]

It's not a bug, as Steve explained in this thread (from a couple of days ago).

Because combat jump uses the "jump distance" technology, every jump engine will jump randomly around the jump point exit. All ships traveling with the same engine need to be in the same group. Ships jumping with separate engines need to jump separately, because they will exit in different places. Then they have to congregate back together on the other side.

If you are not in a combat situation, you can always use "transit" option, and everybody will be able to jump successfully. But if you're jumping into a hostile exit point, and wish to minimize your potential exit losses, you need to "combat transit" and for that you need separate TGs for each jump engine.

[sloanjh]

It's not a bug, as Steve explained in this thread (from a couple of days ago).

Because combat jump uses the "jump distance" technology, every jump engine will jump randomly around the jump point exit. All ships traveling with the same engine need to be in the same group. Ships jumping with separate engines need to jump separately, because they will exit in different places. Then they have to congregate back together on the other side.

If you are not in a combat situation, you can always use "transit" option, and everybody will be able to jump successfully. But if you're jumping into a hostile exit point, and wish to minimize your potential exit losses, you need to "combat transit" and for that you need separate TGs for each jump engine.

Not only that, but this mechanics of "real" (i.e. combat as opposed to transit) jumps popping you out some random distance away from the JP was one of the core things that Steve felt was broken in Starfire and wanted to fix in Aurora.  In SF, you know exactly where any enemy transiting into the system is going to appear.  This causes a tactical chokepoint, which can (and was) defended with hordes of fixed defenses and mines, leading to WWI-type mass assaults on entrenched positions.  The jump distance technology allows a player who is jumping in to have a good chance of bypassing these defences (at least the beam-armed ones), resulting in battles which are more oriented towards maneuver and scouting.  In other words, I don't think this feature is going to change

STEVE - given the range changes, especially in missiles, since the jump techs were designed, have you thought about whether you still like the range bands?  As it stands now, I think a beam-armed defender has a decent chance of firing at a TG coming through a JP with the first few levels of jump distance.  I can see arguments in favor of keeping things as they are (so that there's still a fairly strong choke point effect), but I can also see arguments in favor of bumping the jump distances up uniformly by an order of magnitude (so that it's likely they'll come out outside of energy range but within missile range, and have time for their sensors to recover).

John

[Micro102]

Well can't you just have the game assign random ships to their respective jump ships an then have them all jump and stay in the same task group? I don't know how the game is coded but that seems like a viable and easy thing to do.

[sloanjh]

Well can't you just have the game assign random ships to their respective jump ships an then have them all jump and stay in the same task group? I don't know how the game is coded but that seems like a viable and easy thing to do.

I'm not clear here on what you think is broken and needs fixing.  If you don't think you're going to encounter bad guys at the jump point, then just give a normal jump command - you don't need to break the fleet up or anything.  If you're going into a combat situation, then you need to specify the exact groupings that you want to jump with each jump ship.  I wouldn't want the game to do this for me randomly (think of it as an assault formation), and with 5.0 you'll be able decide on these groupings once and simply leave them in place.

John

[Steve Walmsley]

Well can't you just have the game assign random ships to their respective jump ships an then have them all jump and stay in the same task group? I don't know how the game is coded but that seems like a viable and easy thing to do.

Because they will all be in different places, possibly hundred of thousands of kilometers apart. Please read the previous answers.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

STEVE - given the range changes, especially in missiles, since the jump techs were designed, have you thought about whether you still like the range bands?  As it stands now, I think a beam-armed defender has a decent chance of firing at a TG coming through a JP with the first few levels of jump distance.  I can see arguments in favor of keeping things as they are (so that there's still a fairly strong choke point effect), but I can also see arguments in favor of bumping the jump distances up uniformly by an order of magnitude (so that it's likely they'll come out outside of energy range but within missile range, and have time for their sensors to recover).

That is a very good point. I will up the distances and see how we go.

I have also changed the Transit order to read Transit (non-combat).

Steve

[Micro102]

Ah i see....ships in a task group cannot be in different spots. So the best thing would be to organize a fleet in a formation of groups of 3?

[Anonymous]

Ah i see....ships in a task group cannot be in different spots. So the best thing would be to organize a fleet in a formation of groups of 3?

or 4,5,6,7,8 and so on,r linked on UR tech level for Jump Engine capabilities

[sloanjh]

Ah i see....ships in a task group cannot be in different spots. So the best thing would be to organize a fleet in a formation of groups of 3?

Only if/when you're making a combat jump (which should be very rare).

John

[WCG]

Thanks for this! It answers a lot of my questions.

Much appreciated!

2)  Ships with non-civilian engines (i.e. military, GB, fighter) cannot transit a wormhole created by a commercial jump drive.  So don't put military engines on a commercial jump freighter

But can a military ship still jump using a civilian jump tender?  And if so, does it matter if it's a regular transit or a combat transit? (I don't even know if you can put a civilian ship into the same task group as a military ship, so the latter question might be moot.)

Thanks again,

Bill

[Steve Walmsley]

I have made a few changes to make jump engines more rationalised and easier to understand in v5.0. In the past, the whole normal transit vs combat transit has been a little ad-hoc. The combat transit was the 'real' transit and the normal transit was an abstract time-saver. Now the user community for Aurora is growing, I think I need to make this more substantive. Therefore I am changing the way jump engines work for v5.0. Jump Engines can now function in two modes, Standard and Squadron, equating to the two types of transit, which in v5.0 are called (imaginatively) Standard Transit and Squadron Transit.

Standard Transit
When a jump engine is used for a standard transit, it can open a jump point for any number of ships to transit at once, as long as the size of each individual ship is equal to or less than the capacity of the jump engine and the size of the jump ship. The power of the jump engine is used in a brute force manner to open the centre of the jump point for as long as possible to facilitate the passage of many ships. The advantage of this type of transit is obviously the large number of ships that a single jump engine can escort through a jump point. The disadvantages are that the ships appear in a predicatable location, right on top of the exit jump point, and that there is a significant period of disorientation for sensors and weapons that can last from 2-3 minutes. The only parameter of a jump engine considered for a standard transit is its maximum capacity.

Squadron Transit
In a squadron transit, the power of the jump engine is used in a concentrated and precise way to transit a small group of ships as quickly as possible through the jump point. The much faster transit results in far less sensor and weapon disorientation, usually about 20-30 seconds, but causes ripples in space-time that result in the ships emerging some distance from the exit jump point. At first this latter effect was considered a minor annoyance but, once the potential military benefits were realised, later designs of jump engines enhanced this effect, increasing the distance that a squadron might emerge from the jump point and making any defenders' task much harder. For this type of transit, the jump engine's capacity applies exactly as in a standard transit. In addition, the maximum number of ships, including the jump ship, that can jump together is equal to the Max Jump Squadron Size rating for the jump engine. The maximum distance from the exit jump point that a squadron could emerge is equal to the Max Squadron Jump Radius rating of the jump engine.

I have changed the values of the Max Squadron Jump Radius for v5.0. The first level is still 50k kilometers but is now only 1000 RP instead of 2000 RP. There are more levels to the radius, it is cheaper in RP terms and the mass penalties have been reduced. For example, you can get a 500,000 kilometer radius for 8000 RP and it only requires 15% extra mass. Max Radius is now 2.5 million kilometers for 250,000 RP.

In case I never mentioned it before, the period of any sensor and weapon disorientation is reduced by a percentage equal to the ship's grade bonus

Steve