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