Reciprical Warp Drive for Mongoose Traveller

This is an alternate FTL drive for the Traveller game, instead of having a minimum distance required from an planetary body, this drive requires a minimum velocity relative to the most massive star in the system before the drive can be activated. this drive also has a secondary feature, it can accelerate the starship at its drive number times the acceleration of Earth's gravity when below the required velocity for Warp Drive activation, this replaces the maneuver drive which is used at lower tech levels.

Correction, I decided to make all the drives the same tech level and make it clear that these Warp Drives can also be used as Maneuver drives when the ship is below the velocity threshold for actually going to warp. These drives take up more volume than the equivalent maneuver drives that do the same thing, so if you want to make a non-warp spaceship it would be cheaper to use a maneuver drive, and the resulting ship would be more maneuverable as a result.

Interesting idea.

I'm basically detailing the entire Solar System using this World and System generation system.
https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/RTT_Worldgen

It is different from Standard Traveller as it has different world categories, and a biosphere digit, the Starport is determined after things like population, tech level and the like is generated first, so it comes after most of the World codes. This is a tech level 17 setting, the years is in the early to mid 3000s (from 3000 AD to 3050 AD). 6 Warp Drives are developed at once, the principle for one leads to the immediate development of others. This tech is an outgrowth of the Maneuver drive tech. Basically maneuver drive 0 for instance generates an artificial gravity field, maneuver drives 1 through 10 allow for maneuvering at that drive number times the acceleration due to gravity on Earth, basically multiples of 9.8 meters per second squared. Warp drives are heavier, and as a side effect they also generate artificial gravity on a ship and can also maneuver it at sublight speeds.


So basically the technology works like this

A space station, or a settlement on a planet or moon where the gravity is not the same as Earth, and an Earth gravity is desired, these come equipped with maneuver drive 0. A non starship that just maneuvers within a star system will come equipped with a maneuver drive from 1 to 10, these also generate artificial gravity fields for the ships occupants and also negate the effects of the ships acceleration, people on the ship do not feel the ship's acceleration because the artificial gravity field negates it. The Warp drive does the same as the maneuver drive of the same rating, but when they reach their minimum required velocity to initiate the warp envelope, they can travel at the reciprocal to the sublight speed they were traveling at when they engage the warp drive, thus is the required speed is 1% of the speed of light, the warp drive moves at 100 times the speed of light, you can see the chart above to see how this works.
Just an added note; If you go faster than 1% of the speed of light before initiating your Warp 1 drive, there is no advantage to this, although you can do it, because you will then be traveling slower that 100 times the speed of light if you do, the higher drive numbers allow you to engage the warp drive at lower initial velocities. You can't change the speed of a warp drive while the ship is at warp, you can only turn it off and go at sub-light once again. the speed of the warp drive is set before you engage it, to change your warp drive speed, you first have to drop out of warp and then reengage it.


At this tech level there is also strong human level AIs and beyond, these are treated like Psionics in the classic traveler campaign, there is a general fear in the public of artificial intelligence, and these things are outlawed, though some AIs exist anyway and keep a low profile to avoid being noticed and then deleted.

To be honest I am not a fan.
For me the, for space operas uncommon, FTL in Traveller with all its limitations is part of the flavor of the system.
But many GMs dont seem to want to miss random encounters during travel or otherwise cant wrap their heads around it so they change it to a warp drive or otherwise modify it so that you can "drop out" prematurely.

Here is the Solar System as of the Years 3000 AD to 3050 AD, maybe you might recognize the source of my inspiration:
This setting is Tech Level 17 by the way, the Warp Drive was recently invented at the turn of the Millennium, before that these political entities were confined to the Solar System, some extra solar colonies were established using the maneuver drive and they quickly became independent due to the light years time lag, and the lack of any FTL drive prior to the 4th millennium. The United States of Jupiter was for a time ruled by a dictator, often referred to as "the Tyrant", he was later deposed and things have returned to normal.

Here is the completed Solar System. the starting point of this campaign setting.

Here is the nearest destination outside the Solar System

Here is a map of sectors 1, 2, and 3. Each square is 1 light year across.

Thomas Bowman said:

Here is the nearest destination outside the Solar System

Click to expand...

Am I correct in understanding that the eccentric-orbit planet in Subsector 74 replaces Orbit 8?
If not, how does the system avoid collisions?

I also take it that Orbits 7 and 8 are resonant: when the orbital paths cross, only one planet is on that side of the star.

I know you have to work with the format Enworld provides, but your material would fit in a Traveller Little Black Book much better !