Classic Traveller - Travel
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Travel
At long last, we get to the section on travel. More specifically, interplanetary and interstellar travel. This is on travel in general - design and combat are further on.
One of the first notes is the assumption that most systems only really have one colonized world. You may have mining stations, belters, research outposts, and so on, but you’ll rarely run into more than one planet in the goldilocks zone. This is a future informed more by older scifi than the Expanse, but even in this paradigm, a gas giant with moons would be a viable multi-colony environment, and there’s no reason you couldn’t set things up in a more Expanse or Gundam way with large inhabited asteroids or O’Neill colonies.
Or have a system that had planets placed into L5 slots.
In either case, travel and communications is time consuming. A 1G trip from an earth-orbit planet to a gas giant can actually take as long as a jump to another system (always 1 week plus time to boost clear of the gravity well and land in turn), even if the planets are on the same side of the star (see the charts on p.54). There are consequences to this that lead directly to the feudal setup and default :imperium” setting that quickly grew around Traveller.
All communication is limited to jump speeds. There is no Comstar or HPG, the existence of which has some significant impact on how effectively characters can escape notoriety, justice, or persecution by sufficiently determined enemies. There is no day-by-day control of far flung fleets - local “nobility”, governors, admirals, and military commanders are by necessity operating independently, whether for their own benefit or in the interest of their oaths.
Interstellar jumps are always 1 week, and can vary from one to six parsecs depending on the drive capacity. This brings up some intriguing possibilities for moving across system if it would take you a week or more anyway, and being able to do so undetected until you emerge (at a relatively safe distance from any large gravity bodies) at a high fuel cost, but generally speaking, unless you’re heading out past the belt or to the other side of a system, jumping takes more time.
Since this a chapter on travel, it doesn’t go into ship design/etc., but instead talks more about the general economics. How often ships tend to jump (roughly twice a month, with layovers for maintenance and trading), costs for various types of accommodations, checked baggage limits, and the general risks of a low passage (dying in cryosleep) or stowing away.
Tinkering
While The Imperium is tightly coupled to the game rules, and some form of feudal society with stellar organizations comprising at least several star systems per most polities is almost required by the rules, you can change the parameters here for how jump drives operate, and how comms operate. However, you will significantly change costs and strategic impact.
As things stand, interstellar travel is relatively cheap, with costs on a scale to tankers and cargo ships on our modern world so that trade in at least luxury and specialized goods is profitable. Standard cargo costs, speculation aside, is Cr.1000/ton - keeping in mind that, barring extremely dense materials, this is more a measure of displacement than actual mass. After digging into the costs of shipping 20-foot containers (very approximately 3 tons displacement) over the Atlantic, and factoring for markup by the shipper over costs (paid to the ship), The Cr.1000 that a ship captain receives for a ton of cargo is roughly the equivalent of $1000, or one to one.
This makes even the Cr.1000 Low passage as costly as a high end plane ticket, and the High Passage, even factoring the ton of cargo permissible, the equivalent of a $10,000 luxury cruise. Yes, those do exist, but the middle passage in CT is far closer to the high end than the low or a standard cruise cabin runs in our day and age.
The real weirdness economically shows up when pricing equipment. Some things, like flashlights (Cr/$5) and chainsaws (Cr./$500) may be on the cheap or expensive-ish side , but fall in the expected norms for a solid and reliable example. On the other hand I’m trying to remember when I could be a reliable used, much less new, car for the Cr./$4000 listed for a wheeled vehicle. The motorboat or steamship - the former of which is a 8-passenger boat with 10 tons of cargo capacity - are an equally ridiculously low Cr./$60,000.
Some other dangers and issues outside of outright starship economics and construction are covered, including piracy, ships skipping their lien, fueling up at gas giants, and the odds of drive failure and misjump. Using unrefined fuel without tonnage set aside for special purification gear increases the odds of an issue significantly, and misjumping?
Each time the ship engages in a jump, throw 13+ for a misjump. Apply the following DMs: +1 if using unrefined fuel (and not equipped to do so), +5 if within 100 planetary diameters of a world, +15 if within 10 planetary diameters of a world. If the result is 16+, then the ship is destroyed.
Basically, using unrefined fuel is a risk but not a significant one. Jumping anywhere close to a planet is a significant risk, but with a fairly low chance (you need a 10+ if within 100 diameters using unrefined fuel) of utter destruction. And there are easier ways to kill yourself than jumping close.
That last set of limitations makes it much safer to keep facilities near a gravity well, as they are less prone to surprise attacks.
All in all, the chapter lays out some basic assumptions of traveling and moving supplies between planets and systems, with or without your own starship. Not all of the relative values make sense, but they’re not insane from spot checking them either. You can change the nature of how jump drives, interstellar comms, and so on work, but doing so has a significant impact on the nature of the game universe, even if you don’t have to play in the Imperium as Imperium.
While you’re at it:
If you like good books, the guys at Pilum Press have a discord server. Drop in, and if you haven’t yet, pick up a copy of everything they have at their website.
If you’re more into games, check out the Arbiter of Worlds channel, and the Autarch Discord server as well. There you will find discussions on ACKs, Ascendant, and a number of other non-Autarch RPGs and games like Traveller and D&D.