Vector movement

Well this will be a short update where I briefly mention some of the new stuff added, I’ll go into more detail about some of them later on. Sorry about the long delay. Rules are hereand designs are here.

Jumpdrives

Before jumping the ship must inject fuel into its jump bubble, a layer of ionized hydrogen surrounding the ship, thicker the longer distances that are jumped. Jump prep takes 15 min to 60 minutes and uses 10% of the ships volume in jump fuel, per number of parsecs jumped, or Jn as the range is called. Small intrasystem jumps termed J0 spend only 5% of fuel but takes the same prep time. Ships with very small powerplants must turn off floor field and other power hungry components when prepping, the procedure is then called jump dimming, because traditionally the earlist jump capable ships turned interior lighting red during this, to warn the crew that a jump was in progress.

Rules can be found on page 30-31 as well as well as in the design rules on page 36, basic Jump prep or Jump dim time is on a row below the underpower modifiers, Underpower Thrust, Underpower Drift and Underpower Prep respectively.

Batteries

Batteries are either set to power just the floater and possibly Impulse thrust, or power for the entire ship. In both cases you input a nominal endurance in hours and Ship.xls will calculate the actual endurance loaded / unloaded. Multiply the hourly endurance by 4 and tick off each turn running on batteries, Impulse thrust is noted in GTurns used, typicaly twice as much as Floater alone. Ships running on batteries have the same IR(Power) signature as with a running powerplanet but no Neutrino(Power).

Don’t add batteries to your designs unless you fully understand the above rules, batteries are tricky and costly and not really needed for most designs.

All you need to do is to set the TL of the battery, whether you want its data for powering Float or the entire shio and the nominal endurance in hours, rules are on page 36.

Fuel converters

The Ammonia and Methane fuel converters have been combined into one, the water cracker is still a separate unit as it requires much more power. The special tankage row of ship.xls can hold any of water, ammonia or methane, but only one at a time.

I have added one Cutter fuelconverter and one Cutter fuelshuttle to the designs as the cutters are such common I though it would be good to get two ready made specialties aside from the regúlar one. Both the Mercenary cruiser and Survey cruiser has them as small craft.

See the sidebar on page 36 for details.

Workstations

The various waorkstation rows has been turned into one so all workstations must now be of the same type. The bridge workstation, aside from being a tie breaker for when Ship tactics skill are equal it also gives longer endurance, used by the optional Fatigue rules on page 25.

Battery modifiers

The modifiers for attacking with multiple indentical weapons, maybe from different ships if a Ship tactician is commanding them, have been modified to simplify designs at the cost of slightly harder to remember the breaks. The breaks are 2 for +2, 3 for +3, 9 for +4, 30 for +5 and 90 for +6. Fit three turrets with small missile launchers each for a +4 bonus from 9 missiles in a volley for example.

The tables are on page 9 and page 41 and of course in the 4 page table dupes at the back. Print out the last four pages at the back of the book to get handy references during play. All commonly tables and figures are there.

Detailed ranges and relative vectors

Those who want more detailed breakdowns of ranges and relative vectors can find tables for both on page 32.

Brace for impact

Every submarine movie has the captain yelling ‘brace for impact’ and now you can too in Intercept! At the end of movement, right before rolling for G-Loc you may opt to have the Crew and Repair Crew brace themselves. Bracing means they cannot Scan, attack or defend and they cannot perform repairs or power up powerplants. Bracing for impact ends at the end of the turn so you can thrust and turn or aerobrake while bracing for impact any number of times in a row. Basically, you cannot sense, fight or repair but take less battle, crash and aerobrake, you can also stand high G effects better.

The rules are on page 32, G-loc specific on page 25.

Humankind have detonated 17 nuclear devices in space during the cold war the largest being the US Starfish at 1.4 Megatons. From Wikipedia:

“Starfish Prime produced an artificial radiation belt in space which soon destroyed three satellites (Ariel,TRAAC, and Transit 4B all failed after traversing the radiation belt, while Cosmos V, Injun I and Telstar 1 suffered minor degradation, due to some radiation damage to solar cells, etc.).”

“The worst effects of a Soviet high-altitude test occurred on 22 October 1962, in the Soviet Project K nuclear tests (ABM System A proof tests) when a 300 kt missile-warhead detonated near Dzhezkazgan at 290-km altitude. The EMP fused 570 km of overhead telephone line with a measured current of 2,500 A, started a fire that burned down the Karaganda power plant, and shut down 1,000-km of shallow-buried power cables between Aqmola and Almaty.”

If you are playing in the Traveller setting nukes are only allowed by the Imperial Navy or System defense forces and can only be used in wartime. Mercenary slang for wars involving nukes is ‘Bad war’, all other wars are called ‘Good war’.

Missile nuke option

• Large nuclear missile TL 6+
• Medium nuclear missile TL 7+
• Small nuclear missile TL 8+

Consult the tech chart above to see at what Tech Level each missile class gets the nuke option. Nuke option reduce thrust with -2G and have a price multiplier of x10. PEN & DAM +12 when directly impacting a target but they can also be proximity detonated for +3 DM to hit and PEN & DAM -6, proximity detonation is not a design option but a choice the missile operator can do when attacking.

Nuke attacks and defense
Nuke attacks work the same as for normal missiles but the target may defend using one laser battery and one nuclear damper battery. Ships with a functional Neutrino detector will know if a missile is a nuke or not, all others must guess. Firing a nuclear damper on non-nuke missiles has no effect, of course.

Proximity detonation
The nuke missile operator may elect to detonate the nuke some way off the target for a +3 DM and PEN & DAM -6. Damage from proximity detonations should use the Spray fire rules were the degrees of success give more hits rather than more damage at one hit.

• VGood 3 Fair hits
• Good 2 Fair hits
• Fair 1 Fair hit

Nuke secondary effects
The X-Ray, neutrino and gravity burst from the detonation also affect nearby ships interfering with their sensors. Visual/IR and Radar lose any tracks unless they were popped down, Neutrino and Mass lose their tracks regardless. Max range for this effect depend on the size of the missile:

• Small 1 square
• Medium 3 squares
• Large 5 squares

Fleet tacticians and nukes
Fleet tacticians allow their Ship tacticians to fly more dispersed formations. An Expert+ Fleet tactician allow his Ship tactician to have a wide enough separation from any nuke secondary effects!

Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Hudson: Fuckin’ A!

Burke: Hold on a second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it.

Ripley: They can *bill* me.