Question about Travel Times at Warp

Hi,
since I'm just preparing a campaign set in the 23rd century I thought it might be a good idea to convert the travel time table into OCU, but I just didn't get it. The table seems to be full of miscalculations. For example travelling the distance of 12 million km at the speed of 9600 km/h doesn't take 142 years, does it? Shouldn't it say 12 billion instead of million? There were a few other things that I didn't understand but I just gave it up since I was never that good at math anyway.

Has anyone else created a travel time table in OCU?

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Originally Posted by BlackThorne

Hi,
since I'm just preparing a campaign set in the 23rd century I thought it might be a good idea to convert the travel time table into OCU, but I just didn't get it. The table seems to be full of miscalculations. For example travelling the distance of 12 million km at the speed of 9600 km/h doesn't take 142 years, does it? Shouldn't it say 12 billion instead of million? There were a few other things that I didn't understand but I just gave it up since I was never that good at math anyway.

Has anyone else created a travel time table in OCU?

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[Deleted first part b/c incorrect....]

If the chart in the book is that inaccurate, I would just write up my own chart. Are you guiding off distances between key stars that you've already worked out? Just remember that, in OCU, cube the warp factor, and result is how many times faster than the speed of light the warp factor is. (1 = 1c, 2 = 8c, 3 = 27c, 3.5 = 42.875c, 4 = 64c, 5 = 125c, 6 = 216c, 7 = 343c, 8 = 512c, 9 = 729c, 10 = 1000c, and so on.)

Some other numbers to keep in mind for impulse travel times: 1 AU = 149,598,000 KM. 1 Light-Year = 9,460,528,400,000 KM.

Since we're on the subject, I created a navigational rule that says that on approach to a system, a starship must exit warp at least 1 AU beyond the edge of the orbit of the last planet of the system, OR 20 AU "above" or "below" the star system's planetary orbital plane. Forces 'em to travel at impulse for a little, and gives me opportunities to throw things at them during this transit time.

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Originally Posted by jkp1187

No. 12 billion km at 9600kmh = 868 days travel time. 12 million km at 9600kmh = 20.83 hours. (Assuming there's no significant lag time to accelerate to those speeds....)

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How did you get those numbers? I understand that an american billion has 9 zeros, while a billion in other countries (f.e. here in Germany) has 12. I assume that the chart uses the american system (since it is also used in the scientific community) so shouldn't 12 billion km at 9600 km/h = 52083.34 days = 142.69 years of travel time? If that's true, deciphers chart would be correct at that point and they only mixed up million and billion.

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Originally Posted by jkp1187

If the chart in the book is that inaccurate, I would just write up my own chart. Are you guiding off distances between key stars that you've already worked out? Just remember that, in OCU, cube the warp factor, and result is how many times faster than the speed of light the warp factor is. (1 = 1c, 2 = 8c, 3 = 27c, 3.5 = 42.875c, 4 = 64c, 5 = 125c, 6 = 216c, 7 = 343c, 8 = 512c, 9 = 729c, 10 = 1000c, and so on.)

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Yes, I'm guiding off distances between the key locations of my campaign. I was trying to write up my own chart but to do that I needed to understand how deciphers chart works... and I just didn't get it. Maybe it's just me and the chart is completely fine. I'm really not very good with numbers :o .

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Originally Posted by jkp1187

Some other numbers to keep in mind for impulse travel times: 1 AU = 149,598,000 KM. 1 Light-Year = 9,460,528,400,000 KM.

Since we're on the subject, I created a navigational rule that says that on approach to a system, a starship must exit warp at least 1 AU beyond the edge of the orbit of the last planet of the system, OR 20 AU "above" or "below" the star system's planetary orbital plane. Forces 'em to travel at impulse for a little, and gives me opportunities to throw things at them during this transit time.

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Makes sense, since travelling at warp within a system is considered dangerous (at least in the first movie it was).

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Originally Posted by BlackThorne

How did you get those numbers? I understand that an american billion has 9 zeros, while a billion in other countries (f.e. here in Germany) has 12. I assume that the chart uses the american system (since it is also used in the scientific community) so shouldn't 12 billion km at 9600 km/h = 52083.34 days = 142.69 years of travel time? If that's true, deciphers chart would be correct at that point and they only mixed up million and billion.

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Whoops! I'm wrong, you're right. I added an extra function in there that I should NOT have. That's what I get for dividing before breakfast....

Ok then :). I finally finished my OCU chart (it wasn't that hard after all). And who cares if it's not totally correct, after all I'm the narrator ;).

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Originally Posted by BlackThorne

Ok then :). I finally finished my OCU chart (it wasn't that hard after all). And who cares if it's not totally correct, after all I'm the narrator ;).

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Exactly!

Anyway, I am interested in hearing a little about your campaign -- I am running one beginning in the year 2301. I'm borrowing heavily from some of the old FASA adventures (and also for the general "style" of the campaign,) but I've also written up some (non-canon) background information specific to the campaign.

The numbers for calculating original warp, while complicated by things like calenders are pretty simple to work out - just cube the number (warp factor) and divide 365.25 by it - this will give you the number of days it takes to travel 1 light year - and you can multiply by the distance..

I.e. warp 3 = 27 lighhtyears per year or 13.528 (rounded) days to travel 1 lightyear x by the number of them you have to go etc

For TNG speeds these sites are useful..

http://www.stdimension.org/int/Carto...artography.htm

http://www.ditl.org/index.htm?daymai...scitech.php?17

.. and manally a pain to do :D

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Originally Posted by jkp1187

Exactly!

Anyway, I am interested in hearing a little about your campaign -- I am running one beginning in the year 2301. I'm borrowing heavily from some of the old FASA adventures (and also for the general "style" of the campaign,) but I've also written up some (non-canon) background information specific to the campaign.

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Well, although I've played a few rpg-systems, I've never before narrated one so it'll probably be nothing spectecular. The basic story is borrowed from Star Trek II actually. It starts in 2291 with the escape of a former SF captain from a penal colony (for some reason he tried to blow up UFP headquarter about 10 years ago). He and his accomplices steal a starship and dissapear. One of the player characters, who was a friend of that captain before he became a traitor, is ordered to hunt him down and take him back into custody. For that mission he even gets to command a new ship: the USS Defender (Excelsior-class) on which the rest of the player characters already serve. Then of course there is the usual starship-battle, exploding spacestations, away missions on strange and dangerous planets stuff.

Maybe I should take a look at some old FASA adventures, too. Im not familiar with the system but it could be inspiring.

There's a lot of them available for sale at reasonable prices on eBay. I use them for 'inspiration' -- the systems are quite different (in fact, I really don't know HOW the FASA system works....I just like the adventures).

I've purchased: "Decision at Midnight", "A Doomsday Like Any Other", and "The Mines of Selka". They all look like good adventures, easily adaptable to a campaign without too much jury-rigging. Note that some of them are Klingon-specific adventures, others are merchant/trader-specific.

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Originally Posted by Tobian

The numbers for calculating original warp, while complicated by things like calenders are pretty simple to work out - just cube the number (warp factor) and divide 365.25 by it - this will give you the number of days it takes to travel 1 light year - and you can multiply by the distance..

I.e. warp 3 = 27 lighhtyears per year or 13.528 (rounded) days to travel 1 lightyear x by the number of them you have to go etc

For TNG speeds these sites are useful..

http://www.stdimension.org/int/Carto...artography.htm

http://www.ditl.org/index.htm?daymai...scitech.php?17

.. and manally a pain to do :D

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Yeah, I never quite "got" how the TNG speeds were supposed to be calculated.

Well, up to warp 9, the formula is WF^(10/3) = multiple of C. After that, it's a hand drawn curve and was never designed to be calculated...of course, that didn't stop people from figuring it out. :D Gotta love us math geeks.

(I, of course, took the easy way out, and just estimated the values along the line as I needed them, but I was with the people who developed the formulas in spirit. :) )

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Originally Posted by Sea Tyger

Well, up to warp 9, the formula is WF^(10/3) = multiple of C. After that, it's a hand drawn curve and was never designed to be calculated...of course, that didn't stop people from figuring it out. :D Gotta love us math geeks.

(I, of course, took the easy way out, and just estimated the values along the line as I needed them, but I was with the people who developed the formulas in spirit. :) )

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Which is why I'm staying with cubes. It's even, easy to remember, and (more importantly,) after a certain point, I just said to myself that I'm spending too much time on this, and not enough time on...well... ANYTHING ELSE! :cool:

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Originally Posted by jkp1187

Which is why I'm staying with cubes. It's even, easy to remember, and (more importantly,) after a certain point, I just said to myself that I'm spending too much time on this, and not enough time on...well... ANYTHING ELSE! :cool:

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Yeah, but I'm a math geek....I love this sort of stuff...

Just to clue you into my level of sickness, I have the 4th Ed. Traveller book Fire, Fusion and Steel. In it, the wedge-shaped hull dimensions data is missing from the hull dimensions/streamlining chart. I actually did triple integrals to figure out what the values would be, just for fun. :eek:

Hi, my name is David, and I'm a math geek...

:D

I'm not so sure why you need to calculate the times... when they are given to you in both the core rule book, and several other online sources. I'm not really a 'mathS geek' (I'm british! :D) - hence I stand on the shoulders of geeks who have went before :D

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Originally Posted by Tobian

hence I stand on the shoulders of geeks who have went before :D

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We all do, Tobian, we all do. :cool:

:rolleyes: :p :D