4-041: Aboard Snark 416

A day into jump it looks like the actual jump time will take just over four Cycles instead of just under five; it seems Erin has the FTL drives on the Snark humming along nicely.

However, approaching jump exit it looks like the computer program development is going to take longer than Oliver expected.  He’s nearly at his initial optimistic estimate and he has already run into several problems.  He can roll Computer Programming again to try and re-scope his project estimate, or just plough on (or give up, but then, there’s still a way to go before reaching GRRAS so he has time, if that is how he would like to spend it.)

In any case, the Snark drops out of jump space into the Zargonia system at GR03 on 211.322.

  

Some exposition…

The jump space drop out is one of the most important times for the flight crew on a starship.  The Pilot must be ready to take evasive action in case there is an immediate threat, the Navigator must try and establish the actual location of the ship, the Scan officer must try and determine the nature of local traffic or obstacles to advise the pilot of threats and the Comms officer must try and unscramble the variously time-delayed comms traffic and determine what is going on.  The Engineering department is on stand-by in case there are any mechanical issues or emergencies that need attention, but do not usually have any urgent tasks.

On the Snark, the four key flight crew roles are split between Alan and Oliver, making them quite busy on jump arrival.  Dicard generally just sits and watches.

For Oliver, both Comms and Scan are affected by a phenomenon known as Jump Light Lag.  This is the result of a combination of two factors: 

• emissions reaching the ship’s passive sensor array are limited to travel at the speed of light; and,
• there is no context for any of the signals prior to arrival in system.

  

It takes time, based on doppler radar data and lateral movement to determine range and direction of anything detected, and any communications picked up from a distant object will be subject to lag as well.

Consider the diagram below: 

• The instant the ship arrives in system it receives two communications.
• In reality, these signals were generated 500 and 350 seconds ago from ships 1AU and 0.7AU distant, respectively.
• This means communications may be received out of chronological order.

  

  

The very long ranges are shown here for effect, and relate mostly to lags in communications traffic.  Detection ranges are realistically much shorter.  Typically, the Snark can detect a ship its own size travelling under thrust in open space at a distance of 1 light second (300,000 km) with an unmodified success roll by the sensor operator.  Bigger and closer ships are easier to detect, as are ships using active sensors.  Smaller ships, ships with stealth masking, on low power, drifting, or with a stellar object such as a star or planet behind them, are more difficult to detect.  It takes a minimum of 20 seconds to do a complete scan around a ship, taking longer increases the chance of a successful detection.

For reference, ships jumping in to a terrestrial planet around a star arrive, on average, about 0.7AU from the destination world.  The Snark can cover that distance in about 2.4 Cycles.

  

…and back to the Story  

In the Control Room, Alan swears and grunts.

Dicard asks him what is wrong and he says everything is fine, however it’s clear he’s more grumpy than usual and not everything is fine.

After some further prompting it emerges that the Snark has had another sub-optimal arrival and it is going to take 7.2 Cycles to get to the planet. 

Alan sets the ship on a course to Zargonia and looks about ready to stomp out of the room when Dicard reminds him that it is Alan’s watch and departs instead.

It seems Oliver has more time to work on his program.