Quote:
Originally Posted by cptbutton
OK, so the merchant ships won't want the Islands drive. What about the military? Yes, having your fleet unavailable for attack or defense four times longer is bad, but when you arrive you can assault the mainworld immediately while still having a retreat option. With conventional jump drive you either carry double fuel, attack immediately without a retreat option, spend a week at the gas giant refueling first, or split the fleet.
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Note that you can effectively get that adding two weeks total to the mission (i.e. less than the delay for even 1 of the slower jumps) by jumping a fraction of a parsec short with a bunch of tankers, refueling enough for 2 J-1s, jumping in, completing the mission and jumping back to your tankers. I think the only place this is likely to be useful is on those tankers - if you can dispatch them early enough, they can get further without using more fuel than they can carry. If you are transporting anything other than fuel, I doubt there is much to be gained.
There is one place it might make some sort of sense though - if a slow J-4 engine weren't much bulkier or more expensive than a normal J-1 engine, well a J-1 ship design with one substituted in can make 4 parsec trips just as fast as it could before but with less fuel, so for regular runs along a main where you normally pass through several systems that don't have much worth stopping for there may be some applications.