JD4 and transports

[Binski]

Is there anyone else who'd like to see the ability to jump transports with the JD4 again? They seem to be pretty useless. There is nothing to do with it, when is anyone ever going to use it for jumping to attack, or retreat, with only smaller ships? I know it can be done, but seems a waste to only allow for that.

I know the typical arguments against, that it reduces traditional trade, but it allowed for other things too. So, would there be any way to have a limited jump ability for jumping 2-3 transports max per jump? That way one ship doesn't jump too many, if you wanted to jump a lot of ships, you'd need several jump capable ships per group.

I have also been thinking on how to prevent abuse. Perhaps we could say that when someone attempts to start a charge, the notice goes out system, or even server wide, with a grid location. As if to say, you can't hide such a thing, all modern scanners will detect anything like that within a system. That way whenever someone tries using one of these drives for convoys, potential opponents will be able to make a fair attempt to find them. If they are close enough, they may find such a group before the charge is complete, leaving a chance to block the jump, pirate the ships etc. Or the option to add a notice when a ship jump's into a spot, giving away its location, is possible too. Both notices would make it more likely to interact with jumping ships.

And in many cases jump capable ships can use docking modules, so they could take additional snubs with those. Which leads me to say, allow freighters to dock on ships with DM's! So in theory, a JD4 ship could take 2-3 transports, and couple of accompanying snubs or freighters via docking module (depending on how many they can mount) to unload at atmo only dock points. I think you'd see more use out of JD4's.

So as an example, a jump ship could be used to jump a couple of transports and a miner to a mining zone, and out. Since they have longer charge times, if a notice goes out when they start, anyone around looking or nearby will see a grid location and be able to try to find them to investigate. Won't take long before people know the jump ships and try to anticipate them. At least the jump trading won't be impossible to find or stop, and technically authorities could claim they are picking up 'jump signatures' and start screening ships jumping in their space to confirm if they're legal. In pirate's cases, they could still get to pirate miners and jumpship just so they could be allowed to mine and leave in peace.

TL;DR - allow jumping small groups of transports but display an in-game notice of the jump locations to be fair to those looking to cash in on the trade/activity.

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