Introduction
When I started playing 2300AD, it was the 2nd edition boxed set. Ergo, I sometimes get taken aback by some of the differences to the 1st edition, such as the d10 running 0-9 instead of 1-10. However, I've undertaken a recent project in light of the changes made by Mongoose to look at any changes during the GDW time. I've found a killer change. It explains the long-running question of why humanity can go to the Pleiades or distant pulsars in some early works, but struggled to visit new systems a few light-years away in later works. Stutterwarp worked differently in the 1st edition. It was revised for the 2nd edition, and the revision (contained in the 2nd edition boxed set, and Challenge issue 33 (Q2, 1988)) is what most people use. It created the limitations on starships that keep the universe consistent.
How Stutterwarp Originally Worked
The basics of how stutterwarps worked are the same, but the effect of gravity and how discharge is performed is different in the 1st edition.
Like the 2nd edition, stutterwarp speed is divided into three zones; FTL when gravity is less than ca 0.0001 G, STL within this threshold (at the 6.45 AU/day per warp number speed, with planets being hours apart in the inner system), and the drive stops producing enough movement to counteract gravitation acceleration at "some tenths of a G," although it is clear that the stutterwarp alone still works for orbital manoeuvres. Chemical drives are stated to only be necessary for landing on a planet and taking off, and if the ship is streamlined it doesn't even need a chemical rocket to land. (1st edition Referee's Manual, page 20 "Star Travel")
Specifically, it states that discharging of stutterwarps occurs not around planets, but in the 0.0001 G STL zone:
Starships did not have to visit a planet to discharge, but rather did so spontaneously once STL. This is extremely different to the revision. It must be remembered that the earliest 2k3 modules assumed this mechanism of discharge, including Bayern.
The original "Flight of the Bayern" article is paired with the article "Stutterwarp Technology in 2300" in Challenge 30, with the same authors (Tim Brown and Rob Caswell). Amongst other things, this article declares that energy weapons don't work properly from a warping ship as the effect of the warp slices up the beam.
The article also has micrometeorites appearing in the ship when warping STL, which is a logical extension of the length of an individual tunnel still being 10's or 100's of m. However, this of course means that the hull does not block weapons fire, since the ship appears around the shot. This latter fact was not noticed, and negates Kafer (and Terran) armour. It also massively overstates the potential of chemical rockets, with ships cruising at "1,000 kps" using chemical rockets and turning 30 degrees in a few seconds.
With respect to discharge, it appears to use a lower insystem travel speed (since there isn't enough time during a discharge to reach the inner planets):
Certainly, this lack of a need to go to a gravity well fits with the Nyotekundu SB's description of ship movements as well. It also explains the idea of robot ships, since without the need to do complicated orbital insertions etc., a robot could simply warp in a certain direction for x time, wait 40 hrs and then warp in another direction for y time etc.
Thus stutterwarp allowed for a lot of freedom, and made exploring new systems hazard-free. It only lasted a bit over a year though.
The Second Edition Revision
The 2nd edition boxed set and "Stutterwarp Revised" by Lester Smith (Challenge 33, '88) heavily revise stutterwarp. Invasion explicitly works under 2nd edition stutterwarp rules, with discharges necessary in the 0.1 G zone. So does Lone Wolf in Challenge 33.
Discharge then only occurred within 0.1 G, but ships did not have to use reaction drives in insert or leave a discharge orbit (2nd ed Director's Guide, pg 62 "Star Travel"):
The text of the Challenge article has an extra paragraph not in the boxed set, which reads:
"The charge residue on the coils can be easily discharged into any significant gravity well. That is to say, if the drive is maneuvered into a gravity field of 0.1 G or greater, it can be discharged. Therefore, a stutterwarp vessel must approach a body close enough to establish a distant orbit before its drive can be discharged. Unfortunately, this is also the distance at which stutterwarp efficiency drops below that of other drives. For this reason, most starships also have some sort of secondary drive system that allows them to maneuver while this deep into a gravity well. Even starships without secondary drives can maintain orbit by using their stutterwarps to adjust for orbital decay. To leave orbit, these vessels typically plot a trajectory in which they begin to drop toward the body they are circling but are then slingshotted past and out of orbit. Once they pass the 0.1 G limit on their way out, their stutterwarps regain enough efficiency to propel them onward. This can be a tricky maneuver, however, and most crews prefer to use some sort of thruster instead."However, most stutterwarp ships do not have thrusters, and the deletion of this paragraph from the initial revision to the boxed set indicates that this idea was dropped. The elliptical discharge orbit is pretty simple, and involves inserting into an orbit thus:
No thrusters needed to discharge. Even for trade, if the planet you're trading with has an orbital terminal outside of the deadzone (as Gateway is at Earth), then no thrusters are needed.
This is stutterwarp as most of the community know it. We still argue about the speed, since references to the original drop were unaltered in 2nd ed. However, the speed in 2nd edition was given as:
The Effects of the Original Stutterwarp on Bayern
Without the need to find a mass point for discharge, navigation becomes simple. There is, for example, no blockage caused by Arcturus' lack of planets. A starship simply enters the STL zone, and 40 hours later goes on into Kafer space. It means that ships can easily travel vast distances without the need to attend to the principle navigation issue of finding a mass point to discharge. Thus starships can simply warp from system to system without concern. By not having limits, and giving starships more freedom, many plot holes are created. The revision is generally a requirement for the universe, but the Bayern module can't coexist with it.
For the Bayern, without concerns over navigation, the ship can simply plow forward at 2.5 ly day (or whatever) as long as it can find stars less than 7.7 ly apart, and can even then, the delaying discharge task is in the 1st ed (Ref's Manual, pg 20). The Bayern's engineer has SDE-5 can thus make a task roll aiming for 6+ on the 0-9 d10 (i.e. a 40% success rate, 60% if 2nd ed task rules used) and travel an extra 2.5 ly, giving Bayern a potential range of 10.2 ly. If the roll fails, then the chance of damaging the drive is only 8.3%, and even then the chances of repairing the drive are good. Hence the 4 drives are simply backups against really bad rolls.
Hence, Bayern's outbound leg to Alcyone is 315 days via a circuitous route, will spend 125 days in the Pleiades, and then 400 days home via the Hyades. The Bayern isn't scouting for mass points or the like; he goes from system to system (upto 10.2 ly without sacrificing a drive) without worry, because he discharges in the STL zone instead of at a mass point.
There were also missions to pulsars twice the distance as the Pleiades and to the Galactic core mentioned in the pre-revision articles (i.e. AR-I in Challenge 28 and in Challenge 30).
The Bayern article was expanded into a module was written for 1st edition (you can tell from it using the 0-9 d10, whereas 2nd edition used a conventional 1-10 d10), but came out with 2nd edition branding on the cover (but Traveller: 2300 branding in the text).
Thus comes the conundrum: how to square Bayern with the revised stutterwarp, since it was written for 1st edition stutterwarp.
With the revised stutterwarp, the journey to the Pleiades is likely impossible. When the Bayern enters a system, it has to chart it and find a mass point. If the Bayern enters a barren system with no planets, it likely has to eject a drive (unless the drive is less than 50% charged). This is why I recommended using scout vessels basically as canaries - send a ship to the next system to scout for a mass point, and wait for it to return. If it doesn't that there's no way through, and the crew of the scout are lost.
Also, if Bayern reaches the Pleiades, which as a young nebula won't have planets yet, it will have no discharge points to find. As the GDW module says:
"All stars properly belonging to the cluster are quite young. They are either planetless or possess families of barren, airless, and meteor-impacted masses similar to the Earth's moon, and orbit within flat disks of dust and meteoric debris. Very few stars encountered will not be cluster members, but will happen to occupy the region through which the cluster is now passing. These stars are as likely to possess planetary families as are other, noncluster stars. It is possible to determine from as far as 50 light-years away whether a star is young and probably lacking planets, or old, with its own planetary family."Thus, even if the Bayern gets as far as the Pleiades, there is almost nowhere in the Pleiades to discharge a stutterwarp under the revised stutterwarp rules. Only F class stars and cooler have a chance of having a planet, and then only 30%.
Thus we have a problem. Bayern can't work with the revised stutterwarp. In reality, to play Bayern you need to use 1st edition stutterwarp, since with revised 2nd edition stutterwarp it is impossible. However, most of the community play with the revised 2nd edition stutterwarp.
Conclusion
In conclusion, whilst stutterwarp was revised, what most people play is the revised 2nd edition version. The revision version is the "standard." It only really becomes a problem with Bayern, since that basically requires you stick with 1st edition rules. Even the Mongoose reimaged Project: Bayern had to handwave some of these issues.
However, it is interesting to reimagine the Kafer War if there were no strategic chokepoints...
