On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 11:42:02AM +1100, Greg Chalik wrote:
> Even a mis-jump will put a ship in a vicinity of SOME star system.

No, most will put a ship in deep space.  Unless by "vicinity" you mean
reachable in a decade or two of sublight travel if nothing breaks down
and they manage to rig up a long-term food recycling system.
(Travelling near c over astronomical distances without specialized
shielding of some sort is a bad idea)

Even a misjump into the same "hex" as an inhabited system is a huge
volume.  Even with the most liberal reading of the most generous rule
system, jump flash won't be detected more than a light-month out or
so.  No better for distress beacons, and probably shorter.  A sphere
one light-month in radius is about 0.007% of a cubic parsec.

I would expect that most ships misjumping badly enough to miss their
target system are never found.

- Tim