[Scotty]

Wasn't the Sevrin arriving from the node?  We've seen in, uh, every single one of the blockade missions that ships that arrive from a node are immediately capable of jumping again.

[NGTM-1R]

Yeah but we don't know that the drives are that different; fighter drives suggest they aren't, since they could drop them inside existing fighter designs.

Even if capital ships in the FS1 era had separate drive platforms for the two types of jump, the ability to save space and power by combining them like the fighters did means that FS2-era capital ships probably have fighter-styled ones.

On the other hand maybe the fighters had space saved for future systems. Though that seems less likely. Or that the functionality for each uses something different in the drive so they can be done in quicker succession than two of one kind; this obviates the entire BP concept of needing to charge so they're not going to go with that.

[Scotty]

This, of course, assumes that the mechanic for intra and inter system jumps are the same.  It could very easily just be applying the same technology in different ways that do not interfere with one another.

[qwadtep]

mission 9: This one I'd question why the GTVA didn't jump one of its warships clear. Presumably they were unwilling to risk abandoning the Agincourt, though it's pretty negligent that they didn't manage to get even one jump-capable ship off the deck - the warships themselves were probably still in charge cycle after their last jump. No capship warpouts, however, except the Agincourt if you fail the mission - it takes quite a while to charge up. I'm less happy with this one but I don't think it has glaring issues.

For all the GTVA knew the attackers were a recon force that had stumbled upon their subspace traffic and would have painted the Agincourt for the entire UEF armada if given the chance. Those warships could have handled a lesser unit than the Wargods. The Agincourt did try to get those escape pods out, too.

mission 10: the Indus and Yangtze won't try to warp out at mission end, presumably because it's a situation just too critical to abandon the fight. Torpedo Two jumps in and gets shot to **** before they have any chance to jump out, unless you're really good. The Hood jumps out at the end of a full charge cycle. The Medea jumps in and doesn't get a chance to recharge before being shot up.  Seems fine.

Torpedo Two doesn't seem to jump even if you save it, the cruisers just stop at the end of their waypoints.

e:Because the Sevrin is a Deimos, it has a Zod reactor. Don't tell the NTF.

[LordPomposity]

Yeah but we don't know that the drives are that different; fighter drives suggest they aren't, since they could drop them inside existing fighter designs.

Even if capital ships in the FS1 era had separate drive platforms for the two types of jump, the ability to save space and power by combining them like the fighters did means that FS2-era capital ships probably have fighter-styled ones.

On the other hand maybe the fighters had space saved for future systems. Though that seems less likely. Or that the functionality for each uses something different in the drive so they can be done in quicker succession than two of one kind; this obviates the entire BP concept of needing to charge so they're not going to go with that.

The challenge in creating intersystem drives for fighters was shrinking down existing technology designed for capital ships to the point where it could be placed in fighters. Assuming intersystem and intrasystem drives are separate pieces of equipment, it's plausible that the same research led to smaller intrasystem drives. Installing these in fighters would open up space for the new intersystem units. Feels a little contrived, but avoids inconsistency with what we see in missions.

[-Norbert-]

That's more like a gameplay/modeling convenience matter than in-universe ship-design matter I think.

After all the ships are completely blind once you destroy the single sensor subsystem, even when they have antennae and dishes strewn all over the ship.

No but if you kill the control systems it matters not how many antennas and dishes you have they are still going to be useless.  While logically there would be redundancies for these control systems (at least on larger ships anyhow) FS1/2 often overlooks this for whatever reason.

Food for thought on the subject of intra/inter system jumps, they probably run of the same navigation and/or power systems, especially if they are both power hungry systems like we think either way if this is the case then the system will need resetting before the ship can jump again.  Also FS techroom speaks of resonating the hull to subspace frequencies, does this resonance need to dissipate to a certain degree before the process can be started again?

You're pretty much arguing the same point as I. They composed what in reality would be several sensor or propulsion-related subsystems into a single subsystem for gameplay reasons.
In reality you'd probably have the sensors, computers interpreting the information, connections to the controll center (bridge/cic/whatever it's called in FS) and all that without a single-point-of-failure, since it's such a vital system (if you can't sense your surrounding your helpless). But in FS it's just a single subsystem, probably for gameplay reasons as mentioned before.
So if they composed all sensor related stuff into a single system, why not compose all propulsion related stuff into a single system too, no matter if they would be a single system in reality or not.

Even without the subspace drives thrown into the mix the engine subsystem already encompases at least the reactor powering them, manouvering thrusters, the main thrusters, power couplings and/or fuel pipes connecting the whole thing, hookups with the navigation computers, maybe fuel tanks....


On another note:
Correcty me if my memory is wrong, but aren't all the attackers usually comeing in through a jumpnode from another system, when you do blockade missions (except the one, where the Iceny slips by the Colossus, which can be put down to the Iceny being almost as small as a corvette and being a special ship in the first place)? That the Lucifer was spit out of the node (well... partially anyway), ever after losing it's main reactors would hint at the exit from subspace needing far less energy than the entry.

If so, maybe the drives can be partially re-charged while inside the subspace tunnel and since an inter-system jump takes much longer (the Lucy took at least seven minutes from Delta Serpentis to Sol), that means a higher energy buildup than from a comparetively short (few seconds, maybe up to a minutes I'd estimate) intrasystem jump.

[SaltyWaffles]

Gravity affects lighter objects more than heavier ones when inertia comes into play, and ships still need their normal engines to travel through subspace, so there's definite inertia there.

1) Erm... remember the Lucifer? That one certainly didn't use it's sublight engines inside subspace and still managed to get all the way to Sol. Or the wreckage of the Bastion that got sucked into the jump-point, after the ship exploded?

2) It's more likely that not the ships inside subspace, but the subspace tunnel itself is affected by the gravity. Otherwise fighters that travel with a destroyer would come out at another place than the destroyer itself, which just doesn't happen. If ships go into the same tunnel entrance, everyone will come out of the same exit too. Since a subspace tunnel itself has no matter as far as I know, it's impossible to tell wether broader tunnels are effected stronger by gravity than tighter ones.

3) Subspace is a different dimension that at the very least bends the rules of physics of our reality (if not outright breaking them).
A ship that has a top speed of 30 km/h can somehow suddenly fly several times lightspeed. Does that sound like the normal rules of physics to you, even disregarding that FTL travel is impossible in reality (except for some subatomic particles maybe)?

Okay, that all makes a lot of sense. I wonder...why not put that in the tech database room in the mod? It'd clear up some confusion and further flesh out the setting/story.

Well, except #3 to a degree. It's not about the ship's engines propelling it to light speed, it's the ship's engines propelling it into the subspace portal, and perhaps even inside the subspace portal (where, like in Mass Effect, the sublight motive power of the ship's engines can boost the speed even in superluminal ranges because the "portal" or "field" or whatever they're in already allows FTL to happen). This couldn't be true if a ship could still make a subspace jump with its engine subsystem down (which never ever happens, if I recall, and preventing a ship from jumping away is done by disabling its engines, like in that FS2 mission where you first bomb the Sathanas).

EDIT: Just watched a playthrough of Darkest Hour. Huh--I distinctly remember the Atreus maneuvering significantly before jumping. I suppose it might have been the angle/perspective I had, and how close I was at the time, where it seemed like it was banking and moving quickly, before actually initiating the jump sequence (which includes the fast "shot" into the subspace portal).

[jr2]

I always thought subspace corridors were like... a trans-dimensional connection between parts of the universe.  Like space folding or something.  (Picture a paper.  Quickest way across it is a straight line, unless the paper is folded and you use the third dimension to go straight across from point A to point B).

Wormhole analogy:



So, the engines simply move you through the fourth (or fifth, since fourth is time, right? w/e) dimension, where the distance is much shorter, as you are taking a shortcut.

[General Battuta]

JR2, please play the campaign before getting involved in a fluff discussion about it

[kalnaren]

Directly related to BP or FS, or just Science Fiction in general, I think the risk of "crash jumps" is overblown (except maybe in Star Wars where stellar bodies in normal space have direct effect on ships in hyperspace).

3 things come to mind for me:

1 - As someone already pointed out, chances of hitting a physical object coming out of subspace in the vast emptiness of space is so remote it's 100% worth the risk if the trade off is you save your ship and it's 5,000+ crew. Considering there was never a mention of this even being a risk anywhere in cannon FreeSpace I don't think it's overly valid.

2 - A smart tactic would be to calculate your jump co-ords the second you come out of subspace. Doesn't have to be for a complex jump, just a designated location away from the battle area. I find it hard to believe this would take the 20 minutes required for the drive to cool/recharge/do its makeup/whatever. Any longer than 5 minutes and I would start to question the ability of the jump computer . This would limit the "crash jump" risks completely to equipment damage, which IMO is the most valid explanation for subspace drive recharge time. One thing I really liked about WiH is how some ships would jump out before you destroyed them, indicating a pre-calculated escape route.

3 - A crash node jump (intra-system), without proper calculation, might in theory result in the ship getting lost when it emerges from subspace. Even then, you're probably looking at 24 hours max for the ship to figure out its position. From a known jump node you have a pretty damned good idea what general area you'll end up in, so it simply becomes a matter of recognizing either local stellar bodies, or distance constellations (or both) and using them fancy numbers to determine your position in realspace. You can then calculate another jump.

I think the best explanations for "crash jumps" and time between jumps simply comes from technical limitations of the drive technology. Either because it has to recharge a bank of capacitors (and, like a battery, dumping too much energy in too fast might very well result in damage, explosion, and FIERY DEATH!), the drive has to bleed energy as heat or cool for some other reason (and jumping too soon will result in overheating the drive and slagging components), or a combination of the two.

At the end of the day, not matter how consistent you try and be, in science fiction FTL travel is almost ALWAYS used as a plot device and is subject to the needs of the story. I don't think AoA/WiH was too inconsistent. And anywhere they were, the story trade off was worth it.

[Alex Heartnet]

Directly related to BP or FS, or just Science Fiction in general, I think the risk of "crash jumps" is overblown (except maybe in Star Wars where stellar bodies in normal space have direct effect on ships in hyperspace).

3 things come to mind for me:

1 - As someone already pointed out, chances of hitting a physical object coming out of subspace in the vast emptiness of space is so remote it's 100% worth the risk if the trade off is you save your ship and it's 5,000+ crew. Considering there was never a mention of this even being a risk anywhere in cannon FreeSpace I don't think it's overly valid.
-snip-

Well yeah, aside from the fact that it is canon that gravity has an influence on subspace tech (you need a gravity well to perform intra-system jumps) and that it's BP canon that gravity can alter subspace trajectories ("The  Carthage's jump trajectory was captured by Saturn's gravity well." quote : DE briefing). Which means you don't have to actually hit something in the nothingless of empty space, but you just have to get close enough to it. What "close enough" means is up to the BP team in this context, but in all cases, this hugely increases the chances of a crash jump going wrong.

[General Battuta]

Directly related to BP or FS, or just Science Fiction in general, I think the risk of "crash jumps" is overblown (except maybe in Star Wars where stellar bodies in normal space have direct effect on ships in hyperspace).

3 things come to mind for me:

1 - As someone already pointed out, chances of hitting a physical object coming out of subspace in the vast emptiness of space is so remote it's 100% worth the risk if the trade off is you save your ship and it's 5,000+ crew. Considering there was never a mention of this even being a risk anywhere in cannon FreeSpace I don't think it's overly valid.

We thought about this. The probability of emerging at a given point is not a smooth random distribution across space. Jump trajectories tend to snag on gravity wells, meaning there's a higher probability of ending up somewhere cataclysmic.

Second, the process of the crash jump itself can be deeply destructive. IIRC the Indus suffered serious damage during its exit from Delenda Est just from the structural stresses of the entry and exit. Remember that a subspace jump must by all appearances place you in a very different reference frame - when you jump from Earth to Mars, you've just experienced a huge change in orbital velocity and angular momentum, yet we always see ships emerge at relative rest to Mars (or whatever the local body is). If your jump doesn't go off perfectly, the huge energy change involved here could be transformed into serious damage.

2 - A smart tactic would be to calculate your jump co-ords the second you come out of subspace. Doesn't have to be for a complex jump, just a designated location away from the battle area. I find it hard to believe this would take the 20 minutes required for the drive to cool/recharge/do its makeup/whatever. Any longer than 5 minutes and I would start to question the ability of the jump computer . This would limit the "crash jump" risks completely to equipment damage, which IMO is the most valid explanation for subspace drive recharge time. One thing I really liked about WiH is how some ships would jump out before you destroyed them, indicating a pre-calculated escape route.

Jump solutions change constantly on the nanosecond timescale (you can read about this in the FreeSpace 2 techroom), so solutions rapidly become stale. The problems involved are also extremely complex; plotting accurate jumps through subspace was probably one of the more challenging parts of mastering subspace travel.

I think the best explanations for "crash jumps" and time between jumps simply comes from technical limitations of the drive technology. Either because it has to recharge a bank of capacitors (and, like a battery, dumping too much energy in too fast might very well result in damage, explosion, and FIERY DEATH!), the drive has to bleed energy as heat or cool for some other reason (and jumping too soon will result in overheating the drive and slagging components), or a combination of the two.

These are all also factors.

At the end of the day, not matter how consistent you try and be, in science fiction FTL travel is almost ALWAYS used as a plot device and is subject to the needs of the story. I don't think AoA/WiH was too inconsistent. And anywhere they were, the story trade off was worth it.

We're actually very proud of having nearly no inconsistency at all (this thread title should probably be changed). We even went to the trouble of mapping out the position of celestial bodies in 22whatever so that we could make sure our misjumps made a degree of sense.

[kalnaren]

Directly related to BP or FS, or just Science Fiction in general, I think the risk of "crash jumps" is overblown (except maybe in Star Wars where stellar bodies in normal space have direct effect on ships in hyperspace).

3 things come to mind for me:

1 - As someone already pointed out, chances of hitting a physical object coming out of subspace in the vast emptiness of space is so remote it's 100% worth the risk if the trade off is you save your ship and it's 5,000+ crew. Considering there was never a mention of this even being a risk anywhere in cannon FreeSpace I don't think it's overly valid.

We thought about this. The probability of emerging at a given point is not a smooth random distribution across space. Jump trajectories tend to snag on gravity wells, meaning there's a higher probability of ending up somewhere cataclysmic.

True, but it's still akin to throwing a rock in a desert and hitting an oak tree, unless we're talking about massive hypersensitivity to gravity wells.. like planets caught in a star's gravity well type of influence.

But in that case you're once again working with known, relatively static variables.

Second, the process of the crash jump itself can be deeply destructive. IIRC the Indus suffered serious damage during its exit from Delenda Est just from the structural stresses of the entry and exit. Remember that a subspace jump must by all appearances place you in a very different reference frame - when you jump from Earth to Mars, you've just experienced a huge change in orbital velocity and angular momentum, yet we always see ships emerge at relative rest to Mars (or whatever the local body is). If your jump doesn't go off perfectly, the huge energy change involved here could be transformed into serious damage.

This is true. I hadn't directly considered that.

2 - A smart tactic would be to calculate your jump co-ords the second you come out of subspace. Doesn't have to be for a complex jump, just a designated location away from the battle area. I find it hard to believe this would take the 20 minutes required for the drive to cool/recharge/do its makeup/whatever. Any longer than 5 minutes and I would start to question the ability of the jump computer . This would limit the "crash jump" risks completely to equipment damage, which IMO is the most valid explanation for subspace drive recharge time. One thing I really liked about WiH is how some ships would jump out before you destroyed them, indicating a pre-calculated escape route.

Jump solutions change constantly on the nanosecond timescale (you can read about this in the FreeSpace 2 techroom), so solutions rapidly become stale. The problems involved are also extremely complex; plotting accurate jumps through subspace was probably one of the more challenging parts of mastering subspace travel.

Even if jump solutions constantly change, you're working with known variables, from a known starting point. The fluid movement of combat (as oppose to sitting still or keeping a constant heading and speed) would likely slow down the calculations since things keep changing but I find it hard to believe with FS era computers it would still take a full 20+ minutes to calculate a jump from a known starting point.

With fluid combat movement a cruiser+ could still easily use pre-plotted realspace vectors. You can then predict where the cruiser will be at what point in time and then drop those variables into your subspace calculations (ship is moving at 20 mps, rotating at 0/2/5 mps for 15 seconds, etc., you know where it will end up in 20 seconds). Of course, unpredictable events will change this, but such is combat.

At the end of the day, not matter how consistent you try and be, in science fiction FTL travel is almost ALWAYS used as a plot device and is subject to the needs of the story. I don't think AoA/WiH was too inconsistent. And anywhere they were, the story trade off was worth it.

We're actually very proud of having nearly no inconsistency at all (this thread title should probably be changed). We even went to the trouble of mapping out the position of celestial bodies in 22whatever so that we could make sure our misjumps made a degree of sense.

And I certainly won't disagree. You guys did a wonderful job of creating a consistent, believable atmosphere.

I suppose one could always take the approach that SubSpace is still not that well understood (and the Shivan's increased level of knowledge of subspace may support this) and Terran/Vaseudan subspace travel still relies a bit on "back of the envelope" -albeit very accurate- calculations. I always took the approach that subspace navigation was well understood and the limitations were more technologically imposed rather than mathematically imposed.

[General Battuta]

True, but it's still akin to throwing a rock in a desert and hitting an oak tree, unless we're talking about massive hypersensitivity to gravity wells.. like planets caught in a star's gravity well type of influence.

I imagine the issue is more of the aforementioned structural shock than it is fear of emerging inside something. If you don't know exactly where you're coming out, presumably you can't 'smooth' the jump enough to avoid potentially catastrophic damage. The Sunglare CB seems to suggest as much:

The shock of the jump destroyed our subspace drives and navigational systems, wrecked our hangar deck, and left our escape pods useless. Radiation shielding is badly compromised.

As for the issue of calculation:

But in that case you're once again working with known, relatively static variables.

Even if jump solutions constantly change, you're working with known variables, from a known starting point. The fluid movement of combat (as oppose to sitting still or keeping a constant heading and speed) would likely slow down the calculations since things keep changing but I find it hard to believe with FS era computers it would still take a full 20+ minutes to calculate a jump from a known starting point.

You're assuming a clean mapping between the changing variables and the changing solution. The problem may be epiphenomenal - a tiny change in position or clock time may lead to enormous, unpredictable shifts in the solution you need, not just because subspace travel relies on nodes that constantly appear and disappear in nanoseconds, but because there may be no simple mapping between realspace position and subspace 'terrain'.

Also consider that plotting a jump probably requires a good amount of sensor data on Planck-level events around you - and when you're in combat, which is full of energetic events at the thermonuclear and antimatter/matter yield, getting clean sensor data like that could be very difficult due to the noise. It might even come at the expense of tactically relevant data. Worse yet, these events probably render any jump solution already plotted useless; again, subspace operates on the level of the quantum foam, which is going to be altered by an antimatter-yield detonation on your ship's nose.

Good posts and good discussion. 

[-Norbert-]

I also imagine that the Wargods kept their nav computers ready to plot the course of the Carthage in case she managed to pull a crash jump out of the hat somehow, so they can still hunt her down. Here the few seconds or even fraction of seconds it takes to purge any saved jump-trajectories from the memory might be the deciding factor of wether you'll be able to catch the prey or not.

Also remember they were "sure" that all major GTVA assets, powerfull enough to shift the balance in that fight were tied up. And if the AWACS hadn't been tagged, even the appearance of the Imperieuse wouldn't have been enough to turn the tide of battle, unless her bombers would have been able to take down the jamming ship (at which point the torpedoes and mass drivers would most likely have taken out the forward beams anyway), so they really had no reason to expect having to retreat in a hurry.

My opinion on DE is, that the arrival of the Titan might have been the moral breaking point, but the real deciding moment, where the tide of battle tipped, was the destruction of the AWACS.