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Seriously, this is critical from a storytelling, lore, and setting perspective. There's some serious discrepency in WiH about how often and how quickly a ship can jump, about how common it is for a ship to have two (the Atreus? Highly experimental tech! The GVD Shepseskaf? It can jump in, then decide to jump out again with its "second drive" in under a minute without any issues whatsoever), and the whole nature of a "crash jump" and its results.
I'll go into all of the specifics and contradictions later if I have to point them out and explain them, but hopefully I won't have to.
But you NEED consistency. Otherwise, one mission is going to have a ship's inability to escape via jumping as a major plot point, while another will have a ship casually jump away in seconds even after just having jumped in a minute ago. And it will totally break narrative coherence and immersion.
In addition, by establishing and adhering to a set of clear rules, you flesh out the setting and story as a whole, and the whole thing gets a life of its own. It feels realistic and relatable, in the sense that it has clearly defined internal logic and is very consistent with it--it becomes a real world in a sense, instead of just a setting that the author changes and messes with on a whim when it's convenient.
Though it would still be nice to have some explanation of what a "crash jump" is at some point, given how it's thrown around a lot.
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I haven't noted whole lot of inconsistency in this area. Basically, after you jump, you need to wait a certain amount of time (how long depends on the size of your ship and how advanced the drive is) for your drives to cool down; if you jump before this, you risk blowing your ship up. The Shepseskaf can jump out immediately after jumping in because is has two separate jump drives, each of them on its own cooling cycle. So does the Carthage; it jumps in during Pawns on its main drive, then jumps out using its second drive (which is already cool). After hitting Saturn, both drives are hot from recent jumps, and the Carthage needs to wait twenty minutes before either of them cools down enough to jump in safety. In the case of the Atreus, either its jump drives are a lot more advanced than the UEF is giving them credit for, or Steele is just being reckless and getting lucky (which seems to be how he rolls most of the time).
A crash jump is a jump you make when you haven't calculated where your jump will take you and/or how to get there--you jump to some random location, which might or might not be in the corona of a star. This shows up in a lot of science fiction and never makes a whole lot of sense, as space is so empty that your chances of hitting something are too small to be worth considering (NASA does not bother to check the orbits of asteroids when sending probes through the asteroid belt). For crash jumps to make narrative sense, you have to assume that large objects actively attract ships in subspace toward them (or there'd be no danger) and that subspace navigation is so complicated that computers centuries ahead of what he have now will take several minutes to compute them (or nobody would ever need to make crash jumps).
I don't see any real need to present the players with established rules so long as the team avoids contradicting themselves mission-to-mission.
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Consistency is the enemy of dramatic storytelling.
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The general rule of thumb for ship jump drives is: As the plot demands.
Just kidding. But only a little.
On a more serious note, unless the ship (remember we're only talking warships right now) has one of the higher tech experimental sprint drives (off the top of my head, Serkr team, the Atreus, the Carthage, presumably the Imperiouse although that's not canon), if it jumps into the middle of a mission, it will not jump back out again because the drives are recharging. You can see this in the examples of the Medea and the Valerie, in particular, as well as the Arethusa, and those two warships in Pawns On a Board of Bone (second to last mission), as well as the Vatican in Post Meridian.
However, if a ship has spent an amount of time long enough to recharge their jump drives (please note that this amount of time is deliberately not mentioned so that the team has some leeway with it), which usually means on the field before the engagement started, it will usually take the opportunity to jump out if too heavily damaged. Every single one of the Carthage's escorts can and will leave the field of engagement if you do not disable their engines during the course of the mission, as will most of the Meridian's escort.
However, not all ships do that, because sometimes an additional six or seven seconds of on-station engagement time is critical to the mission, and in the grand scheme of things, corvettes and cruisers in the Solar theater are expendable. This is never more clear than in the mission to capture the Anemoi logistics vessel. The warships defending it stay on station regardless of whether their jump drives were operable to give the logistic ship a chance to escape. The fact that it doesn't is not the point, the point is that it's worth more than they are, and their loss to defend it is important enough to be justified.
Now, it's very important to keep in mind that all of the above isn't quite a hard limit. Recall, if you will, the Duke in AoA. It makes repeated, short-duration and short-recharge jumps. The reason that most ships don't do this is explained in the mission: the Duke's jump drives are consequently almost completely disabled. Most ship captains will not risk such a tactic if it's going to leave them dead in space with an easily plotted and easily intercepted trajectory which they can no longer alter. "But wait," you interject, "why don't ships that know they're about to die do that?", to which the answer is more clear than it appears. Of all the ships that must die for the campaign to progress, most either die too quickly to plot a course that won't send them straight into the heart of the sun or other celestial body (see: crash course in the post above mine), or will actually win without the player mucking things up. The Valerie and Medea are both entirely capable of savaging your friendly UEF frigates and supporting vessels without being destroyed, they're just struck by the cosmically undeniable (and canonically necessary) bad luck of opposing the player character. When the battle is as close as that, and in a fleet action so committed and pivotal in the war effort, their decisions (or necessity) to stay in position until their destruction is not so confusing.
Fighters and bombers, of course, recharge their drives much much faster, to the point where it's not even really worth describing the fighter's jump drive recharge time in any meaningful length of time.
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It feels realistic
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE
I ****ing don't want realism in mah BP. GTFO.
Unless what you meant was credibility. Then it's cool.
This shows up in a lot of science fiction and never makes a whole lot of sense, as space is so empty that your chances of hitting something are too small to be worth considering
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.
Recall, if you will, the Duke in AoA. It makes repeated, short-duration and short-recharge jumps. The reason that most ships don't do this is explained in the mission: the Duke's jump drives are consequently almost completely disabled. Most ship captains will not risk such a tactic if it's going to leave them dead in space with an easily plotted and easily intercepted trajectory which they can no longer alter. "But wait," you interject, "why don't ships that know they're about to die do that?", to which the answer is more clear than it appears. Of all the ships that must die for the campaign to progress, most either die too quickly to plot a course that won't send them straight into the heart of the sun or other celestial body (see: crash course in the post above mine), or will actually win without the player mucking things up.
And another thing being that the Duke probably concentrated all power available to her subspace drive for a long enough period or time in order to recharge it quick enough. This is obviously not an option available to ships already engaged in combat.
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Duke was a special case, considering who really commanded it. Considering what we see them do later on, manipulating a Terran jump drive beyond it's normal capabilities shouldn't be difficult for them. And it still melted down afterwards.
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And another thing being that the Duke probably concentrated all power available to her subspace drive for a long enough period or time in order to recharge it quick enough. This is obviously not an option available to ships already engaged in combat.
ninja'd.
If subspace drives didn't insta-charge like in FS/FS2, and had capacitor banks that needed to be filled first (or similar tech that had a charge time), you could jump out faster by using all available reactor power to charge the jump drive. Say, a reconnaissance ship. But, throw in some combat, and now, you have to recharge your weapons, and your shields, and your engine afterburner banks. (As well, your top speed is limited when power is being diverted elsewhere.)
This would explain jump times being slightly variable (or even less than slightly, throw in more variables, like maybe overclocking the reactor core and overloading the distribution grid to reduce charge time, maybe jumping out with a 85% charged core which means jump has a 5% chance of stalling and not opening the rift or some technobabble).
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What about the Vasudans then?
The desty of them is most likely not the newest one, but do we take it for granted, that after the tragic loss of the Psamtik all zod destys got a secondary jumpdrive?
Their reactor technology should be good enough for that.
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Err, whut ?
The Tevs lost as many, if not more, desties and warships than the Zods. Do all of their ships sport jump drives ? No, they don't. Not to mention that the Hatie is still a Capella-era design, so not easy to retrofit with such a novel feature as sprint drives.
Zods reactors being consistently better than Terrans, I expect Capella-era Zod ships to have a faster recycle rate than Capella-era Terran warships. Since we lack any sort of information on new-gen Zod warships, we can only speculate from that point.
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Indeed i have noticed the mod normally attempts to explain "abnormal" behavior, such as the Duke's run where it even says wither in mission or in the between missions logs that the Duke was risking slagging components jumping like it was.
As stated earlier a "Crash Jump", "Blind Jump" ,etc generic space sci-fi plot device where in emergency situations it is not possible to properly prepare for a subspace/other FTL departure, in story this could be inability to plot and check jump calculations quickly enough, inability to charge you drive sufficiently for a reliable jump, inability to secure the ship for jump, e.g. not retracting turrets and other mobile structures to protect them from the stresses of the transit. Crash jumps tend to be balanced by the risk or guarantee of an unfavourable outcome (hence why the technique is not used commonly in the story) common effects are hitting a large objects, getting lost in subspace, partial reversion (leaving part of the ship in subspace) or bits breaking off the ship. Plot Shield tends to get heavily involved here in poorly written fiction.
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And once again we're at my most favorite theme^^
If the nowadays United States manage, to improve their carriers with each one they built and modernize those in drydock, why should a species like the Zods, which has a completely intact fleet industry, not be able to redesign their ships for modern standards.
It could even be possible, that a recently build Hatie has many things which were tested for a new design?
You see...I really like this, but I guess as like always, I don't take everything into account.
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That is true, as evidenced by the Shepseskaf sporting several (2 IIRC) VasPulse weapons. However I think we can agree that replacing some turret subsystems is significantly easier than gutting open the ship to remove and replace its subspace drives.
There's a point where it's easier to build new ships than retrofitting older ones, as demonstrated by the TEI ships in the first place (impracticality to retrofit older ships with meson reactors to support blue beams). Especially since, like you said, the Zods have a relatively intact industry and shipbuilding capabilities, and so are more than able to start mass-producing new designs to replace the old ones.
We know where this point lays for Tevs, but we still have few to no info on the BP-era Zod fleet specifics to guess what warrants retrofit and what warrants building a new ship. It is entirely possible, like you said, that all/most got sprint drives (or are going to, since the technology is still significantly new), as is the opposite. This is all wild speculation until we learn more.
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This thread seems like a plea for 'IMPORTANT' action on a nonexistent problem. We were pretty careful to play with a consistent set of rules regarding jump cycles. There's always going to be a 'speed of plot' element, but for the most part, a ship that jumps in during the mission will not jump out again unless considerable time has passed and that ship has been able to devote power to recharge, or the ship has a sprint drive or some other piece of power grid trickery. If you find any inconsistencies, please catalogue them.
A jump requires two ingredients: a charged jump drive and a navigational fix. When you have the charge, but no navigational fix, you can make a crash jump.
A crash jump is a jump you make when you haven't calculated where your jump will take you and/or how to get there--you jump to some random location, which might or might not be in the corona of a star. This shows up in a lot of science fiction and never makes a whole lot of sense, as space is so empty that your chances of hitting something are too small to be worth considering (NASA does not bother to check the orbits of asteroids when sending probes through the asteroid belt). For crash jumps to make narrative sense, you have to assume that large objects actively attract ships in subspace toward them (or there'd be no danger) and that subspace navigation is so complicated that computers centuries ahead of what he have now will take several minutes to compute them (or nobody would ever need to make crash jumps).
Indeed, crash jumps are dangerous because subspace trajectories tend to snag on mass, and the probability of this happening is not simply linear based on the amount of mass. There's a whole set of concerns about structural stress as well.
e:
While it's always great to have a thoughtful fan, and I really appreciate your analysis
In addition, by establishing and adhering to a set of clear rules, you flesh out the setting and story as a whole, and the whole thing gets a life of its own. It feels realistic and relatable, in the sense that it has clearly defined internal logic and is very consistent with it--it becomes a real world in a sense, instead of just a setting that the author changes and messes with on a whim when it's convenient.
did you really think, playing War in Heaven, that this wasn't something we thought about?
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Yeah, I agree that retrofitting ships is quite expensive and in many cases not worth the trouble, as seen with the Typhoon.
But I'm also talking about Haties build after Capella, since I'm speculating , it cuold also be that there are recentlyy build Haties with power cupplings, cabling, genereators etc, so their whole layout was modernized before building, taking for granted my beloved Zods have learned from the Typhoon debacle^^
If you're trying to tell me that Mat, nevermind my post ;)
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What I'm really trying to say is that you may be right, as much as you may not. We simply don't have the required info on Zod tech and fleet doctrine to make more than wild guesses. From what I heard, even internally for the BP Team those things aren't entirely decided and fixed yet, and probably won't be until WiHP2 release.
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Too bad that there is no way to play a part when they refine their new Zod fleet doctrine^^
But as always, they will most certainly impress me :)
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This thread seems like a plea for 'IMPORTANT' action on a nonexistent problem. We were pretty careful to play with a consistent set of rules regarding jump cycles. There's always going to be a 'speed of plot' element, but for the most part, a ship that jumps in during the mission will not jump out again unless considerable time has passed and that ship has been able to devote power to recharge, or the ship has a sprint drive or some other piece of power grid trickery. If you find any inconsistencies, please catalogue them.
Will do. Will. Do.
Got to take a final right now, though.
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Just looking over the campaign (I don't know how far you are, but it's got to be pretty far if you met the Shepseskaf)
mission 0: no warpouts at all so no problem here
mission 1: no warpouts
mission 2: the Cho, Cardinal, Idomeneus and Regensburg are all present at mission start and warp out after a full charge cycle. Some Ares jump in and out, they're fighters. Serkr Team (a group of next-gen shock jump corvettes) jumps in, takes a little while under risky attack to charge up, and jumps out. No problems here
mission 3: The Meridian is present at mission start and can (obviously) warp out. Same goes for her escorts. I think the only potential for a real problem here involves the Yangtze, which might be allowed to jump out very soon after jumping in depending on how the mission script plays out...but most players will probably never even see her, so I'm not sure.
mission 4: obviously no warpouts
mission 5: no capship warpouts
mission 6: the Redoubtable is present at mission start and warps out on a full charge. The AWACS can jump out really soon after jumping in, but they're very small craft. The Valerie doesn't have a chance to jump out after jumping in, nor does the Indus. The Atreus is a next-gen combatant with a sprint drive. No problems here.
mission 7: no capship warpouts
mission 8: no capship warpouts
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.
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.
mission 11: the one I'd worry about here is the Hesperia, but I'm not sure exactly if or when it jumps out - it might be a bit quick. Possibly a problem here, but it's not tactically relevant.
mission 12: nuttin big
mission 13: the Spectre is an AWACS and has time to charge anyway; the Shepseskaf has something seemingly akin to a sprint drive setup, which makes sense given how excellent Vasudan reactor design has always been. No big problems.
mission 14: jump dynamics are obviously a big deal here, but the Antenor and Norfolk both get caught on the down end of a charge cycle, and the Carthage has to use her sprint drive to escape. Seems to play by the rules.
mission 15: none of the UEF ships that jump in are able to charge up and jump out, except the Indus, which is the first to arrive and which gets to spend a large chunk of the battle in the relatively safe back rank. It doesn't have a nav fix ready either. A large number of GTVA ships are able to warp out, but they all had time to charge up. Seems fine. Mister Cuddles might break the rules of course :o
mission 16: heh.
All in all the rules seem pretty consistent. The one I'd worry the most about is the Hesperia...checking its departure cue, though, it doesn't have one, so no problem there! After that the biggest problem is the Yangtze in Post Meridian, which can, if the mission proceeds along a certain route, jump out immediately after it jumps in. That's a clear continuity error, but it's unlikely to happen.
This is the same kind of check we ran through multiple times during development.
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mission 16: heh.
Indeed.
The moon must have a sprint drive.
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The moon must have a sprint drive.
SEEKRIT PROJEKT, JUMP MOON AROUND TEH SYSTEM RUNNING OVER GTVA SHIPS!!!!!!!!111111
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Actually, question about Delenda. What's the rationale for saying the Carthage's escorts can jump out, but the Carthage itself cannot? Seeing as how the Carthage did not plan to be captured in Saturn's well, its escorts couldn't have jumped in before it, so they would've had a shorter time to recharge drives than the Carthage. Or is it just because destroyers take significantly longer to charge?
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Seeing as how the Carthage did not plan to be captured in Saturn's well
Orly.
But yeah, it's much bigger, and it's already done one sprint on a prototype drive. That ship is really old.
And didn't the Hatshepsut's sprint drive make use of the "Reactor" subsystem they've had since FS2? I remember them saying something like "Flash secondary reactor."
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Actually, question about Delenda. What's the rationale for saying the Carthage's escorts can jump out, but the Carthage itself cannot? Seeing as how the Carthage did not plan to be captured in Saturn's well
Sure about that?
its escorts couldn't have jumped in before it, so they would've had a shorter time to recharge drives than the Carthage. Or is it just because destroyers take significantly longer to charge?
They do, and the Carthage in particular suffers from its drive setup - it can do jumps in rapid succession but then needs an extra long recharge period.
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Ahh, right.
But if it were really unplanned, the escort drives would've still been able to recharge faster?
Does that mean the new TEI desties will theoretically take even longer to recharge after such a series of jumps? Since they're like 2x the size of an Orion.
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Again, Orions in general and
that Orion in particular except that I don't think they're building any new ones, are freaking old. I would expect TEI destroyers to handle it much better.
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Yeah, the TEI destroyers have much better power grids. I'm not sure how much of this material from internal planning actually made it into the mission CB/B, but I believe there's some notes in there about how the Carthage just doesn't handle all these new systems very well.
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mission 3: [...] I think the only potential for a real problem here involves the Yangtze, which might be allowed to jump out very soon after jumping in depending on how the mission script plays out...but most players will probably never even see her, so I'm not sure.
The Yangtze never appear in the release version of the mission. Someone played my multi version too much :p
mission 9: This one I'd question why the GTVA didn't jump one of its warships clear.
Easy one. The UEF had planned the attack long enough in advance and timed their attack so it happens directly after the Agincourt and escort relocated. All their jump drives are completely depleted.
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mission 3: [...] I think the only potential for a real problem here involves the Yangtze, which might be allowed to jump out very soon after jumping in depending on how the mission script plays out...but most players will probably never even see her, so I'm not sure.
The Yangtze never appear in the release version of the mission. Someone played my multi version too much :p
Played the dev iterations of the mission too much, more like. I don't think I've ever done the multi version.
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Just looking over the campaign (I don't know how far you are, but it's got to be pretty far if you met the Shepseskaf)
mission 0: no warpouts at all so no problem here
mission 1: no warpouts
mission 2: the Cho, Cardinal, Idomeneus and Regensburg are all present at mission start and warp out after a full charge cycle. Some Ares jump in and out, they're fighters. Serkr Team (a group of next-gen shock jump corvettes) jumps in, takes a little while under risky attack to charge up, and jumps out. No problems here
mission 3: The Meridian is present at mission start and can (obviously) warp out. Same goes for her escorts. I think the only potential for a real problem here involves the Yangtze, which might be allowed to jump out very soon after jumping in depending on how the mission script plays out...but most players will probably never even see her, so I'm not sure.
mission 4: obviously no warpouts
mission 5: no capship warpouts
mission 6: the Redoubtable is present at mission start and warps out on a full charge. The AWACS can jump out really soon after jumping in, but they're very small craft. The Valerie doesn't have a chance to jump out after jumping in, nor does the Indus. The Atreus is a next-gen combatant with a sprint drive. No problems here.
mission 7: no capship warpouts
mission 8: no capship warpouts
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.
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.
mission 11: the one I'd worry about here is the Hesperia, but I'm not sure exactly if or when it jumps out - it might be a bit quick. Possibly a problem here, but it's not tactically relevant.
mission 12: nuttin big
mission 13: the Spectre is an AWACS and has time to charge anyway; the Shepseskaf has something seemingly akin to a sprint drive setup, which makes sense given how excellent Vasudan reactor design has always been. No big problems.
mission 14: jump dynamics are obviously a big deal here, but the Antenor and Norfolk both get caught on the down end of a charge cycle, and the Carthage has to use her sprint drive to escape. Seems to play by the rules.
mission 15: none of the UEF ships that jump in are able to charge up and jump out, except the Indus, which is the first to arrive and which gets to spend a large chunk of the battle in the relatively safe back rank. It doesn't have a nav fix ready either. A large number of GTVA ships are able to warp out, but they all had time to charge up. Seems fine. Mister Cuddles might break the rules of course :o
mission 16: heh.
All in all the rules seem pretty consistent. The one I'd worry the most about is the Hesperia...checking its departure cue, though, it doesn't have one, so no problem there! After that the biggest problem is the Yangtze in Post Meridian, which can, if the mission proceeds along a certain route, jump out immediately after it jumps in. That's a clear continuity error, but it's unlikely to happen.
This is the same kind of check we ran through multiple times during development.
I've beaten the game already, so no worries about spoilers.
I MIGHT be somewhat misremembering a few instances, but even then, there are way too many for me to cede my argument, here. At all.
Now, here is how I imagine it working:
1) The power requirements for charging up a jump drive scale up X-squared; the larger the mass doing the jump, the larger/more powerful the jump drive needed, the more power (on a scale of x-squared) needed to charge it. Thus, a fighter can recharge its small jump drives pretty quickly, but a destroyer takes much longer. However, that doesn't mean that a larger ship will always take longer than a smaller one--not at all. It's just POWER needed; more efficient, powerful, larger, numerous, etc. generators/reactors can speed up this process along similar lines. Thus, a Raynor can still recharge its jump drive faster than a small destroyer, or corvette, from the Great War or maybe even Capellan era, because it's reactor/generator output is vastly larger/more efficient.
2) Navigational computing does NOT scale up like power requirements; it's purely linear, or maybe even less. 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. Further, unlike with fighters/craft, navigational computers can be very large and more powerful, so calculating a jump for a frigate like the Indus should take very little time, relatively speaking. Certainly no longer than a minute. This is backed up by canon, if I remember correctly, as the delays for a ship to jump away/escape are always mentioned to be ones of needing to recharge or repair engines, NOT calculating stuff in the navigational computer. This is further backed up by AoA--the Oresties can't jump out for ten minutes because that's how long it will take to RECHARGE the jump drives. Even in the gravity well of saturn (or wherever that place is), and under heavy attack, calculating the jump itself is never even mentioned as a difficulty or the limiting factor. Same with the Duke, even though one can make the claim that the Vishnans helped that part along.
This is further backed up by how having multiple intrasystem jump drives works in practice. You can calculate a new jump very rapidly; having the second drive means that you have a second, fully charged drive available to use ahead of time, which is why it works. Once again, WiH backs this up--the Atreus, in the mission to defend Rhezus (sp?) Station, makes several jumps in rapid succession with its dual-drive system, even while engaged in combat the entire time, and--this is notable--when the Atreus had no ships in the area to counter it, and was planning on staying there at least long enough to wipe out the station and its defenders, it was only when massive reinforcements showed up without warning and against expectations that the Atreus decided to jump out--which it did successfully, in less than 30 seconds. This is a massive destroyer we're talking about here; one that has been engaged in heavy combat constantly even before it jumped to attack Rheza, was engaged in combat during the attack, was engaged by massive UEF reinforcements, was in low Earth orbit, and was maneuvering significantly. And it still calculated a brand new jump, without warning, in seconds. It wasn't even a crash jump, either.
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Further, it's established that you need normal engines to be able to actually do a subspace jump. The whole deal with the Yangtze doesn't make sense, then, when the stated reason it couldn't jump was that it's engines were completely down, beyond quick repair, and thus had no motive power to actually use to enter/traverse subspace. The Yangtze then promptly turns around and charges the Imperieuse, engines seemingly working just fine. Its captain confirms that when she orders the maneuver. So unless I misunderstood the dialogue after hearing it twice, the Yangtze couldn't jump because it's engines were totally down, but it then used its engines to turn around and charge a destroyer, without any known or implied consequence to the engines. Erm...what? Did I miss something?
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Additionally, it seems that you can't jump to a place right next to a jump node, or at least not easily (heavily backed up by canon). How one can overcome this isn't explained; it might be better nav computers, better jump drives, much higher power output required, or strong enough structural integrity to withstand whatever forces/instability comes from the act. Additionally, it seems that intersystem jump drives are separate from intrasystem ones, to the point where it seems that you can't use an intersystem jump drive for an intrasystem jump. There are many possible explanations for that, but I don't think we need to go into it.
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I'm not seeing any conflict with what's presented in the campaign here. It seems like the request you made in the thread topic has been satisfied.
You're glazing over some details here - for example, disregarding the difference between UEF and GTVA jump systems - and missing some obvious explanations; the Atreus probably had its jumps plotted well in advance, since the Blitz was tightly planned and well-scouted. I'm sure Steele had a jump solution for Artemis Station prepared at all his strike points.
and was maneuvering significantly. And it still calculated a brand new jump, without warning, in seconds. It wasn't even a crash jump, either.
You've got a funny definition of maneuvering significantly if you think sitting stationary qualifies. :p As above - you're assuming the jump wasn't prepared in advance.
Further, it's established that you need normal engines to be able to actually do a subspace jump. The whole deal with the Yangtze doesn't make sense, then, when the stated reason it couldn't jump was that it's engines were completely down, beyond quick repair, and thus had no motive power to actually use to enter/traverse subspace. The Yangtze then promptly turns around and charges the Imperieuse, engines seemingly working just fine. Its captain confirms that when she orders the maneuver. So unless I misunderstood the dialogue after hearing it twice, the Yangtze couldn't jump because it's engines were totally down, but it then used its engines to turn around and charge a destroyer, without any known or implied consequence to the engines. Erm...what? Did I miss something?
The Yangtze's loss of engine power killed her because it meant she couldn't outpace the Imperieuse at sublight, but she also lost jump capability - it's not clear whether these were related, or two separate casualties of the same hit. With no other effective option, she turned and attacked the Imperieuse at her maximum available sublight speed.
e: Systems like the jump drive are intentionally attached to a bunch of epiphenomenal, variable factors - local navigational hazards, availability of network resources, onboard power allocation during battle, recent jump history, friendly assets in communication, damage sustained, crew quality - so that any variability required to make the mission work can be explained in the fluff. Jump timings will never be pinned down to anything as precise as a quadratic curve or a clear function of the ship's mass.
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Additionally, it seems that intersystem jump drives are separate from intrasystem ones, to the point where it seems that you can't use an intersystem jump drive for an intrasystem jump. There are many possible explanations for that, but I don't think we need to go into it.
Somewhat contradicted by FS1 canon. There, fighters were retrofitted with intrasystem drives without losing flight characteristics and without losing intersystem jump capability, hinting that the replacement was a drop-in replacement that came with additional capabilities.
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This is further backed up by how having multiple intrasystem jump drives works in practice. You can calculate a new jump very rapidly; having the second drive means that you have a second, fully charged drive available to use ahead of time, which is why it works. Once again, WiH backs this up--the Atreus, in the mission to defend Rhezus (sp?) Station, makes several jumps in rapid succession with its dual-drive system, even while engaged in combat the entire time, and--this is notable--when the Atreus had no ships in the area to counter it, and was planning on staying there at least long enough to wipe out the station and its defenders, it was only when massive reinforcements showed up without warning and against expectations that the Atreus decided to jump out--which it did successfully, in less than 30 seconds. This is a massive destroyer we're talking about here; one that has been engaged in heavy combat constantly even before it jumped to attack Rheza, was engaged in combat during the attack, was engaged by massive UEF reinforcements, was in low Earth orbit, and was maneuvering significantly. And it still calculated a brand new jump, without warning, in seconds. It wasn't even a crash jump, either.
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Further, it's established that you need normal engines to be able to actually do a subspace jump. The whole deal with the Yangtze doesn't make sense, then, when the stated reason it couldn't jump was that it's engines were completely down, beyond quick repair, and thus had no motive power to actually use to enter/traverse subspace. The Yangtze then promptly turns around and charges the Imperieuse, engines seemingly working just fine. Its captain confirms that when she orders the maneuver. So unless I misunderstood the dialogue after hearing it twice, the Yangtze couldn't jump because it's engines were totally down, but it then used its engines to turn around and charge a destroyer, without any known or implied consequence to the engines. Erm...what? Did I miss something?
1) Steele's been established as setting contingency plans for most situations. Since he knew exactly where he was jumping, I don't have much problem believing he had an exit jump solution calculated as well. That data could have been fed to him by one of the three AWACS that are there earlier, or the Atreus' nav computers could just be that good. The Atreus is as state-of-the-art as ships get. That the GTVA has a greater mastery of subspace travel than the UEF isn't unreasonable. Just look at how many misjumps UEF ships make compared to GTVA ones (Vilnius and Akula. I don't think the Tevs make any).
2) The Yangtze doesn't do much more than turn around. The actual line is that they lost magnetic confinement on tokamaks 3 and 4. Presumably, the other two can't provide enough thrust to make a jump, so they turned around so they'd at least get to look death in the face. I don't think Kyrematen expected to get anywhere close to the Imperieuse.
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Additionally, it seems that intersystem jump drives are separate from intrasystem ones, to the point where it seems that you can't use an intersystem jump drive for an intrasystem jump. There are many possible explanations for that, but I don't think we need to go into it.
Somewhat contradicted by FS1 canon. There, fighters were retrofitted with intrasystem drives without losing flight characteristics and without losing intersystem jump capability, hinting that the replacement was a drop-in replacement that came with additional capabilities.
On the other hand, the NTCv Sevrin arrives in "Love the Treason..." via an intersystem jump, and then leaves via an intrasystem jump 27 seconds after arriving. Either intersystem and intrasystem subspace drives are independent of one another, or the NTF developed subspace drives that outpace anything the GTVA has come up with in the 20 years since. :p
EDIT: Or maybe the subspace drives are only actually doing any work at the start of the jump, and the Sevrin was recharging its drives while coasting through the jump corridor.
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Removed, because Battuta is a meanie.
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FreeSpace 2 didn't put as much thought into the rules as we have. I personally disagree with The_E - I don't think it would be possible to jump again until without some charge time - but that's why forum comments aren't canonical.
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FreeSpace 2 didn't put as much thought into the rules as we have.
FreeSpace 2 is the rules. It got published by Interplay and such, y'know.
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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)?
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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?
There's some interaction between normal engines and subspace drives, as ships can't make subspace jumps if you shoot out their engine subsystems. They don't seem to need their normal engines to finish an intersystem jump once they've started one, but there's no saying whether that's true for intrasystem jumps (since you're making your own path through subspace rather than using an existing one).
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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:
(http://tomsastroblog.com/images/2010/07/Wormhole-en-user-benji641.jpg)
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.
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JR2, please play the campaign before getting involved in a fluff discussion about it
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. :yes:
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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.