[Vash]

i have a few questions about the wing commander universe as i kinda missed the original games in my youth (i was more of a Dune 2 and X-wing player).

first (and most important) how does the whole hyperspace thing works in the story? can ships only jump near a jump node or are there also ships with jump engines or other tech to breach into hyperspace?

second, what ships in the prologue would have these jump engines? only the larger capital ships. or also smaller vessels live corvettes, frigates and transport ships. i guess fighters never have them as they have the autopilot system.

i need this for some missions with a linked story line, the jump engine thing could make the missions a whole lot more fun (for the story that is, not for the playing character)

[gevatter Lars]

All cap ships have jump engines but only a few fighters/bomber have also jump engines.
Confed and Kilrathi shuttles also have jump engines.
Take a look here -> http://tactics.solsector.net/joans.htm <- for more informations.

Ships can only jump at so called "jump points". They can jump single or in a group of ships. Practical these jumpoints are gravimetrical connections in timespace or so...can't remeber the complete story about them.

As for the Autopilot...that isn't a jump. Its just a nice shortcut the prefent the player from flying endless distances in realtime. They open up their ramscopes to accelerate far above their fighting speed but in general its still a normal flight..just very fast.

[Vash]

ok, so there is no jumping in at close range, drop fighters and jump out without a jumpnode present. hmm... then i'll just have to think of something else to do something like that. or just make the story more interesting.

[gevatter Lars]

Yes and no. You can jump out, drop you fighters and then turn around and jump back but most of the jp aren't near anything interesting, except an escort or long range patrole guarding the jp.
So storywise it would be just a little part. Their is a good example for something like this in one of the Academy eps. They where lunching two Broadswords, jumping right before the main fleet to check the situation.
Other way around. You lay an ambush for an enemy fleet close to a jp. First they would send fighters or a small cap to recon the jp and to inform the fleet if its save to jump in. When you manage to take out the enemys recon force the rest of the fleet will jump in one by one or in smaller groups. Could make a nice fragfest when you got some caps guarding the node along with lots of bombers and other fighters.

[AlekTrev006]

Yeah, the Jump Points in Wing are a lot like the Jump GATES in Babylon 5 - the only difference is that in B-5 you actually ENTER "Hyperspace" and fly around in it for a while before you get to your "exit point" and "Jump back into reality" / so to speak...

Wing is one of the fastest INSTANT-transit Sci-Fi's out there because the distance of a Jump has (apparently) NO affect on how long the Jump "Takes" or feels like it takes to the onboard passengers...they have a moment or two of disorientation...and BOOM...they jump back into existence on the other side of that given Jump Point.... instantly (or near-instantly - couple of seconds let's say).

Some jumps go HUGE distances / huge amounts of Light Years - consider that the Kilrathi took the Proxima Jump Point from Proxima (Centauri) - directly to Sol System (Earth, etc.) ....now Proxima is a distance of 4.22 Light Years from our solar system....so that relatively close jump-point in the game / universe of over 4-Light Years distance is accomplished in a few seconds....it's BOOM ....and you're there.


Almost all other Sci-Fi's, even Star Wars with their pretty-darn-fast Hyperdrives ...still would take X-minutes / hours / days - to cross that same distance....but Wing can do it "instantly" - thanks to the actual "physics" of their Jump Points / etc.


Now....where Wing loses out is in In-System / Battle speeds - where Star Trek has "Full Impulse Power" for the Enterprise-D as being around 65,000 - 75,000 Kilometers per second.... ... even the fastest of Wing Fighters with their Ram-scoops closed for full acceleration / autopiloting - etc. could never reach that high of a velocity  (most numbers cited have been around 50,000 kps -max for fighters and 25 - 35,000 kps for cap-ships at ram-scoop velocities - that's still very fast by our standards today and allow for you to cover Star System distances in a few days - which is basically what Wing stories / games - have shown happening).

Wing ships slow down pretty drastically for "battle speeds" though - down to the 500-1500 kps level ....which is fine when you are dogfighting and stuff (you don't NEED to be going at breakneck speeds and actually wouldn't want to be anyways since in Wing-tech when you have your Scoops closed and are going at "all ahead full" - you have very limited maneuverability - you "Open the Scoops" to allow for normal flying, dodging, etc. - much like the X-Wings in Star Wars can have their wings down when flying in, but slow up and open them up to X-position when going into actual battle).

[Vash]

i see, i was kinda hoping that there was someway to "jump" without a jumppoint. but in the prologou there is this funny cat craft that can black out it's surroundings from scanners and can show bogus blibs on the radar, that would do for now. hiding the enemy fleet in a screen of those would work up to a certain distance and the absense of larger cap ships.

i could also say a kilrathi carrier is housing an expirimental "mobile" jump node but that sounded a bit crappy to me. also i don't know if jumpnodes are things that exist (like B5's jumpgates, which have to be built) or that it are places that just have a thin barrier between the matiriaal realm and hyperspace.

[gevatter Lars]

As to my knowledge WC jumppoints are natural phenomenons. They are gravimetric pathes through the galaxy created by Stars or other heavy objects like black holes. Not every of these points is stable or has the same size...as we know that the Vesuvius couldn't take a more direct way to earth then the Durango-class ships could.
Oposit to B5 you can't have devices that create jumpoints, at least not on a normal ship. The Nephilim had to build a spacestation for that and even then it must have taken hugh amounts of energie to create that portal.

[Tolwyn]

In the Wing Commander universe, the gravitational fields of stars and other objects of greater-than-planetary mass create natural wormholes that connect neighboring stars to each other. The points in normal space that are connected by these wormholes are known as "Jump Points". Only by using a Jump Drive can a spacecraft "open" a wormhole at a Jump Point and pass through to the other end.

The Jump Drive (or Akvende Drive, after its creator) functions by creating a beam of anti-gravitons which nullify the gravitational force that normally squeezes the mouth of the wormhole shut like a sphincter. However, due to their short lifespan, anti-gravitons can not be projected beyond a range of about one kilometer from the point where they are generated before decaying. This limits the size of Jump-capable vessels, as all parts of the vessel must be within this radius unless it mounts secondary emitters synchronized with the primary drive.

[AlekTrev006]

I assume then that Midway is one of those ships that "mounts secondary emitters/generators" - per this 1-km size concept / limitation ?  (Something I never heard before. . . ?)

I can agree / admit that you need to be rather close to a Jump-Point prior to making it open (but even then, 1-km would be obnoxiously close for inter-stellar distances - heck, 1-km would be super-close even if you were "only" going 100-km-per-second !).

I didn't / don't think there is a 1-km size limit on Wing-ships though (numerous examples of over-1km exist  . . . the Hakaga-class Super-carriers that led the assault on earth were - IIRC - 1.5 - 1.75 kilometers long (1500 - 1750 meters based on generalizations given in Fleet Action by W-J-Forstchen - an excellent Wing author, by the way..) - the Vesuvius (obviously) - the Midway - and yes, the humble Kilrathi Dreadnought - whether you take it as shown in numerous in-game video clips as being 22,000 meters - OR go the simpler route and say "merely" 2200-meters).


In any event, I never heard that ships had to be "a certain size"  to use a given jump-point - granted Vesuvius had to divert course a bit - but I always took it to be a combination of A) - her own Jump-Drives were not 100% because Tolwyn did take her out a "bit" earlier than would have been the case otherwise - the St. Helens was even more of a rush-job IIRC  // and simple fact that a Durango-class is much faster than Supercarrier would ever hope to be , Ram-Scoops or not !

Thus the Durango (Intrepid) should almost ALWAYS be able to "get ahead of Vesuvius" - assuming all things were equal / engines working / etc.


* - note that if Size IS a consideration - and the Dreadnought does indeed make the jump through the Proxima - to Earth - Jumpoint at the "Bad Ending" of Wing-III ...we have to assume that at least SOME jump-points are not limited by size of ship and can accomodate a ship that is (either) 2200-meters or the more visually accurate 22,000 meters *

[gevatter Lars]

IIRC the Vesuvius was even faster then the Durango. I think their was something of an "outrun and outgun us" dialog when the first Vesuvius data was brought to Blair.

[Tolwyn]

I hope, that you remember the dialogue between Blair, Hawk and Panther regarding the Vesuvius.

"A ship of that size... has no other option"
"But a ship of our size does have other option. Look here..."

The Vesuvius was finished by the time Tolwyn took her our for the ride. The St. Hellens was not.

[AlekTrev006]

on the "outrun and outgun us" - thing - I had always assumed that was a scripting issue thing - like Outgun OBVIOUSLY..but "outrun" ?  - oh really ?  The Durango was a destroyer/frigate type ship that had merely been outfitted (in the case of Intrepid I am meaning) to be a VERY light-carrier for the Border Worlds Union.

So it seems kind of crazy that they would state that a ship as monstrous as a Terran Super-Carrier (Vesuvius) would be able to outrun (velocity) a ship that light and nimble (in theory) as the Intrepid - though I SUPPOSE that in a straight line-rush the extra engines and "full impulse power !" type of order from her captain, COULD maybe get a super-carrier to close on a light ship Intrepid ?

Maybe they meant "at flank speeds" -the Vesuvius could beat them out - that I could understand given all the extra ram-scoop space / thrust power / engine power advantage that Vesuvius must likely have had on the much-smaller Intrepid.   ?   

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