[NotDefault]

I don't get subspace jumping.  For example, considering that the rate of damage to a capital ship by a non-capital ship is quite low, why don't they just jump out once they get below, say, 5%?

In the FS mission where you're racing to catch up with the Lucy (after it has entered the jump node), why don't you just use your fighters' jump drives and jump right next to the jump node, thus saving time?

Why don't fighters themselves jump out when their hull gets low?  It's still difficult to destroy a fighter even if it sits still while its jump drives warm up.

In the FS mission where you attack a Vasudan supply depot (very early in the game), why do the freighters (er, or tranports, I'm not sure what they are) have to move away from the cargo depot before entering subspace?  Why don't they enter it right away?

How come a ship can enter subspace even if it's disabled?  Isn't movement necessary to enter subspace?

[Unknown Target]

Because V was too lazy to input a jump-out command in every mission.
Besides, read the tech briefing, it says that a ship needs to "vibrate," not move, to go into subspace (you know, the Deimos always did look like a giant dildo:D)
Anyways, I'm not sure about all the other stuff....

[vadar_1]

Originally posted by NotDefault
I don't get subspace jumping.  For example, considering that the rate of damage to a capital ship by a non-capital ship is quite low, why don't they just jump out once they get below, say, 5%?

They might have a power drain, not enough to make the jump. Usually occurs when theres a large hole in your reactor

In the FS mission where you're racing to catch up with the Lucy (after it has entered the jump node), why don't you just use your fighters' jump drives and jump right next to the jump node, thus saving time?

Your jump drive would need to be recharged after jumping, probably wasting even more time

Why don't fighters themselves jump out when their hull gets low?  It's still difficult to destroy a fighter even if it sits still while its jump drives warm up.

Try going in a strait line for a little bit... it hurts

In the FS mission where you attack a Vasudan supply depot (very early in the game), why do the freighters (er, or tranports, I'm not sure what they are) have to move away from the cargo depot before entering subspace?  Why don't they enter it right away?

Collision dangers... I dunno

How come a ship can enter subspace even if it's disabled?  Isn't movement necessary to enter subspace?

Stupid thing... you have to manually prevent a ship from entering subspace if its disabled.

[Nico]

best reason: wouldn't be fun. it's a space sim, if you never kill any ship, where's the fun? ships need to fly at 40... mph I think, in order to enter subspace. it's explained somewhere.
when you jump out, you're invincible, shots goes through you, that's why it doesn't hurt

[NotDefault]

Originally posted by vadar_1
They might have a power drain, not enough to make the jump. Usually occurs when theres a large hole in your reactor

I'd agree, except that Hull strength has little to do with having holes in your reactor.  Otherwise, damaging subsystems would make a difference.

Your jump drive would need to be recharged after jumping, probably wasting even more time

Try going in a strait line for a little bit... it hurts

Yes, but not as much as you might think.  It isn't much of a problem if there's a player by you distracting the enemies, either.

Collision dangers... I dunno

Possibly.

Stupid thing... you have to manually prevent a ship from entering subspace if its disabled.

Eh.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by NotDefault
I'd agree, except that Hull strength has little to do with having holes in your reactor.  Otherwise, damaging subsystems would make a difference.

Only a couple of ships in FS2 have actual reactor subsystems. What Vadar was on about was probably that when a capship gets down to 5% hull it's probably too busy diverting power to life support and weapons to also make a jump.

 Look at Star Trek or Babylon 5 and you`ll see that often the first thing to go down is the jump engine or warp drive. When a ship is badly damaged diverting power to the jump engines would probably mean taking other systems offline (i.e making your ship a giant sitting duck!). Better to go down fighting then to get shot in the back trying to run away.

The same thing probably goes for fighters.

As for disabled ships entering subspace that's due to bad mission design. Just don`t do it in your missions. It isn`t hard to add a SEXP to prevent it.

[NotDefault]

Originally posted by karajorma
Only a couple of ships in FS2 have actual reactor subsystems. What Vadar was on about was probably that when a capship gets down to 5% hull it's probably too busy diverting power to life support and weapons to also make a jump.

 Look at Star Trek or Babylon 5 and you`ll see that often the first thing to go down is the jump engine or warp drive. When a ship is badly damaged diverting power to the jump engines would probably mean taking other systems offline (i.e making your ship a giant sitting duck!). Better to go down fighting then to get shot in the back trying to run away.

The same thing probably goes for fighters.

Good points.  All I really need is some explanation, any explanation at all, or I can't come up with mission ideas.  So much hinges on when a ship can or cannot enter subspace, and when a ship actually wants to.

As for disabled ships entering subspace that's due to bad mission design. Just don`t do it in your missions. It isn`t hard to add a SEXP to prevent it.

That explains it.  The only time I've seen it happen (IIRC) is in the early FS mission I referenced earlier; I believe the freighters would enter subspace if disabled (but then again I can't remember the mission clearly, so maybe they don't).


I'm not sure I'm totally satisfied with the reasons why capital ships don't jump to escape, but it'll do.  I loved the FS2 mission where the Ravage (er, whatever the thing is, a NTF destroyer I think) rams the Colossus.  That mission added so much to the gameworld when the Colossus (or maybe terran command, I forget) said told the Ravage that the Polaris jump node was blockaded so there was no escape.  That was a high point of FS2 for me.

One final question.  Why do ships jump out a ways away from a jump node before heading for it?  Why not jump right into it?

I have a partial explanation for that, myself.  Probably an intrasystem jump cannot start or put you too close to a jump node (I'd have to check out the files to see the approximate distance that's required).  The only difficulty with this theory is that the player ship can jump out wherever.  Then again, the player ship can jump out immediately after entering a mission (which would nullify the theory about jump drives needing a cooldown period after a jump), so I'm willing to believe that the FS universe doesn't work that way and concessions were made for gameplay.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by NotDefault
One final question.  Why do ships jump out a ways away from a jump node before heading for it?  Why not jump right into it?

I have a partial explanation for that, myself.  Probably an intrasystem jump cannot start or put you too close to a jump node (I'd have to check out the files to see the approximate distance that's required).  The only difficulty with this theory is that the player ship can jump out wherever.  Then again, the player ship can jump out immediately after entering a mission (which would nullify the theory about jump drives needing a cooldown period after a jump), so I'm willing to believe that the FS universe doesn't work that way and concessions were made for gameplay.

Generally the actual warp effect is centred in the middle of the node. If it isn`t, again the mission needed more work (In my missions I try to ALWAYS make certain a ship enters and leaves from the correct point so I don`t see why anybody else shouldn`t)

Player ships can't always jump out immediately. In fact in Lions Den (the only mission I can remember any player ship arriving after using an interstellar jump drive) it takes 15 minutes before your jump drives reactivate (although that might have been for another reason cause you couldn`t jump out any later than 15 minutes either)

The rest of the time you made in-system jumps so it doesn`t matter where you jump from. You still end up in the same system.

As for fighters not having a recharge time that's probably an oversight cause capships definately do. Look at King's Gambit (the mission where the NTF run the blockade in gamma draconis). Their capships are being shot at by mjolnirs, a typhoon AND being bombed by the might Alpha 1 yet they still hang around for 2 minutes before jumping out. The only explaination is that that they have to recharge before jumping again (or that they are VERY stupid)

[IceFire]

Ok here's my solutions that work as justification for my missions.

1) Jumping to subspace requires power and leaves a ship jumping out vulnerable.  Unless they have already pre-programmed the drive to jump many seconds in advance, its not likely that the ship will be able to escape in time.  With a hull at 5%, it basically means that if someone breathes inside the hull will fall apart.  Think what a subspace jump would do to it.

2) Fighters jumping small distances just doesn't seem to work in FreeSpace.  My impression was that you can't jump a short distance.  The drives aren't accurate enough or subspace pathways within a stars gravity well don't always correspond to the area that you want to jump to.  I'm betting if you tried to jump closer to the Lucifer in that one mission you'd have two problems.  One: the node may interfere with your jump.  Two: you may overshoot by three times the distance you were trying to close.  That poses a problem

3) Freighters leaving a cargo area before jumping probably have something to do with the resonance field that the freighter wants to generate and all of the cargo containers.  Its probably more of a "safety" issue than anything else.  Perhaps a subspace field could disturb sensitive materials (like high yield explosives) but even if there aren't any there, it may be procedure.  Firefight or no.

[NotDefault]

karajorma, I didn't explain myself clearly.  Although your post was informative, what I meant by my question is why the GTVA would ask you to intercept something heading to a jump node.  It's always a situation like this:

C.................................................N

C=capital ship
N=jump node

What I couldn't understand is why the situation wasn't like this:

C.N

After all, they know the coordinates of the jump node, so why couldn't they jump to a point adjacent to it?

Originally posted by IceFire
My impression was that you can't jump a short distance.  The drives aren't accurate enough or subspace pathways within a stars gravity well don't always correspond to the area that you want to jump to.

In any case, this gives me a satisfactory explanation, for now.  I'll post again if I remember something that conflicts with this.

I should save this thread; there's some good stuff in here.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by NotDefault
karajorma, I didn't explain myself clearly.  Although your post was informative, what I meant by my question is why the GTVA would ask you to intercept something heading to a jump node.  It's always a situation like this:

C.................................................N

C=capital ship
N=jump node

What I couldn't understand is why the situation wasn't like this:

C.N

After all, they know the coordinates of the jump node, so why couldn't they jump to a point adjacent to it?
 

I get you now. Okay there are two main reasons for this as far as I can see.

1) Jumpdrive accuracy.

While fighters are reasonably accurate the bigger the mass of a ship the less accurate it's jump drive tends to be. Also military capships probably tend to have better accuracy than freighters etc. (one reason why you always seem to need to escort them for ages).
 There are several missions where you have to guard a transport that jumps in miles from the ship it's supposed to dock with. The best explaination for that has to be inaccurate jump engines (otherwise they'd jump in closer)

2) Tactical reasons

Assuming that it does take time to recharge a jump engine (And probably even longer to charge for an interstellar jump) it is a far better idea to keep the ship moving towards the jump node rather than having it sitting stationary at the node.
 While command knows the location of the node the enemy almost certainly do too, making it very easy to set up an ambush.
 A stationary ship at the jumpnode can easily be attacked by jumping in 1-2k away from the node. You can even jump in facing them and attack before they can bring their guns round to face you. A moving target jumping in 5km away from the node could be anywhere in a sphere with a 5km radius. That's a lot of space.
 What you would have to do is send in fighters first to discover the location of the enemy and then follow that with the capship. This means that a surprise attack is much harder.
 In addition if you are attacking a military ship that can survive a few hits you must attack it with something at least as fast or it can out-distance you and make it harder for you to hit it. If you have to use slower capships you will probably be forced to use more than one (Thereby draining resources that are needed for other battles).

The reason why you always end up flying "intercept the ship before it reaches the node" type missions is cause unfortunately the enemy have figured it out too.

[Tar-Palantir]

Guys, you're also forgetting one of the main reasons for the above points. Game playerbillty.

Now that that's out of the way,

A possible reason why capships take a long time to charge up there jump drives comparted to fighters could be there size. To make the ship 'vibrate' with the correct frequency probably takes a lot of energy. Fighters, due to there small size can build charge up the drive quicker.

Capships being larger require more energy. Okay they have a much larger reactor than a fighter, but a ratio of ship size:reactor size might mean the fighter reactor takes up more room than the capships and therefore i has more power per unit mass.

Despite the larger reactor, the energy need to vibrate the capship to the correct frequency could be proporional to mass squared, cubed etc. Therefore the capship takes considerabley more time and energy before it can warp out.

This time could be reduced by turning off some systems like weapons (beams, especially anti-cap must surely take a fair amount of reactor power), but this would have its own problems.

I hope some of this makes sense.

[beatspete]

Your probably right, Tar-Palantir, about requiring more energy for a capship.

But i dont think thats the main reason cap ships take time to jump out.  I'd like to point out at this time that it wouldn't take more energy to do an intersystem jump than an intrasystem jump, since the only energy involved (other than covering distance for intersystem) is causing the ship to resonate.  For the same ship, it would take the same energy to slip into subspace no matter how far it goes. Except that when doing an intersystem, the jump to subspace is aided by the forces of gravity to create a jumpnode, where the difference between our dimension and the subspace dimension appears to be less.  So then does it not seem you need less energy to vibrate into subspace for an intersystem jump?
I dunno.
The later theory would be supported by the mission where the iceni jumps in, goes past the dissabled collosus, and into the Knossos.  It did this in about 20 - 25 seconds, which is less that the normal (assumed) time taken to charge a jump drive, so jump nodes may require less energy to enter.

We just dont know.

There are a few threads about subspace going around, i posted this on one of them and i think its relevant here too:

Originally posted by beatspete
I know this doesnt have much to do with freespace's idea of subspace, but for all those struggling to understand some basic things about travelling faster than light, i think its important to explain, since ive seen about 4 topics today discussing jump nodes and the like:

Take a peice of paper, and draw 2 dots on it, a good few centimeters apart. Now whats the shortest distance between them? A straight line? Wrong. The actual shortest distance is 0.  Fold the paper so the dots match up, it'll show that.
If u can fold space, the distance you have to travel is reduced greatly.
A lot of sci fi bases itself upon this theory.


However freespace is based up the theory that there are multiple dimensions existing, each with their own set of physics laws, different from ours.  In FS1 it explained that when a ship wants to slip into the dimension of subspace, it vibrates at a set frequency, and it leaves our physical dimension and only exists in freespace till it leaves it again.
Jumpnodes are used to to do intersystem jumps because the jumpnodes form where the gravity of stars weakens the separation between subspace and real space.  However this does not explain why intersystem jumps take more time than jumps in the same system.  We assume that it takes less time, but we cannot explain it from what we are told in freespace.  The obvious answer is that there is less distance to cover, but in distance in subspace are irrelevant of realspace distances, sine its a different dimension.  In fact, it is most probable that a seperate dimension is created for each intrasystem jump, since there have been no cases of intercepting a ship in subspace jumping around a system.

Lesson : Never ( ever ) compair subspace and realspace.  DON'T.
it upsets me.


If you want to write up some useful information about subspace Kitsune, write about how a ship acheives subspace.

pete

[NotDefault]

Originally posted by Tar-Palantir
Guys, you're also forgetting one of the main reasons for the above points. Game playerbillty.

Actually, I'm not ignoring it, I'm just trying to assume it's not an issue.  Although the various ways subspace works was probably not thought out ahead of time, an internally consistant FS2 universe must have all the missions and campaigns built inside it follow the rules.  If they don't, it just seems wrong.

Plus, it adds so much when I know why ships do what they do.


Now here's another fun thing, although unrelated to subspace:

There's a mission in FS where you must take out the Comm system on a Shivan cruiser so it can't call reinforcements.  Why can't it just call them right away so that it's too late by the time you take out its Comm?

[EdrickV]

On subspace
Aside from the ideas and theories previously mentioned I have an observation to make: Jumping from one point to another point is accomplished using coordinates. If you don't have the coordinates there's no telling where you'll go. Bigger ships probably have to calculate their destination (and maybe source) coodinates just before they jump. Why? The stellar bodies in the universe are in motion. That motion may be slow on a galactic scale but to a big ship jumping from one point to another point they would want to get as close to their target location as they can. Big ships jumping from jump nodes seem to have only limited places they can enter and exit subspace, which could account for ships jumping in at a distance from their departure node. (You can't always get off the freeway right onto the road you want to be on, it may not have an exit ramp. ) A big ship also would have a larger jump drive system as it has to create a bigger warp. Such things as last minute diagnostics plus time to warm the entire system up could account for some of the increased time a cap ship needs. The jump drive probably takes a lot of power and I imagine it has some sort of power reserve it gets a lot of that power from. Once it's jumped that reserve is probably empty or at least low and needs to recharge. (Like afterburners do.) Smaller ships use smaller jump drives.

On why ships don't just leave battle
Orders. As one pilot voice says "Get me outta here command!" Just leaving battle might be considered desertion.

On why ships freighters wouldn't jump out near a cargo depot
1. Procedure. Planes don't just take off and land any which way they want at an airport.
2. They're ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe. Would you really want to do that near valuable/dangerous supplies? (Not to mention they probably want to put some distance between them and the depot in case something goes wrong.)

On Shivan ships calling for reinforcements
It would probably be better phrased as "Take out their communications before they decide to call for reinforcements."

Just my two bits. ($0.25)

[karajorma]

Originally posted by beatspete
But i dont think thats the main reason cap ships take time to jump out.  I'd like to point out at this time that it wouldn't take more energy to do an intersystem jump than an intrasystem jump, since the only energy involved (other than covering distance for intersystem) is causing the ship to resonate.  For the same ship, it would take the same energy to slip into subspace no matter how far it goes. Except that when doing an intersystem, the jump to subspace is aided by the forces of gravity to create a jumpnode, where the difference between our dimension and the subspace dimension appears to be less.  So then does it not seem you need less energy to vibrate into subspace for an intersystem jump?
I dunno.
The later theory would be supported by the mission where the iceni jumps in, goes past the dissabled collosus, and into the Knossos.  It did this in about 20 - 25 seconds, which is less that the normal (assumed) time taken to charge a jump drive, so jump nodes may require less energy to enter.

I think Tar-Palantir is correct. You're assuming his theory is incorrect based on the Iceni taking only a few seconds to do an interstellar jump but that is a very bad example to use.

1) Compare the Iceni against the Deimos and you`ll see that it's really undergunned. Add in the fact that the Iceni has a very high top speed and it becomes fairly ovbious that the Iceni was built to run not fight. If that's true it's jump engines were probably built to allow it to charge more quickly taking energy away from that which could be used to power better weapons.

2) The Iceni jumps out at a knossos portal. The knossos might make jumps easier in some way (requiring less energy)

Secondly I`d say thay in-system jumps almost certainly require less energy.  

1) Fighters can make in-system jumps with no problems but require specialised and expensive jump drives to make interstellar jumps. That points to it taking more energy.

2) Gravity actually helps in system not Interstellar jumps. In an in-system jump you stay in the same gravity well. For interstellar jumps you have to climb out of the gravity well (so you have to put energy in)

3) If a jump node lowers the amount of energy required to enter subspace and travel interstellar that suggests that everywhere else the energy requirements are far too high for a ship make an interstellar jump. Since a ship can make an in-system jump anywhere it wants that pretty much proves that in-system jumps require less energy.

[aldo_14]

Subspace nodes are formed by gravity wells, IIRC.... so maybe the local conditions dictate where ships can jump.  Also, there may be a minimal length of a subspace jump - due to the sudden increase in travel speed - which makes only fairly large jumps possible (i.e. halfway across a system) - which is fairly useless for small cargo runs.

One thing about gravity wells....it wouldn't be a well, strictly - because it would be 'indented' by the gravity field of local planets / large bodies.  Possibly this is a mjor factor in all jumps.

It may also be that subspace entry nodes/wormholes - intra system ones at least - can be jammed by big ships... or even just disrupted.

[LtNarol]

Consider jumping out, you're really crossing a rift between realspace and subspace.  IMO, that causes quite a bit of stress on a ship's hull so a ship with 5% hull intergrity and probably leaking from every pipe wouldnt survive the jump itself.

As for jumping out in a fighter during the middle of a dogfight, you have to fly straight at about 43ms for about 10 seconds, thats plenty of time for some stray missile to hit you and kill you, especially if your fighter is damaged to the point where you actually need to jump.

Just my 2 cents

[karajorma]

I`ve lost count of the number of enemy fighters I`ve destroyed while they were warping out.

As soon as I see a fighter leaping out I just hold down the trigger cause I know all my shots will hit it.

Jumping out with a ship on your tail is suicide. You might as well go down fighting.

[EdrickV]

When a player jumps out, their ship is made invulnerable I believe. AI ships are a different story though and one I haven't looked into.