Question with regards to the modified bridge structure and view ports:
Obviously reminiscent of the typical Star Destroyer bridge that has ±2m high windows that allow the captain/command staff to strut around at the same level as the bottom of the sill whilst peons sit in the pits. Did you imagine the same principle applied 1:1 to this version? Or is it more of a hybrid due to the smaller overall scale of the ship?
I figure it’s the later, much more similar to a sitting bridge with viewports configured more like a windscreen (ie Tantive IV): http://images.propstore.com/68187.jpg
But with enough room for maybe a walkway along the front?
When I saw this model, I imagined that this was what the imperial arquitens bridge looked like (un-cartoonied). I’d guess its more like the the layout you have pictured, just with no second row with officers standing in the middle section, seats along the sides as well maybe?
Andrew
3 years ago
Is this meant to be the same length as the civilian corvette? 180m?
CFletch
3 years ago
What do you think of the idea of using this as a heavy missile boat? A few ships with the inter-arm compartment filled with 5 or 6 heavy capitol-scale missiles might do a number on a proper warship if used as a highly mobile attack group in ambush situations, or in roving wolf-packs in fleet actions.
This is in line with the general discussion below. Irrespective of the arguments for/against the worthiness of capital-ship scale missiles, it is, in theory, possible, but from a practical standpoint there’s arguably going to be better purpose-built options that would fit the required tactical profile you’re describing.
My personal opinion is that such a configuration would be a step or two too far outside the bell-curve of ‘highest-and-best’ uses for the frame. But that’s just me.
I agree it is a bit over the capabilities of the frame to send it after capitol ships, but for a small system defense force the choice might be between this and trying to militarize a merchant ship. At least this design has speed and power to spare, albeit not as much as a true military frame. It’d be the equivalent of a WW2 PT boat or a modern fast attack boat (same concept but anti-ship missiles instead of torpedoes). Capable of hurting a big ship in a hit-and-run attack but small/cheap enough to produce tons of.
This is pretty much a fast minelayer. Useful but not survivable enough to be survivable in direct action. Guerillas might not care though and try anyway.
Perhaps some minor Post-Endor warlord faction built a few thousand of these conversions in a desperate attempt to get more fighting hulls out as soon as possible.
Shaun
3 years ago
This is a mostly long dead posting, but it’s undoubtedly one of my favourites so I tend to be drawn back to it… So, based on the notion that we’ve got a solid civilian/”municipal” variant and an up-armoured paramilitary variant, what other middle-ground roles would this chassis be viable for?
Much like the Modular Task Force Cruiser, I could see this upgraded ship being fitted to accommodate a variety of standardized and customizable modules like expanded passenger/prisoner/troop space, cargo capacity for pre-fab garrisons/bases, repair/refit space, a tactical-scale gravity well generator, etc….
…Or, in a galaxy of a thousand thousand different ships, each customized to a specific niche role is that a lost cause?
I think the scale of the galaxy militates against total uniformity. I don’t see why you couldn’t do modules, but the hull itself and its lack of strength as a quasi-civilian ship is going to prevent you from doing a lot of stuff. Carrier is easy – fighters and hangar volume are light. But stuff like grav well generators are going to draw too much power for the platform to handle.
Why would an effective mine be larger than say, the pilots compartment of a TIE fighter? Packed with explosives, it should be comparable to the payload of a capital scale warhead, it needs no propulsion system, and only a modest sensor package to be effective. I think you could carry twice the number of mines on racks to deploy, as you could TIE fighters.
Yeah, I was thinking about that after I posted. That said, a propulsion system need not consume more room than a standard TIE engine, although it might need some sort of solar array to keep it powered, or the sensors powered. Still, I bet you could fit all of that into little more than the eyeball of a standard TIE.
Any power source coming into sensor range causes the little bugger to power up and target it, unless it has an imperial transponder.
The capacity to lay a small minefield could be useful if you could accurately predict the targeted ship’s course. The main example that comes to mind is a pursuit delay tactic; if it’s a straight-line course, the leading ships could drop a highly localized minefield directly in the pursuer’s path. Worst case: pursuer detects the minefield and maneuver around it, which allows the leading ship to pull further away. Best case: pursuer blunders into it and explodes, chase ends.
But then, a ship this small would basically need to be nothing but a minelayer, and be included in a taskforce on the off chance the taskforce commander /might/ need to lay a very small minefield somewhere. It’d probably be more efficient to have the rest of the ships in the group carry a supply of mines for the same effect.
On the other hand, this ship could make a good minesweeper…
I think it could do either task, although I’m not sure how it would ‘sweep’ ( haven’t given the latter any thought until now) . Assuming the mines aren’t static, but have a small propulsion system, they might not be as easy to evade as we think, and detonating them with point defense lasers might weaken your shields, or potentially cause some sort of damage if they are detonated in close proximityI generally envision such a vessel as a dedicated vessel, the real world ones generally are, with some weapons added for self defense. Corvettes or frigates are better used employing the space for fighters or shuttles, I’d think. These are cheap, paramilitary hulls, not intended for fleet actions. In our game use, they’re generally employed in groups of 2-6, and have been used to set up small fields around static targets such as spaceports, or been used to set defensive shields restricting access to installations.
Sweeping mines can involve mobile decoys that broadcast an amplified sensor signature that tricks mines into detonating, or drones that can sneak close to mines and place remote- or proximity-detonated explosive charges to destroy individual mines. The hangar bay would allow this ship to carry an ample supply of either, or both, along with the point defenses necessary to destroy any mines that get too close.
Frigates in the SWU (the Nebulon B, at least) are more analogous to WW2-era destroyer escorts; they’re not that fast, but the ships they’re escorting are even slower. In general, ships that size are going to be more appropriate more skirmishes and local patrol.
Neb-B is more like an OPV. I just don’t see it as having the power for much in the way of serious firepower or extreme acceleration. Main strength is likely to be fighter-based. This is similar in conception, except much much faster.
Or just a powerful active sensor and a lot of long range light turbolasers, if the mines are just charges.
I think SW mines are more often than not actually just limited life gun mounts and a capacitor, or missiles waiting for a target to ignite their drive systems – that way you don’t need insane density to actually establish barriers in…space.
Another option would be something along the lines of a bomb-pumped energy beam weapon that focuses its detonation into a single, intense point attack.
And this ship would work well as a direct-approach minesweeper, too; it certainly has the cannon armament to pull it off. But considering the potential consequences of getting it wrong (since space mines would pretty much have to be extremely stealth), I think the ability to stand off at a distance and minesweep by remote would still be preferable, with the direct-fire method as a backup.
A gravity well generator centered on the ship might be more plausible. Rather than projecting it out away from the ship ala the Interdictor, a relatively cheap platform that could park somewhere and generate a gravity well around itself might have some uses, even if only from an economic standpoint. The collapsable gravity well projectors featured in Outbound Flight appeared to work on this principle.
It’s not space I’m worried about, but power. Cheap platforms tend not to have an abundance of the latter. The base hull in concept is barely more powerful than a freighter here, and grav wells are notoriously power hungry.
But would a gravity well generator (as opposed to a projector) have the same power draw, especially if all the ship had to do was hold position and generate the gravity well? The full power of the ship’s drive could then be directed to the gravity well generator. Not nearly as tactically useful as an Interdictor, but it could be useful on a smaller scale, like creating enough of a gravity well to barricade a hyperspace route for surprise inspections by Imperial Customs. It’d take just a fraction of the power required of the full-up gravity well projectors on the Interdictor.
It would be a heck of a lot easier to have it carry and drop a gravity well mine, than it would be to turn it into some sort of cheap interdictor. We know from the book published on Warfare in Star Wars, that mining hyperspace lanes is a thing, but this creates a choke point and an ambush site, it isn’t a portable method of denying retreat to hyperspace for an enemy fleet, or the other tactical useages possible. The smallest frame in the EU we know of capable of carrying a useful gravity well projector/generator (I thought they were the same thing?) is frigate sized, the CC 7700, perhaps that is the size factor for a ship that can power itself and a generator both.
I’m making the distinction that a Generator creates a gravity well centered on itself, whereas a Projector can project that gravity well out to a distance (per the original WEG sources, a gravity well projector had twice the range of a cap-ship turbolaser).
There is mention in one of the other WEG sources of a pirate tactic called the Barricade, where a ship would use tractor beams to tow a large asteroid into a hyperspace route so that its gravity well would knock ships out of hyperspace. This would be something similar; it doesn’t need to project the largest possible gravity well, and it doesn’t need to do so at a distance. It just needs to generate enough of a gravity well to force ships to drop into realspace. I’m seeing it primarily as a tool for Imperial Customs or similar law enforcement agencies.
I drive trucks for a living, and we get pulled into scales and inspection stations all the time. You can’t always tell when they’ll be open, and very rarely, state police will set up mobile scales on back roads to catch drivers who are dodging the scales on the main highways. That’s what I’m primarily seeing this used for: a portable, economical way to interdict a hyperspace route for commercial inspections and law enforcement purposes. Obviously, such a ship would be operating as part of a group, as the gravity well generator would render it immobile while active.
So no, I certainly don’t think a ship this size could ever mount a full-up projector (ala the Interdictor), but a /generator/ could conceivably be carried, IF said generator had a much lower power budget than the more tactically useful projector.
Oh, I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure there is a difference between the two things. There are different sized gravity well projectors, with different sized fields, but I think all of them center on the generator, and project a spherical field from that center point. I don’t think they are beam weapons like tractor beams. I may well be wrong, but I haven’t seen evidence in canon for it being a beam. Note the Rebels episode that introduces the gravity well projectors. The ship doesn’t only draw the Rebel ship out of hyperspace when it overloads, it also draws in its light cruiser escorts at each flank. You don’t know exactly where a ship would be in hyperspace to aim a beam, so I think it creates a spherical field.
Rebels butchered the canon of gravity wells, and I don’t consider it a credible source. The basis for the gravity well started out from the WEG rules, and it was always intended as a method of tricking a ship into dropping itself out of hyperspace, not a field effect that forced it out. It was also always a ranged weapon, even before WEG had instituted weapon ranges. In the original rules, a successful hit with a gravity well inflicted no damage, but prevented a ship from jumping to hyperspace. Later rules added a little more granularity, but also clarified that a gravity well could be projected out to double the range of cap-ship turbolasers.
Short version, all hyperdrives are equipped with emergency cut-outs that automatically scan for large gravity wells in the ship’s path, such as would naturally be generated by a planet or star. If it detected such, the cut-out would automatically engage and drop the ship back into real space before it collided with said object.
Gravity well projectors simply project a large gravity well at a given point in space (and its coterminous point in the higher dimension of hyperspace). To a ship in hyperspace, it’s indistinguishable from a larger stellar mass, so the cut-out engages and drops the ship out of hyperspace.
Later versions of the WEG rules made the gravity well projector an area-effect weapon, in that it was targeted at a specific point, and proximity to that specific point increased the difficulty of successfully jumping to hyperspace.
A ship could conceivably get around a gravity well projector by disconnecting its emergency cut-out, but this was fraught with danger, as the ship would be unable to detect /actual/ obstacles in its path. However, it’s still viable in certain circumstances (like the escape from Jeddha in Rogue One) where it’s that or certain death.
I agree with the power issue. I would expect that if you’re going to plug in a modular gravity well generator (I agree too, with the distinction between generators and projectors) it’s definitely going to come with its own secondary power supply.
I totally disagree with WEG’s take on gravity devices, and here’s why. A constant in the Star Wars universe is that a ship in hyperspace is undetectable to sensors in Real Space, until a ship drops out of hyperspace. The exception being an alleged hyperspace tracking device allegedly developed by Seinar Systems. Relying on an WEG source as canon is I think a bit much. We are, after all talking about the source that gave us a 5 mile Executor class with hanger volume to field 144 starfighters. That alone stretches credulity to use them as some authoritative source, especially when their primary concern is the concept of “game balance”.
Of what earthly use is a directional gravity device with a limited field, against a target that cannot be detected? When do you know how to turn it on, and how do you aim it? A device that projects a spherical field at least covers every possible direction in its radius.
No. They may have been used in AoE, but the concept of gravity well projectors dates all the way back to the late 1980’s when WEG published the first edition of their Imperial Sourcebook. Everything to do with gravity wells since then is derived from that original concept. Just because a video game took an idea and butchered it doesn’t render the original premise moot.
The real trick was breaking free of the Chimaera’s tractor beam projector. Once he did that, all he had to do was get outside the range of the gravity well projector and he could jump to hyperspace as usual.
As to Thrawn’s tactics, I don’t see the problem. Everything is consistent with the canon description of gravity well projectors. In fact, an omni-directional gravity well generator wouldn’t allow some of Thrawn’s more innovative tricks.
The Wiki (I assume you’re referring to Wookieepedia) is not an authoritative source; it’s a place where information is dumped in a pile, leaving it to the reader to sort the reliable from the ridiculous. And video games, which are often optimized for game play at the expense of continuity, are not consistent enough to be a reliable source.
Hierarchy of sources should always be taken into account. If Source A is the first instance of X (or, in fact, the originator of X), and Source B then attempts – and fails – to duplicate X, this does not make Source B equal in reliability to Source A.
I was using the Wook to several novels( I personally read) specifically state that the gravity well systems use of a field. it’s generally interpreted as in area of effect when a field it’s mentioned.
Well how do we know if Source B that attempts and fails is whether a simple fact or an stated opinion
A spherical area of gravity centered around a large mass (such as that generated) would qualify as a field. The last WEG rule for gravity wells was that it was physically impossible to jump to hyperspace if you were directly at the center of the well, and becoming progressively less difficult as you moved away from the center.
And we know Source B gets it wrong if it takes an original concept and uses it in a manner that is inconsistent with the description of said original concept. Bear in mind, there was never a beam-effect in any of the source material for gravity wells. In 1st edition, it was simply a point targeted weapon; if it hit your ship, you couldn’t jump to hyperspace, try again next turn. If it missed, you could jump normally. Zahn added an extra – but not unwarranted – degree of complexity when describing how gravity wells operate in his novels, which WEG then made official when they updated the rules for gravity well operation in their 2nd edition. It was never supposed to be an omni-directional field centered on the projector itself.
I dunno if it’s incompatible to have a projector generate your normal spherical exponential-falloff field at a point OR project mass shadow effects along a defined field for concentrated effects, depending on the setting of the equipment. But a sweeping beam as a *sole* mechanism is crazy. How quickly do you have to spin that in order to get meaningful coverage in the volume of space around a projector?
But this thread has sort of confused me. I thought that grav wells were area of effect mechanisms, and interdictors can project them at targeted points. Where does it ever take the form of a beam?
Zahn worded it somewhat confusingly in the Thrawn Trilogy, in that in some cases, he appears to describe the gravity well area of effect as cone-shaped, with the point of the cone at the projector. It’s not entirely unrealistic, as at least /some/degree of effect between the projector and the gravity well would make sense, but there is nothing official describing it thusly (AFAIK) apart from Zahn’s word choice.
A cone as one mode is fine – would be great in pursuit. But that’s stupid for area interdiction, which seems like a pretty important function for an interdictor. Unless the gravity well takes time to fade (somehow I doubt this), a projector only using a a single cone has to rapidly sweep that across a large area of space randomly, and hope a ship flies through the arc of sky covered by the cone. It’s a lot simpler to simply project a large well and maintain it, or if there are enough projectors several wells to cover an area.
For reference, check the WEG book “Wanted by Cracken,” pages 18-20.
Short version:
1). Gravity well projectors take 30 seconds from initiating the firing procedure to come into effect.
2). Once in effect, they can be dropped almost instantly, but the capacitors must recharge for 40 seconds before it can be fired again.
3). Attempting to rush the projection in either case is possible, but runs the risk of blowing out the projector.
4). An active gravity well can be steered onto a moving target, but this is difficult, and usually isn’t fast enough to keep up with most craft.
5). It also inflicts a serious drain on the speed and maneuverability of the cruiser (cuts acceleration by 2/3’s)
So, if a single Interdictor is capable of projecting four separate gravity wells, each roughly the strength of an Earth-equivalent planet, then that’s enough to block most hyperspace travel to and from a single planetary system.
Incidentally, I figure the Dominator-Class is a follow-on to the original 600-meter Interdictor by putting gravity wells in a platform with something more than just defensive weaponry with the engine power to run all four gravity wells without the performance degradation.
@Bob – Simple: hyperspace travel in the WEG rules is restricted to a large number of known routes, which are navigated by pre-programmed coordinates and inertial guidance. Interdictors are used ambush-style by taking a position along said routes and using their gravity well projectors to project “fake planets” into the route. Ships in hyperspace are blind to everything BUT gravity, which is what triggers a hyperdrive’s emergency cut-out. Gravity is the only sensory medium that carries over between realspace and hyperspace, and while ships in hyperspace don’t pack enough mass to be detectable by mass sensors in realspace, planets in realspace ARE massive enough to be detected by mass sensors in hyperspace.
There are two different methods for Interdictors to target ships in hyperspace: 1) a friendly ship can “radio ahead” to inform the Interdictor of the course and speed of a target vessel headed their way, or 2) they can simply project the gravity wells into a hyperspace route and catch whatever they happen to catch. This is in addition to their ability to blockade an area by using the gravity wells to keep ships from jumping into hyperspace.
As to targeting? You don’t need to target it; it’s an area-effect weapon that affects every single ship that is either in it or attempting to pass through it. And “limited area of effect” is purely a relative thing. Per the WEG rules, each gravity well projector could generate a well equivalent to the mass of an Earth-type planet, and project them at stand-off ranges that allowed an Interdictor to blockade a very large area.
Now, you may dismiss WEG if you wish, and I certainly agree that they aren’t perfect, but they are the reason gravity well projectors exist in the first place. A wiser approach would be to keep the explanations that work and discard what doesn’t. And in context, gravity well projectors work.
Free hyper travel is definitely a thing – otherwise you would not have things like microjumps, and you wouldn’t be able to really go “off-route” – it basically determines whether the universe is a essentially a small network of points or actual open space. That travel is calculated by a navicomputer, and depends on decent astronomical data for a given volume of space.
Some navicomputers are small enough (a droid brain) that they can only hold a few preprogrammed routes, though with communication with a unit that has a full navicomputer and more navigational data stored, presumably those routes can be altered rapidly. An actual independent starship is potentially very capable navigationally – calculations may take time, but they should be able to actively and freely hyper within whatever volume of space they have data for (hypothetically the entire mapped galaxy).
So I think it makes sense that warships and independent civilian ships always have full navicomputers, and can always jump freely, data and position relative to local gravity wells permitting.
So why doesn’t every ship have the same ability? (i.e. why is merchant traffic confined at all to routes?) Given that astromechs bought at a flea market by smallholder farmers can do hyperspace navigation (to a certain point), I’m not sure that the infrastructure cost of such computers is *really* all that big a deal.
Speed might be a thing. Local free-jumps are probably less efficient and slower than routes, because they have to be recalculated often, and possibly it takes time to accelerate to maximum hyper speed – time that you don’t get if you constantly have to transition, re-orient, etc.
Hyperspace routes are paths that are consistently free of any mass shadow interference. You don’t need a navicomputer or a large navigational database to use these lanes because of their overall stability, and my thinking is that they are important because they allow for very long trips (and thus very fast trips, given time to accelerate in hyperspace) without having to transition, re-orient, and jump again. In economical terms, they also allow for minimal fuel usage (since I believe the jump transition is supposed to be the point of maximum energy usage in a trip). You don’t need a full navicomputer, and you reach points along the route faster. So ships meant for routine transport along fixed itineraries don’t need full navigation, and can move faster and more economically.
But hyperspace route blockades are a thing apparently. But these probably only make sense in the context of a logistical system that has been conditioned to have most traffic use routes only rather than having independent nav capability (i.e. times of relative peace). Given warning you can refit ships with basic nav capability (i.e. droids or something) and go around a blockade of a route, but because alternate rapid paths around single (or many) randomly inserted blockages in the route are not necessarily quick to calculate or able to be calculated by most (civilian) vessels, a blockade basically slows a transport system not used to dealing with such stoppages to a crawl. So like when a major road gets blocked, traffic stops, but it doesn’t mean some traffic cannot slowly use alternate side routes to get around. But from a overall system level viewpoint the connections are almost dead.
But in space, you cannot completely stop traffic unless your blockading force is huge. So you can only blockade a small region, not draw a wall across the galactic disk, given that the surface area of a region increases with the square of the linear dimensions. You can shut down local planetary space with a few gravwell projectors but if you want to shut down a system you might need dozens of interdictors, and there hasn’t been enough interdictors ever built to truly shut down transit (free jumps included) for a sector.
Micro-jumps are still possible, but on a greatly reduced scale, usually within a system. Accurate jumps across interstellar distances would be several orders of magnitude more difficult, and thus require the use of pre-planned routes.
WEG never fully fleshed out their concept of hyperspace, but there is enough there to make a few inferences. Bear in mind, a lot of this is speculation on my part but I think the core idea is sound:
1). All ships in the SWU maintain flight recorder data for their hyperspace jumps. This keeps track of the coordinates used, as well as gravity, radiation levels and particle counts in hyperspace (all factors which affect route accuracy).
2). Ships also receive regular maintenance and resupply at various starports. Included in this is regularly updated route data for their navcomputers, provided by the Bureau of Ships & Services. This data is provided at a fee, which is in turn greatly reduced if the ship in question provides its flight recorder data to the BoSS.
3). BoSS then takes all the flight recorder data it receives from all the ships that have traveled a given route and uses it to generate a highly accurate model of that route, that’s being continuously updated as new data becomes available. This data is then used to generate the route updates for navcomps, much like how modern GPS systems get regular updates. The more a route is traveled, the more data BoSS has to work with, resulting in much more reliable and precise nav coordinates.
4). Low-capacity navcomputers (such as the ones installed in astromechs) lack the storage capacity for a complete route map, and as such only have enough data for a sector, or region within a sector (to which they would be limited anyway because of their low Consumables rating).
5). Naturally, not everyone will be willing to provide their nav-data to the BoSS. Rebels, in particular, wouldn’t want the hyperspace routes to their secret bases to become well known, but there are many organizations in the galaxy that might have cause to keep certain routes a secret. However, there are sufficient above-board operators (in the form of major shipping and trading companies) for the system to work, with the more clandestine operators paying significantly higher fees to piggy-back off of it. Some will even maintain their own separate databases, such as the Alliance Master-Nav database maintained at Alliance HQ.
I totally buy that long jumps are more difficult to calculate, and that all jumps require calculation time. I just don’t think the idea that pre-planned routes are *required* for all long-range travel is particularly credible. Computational limitations is not something that generally ever comes up in SW. Faster travel along a route? Totally buy it. Impossible or implausible off a route? I call BS. It makes the plausibility that you can have ad hoc meeting points in distant places that we see pop up all the time in the universe extremely low. Like does the Alliance spend all its efforts mapping secret hyperlanes to its assembly points, or does it just accept that it takes more computational power and nav data to use interstellar space as an operational area?
Looking at it another way, space is semi-permeable to travel on the basis of confidence in data. But the degree of that permeability determines how…deterministic the setting is from a geography point of view. At one end it’s basically Mass Effect, and at the other end it’s a free-for-all. I know which I’d prefer, but I suppose that is more of a taste thing.
It’s not so much that an off-course route is impossible, it’s just that the known route is the one you can be most assured won’t have anything in your path. I liken it to walking through your living room with all the lights off; you can’t see anything, but you know if you walk # steps in that direction, then take a left, you’ll avoid running into the coffee table. The problem presented in the WEG system is not that all other routes are impassible, it’s that the vast majority of potential obstacles are completely unmapped. Sure, you can point your ship any direction you want and engage the hyperdrive, but if you want to make certain (at least, to the greatest degree possible) that your trip won’t be unexpectedly interrupted by an asteroid or rogue planet or something, you use the route that you know for certain works, because its the one everyone has been using. Of course, new hyperspace routes get mapped all the time, but it takes quite a while, with ships jumping in short hops of a light year or so, feeling their way forward in the dark at a snail’s pace by the standards of regular hyperspace travel.
My take on the Navicomputer limitations is really half about the computation and data storage of the computer itself, and half about the ship’s sensor and communication suite.
Planned and frequently “remapped” routes would be beneficial due to the confidence level in the route, and possibly some undiscussed technology used to keep navigational hazards out of the way. Unplanned routes would be based on the ships ability to calculate the safest route through known hazards – that’s where the sensor suite comes in, as much of this data would be taken from measuring movement and gravitational fields. More powerful (or connected to other sensor hubs) the suite is, the longer the distance it can calculate.
It could simply mean that known routes are A) more safe due to lack of hazards, or B) some sort of chained communications / sensor hubs along its route to guide traffic.
For gravity wells, I always pictured them as conical in shape, an the purpose behind all of the large dome/sphere shaped protrusions on the interdiction crafts was to be able to project the gravity well out in spherical directions without much in the way of gaps. It wouldn’t be a perfect sphere, but it wouldn’t need to be either.
Sensors aren’t going to be hugely useful for interstellar navigation purposes, though. There will be a lot of potential obstacles – asteroids, comets, etc – that will be undetectable at the distances involved.
As to route maintenance / obstacle removal, my theory is that it’s tied in with the route update loop I described previously. As part of updating a route, BoSS also monitors it for gravitic anomalies. If all the flight recorder data starts showing a spike in gravity levels at a certain point, BoSS sends out a survey ship (or forwards it to the Imperial Navy, or whatever) to scout that location. Say they find an asteroid or some other obstruction that’s slowly moving into the route; the ship then uses a tractor beam to redirect the asteroid / tow it out of the route. If the asteroid is too big for it, it calls in for more / larger ships.
The problem with a cone-shaped gravity well is it pretty much defies the nature of gravity wells. A naturally occuring gravity well is spherical in shape, and centered around the mass creating it. It’s possible there is some sort of interference zone between the projector and the well because of what ever method is used to project it, but nothing official has ever been written about that.
One could also argue that there’s going to be some restrictions, inaccuracy (whatever that means for hyperspace travel), or even specificity inherently built into the system, especially under the Empire’s rule. Like GPS systems in the 80’s/90’s before the military opened them up.
In that way, civilian ships might have a specific range of calculations (or lanes) that would be accessible to them at any one time, such that regardless of where one starts their trip to Corellia, the computer is going to calc them out an exit in basically the same area, allowing Imperial or planetary forces to predict with reasonable accuracy where/when a ship will exit hyperspace.
And that leaves room for shady sh!ts to tweak their hyperdrives, crack nav computers, mod hyperdrive generators, and generally wreak havoc for whatever interesting plot point you need.
Obviously, a map of hyperspace routes is only going to be as complete as the data used to generate it. If the Imperial military has their own super-secret hyperspace routes used to access secret bases and the like, and make absolutely certain that that data does not make it into general circulation, then civilian ships won’t be able to access the route because they lack the data to do so.
Speaking of GPS, it’s theoretically possible that the galaxy-spanning satellite network that supports the Holonet also serves a navigation functioning, providing real-time, pin-point location info so long as the receiving ship is in real space.
People seem to be assuming hyperspace lanes are very narrow, and therefore easy to predict where a ship will be to drag out of hyperspace with a weapon of limited range. Lanes would, I think have to be vast areas of space to support traffic, and have no object in it to impede progress. Vast enough to stuff entire systems into, I would think. You couldn’t just sit in real space within a lane, and expect to reliably ambush a target. What is the range of a projector? I imagine interdictors are used at points approved for traffic to enter systems, to be effective to yank ships out of hyperspace. Using them tactically in combat to prevent an enemy fleeing into hyperspace is another thing entirely.
Unless a course is less of a highway in space than it is an ideal set of route coordinates, in which case it could be quite narrow, as ship crews would know that the further they deviate from that course, the more likely they are to be out of the route. And because ships are flying blind down that route, there’s no way to know for sure how far off it you can deviate. Bottom line, though, this has long been accepted as a functional tactic for Interdictors, so however wide a given route may be, an Interdictor’s projected gravity wells cover enough volume to affect it.
I don’t think I buy that assumption. Volume of traffic on heavily traversed routes would indicate a size range in the ideal coordinates much larger than you are assuming, or collisions on exiting the lane and entering a heavily trafficked system would be commonplace.
The fact that it works in-universe would seem to call your assumption into question. So either lanes are narrower than you suppose or gravity wells have a much wider area of effect than you suppose. Either way, it works, and unless someone can point out compelling evidence as to why it shouldn’t, it behooves the rest of us to try to determine WHY it works.
Things work out in universe as an aspect of storytelling, often by writers who pay zero attention to continuity, or prior storyline established tech, to the point where now hyperspace ramming is a “thing”. Most of the attempts by those of us who try to understand or establish parameters of the tech are attempts to reconcile contradictory ‘evidence’, that now have been reduced to waving of magic wands, like Purgil ramming star destroyers in real space, and taking them down, rather than being the proverbial bug-splat on a windshield.
Well, what is the assumption of route dimensions? I actually don’t have any hard limits in my expectations about this. Curious what people think.
There’s a lower limit that won’t pass my gut check based on traffic density, but I don’t really see the need for an upper bound of width less than light-year scales. A decent blockade of a major route for GALACTIC traffic should be hard. A large number the merchants doing bulk transfers might be much bigger than most star dreadnoughts, after all, and a lane needs to accommodate them (yes, I know I am making some assumptions about hyperspace geometry here, but it is supposed to roughly map to realspace).
I don’t know. Certainly a light year across is too large, but I don’t think 100,000 kilometers or so as a ‘tunnel’ of transit is, especially on a major route. And here’s a question, how do ships drop out of hyperspace into a heavily trafficked system, like Kuat or Imperial Center while avoiding collisions?
For heavily traffic systems like Kuat, WEG used a multi-tiered system. The Kuat System had three different transfer points: 1 Passenger, 1 Freight and 1 Imperial Military. Each transfer point had four different destinations assigned to it, two inbound, two outbound. Basically, depending on what you were carrying, you would jump to either of the two inbound systems (passenger or freight), then make the jump to the transfer point (a very large space station), some distance outside of the system proper. Each transfer point would then have another set of four hyperspace routes (two inbound, two outbound) connecting to the Kuat System proper. The transfer points were several light years outside of the system, and all widely dispersed, with a midpoint marked by a hyperspace buoy to keep them all separate. So a ship leaving a transfer point headed in-system would have to jump to the beacon at the mid-point, then jump into the inner system. As such, all ships would arrive and depart on specific vectors, all widely separated from each other.
We know a planetary gravity well is not of sufficient strength to prevent a ship jumping into and out of orbit, so the star’s gravity well at planetary orbit distance is also not a barrier. Gap between star systems are generally light year distances. Why wouldn’t a clear route be possible through the majority of that gap?
That’s more of a new-canon development, unfortunately. The old canon largely supported the idea that a ship had to travel a certain distance out from a planet or vice versa, but the new canon isn’t bound by that, and is arguably the worse for the lack of continuity.
Some things can still be explained, however; the escape from Jeddha is possible if Cassian first disabled the hyperdrive’s emergency cut-out then executed a blind mini-jump without waiting for the nav-comp to spit out coordinates.
There is evidence in the WEG system to suggest that jumping into hyperspace too close to a gravity well can actually throw a ship slightly off course, which has drastic consequences for the drive’s inertial guidance over the course of the rest of the route. This could be another reason why ships have the emergency cut-out in the first place, to prevent ships from jumping to hyperspace while experiencing conditions that might throw them off course with no way to know it or correct it.
As to a route’s width, a lot is going to depend on how useful you want Interdictors to be. Perhaps instead of lightyears, measure the most heavily traveled routes in AUs, with lesser routes decreasing in diameter based on how often they’re traveled (as relates directly to the amount of flight recorder data the BoSS has o work with when generating route data).
Well, not really new canon. The entire Rebel fleet made an accurate tactical transition into roughly orbital space of a moon with roughly Earth-like gravity in OT, after all.
A certain amount of sensor capability in and out of hyperspace is required I think, even if it’s not of particularly high resolution. Scouting of hyperspace with manned craft for instance suggests that it is possible, and otherwise you’d risk a ludicrously high accident rate with normal traffic that doesn’t really seem to be supported in any kind of canon.
As to route width, I’m on the side of “large” for narrative reasons – single interdictors should not be able to shut down trade to half the damn galaxy by sitting on the Hydian, for instance. If you want galactically important consequences, apply galactically important forces. I am also ok with bottlenecks and wide variation between and within routes, but it shouldn’t be trivial to break these connections.
The fleet was still a fair distance out, though. There’s at least one instance in the new films where a jump occured a lot closer (can’t remember which one exactly).
The rest makes sense. The ultimate problem boils down to how much realism one wishes to incorporate into a universe that has many unrealistic aspects.
It’s not as close as Scarif, but it’s much closer than the Earth is to the Moon, judging by the size of the forest moon in the Falcon’s viewport immediately after re-entry. That’s orbital space, just not low orbit.
My read of it is that rapid and flexible FTL is one of those trivial and totally taken for granted things in the setting, like manipulation of gravity and artificial intelligence and insane power density. There are various reasons why ships can or cannot go into hyperspace, but once they jump, it’s done and they can be almost anywhere quickly. There’s never anything about we have to take this route or we have to re-orient or connect through here, or we only expect ships to come in predictable directions. Ships can appear anywhere where it’s convenient to the plot. Once a set of realspace coordinates are available ships can go to it and go to it very quickly, no scouting or route updates required, even for very remote or unpopulated places like Kamino or Dagobah or whatever.
I think major restrictions on this kind of free FTL are largely driven by uninspired writers that cannot break free from terrestrial tropes on how wars and travel are done. We don’t necessarily need to be bound by strategic predictability in terms of movement and access and WWII in SPAAACE – this is scifi, after all. The movies have (at least in the Lucas era), avoided most of this shit by treating these technological issues as routine and unworthy of elaboration with valuable screentime. So anything could be made to fit, and therefore you could use interpretations that actually makes some sense in “real world” terms. Midichlorians are a notable exception to this. But the sequels seem to love Trek-style Macguffin of the week type plot elements, and I really hate that.
A fair point. In WWII, after all, there were few physical limitations on direction of travel, apart from “don’t run into that island.” A fleet could sail from, say, San Diego directly to Okinawa without having to stop off at Hawaii first. The real limiting factor was logistical; said fleet wouldn’t make it to Okinawa before they ran out of fuel and dozens of other things.
My main reservation about the combination of sandbox-type hyperspace travel and rapid transit speeds is that it makes it much easier for an established military (Empire) to rapidly shift forces from point-to-point in response to insurgent (Alliance) attacks. I recall reading somewhere that, for the Alliance to be effective, there had to be some sort of delay in the Imperial Navy’s response times: a minimum of an hour or more, even within a sector, and up to days and weeks for response times from further away. Otherwise, the Empire would be able to rapidly bring overwhelming force against any point in the galaxy far faster than the Alliance could complete their own tactical goals and get out of the way. Again, I can’t recall the source, but it stuck with me.
Yeah I mean range and such are totally going to be issues. But strategic mobility in hyperspace to me to allow for quite different logistics from that WWII example – if you have hyper-capable tankers, you can operate anywhere, but your logistical tail is just all that much longer.
I am totally fine with locally relatively inaccessible areas – like maybe the Rothana system sits in the middle of a black hole cluster or dark matter lattice or some other exotic astronomical zone that limited access even to ships with full navigation facilities. But overall, the average point in space is accessible from a large array of vectors, and only data holds you back at all. Good data lets you do more impressive things, or gets you from point A to B faster, but generally data of the “known galaxy” on average is not particularly limiting, at least to major polities.
As for reaction time – I think this is not particularly a factor of hyperdrive and hyperspace mobility’s basic technological characteristics. It’s more based again on data. By that I mean almost everything is relatively rapidly accessible, but humans work a lot slower than the tech they run. There’s a decision loop. A remote system is vulnerable to strikes because if something goes wrong, it takes time to figure out what might be happening, and for centralized command to decide to investigate – especially if electronic warfare is as prevalent as is suspected. Trouble in a frequently patrolled system engaged in a huge amount of trade and communication with other parts of the galactic network will immediately be noticed, and reaction forces sent quickly, or there might just be a garrison actually there to respond immediately. A strike into the Core as opposed to some dirtball outpost is daring for this reason. And most of what the Rebels do really is small so who cares if it fails – they get in, do some damage if they can, or run like hell if they get rumbled. But in any event, even if they lose a few starfighters or freighter-technicals it’s not a strategic blow. The main fleet is never risked (actually possibly hanging out outside the galactic disk) except when things are truly dire (oh shit a Death Star is about to go operational). And even in that example, if the Empire built DS2 in Coruscant orbit protected by the fleet in the Core then the Rebels would’ve died – much much more slowly than had Palpatine’s plan worked, but much much more certainly in a strategic sense. Hubris, and probably the adrenaline junkie personality of the Emperor coming out.
But let’s flip it around a bit. If you could NOT rapidly reinforce, then civilizations can fall quickly, because decapitation strikes and coups de main would be the norm. The Separatists’ gambit at Coruscant would have been successful had the Republic not been able to do things like recall the Open Circle fleet from the distant Rim in tactical, not even strategic, time. And in that case, I would say the lore saying that some secret routes were used was for surprise – not accessibility. It’s a patrolling issue – no one thought a sudden and *rapid* approach from that vector would be possible so it just wasn’t watched, not that a Separatist fleet couldn’t have in theory calculated a slower jump direct to Coruscant from its staging areas using that vector, but one that would’ve given more opportunities for detection because it would’ve passed first through more patrolled areas. And in peacetime almost nothing is heavily patrolled so fleets can stroll in to most places. Corollary to my idea of high mobility is that some degree of warning is required.
Much to grok, but since you mentioned Dark Matter, here’s a theory for you…
What if Dark Matter is actually Hypermatter? As in, what if the reason dark matter is detectable by its gravitic signature alone is because it isn’t physically present in real space, but hyperspace instead? It opens up several interesting possibilities, including dark matter clusters or lattices obstructing hyperspace travel, to the point of actually creating a physical obstacle in hyperspace while not being physically present in real space. It also opens up in-universe scenarios for oil industry analogies, like deep space hypermatter mining platforms siphoning off dense pockets of hypermatter for use as fuel in reactors, or hypermatter super-tankers plying the trade routes from the mining fields to the major population and industry hubs.
Sounds plausible from a navigational viewpoint, and I have no major issues with that. I don’t think anyone can argue that stuff with mass, whatever it is, is an impediment to hyperspace movement. I just don’t think it’s THAT limiting overall to movement, even if there are clear paths that are favored because they are consistently clear.
But I think hypermatter as fuel is supposed to be derived form black holes in some way though. Might be remembering that wrong.
There was some thought put into it over on the Rancor Pit, and the premise suggested was that hypermatter existed in different densities throughout space, with the highest concentrations (and thus, the most suitable for mining operations) occurring in close proximity to high gravity fields such as black holes. So, while it would exist as a near “solid” state in close proximity to high gravity fields, it would take the form of gaseous fields with varying degrees of density everywhere else. It’s conceivable that a hyperdrive includes a form of navigation deflector in hyperspace, protecting the ship from the impact of hypermatter at extreme velocities, and that the navigability of a route shifts in inverse proportion to the hypermatter particle density along the route. This in turn would be another factor in the BoSS flight recorder theory, in that “safe” routes are calculated based on both mass/gravity and hypermatter particle densities (the flight recorder would also record impact frequency during transit).
Tough to say. WEG never committed to a hard range value, instead opting for a more nebulous “Space Unit” value that was mostly for comparative purposes. It’s possible that individual routes have “lanes,” so to speak, in the sense that, depending on direction and speed, craft could be assigned different coordinates that parallel each other without overlapping, much like how interstates are structured with fast and slow lanes going each direction. Imperial Navy pursuit ships in the game are equipped with Hyperwave Signal Interceptors that can get a read on a ship’s trajectory and velocity at the moment they jump into hyperspace. They could then use hyper-comms to signal ahead to a waiting Interdictor, who would crunch the numbers and use gravity wells to block the “Coreward @ Point Four” lane of the hyperspace route in question.
But you can detect ships in hyperspace I believe, if possibly fleetingly and not super accurately. Clone Wars I think. I’m not entirely sure about the other way around, but I believe that is also possible. Then traffic control is much simpler, especially if routine traffic is largely on established inbound and outbound routes. I am fairly certain communications are possible in hyperspace.
I don’t recall that reference, but I don’t pay too close attention to Clone Wars / Rebels anyway; they really dumbed down the SWU AFAIC. I agree that communications in hyperspace are possible, the caveat is that it’s ludicrously expensive, especially for full-up hologram communication in real-time. Smaller messages, like text-only “telegrams” or emails sent burst-style would be much more economical.
It was indeed in “The Clone Wars” where they could detect ships approaching in hyperspace. In one episode a battle droid informs General Grievous that their “long range scanners” picked up hyperspace signatures pointing towards at least 3 cruiser-class (Venators) and four escort-class (Consulars or Arquitens’) vessels closing in to which Grievous responded by ordering his fleet to get ready for battle.
There was also an entire episode centered around a secret CIS listening post with which the Confederacy could spy on Republic fleet movements within at least three sectors.
I can tell you how I’d use it. I’d use it to prevent a fleeing ship from jumping away.
I also might use it to yank a ship out of hyperspace short of a destination, assuming I knew the origin and destination. Example would be laying a trap for a courier far enough away from their destination to make a response force unable to respond. Many unknowns here, and plenty of opportunity for it to go badly (like say, pulling a fleet out of hyperspace or the wrong targets).
It’s a suitably unique enough tool that I’d bet an enterprising mind (Thrawn, etc.) would come up with a great use for it. It’s one of the changes I’d make to a main line Destroyer/Cruiser type – give them the ability to prevent a ship from getting away. Even if it meant disabling all or most of their weapon systems to use it.
You know Fractal since both of these customs corvettes don’t have a class name would you give it a class name or not and if so what would you name them?
Ok Fractal I believe you that the customs corvette can carry more fighters than the Vigil now that I look at both the corvettes hangers. And why did i change my mind on you say well because of the duel light turbolasers right next to the hanger more specifically the turbolasers on the customs hanger look smaller than the ones on the Vigil which make the hanger on the customs corvette look bigger than the Vigil’s hanger especially the width between the turbolasers.
So yeah sorry that I underestimate your calculation with the corvettes’s hangers carrying capability.
By away with the customs corvette carrying that many fighters does it make it more of a carrier than the corvette?
Wait I just have another look at the customs corvette hanger and it two guns and it was actually quad heavy laser cannons which are smaller than the light duel turbolasers. But I might still believe you it carry more because the hanger on the customs corvette is wider than the Vigil’s hanger and possibly greater depth or not.
Anonymous
4 years ago
So you said this corvette can carry 3-4 squadrons so then it carry more than the Vigil or does the Vigil also carry 3-4 squadrons?
Main weaponry is the same as in the Light Customs Corvette? If so, it may be too light to face a full military corvette with capital-type turbolasers, even with fighter support. She would still be a great escort ship.
How many TIEs inside? A full squadron? Has she got tractor beams to handle them?
Wait what 3-4 SQUADRONS? Even on a 180m ship with that much of it devoted to hangar space that seems like quite a lot. Even a full 12 fighter squadron is somewhat pushing it on maintenance space given that a 500m Gladiator only gets 2 squadrons and a handful of shuttles and it looks to have roughly the same % of it devoted to hangar space.
You know the TIE requires an ~7m cube right? 48 of them (6x8x1) would fit in a 42m x 56m x 7m box in a single layer. Star Wars ships are big, so big that apparently people that write numbers can’t do math. Like the old Executor having 144 fighters thing.
The limit for fighters I think is really due to how many ground vehicles are carried, especially AT-ATs, because the volume requirements for that are huge. You can see the transition – a smaller Venator carries relatively small AT-TEs but hundreds of fighters, but a larger ISD trades most of the fighters to carry 40 AT-ATs (plus the dropships for the AT-ATs). A pure fighter carrier configuration for an ISD would be easily 300+ fighters like a Venator.
Maybe I’m just having a hard time visualizing it, have you made a variant with the hatches open like your Vigil-Class? That would probably help a great deal.
Probably not too many more. I think walkers (and their dropships) are the limiting element in hangar volume. You’d gain a LOT more fighters by remove the AT-ATs and their dropships, but not so much vice versa.
Speaking of walker if the ISD can carry AT-SPs how many can it have?
gorkmalork
6 years ago
Speedy-looking nipper even with that TIE hangar slapped between those mandibles. Got a feeling this sucker would have even less trouble catching CR90s than your average Impstar.
Question with regards to the modified bridge structure and view ports:
Obviously reminiscent of the typical Star Destroyer bridge that has ±2m high windows that allow the captain/command staff to strut around at the same level as the bottom of the sill whilst peons sit in the pits. Did you imagine the same principle applied 1:1 to this version? Or is it more of a hybrid due to the smaller overall scale of the ship?
I figure it’s the later, much more similar to a sitting bridge with viewports configured more like a windscreen (ie Tantive IV):
http://images.propstore.com/68187.jpg
But with enough room for maybe a walkway along the front?
When I saw this model, I imagined that this was what the imperial arquitens bridge looked like (un-cartoonied). I’d guess its more like the the layout you have pictured, just with no second row with officers standing in the middle section, seats along the sides as well maybe?
Is this meant to be the same length as the civilian corvette? 180m?
What do you think of the idea of using this as a heavy missile boat? A few ships with the inter-arm compartment filled with 5 or 6 heavy capitol-scale missiles might do a number on a proper warship if used as a highly mobile attack group in ambush situations, or in roving wolf-packs in fleet actions.
This is in line with the general discussion below. Irrespective of the arguments for/against the worthiness of capital-ship scale missiles, it is, in theory, possible, but from a practical standpoint there’s arguably going to be better purpose-built options that would fit the required tactical profile you’re describing.
My personal opinion is that such a configuration would be a step or two too far outside the bell-curve of ‘highest-and-best’ uses for the frame. But that’s just me.
I agree it is a bit over the capabilities of the frame to send it after capitol ships, but for a small system defense force the choice might be between this and trying to militarize a merchant ship. At least this design has speed and power to spare, albeit not as much as a true military frame. It’d be the equivalent of a WW2 PT boat or a modern fast attack boat (same concept but anti-ship missiles instead of torpedoes). Capable of hurting a big ship in a hit-and-run attack but small/cheap enough to produce tons of.
This is pretty much a fast minelayer. Useful but not survivable enough to be survivable in direct action. Guerillas might not care though and try anyway.
Perhaps some minor Post-Endor warlord faction built a few thousand of these conversions in a desperate attempt to get more fighting hulls out as soon as possible.
This is a mostly long dead posting, but it’s undoubtedly one of my favourites so I tend to be drawn back to it… So, based on the notion that we’ve got a solid civilian/”municipal” variant and an up-armoured paramilitary variant, what other middle-ground roles would this chassis be viable for?
Much like the Modular Task Force Cruiser, I could see this upgraded ship being fitted to accommodate a variety of standardized and customizable modules like expanded passenger/prisoner/troop space, cargo capacity for pre-fab garrisons/bases, repair/refit space, a tactical-scale gravity well generator, etc….
…Or, in a galaxy of a thousand thousand different ships, each customized to a specific niche role is that a lost cause?
I think the scale of the galaxy militates against total uniformity. I don’t see why you couldn’t do modules, but the hull itself and its lack of strength as a quasi-civilian ship is going to prevent you from doing a lot of stuff. Carrier is easy – fighters and hangar volume are light. But stuff like grav well generators are going to draw too much power for the platform to handle.
I’ve used it in a game as a minelayer. It seems to be perfect for the task?
Depends how big the mines are.
Why would an effective mine be larger than say, the pilots compartment of a TIE fighter? Packed with explosives, it should be comparable to the payload of a capital scale warhead, it needs no propulsion system, and only a modest sensor package to be effective. I think you could carry twice the number of mines on racks to deploy, as you could TIE fighters.
Well it would need a propulsion system. Contact mines in space are a little absurd given the volume involved.
Yeah, I was thinking about that after I posted. That said, a propulsion system need not consume more room than a standard TIE engine, although it might need some sort of solar array to keep it powered, or the sensors powered. Still, I bet you could fit all of that into little more than the eyeball of a standard TIE.
Any power source coming into sensor range causes the little bugger to power up and target it, unless it has an imperial transponder.
The capacity to lay a small minefield could be useful if you could accurately predict the targeted ship’s course. The main example that comes to mind is a pursuit delay tactic; if it’s a straight-line course, the leading ships could drop a highly localized minefield directly in the pursuer’s path. Worst case: pursuer detects the minefield and maneuver around it, which allows the leading ship to pull further away. Best case: pursuer blunders into it and explodes, chase ends.
But then, a ship this small would basically need to be nothing but a minelayer, and be included in a taskforce on the off chance the taskforce commander /might/ need to lay a very small minefield somewhere. It’d probably be more efficient to have the rest of the ships in the group carry a supply of mines for the same effect.
On the other hand, this ship could make a good minesweeper…
I think it could do either task, although I’m not sure how it would ‘sweep’ ( haven’t given the latter any thought until now) . Assuming the mines aren’t static, but have a small propulsion system, they might not be as easy to evade as we think, and detonating them with point defense lasers might weaken your shields, or potentially cause some sort of damage if they are detonated in close proximityI generally envision such a vessel as a dedicated vessel, the real world ones generally are, with some weapons added for self defense. Corvettes or frigates are better used employing the space for fighters or shuttles, I’d think. These are cheap, paramilitary hulls, not intended for fleet actions. In our game use, they’re generally employed in groups of 2-6, and have been used to set up small fields around static targets such as spaceports, or been used to set defensive shields restricting access to installations.
Sweeping mines can involve mobile decoys that broadcast an amplified sensor signature that tricks mines into detonating, or drones that can sneak close to mines and place remote- or proximity-detonated explosive charges to destroy individual mines. The hangar bay would allow this ship to carry an ample supply of either, or both, along with the point defenses necessary to destroy any mines that get too close.
Frigates in the SWU (the Nebulon B, at least) are more analogous to WW2-era destroyer escorts; they’re not that fast, but the ships they’re escorting are even slower. In general, ships that size are going to be more appropriate more skirmishes and local patrol.
Neb-B is more like an OPV. I just don’t see it as having the power for much in the way of serious firepower or extreme acceleration. Main strength is likely to be fighter-based. This is similar in conception, except much much faster.
Or just a powerful active sensor and a lot of long range light turbolasers, if the mines are just charges.
I think SW mines are more often than not actually just limited life gun mounts and a capacitor, or missiles waiting for a target to ignite their drive systems – that way you don’t need insane density to actually establish barriers in…space.
Another option would be something along the lines of a bomb-pumped energy beam weapon that focuses its detonation into a single, intense point attack.
And this ship would work well as a direct-approach minesweeper, too; it certainly has the cannon armament to pull it off. But considering the potential consequences of getting it wrong (since space mines would pretty much have to be extremely stealth), I think the ability to stand off at a distance and minesweep by remote would still be preferable, with the direct-fire method as a backup.
A gravity well generator centered on the ship might be more plausible. Rather than projecting it out away from the ship ala the Interdictor, a relatively cheap platform that could park somewhere and generate a gravity well around itself might have some uses, even if only from an economic standpoint. The collapsable gravity well projectors featured in Outbound Flight appeared to work on this principle.
It’s not space I’m worried about, but power. Cheap platforms tend not to have an abundance of the latter. The base hull in concept is barely more powerful than a freighter here, and grav wells are notoriously power hungry.
But would a gravity well generator (as opposed to a projector) have the same power draw, especially if all the ship had to do was hold position and generate the gravity well? The full power of the ship’s drive could then be directed to the gravity well generator. Not nearly as tactically useful as an Interdictor, but it could be useful on a smaller scale, like creating enough of a gravity well to barricade a hyperspace route for surprise inspections by Imperial Customs. It’d take just a fraction of the power required of the full-up gravity well projectors on the Interdictor.
It would be a heck of a lot easier to have it carry and drop a gravity well mine, than it would be to turn it into some sort of cheap interdictor. We know from the book published on Warfare in Star Wars, that mining hyperspace lanes is a thing, but this creates a choke point and an ambush site, it isn’t a portable method of denying retreat to hyperspace for an enemy fleet, or the other tactical useages possible. The smallest frame in the EU we know of capable of carrying a useful gravity well projector/generator (I thought they were the same thing?) is frigate sized, the CC 7700, perhaps that is the size factor for a ship that can power itself and a generator both.
I’m making the distinction that a Generator creates a gravity well centered on itself, whereas a Projector can project that gravity well out to a distance (per the original WEG sources, a gravity well projector had twice the range of a cap-ship turbolaser).
There is mention in one of the other WEG sources of a pirate tactic called the Barricade, where a ship would use tractor beams to tow a large asteroid into a hyperspace route so that its gravity well would knock ships out of hyperspace. This would be something similar; it doesn’t need to project the largest possible gravity well, and it doesn’t need to do so at a distance. It just needs to generate enough of a gravity well to force ships to drop into realspace. I’m seeing it primarily as a tool for Imperial Customs or similar law enforcement agencies.
I drive trucks for a living, and we get pulled into scales and inspection stations all the time. You can’t always tell when they’ll be open, and very rarely, state police will set up mobile scales on back roads to catch drivers who are dodging the scales on the main highways. That’s what I’m primarily seeing this used for: a portable, economical way to interdict a hyperspace route for commercial inspections and law enforcement purposes. Obviously, such a ship would be operating as part of a group, as the gravity well generator would render it immobile while active.
So no, I certainly don’t think a ship this size could ever mount a full-up projector (ala the Interdictor), but a /generator/ could conceivably be carried, IF said generator had a much lower power budget than the more tactically useful projector.
Oh, I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure there is a difference between the two things. There are different sized gravity well projectors, with different sized fields, but I think all of them center on the generator, and project a spherical field from that center point. I don’t think they are beam weapons like tractor beams. I may well be wrong, but I haven’t seen evidence in canon for it being a beam. Note the Rebels episode that introduces the gravity well projectors. The ship doesn’t only draw the Rebel ship out of hyperspace when it overloads, it also draws in its light cruiser escorts at each flank. You don’t know exactly where a ship would be in hyperspace to aim a beam, so I think it creates a spherical field.
Rebels butchered the canon of gravity wells, and I don’t consider it a credible source. The basis for the gravity well started out from the WEG rules, and it was always intended as a method of tricking a ship into dropping itself out of hyperspace, not a field effect that forced it out. It was also always a ranged weapon, even before WEG had instituted weapon ranges. In the original rules, a successful hit with a gravity well inflicted no damage, but prevented a ship from jumping to hyperspace. Later rules added a little more granularity, but also clarified that a gravity well could be projected out to double the range of cap-ship turbolasers.
Short version, all hyperdrives are equipped with emergency cut-outs that automatically scan for large gravity wells in the ship’s path, such as would naturally be generated by a planet or star. If it detected such, the cut-out would automatically engage and drop the ship back into real space before it collided with said object.
Gravity well projectors simply project a large gravity well at a given point in space (and its coterminous point in the higher dimension of hyperspace). To a ship in hyperspace, it’s indistinguishable from a larger stellar mass, so the cut-out engages and drops the ship out of hyperspace.
Later versions of the WEG rules made the gravity well projector an area-effect weapon, in that it was targeted at a specific point, and proximity to that specific point increased the difficulty of successfully jumping to hyperspace.
A ship could conceivably get around a gravity well projector by disconnecting its emergency cut-out, but this was fraught with danger, as the ship would be unable to detect /actual/ obstacles in its path. However, it’s still viable in certain circumstances (like the escape from Jeddha in Rogue One) where it’s that or certain death.
I agree with the power issue. I would expect that if you’re going to plug in a modular gravity well generator (I agree too, with the distinction between generators and projectors) it’s definitely going to come with its own secondary power supply.
I totally disagree with WEG’s take on gravity devices, and here’s why. A constant in the Star Wars universe is that a ship in hyperspace is undetectable to sensors in Real Space, until a ship drops out of hyperspace. The exception being an alleged hyperspace tracking device allegedly developed by Seinar Systems. Relying on an WEG source as canon is I think a bit much. We are, after all talking about the source that gave us a 5 mile Executor class with hanger volume to field 144 starfighters. That alone stretches credulity to use them as some authoritative source, especially when their primary concern is the concept of “game balance”.
Of what earthly use is a directional gravity device with a limited field, against a target that cannot be detected? When do you know how to turn it on, and how do you aim it? A device that projects a spherical field at least covers every possible direction in its radius.
The Wiki, EaW, EG will would agree with Bob. as it is an AoE device
EDIT:as gravity wells system are AoE devices
No. They may have been used in AoE, but the concept of gravity well projectors dates all the way back to the late 1980’s when WEG published the first edition of their Imperial Sourcebook. Everything to do with gravity wells since then is derived from that original concept. Just because a video game took an idea and butchered it doesn’t render the original premise moot.
Well then how do you explain the gravity well tactics of thrawn from Legends?
How did Luke escape from the gravity well field?
The real trick was breaking free of the Chimaera’s tractor beam projector. Once he did that, all he had to do was get outside the range of the gravity well projector and he could jump to hyperspace as usual.
As to Thrawn’s tactics, I don’t see the problem. Everything is consistent with the canon description of gravity well projectors. In fact, an omni-directional gravity well generator wouldn’t allow some of Thrawn’s more innovative tricks.
The Wiki (I assume you’re referring to Wookieepedia) is not an authoritative source; it’s a place where information is dumped in a pile, leaving it to the reader to sort the reliable from the ridiculous. And video games, which are often optimized for game play at the expense of continuity, are not consistent enough to be a reliable source.
Hierarchy of sources should always be taken into account. If Source A is the first instance of X (or, in fact, the originator of X), and Source B then attempts – and fails – to duplicate X, this does not make Source B equal in reliability to Source A.
I was using the Wook to several novels( I personally read) specifically state that the gravity well systems use of a field. it’s generally interpreted as in area of effect when a field it’s mentioned.
Well how do we know if Source B that attempts and fails is whether a simple fact or an stated opinion
A spherical area of gravity centered around a large mass (such as that generated) would qualify as a field. The last WEG rule for gravity wells was that it was physically impossible to jump to hyperspace if you were directly at the center of the well, and becoming progressively less difficult as you moved away from the center.
And we know Source B gets it wrong if it takes an original concept and uses it in a manner that is inconsistent with the description of said original concept. Bear in mind, there was never a beam-effect in any of the source material for gravity wells. In 1st edition, it was simply a point targeted weapon; if it hit your ship, you couldn’t jump to hyperspace, try again next turn. If it missed, you could jump normally. Zahn added an extra – but not unwarranted – degree of complexity when describing how gravity wells operate in his novels, which WEG then made official when they updated the rules for gravity well operation in their 2nd edition. It was never supposed to be an omni-directional field centered on the projector itself.
I dunno if it’s incompatible to have a projector generate your normal spherical exponential-falloff field at a point OR project mass shadow effects along a defined field for concentrated effects, depending on the setting of the equipment. But a sweeping beam as a *sole* mechanism is crazy. How quickly do you have to spin that in order to get meaningful coverage in the volume of space around a projector?
But this thread has sort of confused me. I thought that grav wells were area of effect mechanisms, and interdictors can project them at targeted points. Where does it ever take the form of a beam?
Zahn worded it somewhat confusingly in the Thrawn Trilogy, in that in some cases, he appears to describe the gravity well area of effect as cone-shaped, with the point of the cone at the projector. It’s not entirely unrealistic, as at least /some/degree of effect between the projector and the gravity well would make sense, but there is nothing official describing it thusly (AFAIK) apart from Zahn’s word choice.
A cone as one mode is fine – would be great in pursuit. But that’s stupid for area interdiction, which seems like a pretty important function for an interdictor. Unless the gravity well takes time to fade (somehow I doubt this), a projector only using a a single cone has to rapidly sweep that across a large area of space randomly, and hope a ship flies through the arc of sky covered by the cone. It’s a lot simpler to simply project a large well and maintain it, or if there are enough projectors several wells to cover an area.
For reference, check the WEG book “Wanted by Cracken,” pages 18-20.
Short version:
1). Gravity well projectors take 30 seconds from initiating the firing procedure to come into effect.
2). Once in effect, they can be dropped almost instantly, but the capacitors must recharge for 40 seconds before it can be fired again.
3). Attempting to rush the projection in either case is possible, but runs the risk of blowing out the projector.
4). An active gravity well can be steered onto a moving target, but this is difficult, and usually isn’t fast enough to keep up with most craft.
5). It also inflicts a serious drain on the speed and maneuverability of the cruiser (cuts acceleration by 2/3’s)
So, if a single Interdictor is capable of projecting four separate gravity wells, each roughly the strength of an Earth-equivalent planet, then that’s enough to block most hyperspace travel to and from a single planetary system.
Incidentally, I figure the Dominator-Class is a follow-on to the original 600-meter Interdictor by putting gravity wells in a platform with something more than just defensive weaponry with the engine power to run all four gravity wells without the performance degradation.
@Bob – Simple: hyperspace travel in the WEG rules is restricted to a large number of known routes, which are navigated by pre-programmed coordinates and inertial guidance. Interdictors are used ambush-style by taking a position along said routes and using their gravity well projectors to project “fake planets” into the route. Ships in hyperspace are blind to everything BUT gravity, which is what triggers a hyperdrive’s emergency cut-out. Gravity is the only sensory medium that carries over between realspace and hyperspace, and while ships in hyperspace don’t pack enough mass to be detectable by mass sensors in realspace, planets in realspace ARE massive enough to be detected by mass sensors in hyperspace.
There are two different methods for Interdictors to target ships in hyperspace: 1) a friendly ship can “radio ahead” to inform the Interdictor of the course and speed of a target vessel headed their way, or 2) they can simply project the gravity wells into a hyperspace route and catch whatever they happen to catch. This is in addition to their ability to blockade an area by using the gravity wells to keep ships from jumping into hyperspace.
As to targeting? You don’t need to target it; it’s an area-effect weapon that affects every single ship that is either in it or attempting to pass through it. And “limited area of effect” is purely a relative thing. Per the WEG rules, each gravity well projector could generate a well equivalent to the mass of an Earth-type planet, and project them at stand-off ranges that allowed an Interdictor to blockade a very large area.
Now, you may dismiss WEG if you wish, and I certainly agree that they aren’t perfect, but they are the reason gravity well projectors exist in the first place. A wiser approach would be to keep the explanations that work and discard what doesn’t. And in context, gravity well projectors work.
Free hyper travel is definitely a thing – otherwise you would not have things like microjumps, and you wouldn’t be able to really go “off-route” – it basically determines whether the universe is a essentially a small network of points or actual open space. That travel is calculated by a navicomputer, and depends on decent astronomical data for a given volume of space.
Some navicomputers are small enough (a droid brain) that they can only hold a few preprogrammed routes, though with communication with a unit that has a full navicomputer and more navigational data stored, presumably those routes can be altered rapidly. An actual independent starship is potentially very capable navigationally – calculations may take time, but they should be able to actively and freely hyper within whatever volume of space they have data for (hypothetically the entire mapped galaxy).
So I think it makes sense that warships and independent civilian ships always have full navicomputers, and can always jump freely, data and position relative to local gravity wells permitting.
So why doesn’t every ship have the same ability? (i.e. why is merchant traffic confined at all to routes?) Given that astromechs bought at a flea market by smallholder farmers can do hyperspace navigation (to a certain point), I’m not sure that the infrastructure cost of such computers is *really* all that big a deal.
Speed might be a thing. Local free-jumps are probably less efficient and slower than routes, because they have to be recalculated often, and possibly it takes time to accelerate to maximum hyper speed – time that you don’t get if you constantly have to transition, re-orient, etc.
Hyperspace routes are paths that are consistently free of any mass shadow interference. You don’t need a navicomputer or a large navigational database to use these lanes because of their overall stability, and my thinking is that they are important because they allow for very long trips (and thus very fast trips, given time to accelerate in hyperspace) without having to transition, re-orient, and jump again. In economical terms, they also allow for minimal fuel usage (since I believe the jump transition is supposed to be the point of maximum energy usage in a trip). You don’t need a full navicomputer, and you reach points along the route faster. So ships meant for routine transport along fixed itineraries don’t need full navigation, and can move faster and more economically.
But hyperspace route blockades are a thing apparently. But these probably only make sense in the context of a logistical system that has been conditioned to have most traffic use routes only rather than having independent nav capability (i.e. times of relative peace). Given warning you can refit ships with basic nav capability (i.e. droids or something) and go around a blockade of a route, but because alternate rapid paths around single (or many) randomly inserted blockages in the route are not necessarily quick to calculate or able to be calculated by most (civilian) vessels, a blockade basically slows a transport system not used to dealing with such stoppages to a crawl. So like when a major road gets blocked, traffic stops, but it doesn’t mean some traffic cannot slowly use alternate side routes to get around. But from a overall system level viewpoint the connections are almost dead.
But in space, you cannot completely stop traffic unless your blockading force is huge. So you can only blockade a small region, not draw a wall across the galactic disk, given that the surface area of a region increases with the square of the linear dimensions. You can shut down local planetary space with a few gravwell projectors but if you want to shut down a system you might need dozens of interdictors, and there hasn’t been enough interdictors ever built to truly shut down transit (free jumps included) for a sector.
Micro-jumps are still possible, but on a greatly reduced scale, usually within a system. Accurate jumps across interstellar distances would be several orders of magnitude more difficult, and thus require the use of pre-planned routes.
WEG never fully fleshed out their concept of hyperspace, but there is enough there to make a few inferences. Bear in mind, a lot of this is speculation on my part but I think the core idea is sound:
1). All ships in the SWU maintain flight recorder data for their hyperspace jumps. This keeps track of the coordinates used, as well as gravity, radiation levels and particle counts in hyperspace (all factors which affect route accuracy).
2). Ships also receive regular maintenance and resupply at various starports. Included in this is regularly updated route data for their navcomputers, provided by the Bureau of Ships & Services. This data is provided at a fee, which is in turn greatly reduced if the ship in question provides its flight recorder data to the BoSS.
3). BoSS then takes all the flight recorder data it receives from all the ships that have traveled a given route and uses it to generate a highly accurate model of that route, that’s being continuously updated as new data becomes available. This data is then used to generate the route updates for navcomps, much like how modern GPS systems get regular updates. The more a route is traveled, the more data BoSS has to work with, resulting in much more reliable and precise nav coordinates.
4). Low-capacity navcomputers (such as the ones installed in astromechs) lack the storage capacity for a complete route map, and as such only have enough data for a sector, or region within a sector (to which they would be limited anyway because of their low Consumables rating).
5). Naturally, not everyone will be willing to provide their nav-data to the BoSS. Rebels, in particular, wouldn’t want the hyperspace routes to their secret bases to become well known, but there are many organizations in the galaxy that might have cause to keep certain routes a secret. However, there are sufficient above-board operators (in the form of major shipping and trading companies) for the system to work, with the more clandestine operators paying significantly higher fees to piggy-back off of it. Some will even maintain their own separate databases, such as the Alliance Master-Nav database maintained at Alliance HQ.
I totally buy that long jumps are more difficult to calculate, and that all jumps require calculation time. I just don’t think the idea that pre-planned routes are *required* for all long-range travel is particularly credible. Computational limitations is not something that generally ever comes up in SW. Faster travel along a route? Totally buy it. Impossible or implausible off a route? I call BS. It makes the plausibility that you can have ad hoc meeting points in distant places that we see pop up all the time in the universe extremely low. Like does the Alliance spend all its efforts mapping secret hyperlanes to its assembly points, or does it just accept that it takes more computational power and nav data to use interstellar space as an operational area?
Looking at it another way, space is semi-permeable to travel on the basis of confidence in data. But the degree of that permeability determines how…deterministic the setting is from a geography point of view. At one end it’s basically Mass Effect, and at the other end it’s a free-for-all. I know which I’d prefer, but I suppose that is more of a taste thing.
It’s not so much that an off-course route is impossible, it’s just that the known route is the one you can be most assured won’t have anything in your path. I liken it to walking through your living room with all the lights off; you can’t see anything, but you know if you walk # steps in that direction, then take a left, you’ll avoid running into the coffee table. The problem presented in the WEG system is not that all other routes are impassible, it’s that the vast majority of potential obstacles are completely unmapped. Sure, you can point your ship any direction you want and engage the hyperdrive, but if you want to make certain (at least, to the greatest degree possible) that your trip won’t be unexpectedly interrupted by an asteroid or rogue planet or something, you use the route that you know for certain works, because its the one everyone has been using. Of course, new hyperspace routes get mapped all the time, but it takes quite a while, with ships jumping in short hops of a light year or so, feeling their way forward in the dark at a snail’s pace by the standards of regular hyperspace travel.
My take on the Navicomputer limitations is really half about the computation and data storage of the computer itself, and half about the ship’s sensor and communication suite.
Planned and frequently “remapped” routes would be beneficial due to the confidence level in the route, and possibly some undiscussed technology used to keep navigational hazards out of the way. Unplanned routes would be based on the ships ability to calculate the safest route through known hazards – that’s where the sensor suite comes in, as much of this data would be taken from measuring movement and gravitational fields. More powerful (or connected to other sensor hubs) the suite is, the longer the distance it can calculate.
It could simply mean that known routes are A) more safe due to lack of hazards, or B) some sort of chained communications / sensor hubs along its route to guide traffic.
For gravity wells, I always pictured them as conical in shape, an the purpose behind all of the large dome/sphere shaped protrusions on the interdiction crafts was to be able to project the gravity well out in spherical directions without much in the way of gaps. It wouldn’t be a perfect sphere, but it wouldn’t need to be either.
Sensors aren’t going to be hugely useful for interstellar navigation purposes, though. There will be a lot of potential obstacles – asteroids, comets, etc – that will be undetectable at the distances involved.
As to route maintenance / obstacle removal, my theory is that it’s tied in with the route update loop I described previously. As part of updating a route, BoSS also monitors it for gravitic anomalies. If all the flight recorder data starts showing a spike in gravity levels at a certain point, BoSS sends out a survey ship (or forwards it to the Imperial Navy, or whatever) to scout that location. Say they find an asteroid or some other obstruction that’s slowly moving into the route; the ship then uses a tractor beam to redirect the asteroid / tow it out of the route. If the asteroid is too big for it, it calls in for more / larger ships.
The problem with a cone-shaped gravity well is it pretty much defies the nature of gravity wells. A naturally occuring gravity well is spherical in shape, and centered around the mass creating it. It’s possible there is some sort of interference zone between the projector and the well because of what ever method is used to project it, but nothing official has ever been written about that.
One could also argue that there’s going to be some restrictions, inaccuracy (whatever that means for hyperspace travel), or even specificity inherently built into the system, especially under the Empire’s rule. Like GPS systems in the 80’s/90’s before the military opened them up.
In that way, civilian ships might have a specific range of calculations (or lanes) that would be accessible to them at any one time, such that regardless of where one starts their trip to Corellia, the computer is going to calc them out an exit in basically the same area, allowing Imperial or planetary forces to predict with reasonable accuracy where/when a ship will exit hyperspace.
And that leaves room for shady sh!ts to tweak their hyperdrives, crack nav computers, mod hyperdrive generators, and generally wreak havoc for whatever interesting plot point you need.
Obviously, a map of hyperspace routes is only going to be as complete as the data used to generate it. If the Imperial military has their own super-secret hyperspace routes used to access secret bases and the like, and make absolutely certain that that data does not make it into general circulation, then civilian ships won’t be able to access the route because they lack the data to do so.
Speaking of GPS, it’s theoretically possible that the galaxy-spanning satellite network that supports the Holonet also serves a navigation functioning, providing real-time, pin-point location info so long as the receiving ship is in real space.
People seem to be assuming hyperspace lanes are very narrow, and therefore easy to predict where a ship will be to drag out of hyperspace with a weapon of limited range. Lanes would, I think have to be vast areas of space to support traffic, and have no object in it to impede progress. Vast enough to stuff entire systems into, I would think. You couldn’t just sit in real space within a lane, and expect to reliably ambush a target. What is the range of a projector? I imagine interdictors are used at points approved for traffic to enter systems, to be effective to yank ships out of hyperspace. Using them tactically in combat to prevent an enemy fleeing into hyperspace is another thing entirely.
Unless a course is less of a highway in space than it is an ideal set of route coordinates, in which case it could be quite narrow, as ship crews would know that the further they deviate from that course, the more likely they are to be out of the route. And because ships are flying blind down that route, there’s no way to know for sure how far off it you can deviate. Bottom line, though, this has long been accepted as a functional tactic for Interdictors, so however wide a given route may be, an Interdictor’s projected gravity wells cover enough volume to affect it.
I don’t think I buy that assumption. Volume of traffic on heavily traversed routes would indicate a size range in the ideal coordinates much larger than you are assuming, or collisions on exiting the lane and entering a heavily trafficked system would be commonplace.
The fact that it works in-universe would seem to call your assumption into question. So either lanes are narrower than you suppose or gravity wells have a much wider area of effect than you suppose. Either way, it works, and unless someone can point out compelling evidence as to why it shouldn’t, it behooves the rest of us to try to determine WHY it works.
Things work out in universe as an aspect of storytelling, often by writers who pay zero attention to continuity, or prior storyline established tech, to the point where now hyperspace ramming is a “thing”. Most of the attempts by those of us who try to understand or establish parameters of the tech are attempts to reconcile contradictory ‘evidence’, that now have been reduced to waving of magic wands, like Purgil ramming star destroyers in real space, and taking them down, rather than being the proverbial bug-splat on a windshield.
Well, what is the assumption of route dimensions? I actually don’t have any hard limits in my expectations about this. Curious what people think.
There’s a lower limit that won’t pass my gut check based on traffic density, but I don’t really see the need for an upper bound of width less than light-year scales. A decent blockade of a major route for GALACTIC traffic should be hard. A large number the merchants doing bulk transfers might be much bigger than most star dreadnoughts, after all, and a lane needs to accommodate them (yes, I know I am making some assumptions about hyperspace geometry here, but it is supposed to roughly map to realspace).
I don’t know. Certainly a light year across is too large, but I don’t think 100,000 kilometers or so as a ‘tunnel’ of transit is, especially on a major route. And here’s a question, how do ships drop out of hyperspace into a heavily trafficked system, like Kuat or Imperial Center while avoiding collisions?
For heavily traffic systems like Kuat, WEG used a multi-tiered system. The Kuat System had three different transfer points: 1 Passenger, 1 Freight and 1 Imperial Military. Each transfer point had four different destinations assigned to it, two inbound, two outbound. Basically, depending on what you were carrying, you would jump to either of the two inbound systems (passenger or freight), then make the jump to the transfer point (a very large space station), some distance outside of the system proper. Each transfer point would then have another set of four hyperspace routes (two inbound, two outbound) connecting to the Kuat System proper. The transfer points were several light years outside of the system, and all widely dispersed, with a midpoint marked by a hyperspace buoy to keep them all separate. So a ship leaving a transfer point headed in-system would have to jump to the beacon at the mid-point, then jump into the inner system. As such, all ships would arrive and depart on specific vectors, all widely separated from each other.
I’m not sure why a light year would be too large.
We know a planetary gravity well is not of sufficient strength to prevent a ship jumping into and out of orbit, so the star’s gravity well at planetary orbit distance is also not a barrier. Gap between star systems are generally light year distances. Why wouldn’t a clear route be possible through the majority of that gap?
That’s more of a new-canon development, unfortunately. The old canon largely supported the idea that a ship had to travel a certain distance out from a planet or vice versa, but the new canon isn’t bound by that, and is arguably the worse for the lack of continuity.
Some things can still be explained, however; the escape from Jeddha is possible if Cassian first disabled the hyperdrive’s emergency cut-out then executed a blind mini-jump without waiting for the nav-comp to spit out coordinates.
There is evidence in the WEG system to suggest that jumping into hyperspace too close to a gravity well can actually throw a ship slightly off course, which has drastic consequences for the drive’s inertial guidance over the course of the rest of the route. This could be another reason why ships have the emergency cut-out in the first place, to prevent ships from jumping to hyperspace while experiencing conditions that might throw them off course with no way to know it or correct it.
As to a route’s width, a lot is going to depend on how useful you want Interdictors to be. Perhaps instead of lightyears, measure the most heavily traveled routes in AUs, with lesser routes decreasing in diameter based on how often they’re traveled (as relates directly to the amount of flight recorder data the BoSS has o work with when generating route data).
Well, not really new canon. The entire Rebel fleet made an accurate tactical transition into roughly orbital space of a moon with roughly Earth-like gravity in OT, after all.
A certain amount of sensor capability in and out of hyperspace is required I think, even if it’s not of particularly high resolution. Scouting of hyperspace with manned craft for instance suggests that it is possible, and otherwise you’d risk a ludicrously high accident rate with normal traffic that doesn’t really seem to be supported in any kind of canon.
As to route width, I’m on the side of “large” for narrative reasons – single interdictors should not be able to shut down trade to half the damn galaxy by sitting on the Hydian, for instance. If you want galactically important consequences, apply galactically important forces. I am also ok with bottlenecks and wide variation between and within routes, but it shouldn’t be trivial to break these connections.
The fleet was still a fair distance out, though. There’s at least one instance in the new films where a jump occured a lot closer (can’t remember which one exactly).
The rest makes sense. The ultimate problem boils down to how much realism one wishes to incorporate into a universe that has many unrealistic aspects.
It’s not as close as Scarif, but it’s much closer than the Earth is to the Moon, judging by the size of the forest moon in the Falcon’s viewport immediately after re-entry. That’s orbital space, just not low orbit.
Yeah, a lot of it is a narrative issue.
My read of it is that rapid and flexible FTL is one of those trivial and totally taken for granted things in the setting, like manipulation of gravity and artificial intelligence and insane power density. There are various reasons why ships can or cannot go into hyperspace, but once they jump, it’s done and they can be almost anywhere quickly. There’s never anything about we have to take this route or we have to re-orient or connect through here, or we only expect ships to come in predictable directions. Ships can appear anywhere where it’s convenient to the plot. Once a set of realspace coordinates are available ships can go to it and go to it very quickly, no scouting or route updates required, even for very remote or unpopulated places like Kamino or Dagobah or whatever.
I think major restrictions on this kind of free FTL are largely driven by uninspired writers that cannot break free from terrestrial tropes on how wars and travel are done. We don’t necessarily need to be bound by strategic predictability in terms of movement and access and WWII in SPAAACE – this is scifi, after all. The movies have (at least in the Lucas era), avoided most of this shit by treating these technological issues as routine and unworthy of elaboration with valuable screentime. So anything could be made to fit, and therefore you could use interpretations that actually makes some sense in “real world” terms. Midichlorians are a notable exception to this. But the sequels seem to love Trek-style Macguffin of the week type plot elements, and I really hate that.
A fair point. In WWII, after all, there were few physical limitations on direction of travel, apart from “don’t run into that island.” A fleet could sail from, say, San Diego directly to Okinawa without having to stop off at Hawaii first. The real limiting factor was logistical; said fleet wouldn’t make it to Okinawa before they ran out of fuel and dozens of other things.
My main reservation about the combination of sandbox-type hyperspace travel and rapid transit speeds is that it makes it much easier for an established military (Empire) to rapidly shift forces from point-to-point in response to insurgent (Alliance) attacks. I recall reading somewhere that, for the Alliance to be effective, there had to be some sort of delay in the Imperial Navy’s response times: a minimum of an hour or more, even within a sector, and up to days and weeks for response times from further away. Otherwise, the Empire would be able to rapidly bring overwhelming force against any point in the galaxy far faster than the Alliance could complete their own tactical goals and get out of the way. Again, I can’t recall the source, but it stuck with me.
Yeah I mean range and such are totally going to be issues. But strategic mobility in hyperspace to me to allow for quite different logistics from that WWII example – if you have hyper-capable tankers, you can operate anywhere, but your logistical tail is just all that much longer.
I am totally fine with locally relatively inaccessible areas – like maybe the Rothana system sits in the middle of a black hole cluster or dark matter lattice or some other exotic astronomical zone that limited access even to ships with full navigation facilities. But overall, the average point in space is accessible from a large array of vectors, and only data holds you back at all. Good data lets you do more impressive things, or gets you from point A to B faster, but generally data of the “known galaxy” on average is not particularly limiting, at least to major polities.
As for reaction time – I think this is not particularly a factor of hyperdrive and hyperspace mobility’s basic technological characteristics. It’s more based again on data. By that I mean almost everything is relatively rapidly accessible, but humans work a lot slower than the tech they run. There’s a decision loop. A remote system is vulnerable to strikes because if something goes wrong, it takes time to figure out what might be happening, and for centralized command to decide to investigate – especially if electronic warfare is as prevalent as is suspected. Trouble in a frequently patrolled system engaged in a huge amount of trade and communication with other parts of the galactic network will immediately be noticed, and reaction forces sent quickly, or there might just be a garrison actually there to respond immediately. A strike into the Core as opposed to some dirtball outpost is daring for this reason. And most of what the Rebels do really is small so who cares if it fails – they get in, do some damage if they can, or run like hell if they get rumbled. But in any event, even if they lose a few starfighters or freighter-technicals it’s not a strategic blow. The main fleet is never risked (actually possibly hanging out outside the galactic disk) except when things are truly dire (oh shit a Death Star is about to go operational). And even in that example, if the Empire built DS2 in Coruscant orbit protected by the fleet in the Core then the Rebels would’ve died – much much more slowly than had Palpatine’s plan worked, but much much more certainly in a strategic sense. Hubris, and probably the adrenaline junkie personality of the Emperor coming out.
But let’s flip it around a bit. If you could NOT rapidly reinforce, then civilizations can fall quickly, because decapitation strikes and coups de main would be the norm. The Separatists’ gambit at Coruscant would have been successful had the Republic not been able to do things like recall the Open Circle fleet from the distant Rim in tactical, not even strategic, time. And in that case, I would say the lore saying that some secret routes were used was for surprise – not accessibility. It’s a patrolling issue – no one thought a sudden and *rapid* approach from that vector would be possible so it just wasn’t watched, not that a Separatist fleet couldn’t have in theory calculated a slower jump direct to Coruscant from its staging areas using that vector, but one that would’ve given more opportunities for detection because it would’ve passed first through more patrolled areas. And in peacetime almost nothing is heavily patrolled so fleets can stroll in to most places. Corollary to my idea of high mobility is that some degree of warning is required.
Much to grok, but since you mentioned Dark Matter, here’s a theory for you…
What if Dark Matter is actually Hypermatter? As in, what if the reason dark matter is detectable by its gravitic signature alone is because it isn’t physically present in real space, but hyperspace instead? It opens up several interesting possibilities, including dark matter clusters or lattices obstructing hyperspace travel, to the point of actually creating a physical obstacle in hyperspace while not being physically present in real space. It also opens up in-universe scenarios for oil industry analogies, like deep space hypermatter mining platforms siphoning off dense pockets of hypermatter for use as fuel in reactors, or hypermatter super-tankers plying the trade routes from the mining fields to the major population and industry hubs.
Sounds plausible from a navigational viewpoint, and I have no major issues with that. I don’t think anyone can argue that stuff with mass, whatever it is, is an impediment to hyperspace movement. I just don’t think it’s THAT limiting overall to movement, even if there are clear paths that are favored because they are consistently clear.
But I think hypermatter as fuel is supposed to be derived form black holes in some way though. Might be remembering that wrong.
There was some thought put into it over on the Rancor Pit, and the premise suggested was that hypermatter existed in different densities throughout space, with the highest concentrations (and thus, the most suitable for mining operations) occurring in close proximity to high gravity fields such as black holes. So, while it would exist as a near “solid” state in close proximity to high gravity fields, it would take the form of gaseous fields with varying degrees of density everywhere else. It’s conceivable that a hyperdrive includes a form of navigation deflector in hyperspace, protecting the ship from the impact of hypermatter at extreme velocities, and that the navigability of a route shifts in inverse proportion to the hypermatter particle density along the route. This in turn would be another factor in the BoSS flight recorder theory, in that “safe” routes are calculated based on both mass/gravity and hypermatter particle densities (the flight recorder would also record impact frequency during transit).
Tough to say. WEG never committed to a hard range value, instead opting for a more nebulous “Space Unit” value that was mostly for comparative purposes. It’s possible that individual routes have “lanes,” so to speak, in the sense that, depending on direction and speed, craft could be assigned different coordinates that parallel each other without overlapping, much like how interstates are structured with fast and slow lanes going each direction. Imperial Navy pursuit ships in the game are equipped with Hyperwave Signal Interceptors that can get a read on a ship’s trajectory and velocity at the moment they jump into hyperspace. They could then use hyper-comms to signal ahead to a waiting Interdictor, who would crunch the numbers and use gravity wells to block the “Coreward @ Point Four” lane of the hyperspace route in question.
But you can detect ships in hyperspace I believe, if possibly fleetingly and not super accurately. Clone Wars I think. I’m not entirely sure about the other way around, but I believe that is also possible. Then traffic control is much simpler, especially if routine traffic is largely on established inbound and outbound routes. I am fairly certain communications are possible in hyperspace.
I don’t recall that reference, but I don’t pay too close attention to Clone Wars / Rebels anyway; they really dumbed down the SWU AFAIC. I agree that communications in hyperspace are possible, the caveat is that it’s ludicrously expensive, especially for full-up hologram communication in real-time. Smaller messages, like text-only “telegrams” or emails sent burst-style would be much more economical.
It was indeed in “The Clone Wars” where they could detect ships approaching in hyperspace. In one episode a battle droid informs General Grievous that their “long range scanners” picked up hyperspace signatures pointing towards at least 3 cruiser-class (Venators) and four escort-class (Consulars or Arquitens’) vessels closing in to which Grievous responded by ordering his fleet to get ready for battle.
There was also an entire episode centered around a secret CIS listening post with which the Confederacy could spy on Republic fleet movements within at least three sectors.
I can tell you how I’d use it. I’d use it to prevent a fleeing ship from jumping away.
I also might use it to yank a ship out of hyperspace short of a destination, assuming I knew the origin and destination. Example would be laying a trap for a courier far enough away from their destination to make a response force unable to respond. Many unknowns here, and plenty of opportunity for it to go badly (like say, pulling a fleet out of hyperspace or the wrong targets).
It’s a suitably unique enough tool that I’d bet an enterprising mind (Thrawn, etc.) would come up with a great use for it. It’s one of the changes I’d make to a main line Destroyer/Cruiser type – give them the ability to prevent a ship from getting away. Even if it meant disabling all or most of their weapon systems to use it.
Yeah, great stuff here. Somebody should really take these ideas and use them in-universe.
I love this ship and want to use it for a LANCER campaign as a light cruiser — small forward-deployed team doing recon & anti-piracy
So Fractal about this corvette’s hanger doors do they open like the Vigil?
you know something like this?: https://fractalsponge.net/crv2/27.jpg
You know Fractal since both of these customs corvettes don’t have a class name would you give it a class name or not and if so what would you name them?
But are you sure the Customs corvette can carry more than the Vigil even though from the look of it the Vigil’s hanger look bigger than the Customs’s hanger unless the Customs’s hanger have greater depth then the Vigil’s hanger and if so then I understand how it carry more.
Customs: https://fractalsponge.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/milcrv_bottom.jpg
Vigil: https://fractalsponge.net/gallery/Vigil/54.jpg
Ok Fractal I believe you that the customs corvette can carry more fighters than the Vigil now that I look at both the corvettes hangers. And why did i change my mind on you say well because of the duel light turbolasers right next to the hanger more specifically the turbolasers on the customs hanger look smaller than the ones on the Vigil which make the hanger on the customs corvette look bigger than the Vigil’s hanger especially the width between the turbolasers.
So yeah sorry that I underestimate your calculation with the corvettes’s hangers carrying capability.
By away with the customs corvette carrying that many fighters does it make it more of a carrier than the corvette?
Wait I just have another look at the customs corvette hanger and it two guns and it was actually quad heavy laser cannons which are smaller than the light duel turbolasers. But I might still believe you it carry more because the hanger on the customs corvette is wider than the Vigil’s hanger and possibly greater depth or not.
So you said this corvette can carry 3-4 squadrons so then it carry more than the Vigil or does the Vigil also carry 3-4 squadrons?
Vigil carries 1 squadron of TIE/ln or interceptor sized fighters. ~3 squadrons here would be of similar size.
So this corvette is more carrier than corvette right?
So this version of the customs corvette was a straight upgrade and an replacement for the old one yes?
Pretty much. A military use for a civilian/paramilitary hull.
Ah only a replacement for military while the old custom can be use for system patrol or policing cities above right?
The regular Customs Corvette is seen with landing legs. Does the Military Variant have them as well?
The model still has them.
She sits pretty high. When it lands, how would folks get down? Dedicated boarding gate/gantry access? Or ramps, skiffs, repulsor platforms?
Also…. Bump? 😀
Main weaponry is the same as in the Light Customs Corvette? If so, it may be too light to face a full military corvette with capital-type turbolasers, even with fighter support. She would still be a great escort ship.
How many TIEs inside? A full squadron? Has she got tractor beams to handle them?
Should have space for 3-4 squadrons. At this size ship the fighters are more dangerous than most of the ship guns.
Wait what 3-4 SQUADRONS? Even on a 180m ship with that much of it devoted to hangar space that seems like quite a lot. Even a full 12 fighter squadron is somewhat pushing it on maintenance space given that a 500m Gladiator only gets 2 squadrons and a handful of shuttles and it looks to have roughly the same % of it devoted to hangar space.
You know the TIE requires an ~7m cube right? 48 of them (6x8x1) would fit in a 42m x 56m x 7m box in a single layer. Star Wars ships are big, so big that apparently people that write numbers can’t do math. Like the old Executor having 144 fighters thing.
The limit for fighters I think is really due to how many ground vehicles are carried, especially AT-ATs, because the volume requirements for that are huge. You can see the transition – a smaller Venator carries relatively small AT-TEs but hundreds of fighters, but a larger ISD trades most of the fighters to carry 40 AT-ATs (plus the dropships for the AT-ATs). A pure fighter carrier configuration for an ISD would be easily 300+ fighters like a Venator.
Maybe I’m just having a hard time visualizing it, have you made a variant with the hatches open like your Vigil-Class? That would probably help a great deal.
so if that the case then how many Walkers can the ISD carry without fighters?
Probably not too many more. I think walkers (and their dropships) are the limiting element in hangar volume. You’d gain a LOT more fighters by remove the AT-ATs and their dropships, but not so much vice versa.
Huh oh well we got drop ships anyway.
wait sorry I mean assault ships that carry drops ships and walker got mixed up
Speaking of walker if the ISD can carry AT-SPs how many can it have?
Speedy-looking nipper even with that TIE hangar slapped between those mandibles. Got a feeling this sucker would have even less trouble catching CR90s than your average Impstar.