Survivor's Quest and Hyperdrive classes.

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2005-07-15 06:51am

I have just started reading Zahn's Survivor's Quest and in the first couple of chapter's Parck makes a comment "Assuming your craft can make 0.3 past light" and later it's stated Jade Sabre is much fater than that.

This puzzled me as I thought the rationisation for "0.5 past lightspeed" was that the Falcon had a class 0.5 hyperdrive and the lower the hyperdrive class the faster the ship. This would mean '0.3 past lightspeed' would make the Sabre much faster than the Falcon.

So I thought that possibly the 0.3 past quote mean it would be a class 0.7 (0.3 fast than a class 1 drive) but this theory doesn't jive with a Rogue squadron where Mirax Terrik says the Pulsar Skate can push 0.6 past lightspeed which was lower than the Falcon, yet would translate to a class 0.4 drive if my theory were true.

So does anyone have any ideas how to resolve the issue?

McC · Post by **McC** » 2005-07-15 07:48am

Zahn has always used a 'higher number = faster' system, ever since Heir to the Empire. *shrug* Just one of his quirks.

Lex · Post by **Lex** » 2005-07-15 08:02am

Parck was in Suvivors Quest? What happened to him?

(a lil of topic, i know)

Captain tycho · Post by **Captain tycho** » 2005-07-15 08:27am

Maybe there are different measurement systems of hyperdrive speed? Sort of like the metric system versus the US system. In a galaxy spanning civilization, it's not that hard to imagine.

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2005-07-15 12:04pm

I always wondered whether theZahn version might be analogous to acceleration per unit energy expended.....

Cykeisme · Post by **Cykeisme** » 2005-07-16 12:19am

Hmm.. so a lower class hyperdrive would be faster, because it's more efficient at getting rid of kinetic energy (which translates to higher speed for tachyonic bodies)?

PainRack · Post by **PainRack** » 2005-07-16 01:27am

Cykeisme wrote:Hmm.. so a lower class hyperdrive would be faster, because it's more efficient at getting rid of kinetic energy (which translates to higher speed for tachyonic bodies)?

I don't know about the science.

Honestly, it was an idle thought I was playing around with a few years ago, wondering whether the two difference in models could be rationalised not as a single speed indicator, but rather, as two different models, perhaps dictating acceleration vs horsepower. So, perhaps WEG model is something along the lines of ship mass over horsepower but Zahn model was akin to fuel ingested per acceleration.

Anyway, Zahn model key difference from WEG is that whereas WEG is used as a fixed speed/acceleration model, Zahn appears to measure speed and isn't fixed. The VSD carrying Mara was depicted to be traveling at either .3, or even .4 speeds.

Kenoshi · Post by **Kenoshi** » 2005-07-16 02:46am

Cykeisme wrote:Hmm.. so a lower class hyperdrive would be faster, because it's more efficient at getting rid of kinetic energy (which translates to higher speed for tachyonic bodies)?

The way that the rating is handled in the RPG books is that there is a base speed for getting from point A to point B in hyperspace, and the rating is multiplied by the base time to reflect the actual travel time. Thus a ship with a lower multiplier travels a given distance in a shorter time than a ship with a higher multiplier. I don't know if that actually applies outside the RPG.