StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Using star wars tech, is it possible to build a gun that shoots projectiles at hyperdrive speeds?

I'm sure a slug-thrower spittin' stuff out at 1.5 million c would devastate a cap ship or a planetary surface.

Ever heard of the Galaxy Gun?

Question is, how get the projectiles out of hyperspace at their target?

Enola Straight wrote:Using star wars tech, is it possible to build a gun that shoots projectiles at hyperdrive speeds?
I'm sure a slug-thrower spittin' stuff out at 1.5 million c would devastate a cap ship or a planetary surface.

Why? All those nifty natural laws that make high-speed bullets 0wn low-speed bullets sort of break down when you go over c. For all we know it would do less damage than a thrown rock.
@ nightmare: The Galaxy gun isn't a KE weapon.
@ Fteik: If they come out of hyperspace that sort of nixes the supposed advantage of going FTL in the first place...

Hyperdrives are expensive, and take up space. Furthermore, it's EXTREMELY difficult to aim an object traveling through hyperspace at specific ships, or even specific parts of a battle zone. Grand Admiral Thrawn used Interdictors to surprise opponents by pulling ships out at critical areas, and this was considered an innovative tactic. Why bother with this overcomplicated crap when you can just shoot something with teraton-level turbolasers?

Batman wrote:@ nightmare: The Galaxy gun isn't a KE weapon.

Of course not. To make the kind of weapon the OP is suggesting, you would need an inside-out hyperdrive. Exiting might be a problem...

FTeik wrote:Question is, how get the projectiles out of hyperspace at their target?

hyperspatial objects still interact with realspace destructively, that's been canon since the first movie. (And if its true one way, its true the other way.)

Only if the projectiles contain a hyperdrive. The Empire experimented with this, as revealed in the Black Fleet Crisis books, and the conclusion was that hyperspace was like a 'magic door' - when 'in' 'hyperspace' there is only one way out - requiring a hyperdrive to act as the key. Galaxy gun missiles, of course, contain a hyperdrive that lets them get out again, but enginneering an FTL collision that does serious damage to the STL target seems impossible.

NecronLord wrote:enginneering an FTL collision that does serious damage to the STL target seems impossible.

Like Connor said, it should work both ways. But it doesn't seem to. Hyperspace pulsemass generators were made specifically to harm ships in hyperspace. Also, these "spheres of hyperenergy" they shoot out doesn't affect ships in realspace.

nightmare wrote:Like Connor said, it should work both ways. But it doesn't seem to. Hyperspace pulsemass generators were made specifically to harm ships in hyperspace. Also, these "spheres of hyperenergy" they shoot out doesn't affect ships in realspace.

Quite. Although one can collide with stars and things, Coruscant has yet to asplode when someone's hyperdrive fails to pull them out in time.

Jim Raynor wrote: Why bother with this overcomplicated crap when you can just shoot something with teraton-level turbolasers?

With hyperdrive-powered projectiles, you could shoot at a planet/capital ship from much farther distances than you could with turbolasers.

That is if you could figure out how to get them out of hyperspace and to keep the actual projectile from breaking up. I think it would be a very useful weapon, at least for bombarding planets.

Connor MacLeod wrote:

FTeik wrote:Question is, how get the projectiles out of hyperspace at their target?

hyperspatial objects still interact with realspace destructively, that's been canon since the first movie. (And if its true one way, its true the other way.)

Sorry, i had especially the GalaxyGun in mind when asking the question. If the projectile has its own hyperdrive, what do you need the huge launch-platform for?

Cos Dashit wrote: With hyperdrive-powered projectiles, you could shoot at a planet/capital ship from much farther distances than you could with turbolasers.
That is if you could figure out how to get them out of hyperspace

Put a hyperdrive on them?

and to keep the actual projectile from breaking up.

Huh?

I think it would be a very useful weapon, at least for bombarding planets.

I doubt it. Getting out of hyperspace with the kind of accuracy needed for planetary bombardment seems to be nigh impossible.
As for the 'damage must go both ways' argument-why?
1. The destruction of the ship might simply be due to it having a hyperdrive and hyperdrives going 'kablooie' too close to a large enough mass
2. Even assuming the damage applies equally both ways, the energy needed to completely vaporize (which isn't neccessary, even much less damage can effectively 'destroy' a ship), say, an X-Wing isn't going to faze a capital ship much, leave alone a planetary shield. So, how big do we want to make those missiles?

Cos Dashit wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote: Why bother with this overcomplicated crap when you can just shoot something with teraton-level turbolasers?

With hyperdrive-powered projectiles, you could shoot at a planet/capital ship from much farther distances than you could with turbolasers.

Interdictors would negate this, wouldn't they ?
Besides, a tachyonic projectile yielding sufficient KE to be worth firing will have a velocity just above lightspeed, which means plenty of time to trigger countermeasures.

NecronLord wrote:
Quite. Although one can collide with stars and things, Coruscant has yet to asplode when someone's hyperdrive fails to pull them out in time.

Indeed, if it was so simple as to simply ram something while in hyperspace, then Star Wars civilization would be quickly devastated by terrorist attacks. More likely, the ‘mass shadow’ planets and stars put into hyperspace is what destroys ships, not an actual impact.

Sea Skimmer wrote:Indeed, if it was so simple as to simply ram something while in hyperspace, then Star Wars civilization would be quickly devastated by terrorist attacks. More likely, the ‘mass shadow’ planets and stars put into hyperspace is what destroys ships, not an actual impact.

Suddenly I remember the idea that trans-luminal velocities result in a lowering actual momentum. Maybe when they hit something at hyperspeed, they lose all the remaining momentum, and bounce off it at infinite speed.

Bear in midn that the 'tachyonic" hyperspace theory for hyperdrive differs from the WEG-inspired "alternate dimension" definition for hyperdrive (the latter is most notable due to examples such as hyperdrives dumping starships in other dimensions like "Otherspace" with the Charon.)

The latter also seems to be connected with things like the "hyperspace wormholes" you've heard about. Or Gree "hyper gates".

I'm not really quite sure how "mass shadows" can blow things up, since they are AFAIK only gravitational phenomenon, not physical objects (which is what Han was referring to in ANH as hyperspace navigational hazards.)

And let's not forget that physical objects and shields can block FTL transmissions (hyperawave, tachyons, subspace.) as well.

There's also the bit from the Lando Calrissian novels as well as IIRC the more recent "Dark Nest' books (the second one IIRC) where hyperspatial interaction with realspace objects is dangerous (fatal) and can even create "drag".

Consevation laws should dictate that the mass/energy and momentum of collisions between realspace and hyperspace objects, I think, should also transfer, although the mechanism by which this occurs is not known to me.

Sea Skimmer wrote:

NecronLord wrote:
Quite. Although one can collide with stars and things, Coruscant has yet to asplode when someone's hyperdrive fails to pull them out in time.

Indeed, if it was so simple as to simply ram something while in hyperspace, then Star Wars civilization would be quickly devastated by terrorist attacks. More likely, the ‘mass shadow’ planets and stars put into hyperspace is what destroys ships, not an actual impact.

Use of interdiction technologies might help limit it. FTL detection of hyperspatial objects would be another factor (I recall some arguments for the ability to detect objects in hyperspace, although I can't remember precisely where. ANH or TESB I think.)

Jim Raynor wrote:Hyperdrives are expensive, and take up space. Furthermore, it's EXTREMELY difficult to aim an object traveling through hyperspace at specific ships, or even specific parts of a battle zone. Grand Admiral Thrawn used Interdictors to surprise opponents by pulling ships out at critical areas, and this was considered an innovative tactic. Why bother with this overcomplicated crap when you can just shoot something with teraton-level turbolasers?

You can fit hyperdrives (even short or one-use ones) into something not much bigger than a man (Bounty Hunter Trilogy: mandalorian armor, and SOTE both had very compact, small, FTL capable messenger drones.) And even then for combat you don't really need exceptionally huge FTL velocities to be effective over short distances (even a few tens of thousands times c would be effective.)

What about the ever lovely Centerpoint Station. Whilst not a weapon per se, it proved very effective against the Vong and at causing stars to go nova.

Mr CorSec wrote:What about the ever lovely Centerpoint Station. Whilst not a weapon per se, it proved very effective against the Vong and at causing stars to go nova.

Not a projectile weapon.

Just going to stick my toe in, but out on Saxton's site, he talks about when the Executor was hit by 3 destroyers or light cruisers that dropped out of hyperspace right into its shields. The Executor came through unscathed, but its shields were down for some time, but in the big picture, it was fine. If the Executor can be hit but 3 ships that are a mile long each, what would it take to achieve the same on a Star Destroyer, 2 or 3 corvette sized ships? If so, why do that instead of use turbolasers?

Executor's Sheilds

Hyperspace cannons were actually the first mode of FTL transportation in the galaxy. Apparently they somehow shot vessels into hyperspace along a specific route, and at the destination were dragged out of hyperspace by some kind of receiver. So it would appear that it is possible to accellerate objects into hyperspace without them carrying an onboard hyperdrive.

a Grav well or Mass shadow generators (assuming they're not the same thing with a different name) would a relatively easy way to counter any weapons that use hyperspace.

FTeik wrote:

Connor MacLeod wrote:

FTeik wrote:Question is, how get the projectiles out of hyperspace at their target?

hyperspatial objects still interact with realspace destructively, that's been canon since the first movie. (And if its true one way, its true the other way.)

Sorry, i had especially the GalaxyGun in mind when asking the question. If the projectile has its own hyperdrive, what do you need the huge launch-platform for?

Personally I think the ~6500 m long GG is a missile construction facility; there seems to be no other use for it.

000 wrote:Hyperspace cannons were actually the first mode of FTL transportation in the galaxy. Apparently they somehow shot vessels into hyperspace along a specific route, and at the destination were dragged out of hyperspace by some kind of receiver. So it would appear that it is possible to accellerate objects into hyperspace without them carrying an onboard hyperdrive.

Much like Gree Hypergates, but it would still take some kind of intelligent projectiles, and then you're back to GG missiles.

Lord Revan wrote:a Grav well or Mass shadow generators (assuming they're not the same thing with a different name) would a relatively easy way to counter any weapons that use hyperspace.

No. Hyperdrives cut out for safety reasons, remember? One could skip that when an impact is intended rather than avoided.