Interesting point: They have to do "baby jumps" in hyperspace to the edge of scanner range to track down the Hybrid. Matheson's comments indicate that its very difficult to track a ship in realspace from hyperspace (if not impossible) to pinpoint it. This may indiicate that the younger races have difficutly targeting ships from hyperspace for "jump point" tactics without having some sort of predetermined point to rely on (and why they have to lure opponents into a fixed position.)INT. EXCALIBUR - BRIDGE
We PAN to FIND Gideon in the command chair, Matheson nearby.
GIDEON
What’s our current speed?
MATHESON
Point seven five percent of light speed. We can’t go any faster than that in normal space.
GIDEON
Assuming they have the same limits we do, the laws of physics being what they are, their maximum speed should be roughly the same as ours.
MATHESON
Correct. And they have a two day head start. So unless something happened along the way to slow them down, catching up is going to be difficult. And if we jump to Hyperspace, we could flash right past them, lose them altogether.
GIDEON
Not necessarily. We don’t have to jump light years at a time. Set the jump engines to the maximum distance the scanners can cover. We’ll scan the distance in between, then jump to the furthest perimeter, do another scan, then jump again to the next perimeter, on and on until we find her. It means taking baby steps with the jump engines, but we’ll cover more terrain faster than staying in normal space the whole time.
Interesting point: Infers effective scanner range against a target similar to the hybrid's signature (ie - size, stealth/EW issues, emissions, etc.) may be less than systemary distances - hard to pin down any definite estimates I think, yet the fact its clearly still visible, in the background relative to the excalibur, so that its unlikely to be TREMENDOUSLY distant, either.MATHESON
That’s going to put a hell of a strain on the jump engines, Captain. We could burn them out. Even if that doesn’t happen, we’ll still have to divert most of our power to the engines just to keep going.
GIDEON
Then do so. Plot a course solution and implement. Just leave enough power for gravity control and life support.
MATHESON
Aye, sir.
(to navigation)
Navigation, maintain course and heading. On command, jump to edge of scanner range.
NAVIGATION
Standing by, jump engines on line.
GIDEON
Jump.
EXT. EXCALIBUR - SPACE
Shooting PAST IT toward where a red planet is visible in front of the Excalibur in the far distant BG. A jump point opens, and the Excalibur jumps to
INT. EXCALIBUR - HYPERSPACE
The Excalibur finishes the jump, coming TOWARD CAMERA. It PASSES CAMERA and goes forward just a bit, then another jump point opens, showing normal space in front of the Excalibur.
EXT. EXCALIBUR - SPACE
As it jumps out, coming toward CAMERA. In the distant BG, the red planet we saw a moment ago far in front of the Excalibur is now far behind it.
Again, this is not an absolute sensor range, but rather an effective one against a particular target or type of targets (at worst, it applies to capital ships alone.)
The fact the Black Star could not track/locate the EA fleet itself from hyperspace and required the flyer to lure them in supports this (as does what I posted above.) 