Hyperspace Mapping

[Knife]

Adding to what's already been said, the EU "hyperlanes" idea doesn't make sense anyway, because the distribution of matter (and features) should be uniform enough that you wouldn't have a less congested "lane" leading all the way from the core to the rim.

The "Corellian Trade Spine" and such are probably just a routes that happen to have several important stops along the way.

That is my take on it. Considering the amount of galactic trade (due to the speed of hyperdrives, I'm sure) and planet spanning cities needed massive amounts of supplies to funciton, I'm sure 'regular' trade routes from various importent planets reflect these *hyperlanes* than actual lanes for travel.

Although the thought that saftey may be a part of it too makes sense. Travel well known routes and if you don't show up at the destination, rescue craft (Coast Guard ) has a good idea of where to start looking.

[General Deathdealer]

Adding to what's already been said, the EU "hyperlanes" idea doesn't make sense anyway, because the distribution of matter (and features) should be uniform enough that you wouldn't have a less congested "lane" leading all the way from the core to the rim.

The "Corellian Trade Spine" and such are probably just a routes that happen to have several important stops along the way.

That is my take on it. Considering the amount of galactic trade (due to the speed of hyperdrives, I'm sure) and planet spanning cities needed massive amounts of supplies to funciton, I'm sure 'regular' trade routes from various importent planets reflect these *hyperlanes* than actual lanes for travel.

Although the thought that saftey may be a part of it too makes sense. Travel well known routes and if you don't show up at the destination, rescue craft (Coast Guard ) has a good idea of where to start looking.

I don't think it is a matter of how good their computers are. It is probably a matter of making sure the hyperspace lanes are good to go. Just because you have the info in the computer to get from point A to point B, you still want to know if the route is good. You would want to make sure the road to were you are going is a nice 4 lane hiway instead of some crappy-ass goat trail. They will still get you to your destination, but the goat trail is not going to be as fast or as nice.

[General Deathdealer]

Another thing I thought of when I was thinking of the goat trail hyperspace lane was asteroids. How do ships in hyperspace deal with asteroids in their path? Are the asteroids even there in hyperspace? I know that in ANH when the Falcon comes out of hyperspace where Alderaan should have been, it come out at the edge of the debris field. What would have happened if they had come out of hyperspace in the middle of the debris field?

[Seydlitz_k]

Adding to what's already been said, the EU "hyperlanes" idea doesn't make sense anyway, because the distribution of matter (and features) should be uniform enough that you wouldn't have a less congested "lane" leading all the way from the core to the rim.

The "Corellian Trade Spine" and such are probably just a routes that happen to have several important stops along the way.

That is my take on it. Considering the amount of galactic trade (due to the speed of hyperdrives, I'm sure) and planet spanning cities needed massive amounts of supplies to funciton, I'm sure 'regular' trade routes from various importent planets reflect these *hyperlanes* than actual lanes for travel.

Although the thought that saftey may be a part of it too makes sense. Travel well known routes and if you don't show up at the destination, rescue craft (Coast Guard ) has a good idea of where to start looking.

I don't think it is a matter of how good their computers are. It is probably a matter of making sure the hyperspace lanes are good to go. Just because you have the info in the computer to get from point A to point B, you still want to know if the route is good. You would want to make sure the road to were you are going is a nice 4 lane hiway instead of some crappy-ass goat trail. They will still get you to your destination, but the goat trail is not going to be as fast or as nice.

Who's to say the computer dosn't take this into it's calculations as well? I mean, these guys have been running around hyperspace for 25, 000 years. They would most likely have computers capable of performing, like zillions of quadrillions calculations per second or something like that (THe latest Graphics cards have the ability to perform billions of calculations ber second, for comparison. And the AGEIA Physics proccesor can track the movement of 10,000 objects with real world physcis laws applied to each of them. The PS3 CELL processor can do something similair as well. And this is just gaming technology!). We already have computer that can make full scale simulations of Galaxies and Galactic collisions, and in the past 20 years just home computers have gone from speeds of only a few herts to various Gigahertz. And they've also gone from taking up huge rooms, to sitting in boxes that fit snugly under your desk or even on your lap!

I don't think we could even comprehend the calculating power of Star Wars computers. They probably have the calculating power to plot a course taking into account the positions of every single asteroid in the sector or Rogue planets, whatever.

Oh, and actual Asteroid fields are much less dense than the ones in Star Wars. In the Asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter, if you were standing on one Asteroid, you wouldn't even be able to see it's closest neighbor in most cases. The chances of a ship actually hitting an Asteroid while going through Hyperspace are millions to one.

[General Deathdealer]

What Seydlitz-k said is exactly why they would have to map out the hyperspace lanes. I am sure the calculating power of their computers is beyond imagine, but they would still need to know where all of those objects in space where to be able to plot a course around them. No matter how much calculating power a computer had, it could not avoid the asteroid if it did not know it was there.
I am not saying the computers could not plot the route by themselves, they just need to know where all of the potholes in the road are so they can avoid them.

[Spartan]

General Deathdealer wrote:

Another thing I thought of when I was thinking of the goat trail hyperspace lane was asteroids. How do ships in hyperspace deal with asteroids in their path?

Asteroids and other small celestial bodies which would number in the quadrillions are not apart of hyperdrive calculations. The emergency cutoff of the hyperdrive deals with unknown objects in a vessels path. However we have canon film and novel evidence of the cutoff is not a sure thing.

Are the asteroids even there in hyperspace? I know that in ANH when the Falcon comes out of hyperspace where Alderaan should have been, it come out at the edge of the debris field. What would have happened if they had come out of hyperspace in the middle of the debris field?

In ANH the Millinieum Falcon did existed hyperspace in the center of Alderan's debris field, one planetary diameter from where the planet was supposed to be. The Falcon was then hit by relativistic asteroids that exploded against the shields like nuclear bombs, be for Solo could slow to a relative stop with respect to Alderan's former location. The only thing that saved them was than Han always exited hyperspace with the shields up. The emergency hyperdrive cutoff did not trigger, and Solo did not know abot the field until they were at sublight. So, clearly this is a lower limit to what will trigger the emergency cutoff.

Hyperspace is not an alternate dimension it is the normal universe seen from the perspective of a tachyon. Anything that you run into at slower-than-light speeds, you can hit catastrophically at faster than light speeds. Indeed their is a SW CCG card that show an x-wing in hyperspace colliding with an asteroid.

[Cykeisme]

Although the hyperdrive cutoff didn't detect the debris field, it's worth nothing that it doesn't matter, because the debris field would not have affected the Falcon, if it had not deliberately exited hyperspace (as set by the programmed jump route).

The Falcon could have zipped straight through the debris in hyperspace and it would not have been affected. Therefore, regardless of whether it's capable of it, there was no reason for the cutoff to even be designed or set to drop out of hyperspace for such an obstacle.

[Spartan]

Seydlitz_k wrote:

Who's to say the computer dosn't take this into it's calculations as well? I mean, these guys have been running around hyperspace for 25, 000 years. They would most likely have computers capable of performing, like zillions of quadrillions calculations per second or something like that (THe latest Graphics cards have the ability to perform billions of calculations ber second, for comparison. And the AGEIA Physics proccesor can track the movement of 10,000 objects with real world physcis laws applied to each of them. The PS3 CELL processor can do something similair as well. And this is just gaming technology!). We already have computer that can make full scale simulations of Galaxies and Galactic collisions, and in the past 20 years just home computers have gone from speeds of only a few herts to various Gigahertz. And they've also gone from taking up huge rooms, to sitting in boxes that fit snugly under your desk or even on your lap!

I don't think we could even comprehend the calculating power of Star Wars computers. They probably have the calculating power to plot a course taking into account the positions of every single asteroid in the sector or Rogue planets, whatever.

The system you describe would be really be necessary. The fact that space is vast and mostly empty limits the problem a great deal. Simple telescopes of various EM types can pinpot the locations of any stellar bodies. The navicomputer only needs to plot a course along a very narrow corridor to your destination, so the number of variables are finite.

Where the calculations get tricky is that the motions that you are trying to predict in three dimensions, and can vary due to gravitation interaction with other bodies. Much like inertial navigation systems your calculation will get stuffed pretty quickly if you can update you data with without onboard or remote sensing. We don't live in Newton's clockwork universe afterall. But assuming your getting updates from the Sector or Galactic hyperlane sytem, it shouldn't be a problem. It makes more sense to me for the "hyperlanes" to be a system of beacons, similar to thoughs in Tales of the Jedi.

Regardless for most of any hyperspace journey your would be far from virtually all significantly massive bodies. Only when you appraoch your a stellar body or planetary system doe you run any real risk of collision. Starships generally exit hyperspace well outside their target star system. But well within the capabilities of hyperwave sensors that have a range of several light days.

[Spartan]

Cykeisme wrote:

Although the hyperdrive cutoff didn't detect the debris field, it's worth nothing that it doesn't matter, because the debris field would not have affected the Falcon, if it had not deliberately exited hyperspace (as set by the programmed jump route).

How do you figure? The ANH novelization explicitly states that the only reason they weren't killed was that Solo hadn't raised his shields before he exited hyperspace. Obviously, if the planet is not your destination you won't hit its debris field, as you should never be anywhere near it in the first place.

The Falcon could have zipped straight through the debris in hyperspace and it would not have been affected. Therefore, regardless of whether it's capable of it, there was no reason for the cutoff to even be designed or set to drop out of hyperspace for such an obstacle.

If the debris field is diffuse enough sure. There is still the off chance that you could have a 30 m asteroid directly in your path, and you hyperdrive cuttoff won't trip. The point is that the Falcon was in danger and it supposed safety system did not work. Now you could argue that the cutoff is slaved to the shields or something funky like that. But if the systems that sophisticated it's sure funny that Han and Chewie didn't know see it coming.

Then again is might just be that the Falcon is a bucket of junk!

[General Deathdealer]

Even though the Falcon could have blown through the asteroid field (with a small percentage of danger), the computer still would have plotted a course around the field if it had known about it. Thus the reason for the hyperspace lane survey. At least you would know about the asteroid feilds so you could go around them, instead of chancing that you would make it safely through them without hitting a big enough object (Except for the ones caused by test fires from the Death Star ).

[Spartan]

Except that their was no small percentage of danger in that case. If you not as caution as Han Solo, you'd be dead! Theirs also the fact that the Alderan debris field is far more dense than a common asteroid field, which you shouldn't be flying through at millions of times c anyway.