Hyperdrive Question

[Gustav32Vasa]

Why then is it impossible to jump while in a Interdictors field?

Because the kill switch is automatic, and it takes time to override it?

How many times have the heroes been trapped in a Interdictor field and no one has tried overriding the safties?

[Surlethe]

How many times have the heroes been trapped in a Interdictor field and no one has tried overriding the safties?

I don't know. You tell me.

[Darth Tanner]

Surely groups who would want to avoid interdictors, pirates and rebels would be able to modify their navigation computers to simply override their safety cut out at the press of a button unless the design of the computer was specifically designed to prevent people doing that, government legislation perhaps, but even then rebels have access to considerable technical expertise and should be able to override an inbuilt programing control, not to mention organizations such as Black Sun who have the time and money to simply build a navigation computer from scratch without the safety procedures hardwired into it.

If this was possible it would relegate interdictor ships to simply pulling people out of hyperspace and then quickly either destroying or disabling target craft with ion cannons or a tractor beam, Interdictors would not be able to stop some one actually going to hyperspace once the target craft realizes the gravity well is just a interdictor and not a planet.

From memory however the majority of times a interdictor has been used has been to drag people out of hyperspace for this purpose.

X-Wing series - a pilot is dragged out of hyperspace and then immediatly engaged by Ties.
Thrawn trilogy - Luke is dragged out and then captured with a tractor beam

However also in the Thrawn trilogy the Wild Karrade is hiding behind an asteroid when the interdicor jumps in system and then has to race to activate its hyperdrive before the intedictor can power up its gravity wells. If the Wild Karrade, an advanced smuggler ship, can't simply turn off its safety cut outs then I find it doubtful that it is actually possible.

[Noble Ire]

Imperial Interdictors do not generate illusionary mass shadows; they generate real ones, or at least some variation there of. The Battle of Ithor during the NJO, in which a Yuuzhan Vong dreadnought is trapped by such a ship, demonstrates that interdictors can actually supplement the gravitational influence of a planetary body.

[Darth Tanner]

But gravity shadows have been shown to not stop people going to hyperspace, its simply a safety cut out in that under normal circumstances a grav shadow indicates your about to smack into a planet, with interdictors thats not true so there is no reason not to simply override the safety cut off to get away. The danger of hitting something else on your way out is minimal if you already had the course plotted or if you simply do a short jump to get away from the interdictor or its escorts. Also any danger is outweighed by the fact that your alternative is to be arrested or destroyed.

And do the Vong use hyperspace? I have only read a few of the NJO books but I thought they used some form of long range tractor to pull themselves towards gravity wells like planets and such.

[Noble Ire]

But gravity shadows have been shown to not stop people going to hyperspace, its simply a safety cut out in that under normal circumstances a grav shadow indicates your about to smack into a planet, with interdictors thats not true so there is no reason not to simply override the safety cut off to get away. The danger of hitting something else on your way out is minimal if you already had the course plotted or if you simply do a short jump to get away from the interdictor or its escorts. Also any danger is outweighed by the fact that your alternative is to be arrested or destroyed.

Interdictor ships have also been used on numerous occasions to "bottle up" star systems during battles to prevent starships from escaping, just as starships generally exit the immediate orbit of planets before going into hyperspace (admittedly, some have jumped while close to natural gravity wells, but it is noted as being an extremely dangerous procedure). Nevertheless, it is possible that the effect of interdictor technology is different from that of a normal mass shadow; perhaps the effect is more powerful, and physically impedes the operation of hyperdrive in the way that a planet's gravity would not.

And do the Vong use hyperspace? I have only read a few of the NJO books but I thought they used some form of long range tractor to pull themselves towards gravity wells like planets and such.

I believe that they still travel through hyperspace (they call it darkspace or something); Vong ships simply use Dovin Bassals to enter it rather than mechanical drives. They also employ their own interdictors that function exactly like their Imperial and Alliance counterparts.

[Darth Yoshi]

The Wilde Karrde was powered down when Thrawn called in the Interdictor. That's why there was a delay.

But gravity shadows have been shown to not stop people going to hyperspace, its simply a safety cut out in that under normal circumstances a grav shadow indicates your about to smack into a planet, with interdictors thats not true so there is no reason not to simply override the safety cut off to get away. The danger of hitting something else on your way out is minimal if you already had the course plotted or if you simply do a short jump to get away from the interdictor or its escorts. Also any danger is outweighed by the fact that your alternative is to be arrested or destroyed.

And do the Vong use hyperspace? I have only read a few of the NJO books but I thought they used some form of long range tractor to pull themselves towards gravity wells like planets and such.

The Vong are capable of entering hyperspace. Don't remember how, though.

[AidanMcfay]

My understanding of Hyperspace has grown Immensely. I have been using the model I understood that interdictors keep ships from leaving, when actualy its just been writer's either not fully explaining or using them in a way to make it seem like hyperspace is impossible in a gravity well.

[Knife]

Interdictors could be using a dual use, first the mass shadow to trip your kill switch, then the gravity wells as a sort of large scale tractor beam.

As far as disabling your kill switch, in small ships like fighters it may not really be realistic to run a bypass if the kill switch is built directly into the hyperdrive itself rather than the nav computer. For larger ships it may be possible yet not easy, I don't know. However keep in mind that it also takes time to compute jump coordinates too. Once you're yanked out by a mass shadow, and you did overide the kill switch, you'd still have to get the jump data from the nav computer for a new jump.

[fusion]

Interdictors could be using a dual use, first the mass shadow to trip your kill switch, then the gravity wells as a sort of large scale tractor beam.

As far as disabling your kill switch, in small ships like fighters it may not really be realistic to run a bypass if the kill switch is built directly into the hyperdrive itself rather than the nav computer. For larger ships it may be possible yet not easy, I don't know. However keep in mind that it also takes time to compute jump coordinates too. Once you're yanked out by a mass shadow, and you did overide the kill switch, you'd still have to get the jump data from the nav computer for a new jump.

I agree with knife more or less, but I thought in addition, interdictor fields are some sort of tractor field that pull things from hyperspace and draged them backout into real space, which also slows them down in real space

[Ritterin Sophia]

Once you're yanked out by a mass shadow, and you did overide the kill switch, you'd still have to get the jump data from the nav computer for a new jump.

You also need to take more care in your calculations, mistakes could cause you to be paste right into the Imperial Palace.

[Batman]

Once you're yanked out by a mass shadow, and you did overide the kill switch, you'd still have to get the jump data from the nav computer for a new jump.

You also need to take more care in your calculations, mistakes could cause you to be paste right into the Imperial Palace.

Why? Do a blind half-lighthour or so jump straight ahead. Space is majorly, majorly EMPTY. Jump out of your current mess blind, THEN take the time to calculate a serious jump.

[Knife]

Once you're yanked out by a mass shadow, and you did overide the kill switch, you'd still have to get the jump data from the nav computer for a new jump.

You also need to take more care in your calculations, mistakes could cause you to be paste right into the Imperial Palace.

Why? Do a blind half-lighthour or so jump straight ahead. Space is majorly, majorly EMPTY. Jump out of your current mess blind, THEN take the time to calculate a serious jump.

Micro jump?

[Batman]

You also need to take more care in your calculations, mistakes could cause you to be paste right into the Imperial Palace.

Why? Do a blind half-lighthour or so jump straight ahead. Space is majorly, majorly EMPTY. Jump out of your current mess blind, THEN take the time to calculate a serious jump.

Micro jump?

So? Microjumps are a bitch to COORDINATE. I can't recall anything about them being hard leave alone impossible in and of themselves.

[Knife]

So? Microjumps are a bitch to COORDINATE. I can't recall anything about them being hard leave alone impossible in and of themselves.

Throttle back killer, just simplifying and asking.

[Stark]

A half-lighthour sounds well within the FTL sensor ranges of SW ships (doesn't the ISD have 25ly or 100ly or whatever?) so it wouldn't work: they'd have ships following them. You'd need to be able to jump far enough to actually have a safe window to recalculate - although I have no idea how long that usually takes.

[Batman]

So? Microjumps are a bitch to COORDINATE. I can't recall anything about them being hard leave alone impossible in and of themselves.

Throttle back killer, just simplifying and asking.

I apologize, I obviously went overboard. You're right of course but I've seen the 'microjumps=IMPOSSIBLE' simplification once too often I guess.

[Batman]

A half-lighthour sounds well within the FTL sensor ranges of SW ships (doesn't the ISD have 25ly or 100ly or whatever?) so it wouldn't work: they'd have ships following them.

Once they FIND them. They (presumably) CAN detect ships that far out. That does not mean they'll do so in any reasonable timeframe.
(Plus, any ship jumping after them faces the same problem a coordinated microjump strike-group does: They can't rely on coming out of stardrive close enough to the pursued vessel for it to matter).
Especially as 'reasonable timeframe' apparently means a matter of minutes.

You'd need to be able to jump far enough to actually have a safe window to recalculate - although I have no idea how long that usually takes.

See above. Just because they CAN see you out this far (which is not a given) doesn't mean they WILL in time for it to matter.

[Magus]

Just a thought - if one programmed an empty X-wing to make a hyperspace jump directed at the first Death Star, and overrode the automatic interdictor kill-switch, wouldn't the 1.1+ teranewtons of force be enough to destroy the thing?

I got 1.1 teranewtons from a very rough estimate based on an X-wing mass of at least 4 metric tons and a minimum speed of C. I did not take into account the crazy things that FTL travel does to newtonian physics, but I can't imagine the force would decrease.

[Batman]

Just a thought - if one programmed an empty X-wing to make a hyperspace jump directed at the first Death Star, and overrode the automatic interdictor kill-switch, wouldn't the 1.1+ teranewtons of force be enough to destroy the thing?

1. No. Not by a long shot.

I got 1.1 teranewtons from a very rough estimate based on an X-wing mass of at least 4 metric tons and a minimum speed of C. I did not take into account the crazy things that FTL travel does to newtonian physics, but I can't imagine the force would decrease.

2.Yes it would. Newsflash-Newtonian physics do NOT apply to tachyonic events.

[Stark]

Once they FIND them. They (presumably) CAN detect ships that far out. That does not mean they'll do so in any reasonable timeframe.
(Plus, any ship jumping after them faces the same problem a coordinated microjump strike-group does: They can't rely on coming out of stardrive close enough to the pursued vessel for it to matter).
Especially as 'reasonable timeframe' apparently means a matter of minutes.

Eh? They can see at at very least cross-systems in realtime, and they saw you leave. Why would it be difficult to find them? Indeed, at a half-lightminute as you originally suggested, they're a spitting distance away and I'd be very surprised if they didn't find the ship almost immediately.

[Marko Dash]

Just a thought - if one programmed an empty X-wing to make a hyperspace jump directed at the first Death Star, and overrode the automatic interdictor kill-switch, wouldn't the 1.1+ teranewtons of force be enough to destroy the thing?

1. No. Not by a long shot.

I got 1.1 teranewtons from a very rough estimate based on an X-wing mass of at least 4 metric tons and a minimum speed of C. I did not take into account the crazy things that FTL travel does to newtonian physics, but I can't imagine the force would decrease.

2.Yes it would. Newsflash-Newtonian physics do NOT apply to tachyonic events.

Even if the X-wing did not lose energy in hyperspace, the death star still has its shields up. If the Executer can take a hit from three ISDs at hyperspeed than the Deathstar can surely take more.

[Batman]

Once they FIND them. They (presumably) CAN detect ships that far out. That does not mean they'll do so in any reasonable timeframe.
(Plus, any ship jumping after them faces the same problem a coordinated microjump strike-group does: They can't rely on coming out of stardrive close enough to the pursued vessel for it to matter).
Especially as 'reasonable timeframe' apparently means a matter of minues.

Eh? They can see at at very least cross-systems in realtime, and they saw you leave.

And that means they know where I was going at which speed, when chances are I don't, leaving alone underway course changes?

Why would it be difficult to find them? Indeed, at a half-lightminute as you originally suggested, they're a spitting distance away and I'd be very surprised if they didn't find the ship almost immediately.

The original distance I suggested was half a lighthour, genius.

[Stark]

So, if they can pick up a fleet at the edge of a system before Vader even gets told, they won't spot a ship a mere 30lm away? Unless you're arguing the rebels were coincidentally looking in the one place the Imperials showed up, it seems to me that they have the ability to watch a sizable portion of a system in near-realtime.

Also, what does 'where I was going at which speed, when chances are I don't' even MEAN? Are you saying they don't know how long you'll be in jump for, so they won't bother looking? Even with the whole 'Falcon no longer appears on our scopes' = 'could be on other side of galaxy by now' thing?

[Batman]

Even if the X-wing did not lose energy in hyperspace, the death star still has its shields up. If the Executer can take a hit from three ISDs at hyperspeed than the Deathstar can surely take more.

Not applicable. Those ISDs ramming Executor were moving below c, by whatever margin.