an FTL tech question

[Lord Revan]

what examples of Faster then Light technologies where there's 2 systems in use, 1 that's really fast but limited somehow and another that doesn't have that limitation but is alot slower (and/or energy hungry)?

2 examples I can think of is the Stargates/hyperspace in Stargate-verse and the Eldar webway (compared to normal warp travel which Eldar ships are capable of).

[CaptainChewbacca]

Trek with Warp/Transwarp comes to mind.

[Paolo]

David Weber's Harrington franchise, maybe? Wormhole junctions and Warshawski sails.

[Paolo]

Also, Doc Smith's Lensmen book series is filled with faster than lightgoodies, from Bergenholm inertialess generators and the Boskonian "hyper-spatial tubes."

[Darth Onasi]

The PC game Sword of the Stars has 3 distinct FTL types, a Star Trek style warp, Phase Nodes which are a lot faster but restricted to preset lanes between solar systems and orbital stargates which provide instant travel.

[xammer99]

Ian Douglas's Star Marines series has several.

1. Star Gates
2. Standard Engine that makes you go X times C (A couple of versions of this)
3. Some coordinate system that lets a big enough base/ship translate from one set of universal coordinates to another instantly.

[Junghalli]

Aldenataverse (the one with the Posleen) has a set-up like that. I remember in The Hero they talked about there being two kinds of FTL, one that used "tunnels" of some kind, but it's been a while since I read the book.

[Batman]

Well technically it's more than two (a LOT more than two ) but I figured you wanted ones with more than one type of FTL transportation.
The Perryverse has an almost ridiculous nuber of different FTL drives.
1. Jump drive. Technically instantaneous, but jump calculations can take quite a bit of time, and the further you jump, the higher the stress on man and machine (to the point where with midrange 5-figure ly jumps, you risk killing the crew and the calculations can take days.)
2. Linear drive. Navigation is relatively simple usually (point the ship the way you want to go and engage the drive) but speed is limited to 100 million c in theory and 10-50 million in practice and the engines need a major overhaul after a couple to a couple hundred thousand lightyears depending on engine size, or need to be thrown away after a couple hundred thousand to a couple million lightyears for the purpose-designed one-use compact drives.
3. Dimetrans//Transferdim. Ludicrously fast but you can only go from one galaxy to another. No stops on the way. Also energy intensive as hell by local standards.
4. Septim-Parallelspur. Precursor to Transferdim. Theoretically allowed stops along the way if memory serves (and as with the rest of this post, if I made a boo-boo, Rhodanites, feel free to correct me) but is so ludicrously fast that engine cycle time alone probably makes it effectively intergalactic only.
5.Dimesexta. I never understood why that one went out of use. REALLY fast but you could stop along the way. Again, absurdly fast by local standards and a serious energy hog but it just seemed to have vanished, just like Septim-Parallelspur.
6. Metagrav. Limited to 60-120 million c. Range limits due to working on 'batteries' for most of its history. On the upside, it works as an STL drive too.
7. Enerpsi drive. REALLY fast by the standards of the time it was introduced but limited to a preexisting network of pathways, like Borg Transwarp hubs or the Andromeda Slipstream network.
8. Since you mentioned the Stargates, matter transmitters. Only with them, transportation is instantaneous regardless of distance, they can apparently be scaled up and down arbitrarily far, and relative planetary movement doesn't seem to present a problem.

And that was just the ones used by humanity

[(name here)]

Aldenataverse (the one with the Posleen) has a set-up like that. I remember in The Hero they talked about there being two kinds of FTL, one that used "tunnels" of some kind, but it's been a while since I read the book.

it'sA Hymn Before Battle, and one of them uses somthing fast but location-specific which tells absolutely everyone looking where you'll be hours ahead of time, and one supposedly based off quantam tunneling, which would let you out anywhere with less warning but was half as fast.

[Lord of the Abyss]

In the Dahak universe, they have the Enchanach Drive, a realspace FTL drive that is relatively slow but lets you go anywhere. And, they have the hyperdrive which is faster, but only allows for point to point transits between precalculated points, only allows FTL travel a certain distance away from a star, and renders the ship blind to normal space while in transit.

[Nyrath]

There were a few different FTL drives in David Brin's STARTIDE RISING. There was one that was quicker than the others, giving warships a tactical advantage. Unfortunately the drawback was occasionally ships using it would crumble into dust or something like that.

There were also lots of different stardrives in The Halcyon Drift by Brian Stableford, but in practice they didn't seem to have much difference.

[Paolo]

That reminds me, Hyperspace and Quasispace in Star Control II.

[Lord of the Abyss]

In Starplex there is hyperspace travel, which is relatively slow. And then there are the "shortcuts", mysterious, artificial wormholelike portals that allow instant travel over apparently any distance. Shortcuts, however, are both limited in number, and more importantly have to be activated by something entering the far side ( which, not coincidentally, makes it harder for advanced species to find primitive ones before they achieve space travel ).

[Luzifer's right hand]

2. Linear drive. Navigation is relatively simple usually (point the ship the way you want to go and engage the drive) but speed is limited to 100 million c in theory and 10-50 million in practice and the engines need a major overhaul after a couple to a couple hundred thousand lightyears depending on engine size, or need to be thrown away after a couple hundred thousand to a couple million lightyears for the purpose-designed one-use compact drives.

Especially in the first issues with the drive it was mentioned that there is a difference between FTL speed and practical FTL speed.
Even early ships were able to pull 50-100 Million times the speed of light only the needed stops reduced the speed to 10-20 million times the speed of light. Later that was not often mentioned though, from the travel times you can calculate that practical FTL speed is meant though. The highest top speed mentioned for Terran ships was 120 million times the speed of light.
The highest speed you can calculate from travel times is 190 million times the speed of light for intergalactic flight, which fits neatly into the new Castor stuff in which ships are are measurably faster in intergalactic space.
The linear drives used by ships like the SOL and the Basis which had another faster drives were much slower.

3. Dimetrans//Transferdim. Ludicrously fast but you can only go from one galaxy to another. No stops on the way. Also energy intensive as hell by local standards.

We don't know much about the Transferdim but from the descriptions it seems more like Dimesexta than the Dimetrans.
It was only mentioned that the Dimetrans was phased out because a number of ships disappeared.

4. Septim-Parallelspur. Precursor to Transferdim. Theoretically allowed stops along the way if memory serves (and as with the rest of this post, if I made a boo-boo, Rhodanites, feel free to correct me) but is so ludicrously fast that engine cycle time alone probably makes it effectively intergalactic only.

That was a Dimesextadrive which as upgraded by the alien Keloskers.

5.Dimesexta. I never understood why that one went out of use. REALLY fast but you could stop along the way. Again, absurdly fast by local standards and a serious energy hog but it just seemed to have vanished, just like Septim-Parallelspur.

There was the retcon some time ago that it's now impossible to produce the needed Sextagoniumit.

6. Metagrav. Limited to 60-120 million c. Range limits due to working on 'batteries' for most of its history. On the upside, it works as an STL drive too.

There is also an FTl only version of the drive the GRIGOROFF which allows 200 million times the speed of light

7. Enerpsi drive. REALLY fast by the standards of the time it was introduced but limited to a preexisting network of pathways, like Borg Transwarp hubs or the Andromeda Slipstream network.

1*10^9 c was the top speed for that one.

[Batman]

I lobbed Transferdim in with Dimetrans because of its galaxy-to-galaxy-only nature. I am perfectly aware of Septim-Parallelspur and Transferdim being extensions of Dimesexta technologically.
I thank you for your corrections, nevertheless.

[Kodiak]

Aldenataverse (the one with the Posleen) has a set-up like that. I remember in The Hero they talked about there being two kinds of FTL, one that used "tunnels" of some kind, but it's been a while since I read the book.

it'sA Hymn Before Battle, and one of them uses somthing fast but location-specific which tells absolutely everyone looking where you'll be hours ahead of time, and one supposedly based off quantam tunneling, which would let you out anywhere with less warning but was half as fast.

Yeah, the Galactic federation traveled through the "low points" in the spatial folds which were faster, but less direct, whereas the Posleen used their "quantum tunneling" to appear wherever they wanted which was slower and used much more power.

[Imperial Overlord]

William Barton's Acts of Conscience as a dozen different types of FTL (although humanity only has two).

[Peptuck]

40k uses several methods.

Standard Imperium drive is Warp-based FTL. Tyranids do the same, though I think slower. Orks do the same, though oten they simply slap together space hulks, Kroozers, and Roks, and launch themselves in random directions.

Eldar use a combination of the Webway over long distances and the Warp over short ranges.

Tau use a Warp-related drive that lets them "submerge" intot he warp and then launch themselves out at FTL speeds, IIRC.

Necrons use non-Warp-based inertialess drive to get nearly anywhere instantly, along with Warp portals.

[Winston Blake]

In the Freespace universe, intra-system jump drives can go from any point to any point over short distances. Almost every ship has one.

Interstellar jump drives use rare, naturally occurring jump points to jump between systems. They're limited to transports and capital ships - fighters and bombers are typically too small.

[OmegaGuy]

Xeeleeverse has hyperdrive, which is fast enough to travel intergalactic distances in a matter of weeks, and wormholes, which can go from any point in space or time to another, but require an interface station to be built on both ends.

There's also some kind of "Supersymettry drive" that is faster than hyperdrive and can travel 15 billion light - years in a matter of weeks, but it was only used in one story. It was actually one of the few technologies originally created by humans, but they simply forgot about it in the later years of the Coalition's dogma.

[Gerald Tarrant]

Yeah, the Galactic federation traveled through the "low points" in the spatial folds which were faster, but less direct, whereas the Posleen used their "quantum tunneling" to appear wherever they wanted which was slower and used much more power.

I wish I could dig up the quote, but humans very quickly decided the "low points" had very serious tactical drawbacks. Sort of like blockading jump points in some of Weber's Space Opera.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Skylark, by Doc Smith, had a novel idea.

Basically, Einstein was full of shit, and if you have a big enough power source you can reach FTL speeds. Of course, the only way to do this was via 100% matter to energy conversion via a new, hitherto unknown element. We'd never have known if Dr. Seaton hadn't been a butterfingers with his lab equipment one time, thus accidentally creating this new element. I found it both awesome, and in some ways, quite hilarious...i think the way he discovers it via pure, blind luck is meant as being fairly comical, the first book begins in medias res and he's just like "OMG i has made FTL!"

[Lord of the Abyss]

In Spinnerette, the is there standard hyperdrive which allows travel between stars in a few weeks. And then there's the Spinner drive, which allows for instant transit - but requires passing between paired black holes at both ends. So it's instant but has few places it can go.

In Warhorse there is the human's FTL jump drive, which is short ranged and has a long pause between jumps. And there are the much faster "Space Horses" ( named for function, not appearance ); spacegoing lifeforms tamed by the alien Tampys, which can Jump between stars much faster and farther than the human drive. The Tampys use the things to pull their own ships ( space horses move telekinetically ). Humans, however, have no space horses, and can't ( apparently ) control them if they did.

[Ryan Thunder]

My sci-fi universe.

Distortion systems get you from A to B at around 10-20k c by warping space (like the current warp drive concept [and if that's shit, I don't want to know ]).

Alternatively, there's wormholes, which require prodigious amounts of "fuel" and energy to produce, but get you from A to B instantaneously.

Then there's another drive I haven't named that's perhaps an order of magnitude or two slower than Star Wars' Hyperdrive.

[Dendrobius]

Hyperion-verse gets

Hawking Drive: slow, but it'll get you there

Farcaster: works like a Stargate (instant transport by stepping through gate), but you need to lend your brain to the TechnoCore in transit, and only works between two established portals.

Gideon Drive: fast (instant transport), but it kills you. Pilot and passenger seats are nothing more than a stainless steel tube designed to keep the mush in during transit, ready for resurrection upon arrival in system.