Hyperspace

[GeoModder]

Even if jovian-mass planets are detected, and are something to watch out for during a jump, I'd say it should be possible to avoid those LoS orbit(s) by jumping out on a slight angle in respect to the destination star. 5 degrees off the ecliptic might not sound like much, but at 5 AU off the destination star it's about a dozen million kilometer out of the ecliptic.

[dfacto]

I'm not really seeing the danger of gas giants or other planets. Not only does is have to be perfectly in line with your jump vector, but you also have to exit a jump righton top of it. Considering that we're talking about possible planet positions you have to take into account a titanic area. Say the star system is something like 30 AU in radius, you have an area of around 3000 square AU around a star in which you have planets with a negligible size (far less than 1 square AU).

The chances of smashing into a planet are very very slim.

[icekatze]

hi hi

I don't think the worry is necessarily that you will smash into the planet, rather the planet's gravity well will throw your ship off course and maybe you'll end up flying off into infinity instead. Jupiter has a big enough gravity well that the barycenter between it and the sun actually sits outside of the sun's surface.

[Mjolnir]

Even if jovian-mass planets are detected, and are something to watch out for during a jump, I'd say it should be possible to avoid those LoS orbit(s) by jumping out on a slight angle in respect to the destination star. 5 degrees off the ecliptic might not sound like much, but at 5 AU off the destination star it's about a dozen million kilometer out of the ecliptic.

This would involve increasing the probability of a misjump. You're aiming to miss a good chunk of the jump zone, after all.

I'm not really seeing the danger of gas giants or other planets. Not only does is have to be perfectly in line with your jump vector, but you also have to exit a jump righton top of it.

But you don't know that. We're talking hyperspace trajectories here, not normal-space ones...the presence of masses might have a disproportional effect on objects in hyperspace, notably distorting jump zones in the vicinity and increasing odds of a misjump.

The sun has 1047 times the mass of Jupiter. If the hazard radius scales with the square root of mass (just as one possible scaling) and can be based off the jump distance, Jupiter would have a danger radius of sqrt(1/1047)*5 AU = 0.15 AU. A volume 0.3 AU across would take a good chunk out of a jump zone while the planet is passing by. With a wild-assed-guess of a jump zone width of 1 AU, that's nearly 10% of the jump zone...which could be quite worth making a few extra jumps so you can get into the system and make sure no gas giants are interfering with the jump zones.

And that's just mass, it's possible that frame dragging effects are much stronger in hyperspace, or that magnetic fields can influence objects in hyperspace.

[dfacto]

But would you even need to take steps to come in at an angle to the ecliptic plane? It isn't as if solar systems are all perfectly aligned. Seems to me that having a planet drag you out of hyperspace is a matter of real bad luck, and then having it actually kill you is even less likely.

[flarecde]

I imagine planets create the same problem as a longer jump, but in miniature. Much safer to aim to land before you get too close to anything messy, or avoid messy altogether.

Is there a sense of time in Hyperspace? Like, say you overshoot or punch through and are stuck indefinitely, do you know something went wrong, or is it total limbo?

I looked briefly but can't recall if the Umiak allow any servant races serve aboard their ships. I imagine given their susceptibility to Hyperspace, it could be either a boon or bane depending on how much they trusted them.

[Grayhome]

A few pages ago Tempo said that her strike group interdicted the attacking Umiak vessels, I am curious to know if they accomplish this by somehow creating an artificial phenomena that prevents vessels from entering Hyperspace via a ship system they possess.

[flarecde]

I think it's more likely they interdicted them during the real space transit between jump points.

[GeoModder]

Well, I suppose the safest bet on a jump is landing 50 or so AU out of the primary if LOS goes through the destination's star ecliptic. Most yellow(ish) main sequence stars shouldn't have jovians orbiting that far out.
Talking about primaries, if jovians can already cause this much hassle, then binary star systems consisting of yellow(ish) main sequence stars must be no-go territory in alot of circumstances. Like Alpha Centauri for instance, which is supposedly the main route out of Sol. Say a quarter of their common orbital period they're pretty close to each other, the star's mutual orbit expressed in LOS in respect to Sol seems to come relatively close, and there's the tiny problem of a red dwarf star interfering with any hyperbolic trajectory in hyperspace.
Of course, the latter can be avoided by jumping out to Proxima Centauri first before continuing to the destination system.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Part of the problem is hidden dangers. A ship based telescope apparently doesn't have the resolution to accurately catalogue and account for all of the objects that might alter the course of the jump. I think that after you've observed a star for as long as humanity has observed Alpha Centauri -likely with giant stationary telescope arrays that you wouldn't be able to bring with you- you eventually get to the point where you know where the dangers are and can plan your jumps accordingly.

[dfacto]

hi hi

Part of the problem is hidden dangers.

In 3d space you have a gravity sphere of the star, and those of the planets. The planets, as mentioned, are in an ecliptic plane (or close to it), and if you are heading towards the star from another angle you have more or less no chance of hitting any "hidden danger". Even entering on a plane with the ecliptic, you have a tiny chance of hitting the gravity well of a planet at the right hyperspace speed to get dragged out.

Honestly, if you're that unlucky to get messed up by a planetary mass you didn't detect, then... sucks to be you, such is the inherent danger of space-travel.

[Arioch]

I think it's more likely they interdicted them during the real space transit between jump points.

That's correct. The vast majority of time required for a multi-jump transit is spent crossing realspace between jump points, and that's where you can be intercepted.

I think the most significant hazards of jumping into a system into the ecliptic plane are 1) the gravity of any large planets perturbing the jump trajectory, and 2) actual collisions in debris fields such as our Kuiper Belt or Asteroid Belt.

Watching for an occultation is not so much about being concerned with the dangers posed by that specific occulting object, but rather that if you see any occultations at all, you know you're in the ecliptic.

To the rethink'ning.

By the way Aygar, thanks for the interesting diagrams that you posted. I actually don't remember seeing them on the old forums, though perhaps my memory is not what it once was.

[Trantor]

I think the most significant hazards of jumping into a system into the ecliptic plane are 1) the gravity of any large planets perturbing the jump trajectory, and 2) actual collisions in debris fields such as our Kuiper Belt or Asteroid Belt.

Watching for an occultation is not so much about being concerned with the dangers posed by that specific occulting object, but rather that if you see any occultations at all, you know you're in the ecliptic.

Hm, am i wrong, or isn´t that something that can be easily explored with drones?

[Arioch]

Because of the power requirements of the jump field generator and inertial dampers, the smallest possible "drone" is still a very substantial vessel (at the tech level of the Loroi or Umiak) in the 75-80 meter range. Not something that is handy to cart around.

[Trantor]

Because of the power requirements of the jump field generator and inertial dampers, the smallest possible "drone" is still a very substantial vessel (at the tech level of the Loroi or Umiak) in the 75-80 meter range. Not something that is handy to cart around.

But it would be possible to run it unmanned?

[Arioch]

Because of the power requirements of the jump field generator and inertial dampers, the smallest possible "drone" is still a very substantial vessel (at the tech level of the Loroi or Umiak) in the 75-80 meter range. Not something that is handy to cart around.

But it would be possible to run it unmanned?

Sure, but why would you want to? Without any FTL communication, the scout mission only succeeds if the scout returns intact, and a starship is an expensive piece of hardware. I think except for the most fastidious and cowardly of cultures, it is well work risking a few lives to add to the survivability of the vessel and increase the chances of mission success.

[Trantor]

But it would be possible to run it unmanned?

Sure, but why would you want to? Without any FTL communication, the scout mission only succeeds if the scout returns intact

Um, yes?

and a starship is an expensive piece of hardware.

Still cheaper than a human life.

I think except for the most fastidious and cowardly of cultures, it is well work risking a few lives to add to the survivability of the vessel and increase the chances of mission success.

And what is a onboard human good for? You rely on the ship´s sensors anyway.

[Arioch]

Still cheaper than a human life.

In economic terms this is clearly a false statement; life is pretty cheap. People even in developed countries with high standards of living can and do risk their lives routinely for economic gain, for such trivial things as tasty crab or sparkly diamonds. But even as a purely philosophical statement, I must still emphatically disagree. Risk is a fundamental part of life, no matter how safely you try to play the game.

And what is a onboard human good for? You rely on the ship´s sensors anyway.

What if the scout is damaged and needs repair to be able to return?
What if the scout encounters something unexpected and a decision needs to be made that isn't covered in the autopilot's programming?
What if the system is inhabited?

[Trantor]

Still cheaper than a human life.

But even as a purely philosophical statement, I must still emphatically disagree. Risk is a fundamental part of life, no matter how safely you try to play the game.

There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots.
But there are no old and bold pilots.
(except few german veterans of ww2. scnr.)

And what is a onboard human good for? You rely on the ship´s sensors anyway.

What if the scout is damaged and needs repair to be able to return?

Onboard-diagnosis-systems and repairdrones?

What if the scout encounters something unexpected and a decision needs to be made that isn't covered in the autopilot's programming?

You lose a replacable machine?

What if the system is inhabited?

A golden record with greetings and songs of birds and whales?

[AndrewCrisp]

Onboard-diagnosis-systems and repairdrones?

You can go two ways with such a system: pre-programmed or AI. Pre-programmed systems are probably easier to develop, but there's always the chance of running into that one scenario that nobody thought of, making the pre-programmed diagnosis and repair useless. For proof, just look at our own bodies and their responses to illness and injury - there are easily hundreds of scenarios that our bodies repair mechanisms can't handle unaided. If systems that have been evolving for billions of years can be stymied easily and often, how much more so a system that has developed in only a few years or decades?

AI on the other hand may be adaptable, but more expensive to develop and - more importantly - more difficult to keep on mission. A true AI may develop its own goals that are not compatible with what you wanted, taking your probe and running somewhere to enjoy the sights, practice art and poetry, or whatnot. Members of your own species are probably going to be more loyal - not to mention having already developed and refined brains, so the only thing left to do is recruit and train them.

What if the scout encounters something unexpected and a decision needs to be made that isn't covered in the autopilot's programming?

You lose a replacable machine?

More to the point, you lose a replaceable machine with no idea of what killed it. Our current era of unmanned space exploration was made possible because we kept in constant contact with our probes, landers, and rovers. If one died it was a simple matter to pull the recordings and figure out what went wrong. We could then apply the lessons learned to the next probe or lander. From the description of hyperspace jumps in the Outsiderverse, there's no chance of doing that with a hyperspace probe. Get enough probes lost in this manner, and people may conclude that hyperspace travel is too dangerous for crewed missions, and crash go the dreams of interstellar exploration and colonies.

What if the system is inhabited?

A golden record with greetings and songs of birds and whales?

Hmm... that might be the riskiest item of all. There's no guarantee that the race you encounter is one you would want to invite home to dinner. A crew could best make such a decision of contact-or-not on the spot. If all else fails, at least the crew make sure that the race they encountered has no knowledge that could lead them back to your homeworld (one of the few things that made sense to me in the Halo universe was the Cole Protocol). A probe with a record or plaque is a blind invitation, again with no way of knowing the race that shows up on your doorstep are friendly neighbors, intergalactic missionaries, scam artists, or genocidal maniacs.

Just my opinions on the matter.