Ship Convoys

[FVBonura]

[Whill]

[garhkal]

I'd say spin would be 'faster' the closer you get to the core, than on the outerrim.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[FVBonura]

[Impaler]

Hello, first time posting here. While I don't come from the D6 RPG community, and insted come from tactical wargaming and PC gaming (StarWars Rebellion and Empires at War), I figured my head cannon on this topic might be of interest to some of yall.

In my mind the convoy moves at the speed of the physically largest ship using a common trajectory which any ship could in theory calculate and share with the rest. Generally though largest ship will have the best navicomputer and will provide the trajectory to the fleet.

This means that in that famous convoy jump of the Rebel fleet in RotJ, they moved at the class 2 of the large Mon Cal Cruisers, which ment the starfightes were slowed, but the class 4 GR-75's were actually speed up. That was my primary motivation btw, figuring out why the rebels would willing slow their fleet down with with slow transports, I found an interpretation that lets them have their cake and eat it too.

To explain why this works I'll need to expand on several additional points of headcannon, some of which you may find radical.


1. All ships in hyperspace move at a single universal hyper speed, and it is physically impossible to go any other speed or to stop in hyperspace other then to drop back to realspace. Thus ships that jump together always emerge together, no intentional slowing or adjustment is needed other then a common orientation (easily shared as it is a tiny amount of data), and simultanious timing of the jump also trivial to share.

2. In even a short hop to the next starsystem a ship drops out of and re-enters hyper space several times to reorient using information (data bouys or stellar observation) in real space to make sure it has not drifted too far from it's intended safe course. The preverbial 'calculations' for hyperspace are always just for the next individual jump, not the whole trip, the small drifts that occour on each jump must be taken into account for calculation of the next jump to be done safely or else the accumulated drift would prove fatal.

3. The number and duration of the real-space reorientations is the cause of different hyperdrive classes as low end ships need to spend inordinate amounts of time for slow nav computers to figure out exactly where they are and reorient. We never see this because being at a semi-random point in deep space their is an astomomically low chance of anything being encountered so it is narrativly no different then the 'blue tunnel'. Their may also be limitations of how fast a hyperdrive motivator can physicaly recharge or 'disipate residual phlobotum particle buildup' etc. But this is generally only a consern when the backup hyperdrive is being employed. The Falcons finiky and unreliable nature can be atributed pushing its hyperdrive motivator to recharge far faster then it should so that it can keep up with the nav computers fast cycle time.

4. Physically larger ships have consisntly slower hyperdrive ratings not because they have crapy computers (they actually have the best computers), but because the physical hazards of hyperspace (mass shadows) are more dangerous to them (tidal forces ripping the hull apart due to differential forces). Thus to be safe large ships must follow the plotted course much more presisely and must drop to real space more frequently, in essense they fly a much narrower 'channel'. Think of this as being analagous to a wet ship with a deep draft having to carefully and slowly navigate through shoals, reefs and sandbars while a lighter ship can go at full speed because the hazards are lower.


When you combine all this it makes sense that a small ship with crapy navigation abilities of its own can just follow the preverbial tail-lights of a bigger ship. Anywhere the big ship goes will be safe for the small freight ship and just downloading the nav heading from it is faster then doing their own calculation. The whole course can't just be given out at the start of the jump either, the recalculations on route are vital so the transports must stay with the fleet. The Starfighters tiny size allows them to go even faster then the fleet and they could break away at any real-space reorientation stop but obviously they choose to just loiter until the fleet is ready to jump again, download the common nav solution and jump together to guarantee they emerge together.

[garhkal]

I've also often wondered, when that fleet in ROTJ entered hyperspace, PART Of me thought we saw ONE window being oped by the big ships, but the fighters entered their OWN windows..
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Whill]