Slower hyperdrives for fighters

[Ning Leihrec]

I've always thought snub fighters should have less effective hyperdrives crammed into their frames than larger ships. Or they should have to use hyper-rings like the Jedi star fighters in the clone wars era. I'm estimating a snub fighter's hyperdrive should range from x2.5-1.5, but x1 as standard for most rebel fighters seems like a lot of power for what would have to be a tiny drive. Thoughts?

[Sutehp]

A tiny ship has much less mass to be moved, so it's like the Square/cube ratio. A tiny snubfighter has so much less mass than a capital ship so it's not surprising at all that it takes far less energy (and thus a smaller and more efficient hyperdrive) to get that snubfighter to X1 lightspeed.

I do remember in the Revenge of the Sith novelization when Obi-Wan took Grevious' Separatist snubfighter to get off Utapau and he lampshaded the ridiculousness of Republic starfighters needing a hyperspace ring instead of having their own internal hyperdrives.

[Whill]

I like Clone Wars fighters having to use the hyper-rings to even have hyperspace at all at the beginning of the war. I like to think that it was the Clone Wars that pushed hyperdrive technology ahead to the point of putting hyperdrives in the fighters themselves.

[Naaman]

I see both sides of this one. In some sense, it makes sense that long distance travel would be covered by large commercial-esque crafts, while using the smaller, "personal-sized" crafts would be appropriate for "local" (inter-planetary, as opposed to inter-stellar) travel.

If you think of the Star Wars galaxy as analogous to "the world," then it does male sense from an economic stand-point. How many denizens of the SWG actually travel outside their own systems? I dont know, tbh....

Then again, using an even smaller scale, for comparison, I can travel farther faster in my Camaro than a a tour bus can on the same amount of fuel ("energy"), simply by virtue of the inertia/physics in effect.

[MrNexx]

I'd also add that Starfighters NEED better hyperdrives far more than larger ships, because of less room for supplies. If a YT-1300 has a *5 Hyperdrive, it sucks, but you can stand up, walk around, play holochess, go to the bathroom... all sorts of things.

If an A-Wing has a *5 hyperdrive? You can... sit there. And sit there. And sit there. Sleep. Watch a movie. Read statistics on deep vein thrombosis. But mostly sit there.
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[Giant Tourtiere]

Fighters that took forever to get to their targets would be fairly lackluster from a usefulness standpoint, as well. Especially if those targets were starships that could move around faster than the fighters could.
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[garhkal]

[CRMcNeill]

I posited the exact opposite, but ultimately found a workable explanation for the RAW's relative hyperdrive speeds. The post in question is here, but the basic version is that a hyperdrive is composed of two primary systems, one which pushes the ship into hyperspace and allows it to remain there (the hyperdrive motivator), and another which provides motive force while in hyperspace (the hyperdrive impeller, for lack of a canon term).

The theory is that the bottleneck in production of a starfighter with an integrated hyperdrive was not in the impeller, but in the motivator, and that a breakthrough in miniaturization was needed. Prior to the Clone Wars, the absolute smallest possible hyperdrive motivator was the hyperdrive ring. During the Clone Wars, however, the needed miniaturization breakthrough came about, and while expensive, starfighters with integrated hyperdrives began to appear. Hyperdrive impeller tech had no such miniaturization problem (or at least not nearly as much of one), and so as soon as an impeller could be made small enough to be integrated into a starfighter, said starfighters would be able to match hyperspace speeds with capital ships either right away or very shortly.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

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[Sutehp]

[CRMcNeill]

It could just as easily have been the Republic, since they managed to get both the Y-Wing and the ARC-170 (both of which have internal hyperdrives) into full production by the end of the Clone Wars. Ultimately, though, I don't think it really matters which it was; the primary point is that it exists as of the end of the Clone Wars.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Dredwulf60]

I've always approached it from a fantasy analogue point of view, way back before the prequels (and the thoughts have always kind of been there in the back of my mind;

If it was D&D, fighters would be horses.

Freighters would be sailing ships.

A lone knight can get aboard his charger, perhaps travelling with a squire (astromech) and can go adventuring from town to town.

Or a group of adventurers might get board a ship and head out for far-fung ports.

Admittedly the allegory breaks down fairly quickly; but the take-away for me is that a character in a hyperdrive-capable fighter should be able to get around the galaxy without spending weeks in the 'saddle' to go from one system to another.

[Naaman]

Springboarding off that, the OP could consider limiting the maximum range for smaller ships, while still allowing them to make jumps at their superior speeds.

[Dredwulf60]

[garhkal]

Most rebel fighters have that covered with at most a week's consumables.
BUT iirc in on of the xwing novels, they say most of your fuel gets used up in combat AND the run ups to hyperspace.
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[Naaman]

Makes perfect sense.