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Gravitational Waves in Science Fiction
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 3:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bren wrote:
Personally I prefer jump points in my military science fiction. It makes space tactics a lot easier to manage.

I have considered the addition of wormholes-based travel to the SWU in a manner similar to the Honorverse, where wormholes are the space-bound equivalent of a short-cut, ala the Panama and Suez canals. In short, what I'm picturing is a handful of wormhole routes that provide instantaneous travel from Point A to Point B, as an alternative to hyperspace travel. However, wormhole travel only works with artificial "gate" mechanisms at either end (I picture something like a Babylon 5 jump gate centered on the wormhole terminus), and there are nowhere near enough viable wormholes to come close to supplanting hyperspace travel in general.

Quote:
But there is no indication in Star Wars that ships need to move to reach a wormhole entry point location. They just (according to WEG RAW) need to get far enough away from a gravity source for the hyperspace engine not to cut out. I seem to recall one of the movies or TV shows where a ship jumped to hyperspace close to a planet's surface (which seems to violate the WEG rule).

That's the escape from Jeddha scene in Rogue One, where Cassian jumps the U-Win into hyperspace while still within the atmosphere of the planet.

There's a way to make it work with the WEG rule, but it's somewhat convoluted. The latest iteration of the Gravity Well Projector suggests that gravity interferes with the accuracy of a hyperspace jump, and that, while gravity can't physically prevent a jump, it can cause it to deviate ever so slightly from course when it jumps. If that happens, a ship in hyperspace has no way to correct its course, and is now traveling on a slightly divergent actual course from its intended destination. That, IMO, is the origin of the hyperspace cut-out, to prevent a ship from jumping to hyperspace too close to a gravity field of sufficient strength that would interfere with the ship's course.

In the case of the escape from Jeddha, however, there was no course (K-2SO specifically stated that he hadn't finished the calculations), and the only intended destination of the jump was "anywhere but here ASAP." So my theory is that Cassian, as part of initiating the jump, also engaged a special modification that deactivated the hyperdrive cut-out, then activated the hyperdrive in a blind jump. Now, blind jumps are insanely dangerous, as the ship is now traveling down an unknown course, with no idea what obstacles may be in their path, and no way to detect them in time to stop. However, if the alternative is instant death by Death Star superlaser debris, it's still the lesser of two evils.

So what he did was make a micro-jump out of the system, then dropped out of hyperspace to reset the hyperdrive cut-out and recalculate a route to their next destination.

Quote:
Also descriptions of hyperspace make it seem like it is another dimension that has an isometry* to real space. In other words, every point in real space has an analogous point in hyperspace and objects in real space (or at least large objects in real space) have an analogous gravitational mass shadow in hyperspace. And you can jump to hyperspace anywhere that isn't occluded by a large mass, not just at certain wormhole points.


* It may not be an isometry. The variable hyperspace speeds for different routes make it seem like the mapping isn't distance preserving.

A fan fiction I read recently made an interesting point, that even seemingly straight-line hyperspace courses still have to account for space-time curvature...
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 3:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mamatried wrote:
when we see hyperspace travel in star wars, the ship appears to be moving in a "tunnel".

Key word being "appears."

Quote:
Now if we call the hyperspace lines "wrom holes" then we have a technology that can open these when the ship is not affected by any significan gravitational pull.
Once they then open the "worm hole" aka enters hyperspace, they can freely calculate their coodinates, and all as long as there is no signifcant gravitational pull intefearing with the selected lane.
Once there enough gravitational influence, the lane stops and the ship bypass this gravitational pull in real space only to continue.

With blind jumps we could say that a full lane is not calculated, no end coordinate entered, making the danger of jumping and then hitting a gravitational anomaly, like a planet.

Micro jumps is explained in this, with both beginning and end coordinate being in same system, in a non gravitationally infulenced lane.

This mostly sounds like creating techno-babble simply for the sake of creating techno-babble, and has nothing to do with the original premise being discussed. If you want to discuss "hyperspace as wormholes," you need to start a separate topic, rather than just hijacking one that is discussing something else.

Quote:
We do see ships both get far enough away from gravitational pulls, as well see ships accelerate before entering hyperspace, to me this is where the opeing to worm holes is made, and the ship jumps.

The explanation there is that the appearance of acceleration is an optical illusion - pseudo-motion - and that no actual movement has taken place.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 4:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

With regard to the original question, I'm thinking of using Gravity Waves as an updated entry on the Astrogation Mishap Table. My thinking is as follows: Astrogation is about calculating an accurate course through hyperspace, and all of the possible Astrogation Mishaps involve somehow going off course or miscalculating. Except the Mynocks result.

It has always seemed silly to me that Bad Math somehow causes Mynocks to appear.

So, what I'm thinking is to just switch out the fluff on the Mynocks result with a new entry called Gravity Waves:
    9 - Gravity Waves. The ship encounters an uncharted (or "rogue") gravity wave, which affects the ship's course. Roll 1D:
      1-3 - Duration of ship's journey increases by 1D days.
      4-5 - See Hyperdrive Cut-Out result.
      6 - See Off Course result.

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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 30, 2023 8:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Relevant update from the real world.
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jtanzer
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2023 12:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My issue with using gravitational waves as a navigational hazard (and also Interdictors) is that gravity isn't actually that strong. In fact, it's one of the weak nuclear forces for a reason. You need ALOT of mass in order to generate any significant amount of gravity. Gravitational waves are, especially in comparison to planetary or stellar gravity wells, extremely weak. So I don't understand how gravitational waves could affect a ship's course in hyperspace.
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 05, 2023 10:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jtanzer wrote:
My issue with using gravitational waves as a navigational hazard (and also Interdictors) is that gravity isn't actually that strong. In fact, it's one of the weak nuclear forces for a reason. You need ALOT of mass in order to generate any significant amount of gravity. Gravitational waves are, especially in comparison to planetary or stellar gravity wells, extremely weak. So I don't understand how gravitational waves could affect a ship's course in hyperspace.

It’s a common misperception that Interdictors drag ships out of hyperspace purely on the strength of projected gravity. What actually happens is that the gravity well tricks a ship’s automated safety systems into thinking the ship is too close to a gravity well. It’s the ship’s systems that prevent the jump, not the gravity itself.

However, WEG hinted at a deeper reasoning when they wrote out detailed stats for the Interdictor in Wanted by Cracken. They never actually spelled it out but, by having the gravity well increase Astrogation Difficulty the closer a ship was to it, they strongly implied that gravity can nudge a ship off course. Not by much, but enough to throw a ship light years off course at the other end. It’s also unknown how gravity functions in hyperspace, but real world physics would suggest that it has a stronger effect than in realspace, as everything is either moving much faster or is much closer together (or some combination thereof).

As such, even a small shift in gravity somewhere along the jump’s route has the potential to nudge the ship slightly off course. Normal gravitic conditions can be charted and accounted for (and are likely already part of the massive string of numbers that makes up a jump coordinate), but “rogue” waves or getting the calculations wrong for riding the slope of a known gravity wave would still be a hazard.
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pakman
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2023 11:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting thread.


TLDR
If I understand FS premise however - I would say I disagree with it.

Every navcomputer is not a fully detailed copy of "google galaxy".

The premise is that at such incredibly high speeds, there is enough stuff that you need to know how to go around it.

"Routes" are the paths that others have identified the stuff in the way, and how to navigate safely.

new paths - don't know if they are clear.
Or -

just because you can go A to B and B to C does not mean you can go from A to C.

Longer version.

First off - star wars is space fantasy - we have to remember than in story telling, hyperdrives work at the speed of plot (my term....) - so a lot of things are messy and open to some intrepretation. We have to ignore the fact that space is mostly empty (relatively so...) or "insert sci-fi justification here".

Now, to me - there are two things I disagree with in the premise - one is the implication that a navcomputer is this omniscient record of everything in the galaxy.

It sounds like the perspetive that if I have google maps, and all the stuff is on my map, then why can't I go where I want - if I understand it.
I do not agree with this premise - otherwise there would never be secret routes, and you would never need scouts or exploers or any "unknown regions".

Second, a micro jump - is not a valid comparison - because you can SEE the destination, and the stuff potentially in the way.

Here is an incredibly simple analogy;

Go into a really big room, like a warehouse of gym.
There are a bunch of doors around the room.

Throw thousands of little dangerous pieces of harmful stuff on the floor - broken glass, sticky stuff, little caltrops, legos.... etc.

Now, turn out the lights, and you have a very short range light.
Someone VERY SLOWLY goes from say door 1 to door 10, slowly finding their way. But they remember the path, and write it down.
Then they go from door 10, to door 7....they write down how they got there, etc.
Once the paths are mapped others can use those notes on those paths - to go faster.

Maybe some paths get traveled more - and that path is more reliable - so you can go faster than others - where as others - maybe only done once - so maybe not as accurate, and thus more risky to go faster....

Just because you know the stuff between door 1 and 5, and 5 and 10, does not mean you know the path to door 1 and 10.
So, unless you want to go incredibly slow - and make a new path - marking all the things along the way...

Oh, and gravity waves....
Would be rare - and are slow - but could be a reason an old route might be more dangerous - (official version not updated in decades).

I do think that adding gravity waves to a list of other hyperspace random events is a cool idea - and the besides slowing a ship - possibly making it faster - that is cool too!
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2023 2:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Didn't thrawn USE grav wells, in reverse, to try and PUSH ships away??
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2023 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
Didn't thrawn USE grav wells, in reverse, to try and PUSH ships away??

That was one of the Wraith Squadron novels: Solo Command. The Stellar Web, with Admiral Rogriss in command.
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jtanzer
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2023 8:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TLDR; Grav waves are simply too small and too weak to affect much of anything, except at the source of the disturbance. However, that source is going to be very well mapped and the hyperspace route is going to plotted and optimized around it.




FS is partially correct. There are nav computers powerful enough to calculate a route, as pakman put it, from Point A to Point C. According to the WEG module The Isis Coordinates, ISDs carry a nav computer powerful enough to plot a direct hyperspace route. Smaller ships, however, don't have that computational power, requiring them to take more well plotted routes, or have the routes plotted for them. You can still try to plot your own route, but you have a lot of guesswork cut out for you.

I have, and continue, to disagree with grav waves being a sufficient obstacle for hyperspace travel. Grav waves are ridiculously weak and very consistent. Rogue grav waves just aren't possible on a scale that would affect ships. Similarly, sufficiently densely packed grav waves that could knock a ship off course are functionally no different than a normal gravity well.

Furthermore, hyperspace routes are quite stable. Some of the long-term fluctuations are caused by the "Travelling Salesman Problem". People will optimize for fun or profit (or both). There's plenty of simulations on YouTube using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) that demonstrate the problem. The other long term shifts are caused by stellar drift (i.e. the orbit of galactic bodies around the galactic center) Short-term shifts tend to be in response to local events (piracy, wars, etc). I tend to discount the possibility of objects in real-space causing these shifts, as objects in normal space simply don't move fast enough (relatively speaking) to cause much of a wobble in routes. Even extreme stellar phenomena (black holes, supernova, pulsars) aren't going to cause constantly fluctuating routes. Only supernova are going to cause a noticeable in hyperspace routes, but even then only to compensate for the missing gravity well. Within weeks, or possibly months at the outside, a new route is going to be established.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 12:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
garhkal wrote:
Didn't thrawn USE grav wells, in reverse, to try and PUSH ships away??

That was one of the Wraith Squadron novels: Solo Command. The Stellar Web, with Admiral Rogriss in command.


Remembered it from the novels, just forgot which.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 08, 2023 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jtanzer wrote:
TLDR; Grav waves are simply too small and too weak to affect much of anything, except at the source of the disturbance. However, that source is going to be very well mapped and the hyperspace route is going to plotted and optimized around it.

In realspace, perhaps, but the working theory is that gravity is stronger / reaches further in hyperspace. A gravity field with a minimal effect in realspace will be exponentially stronger once in hyperspace, which is where the course distortion will occur.

And why do you assume all obstacles in the galaxy will be properly mapped? I don’t recall the percentage, but the RAW is quite special that the majority of obstacles in space are unmapped.

Hyperspace is the real unknown factor in this situation, and as such, I’ve been coming up with ideas for obstacles in hyperspace that would explain why routes seem to decay so quickly (relatively speaking) under the RAW.
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jtanzer
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 08, 2023 1:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Hyperspace is the real unknown factor in this situation, and as such, I’ve been coming up with ideas for obstacles in hyperspace that would explain why routes seem to decay so quickly (relatively speaking) under the RAW.


Flying a spaceship through hyperspace isn't so much like driving a car, it's more like...launching a rocket to another planet. It doesn't matter how good your sensors are, sooner or later, you're going to have to round your numbers to get something usable. That rounding introduces error, which compounds over time and distance. Known hyperspace routes (hyperroutes), and the algorithmic calculations that make up that route, are good enough for the task that they are required to accomplish. The more the route is traveled, the more that calculation is refined and optimized. The algorithm for the Kessel Run is longer and more complicated that the Hydian Way on account of the Maw. Now there may be a 'standard' hyperspace algorithim that gets you a ballpark answer, however this then requires the pilot to make more corrections than strictly necessary, resulting the apparent shift of the hyperroute, relative to the ship.

I'd also argue that have rapid decay in hyperroutes is a systemic fault that encouraging poor GM practices. Rather than encourage the GM to create multiple potentially - and ideally - interlocking random encounter tables that allow the GM to insert hooks inside hyperspace routes (i.e. the spaces where the ship has to revert to realspace to perform a correction - because when you're trying to hit a target in another system, you have better odds of hitting a particularly annoying atom or molecule), WEG encourages railroading, which requires the hyperroutes to rapidly decay in order to have sufficient justification as to why the PC's failed their check.[/b]
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 08, 2023 2:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, if you have a concept house rule for a better system, feel free to post it. Until then, I’ll keep trying to come up with some sort of justification as to the system we already have.
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pakman
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 08, 2023 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Well, if you have a concept house rule for a better system, feel free to post it. Until then, I’ll keep trying to come up with some sort of justification as to the system we already have.


Out of curiosity, what do we need justification for?

I think the current system IS justified - at least from my perspective.

(again, I disagree with the premise that 100% of the galaxy is accurately mapped, and therefore hyperjumps should be easily made from anywhere to anywhere).

if there is a gap, in your perspective CRM, I would like to understand - I am sure we can come up with something...
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