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Acceleration vs Top Speed
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 5:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That quote is found only in 1E, and was deliberately removed from 2E. One likely reason is that, while the fluff said the ship "rapidly accelerates to and beyond the speed of light", no mechanism was ever included in the RAW to represent actual acceleration.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 1:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
That quote is found only in 1E, and was deliberately removed from 2E. One likely reason is that, while the fluff said the ship "rapidly accelerates to and beyond the speed of light", no mechanism was ever included in the RAW to represent actual acceleration.

Exactly. Thank you.

The author of the 1e SW Sourcebook wrote:
Powered by incredibly efficient fusion generators, hyperdrive engines hurl ships into hyperspace, a dimension of space-time that can be entered only at faster-than-light speeds.
The editor of the 2e Sourcebook wrote:
Powered by incredibly efficient fusion generators, hyperdrive engines hurl ships into hyperspace, a dimension of space-time that allows faster-than-light travel.

Darklighter79, this was discussed at length in a May 2018 thread (that got a bit rancorous, pun intended), which was last posted in on the day I registered you for the forum. Happy Two-Year Pit Anniversary by the way!

The obvious reason the Sourcebook sentence was edited was that it was erroneous. It contradicts real world physics, and as CRM has also stated, it contradicted the way the game rules work. A ship enters hyperspace instantaneously from sublight speeds. The acceleration/deceleration that we see in the films for jumping to and from "lightspeed" is part of the acceleration up to and deceleration down from FTL speeds.

Another reason we know that Star Wars ships don't travel that fast in realspace is because doing so would defeat the whole purpose of hyperspace in the first place. Hyperspace being another dimension of space-time is how FTL travel doesn't violate real world physics - It has different laws. In realspace, you can't travel faster than the speed of light. In hyperspace, you can. In realspace, you experience noticeable time dilation for traveling "relativistic" speeds. In hyperspace, at relativistic and FTL speeds, time is experienced insignificantly different from (very close to) how time is experienced on the surface of planets. This is how more time doesn't go by on planets than for people jumping to and from lightspeed.

If you are going to quote Wookieepedia, then here is what CRM was talking about. "Pseudomotion was a term that referred to the seeming acceleration of a starship upon entering hyperspace from realspace." It's still considered canon. It was first entered into the EU in by Timothy Zahn in 1991. It explained what we see in the films, and it did not contradict how jumping to lightspeed works in the WEG game that he actually consulted when writing HttE.

"Darklighter79 wrote:
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Relativistic_shield

Relativistic shields are unnecessary and stupid. First, we already had an explanation in the EU for the apparent acceleration that worked with respect to the films and the WEG RPG, so we didn't need another one in 2002. The author may not have been hip to Zahn or remembered that detail.

Secondly, it was written by someone with a flawed understanding of physics and Star Wars. It says that they protect the ship from time dilation that occurs while the ship is traveling in hyperspace. If ships can travel relativistic speeds in realspace without time dilation, then the shielding would need to work in realspace, not hyperspace. And for an interstellar journey, relativistic speeds are only a quick part of the acceleration and deceleration. Time dilation occurs under the speed of light, not over. The bulk of the "lightspeed" journeys are over the speed of light (thousands of times c), where the special relativity equation for time dilation gives imaginary numbers (the square root of negative numbers). Imaginary, as in not real. That's why you can't travel above the speed of light in realspace. The Star Wars website author who invented relativistic shielding didn't even understand Star Wars hyperspace, let alone real physics. "Relativistic shielding" didn't even need to exist for FTL travel.

If we didn't have Pseudomotion, then "Relativistic shielding" would only be needed for under FTL, not over. The Hyperspace dimension itself is the handwave that time just happens to move at the same rate as sublight speeds. That is half of what hyperspace is there for. In WEG rules, ships instantaneously enter hyperspace from sublight speeds, so hyperspace covers both the relativistic speeds under the speed of light, as well as the FTL speeds. Pseudomotion explains the visual effect we see in the films. Zahn gets it.

Darklighter79 wrote:
It could protect from time dilatation in standard sublight cruise - outer limits of a system in 15 hours (app. speed 0.4 c or higher, if you take into account the time for de-acceleration)

But you can't go anywhere near that fast with sublight engines, in the game or in the films. And as I stated above, "relativistic shielding" says it is for hyperspace, where most of the journey is far above relativistic speeds anyway.

The "relativistic shielding" concept has not been mentioned in the EU beyond its origin year of 2002, and no canon authors have brought that forward to canon like pseudomotion was.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 1:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Whill wrote:
Of course, therein lies your only option. If you want move a great distance within a star system in a short amount of time, then jump into hyperspace for a micro-jump. You can be anywhere else in a second, if you succeed in your astrogation roll.

As an aside, how do you handle/generate Difficulties for micro-jumps and what are the consequences for a failed Astrogation roll on a micro-jump?

It hasn't happened in my game all too often, and I don't have any special rules written down for that. Based on the situations at the time and what was being attempted, I came up with a difficulty number, but it wasn't easy. I don't remember if there were any failures, but if there were I'm sure I rolled on the Astrogation Mishap chart, or just pretended to roll and came up with something that seemed appropriate at the time. Sorry that is not so helpful.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 2:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
It hasn't happened in my game all too often, and I don't have any special rules written down for that. Based on the situations at the time and what was being attempted, I came up with a difficulty number, but it wasn't easy. I don't remember if there were any failures, but if there were I'm sure I rolled on the Astrogation Mishap chart, or just pretended to roll and came up with something that seemed appropriate at the time. Sorry that is not so helpful.

I'd like to flesh out the concept of micro-jumps for inclusion in my hyperdrive project (eventually). It makes sense, and would also help to explain some instances in the newer films where ships emerge from hyperspace very close to their destination planet. If micro-jumps are a thing, the ship in question could've made a jump into the outer edges of the system, gotten a sensor reading of the precise positioning of the planets and other objects in the system, then made a much more precise micro-jump in order to emerge much closer to the planet than they might otherwise have with an interstellar jump.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 2:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
The "relativistic shielding" concept has not been mentioned in the EU beyond its origin year of 2002, and no canon authors have brought that forward to canon like pseudomotion was.

However, stasis fields (that essentially freeze time within the field) have been a thing since Han Solo at Star's End.

I would suggest that relativistic shielding is a dialed-down version of stasis fields, in that it can alter the speed of the flow of time, and is integrated into a ship's hyperdrive in order to protect the occupants from whatever time dilation effects may or may not exist in hyperspace.

Simply put, if relativistic shielding exists, it only needs to exist as a component of hyperdrives in order to explain relativistic effects that might exist.
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Darklighter79
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 10:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
CRMcNeill wrote:
That quote is found only in 1E, and was deliberately removed from 2E. One likely reason is that, while the fluff said the ship "rapidly accelerates to and beyond the speed of light", no mechanism was ever included in the RAW to represent actual acceleration.

Exactly. Thank you.


Well, it's still present in 2ed RE and REUP (d20 also for what it's worth)

Whill wrote:
Happy Two-Year Pit Anniversary by the way!

Thank you. Very Happy

Quote:
Another reason we know that Star Wars ships don't travel that fast in realspace is because doing so would defeat the whole purpose of hyperspace in the first place.


Well, they are fast at sublight but not above FTL. And without FTL ship is limited to one system.

Quote:
If you are going to quote Wookieepedia, then here is what CRM was talking about. "Pseudomotion was a term that referred to the seeming acceleration of a starship upon entering hyperspace from realspace." It's still considered canon. It was first entered into the EU in by Timothy Zahn in 1991. It explained what we see in the films, and it did not contradict how jumping to lightspeed works in the WEG game that he actually consulted when writing HttE.


ST was a little game changer here with Rathar torn apart and infamous Holdo Maneuver.

Quote:
But you can't go anywhere near that fast with sublight engines, in the game or in the films. And as I stated above, "relativistic shielding" says it is for hyperspace, where most of the journey is far above relativistic speeds anyway.


Well, there's the same travel chart for sublight travel since 1st edition (Sublight Benchmarks.). What you need to do is just calculate velocity for particular travel (for simplicity V=s/t):

Quote:
• Half an hour to fly from a planet to one of its moons.

Like from Earth to Moon (app. 300.000 km)
Speed = 166 km/s

Quote:
Two to six hours to fly from one planet to the nearest planet in the system. (Two hours for relatively close terrestrial worlds; the upper limit is for flying between distant gas giants.)
Earth Mars (55 - 400 mln km)

7.638 km/s //18.500 km/s

Quote:
• Anywhere from 10 to 48 hours to fly from a star to the outer limits of the system, depending upon distance and the presence of any hazards such as asteroid belts or gas clouds. (It takes about 15 hours to reach the outer limits of a “representative” system composed of a single yellow star and less than a dozen significant planetary bodies.)

Like from Earth to Pluto (40 AU)
Speed = 111.111 km/s

d20 just copied it, boosted slightly and added more technobabble, but essential it is the same concept.

When we see approach to a planet / leaving orbit and moving planet towards the ship/ or leaving screen, it indicates great speeds:
Ahch-To Approach
Endor Apprach
Escape from Naboo

I thought here relativistic shielding would enable the pilot to react in time. Otherwise his actions would be slow compared to the "outside world". That's of course if one wishes to play with physic laws in SW Wink.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 11:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Darklighter79 wrote:
Well, it's still present in 2ed RE and REUP (d20 also for what it's worth)

The only description in 2R&E is sufficiently vague as to be unclear as to whether the acceleration is occuring in realspace or hyperspace. And in the absence of an actual realspace acceleration mechanic where there's some sort of "lane" within which a ship jumping to hyperspace can collide with another object in realspace, any acceleration must by default be occurring in hyperspace.

Quote:
ST was a little game changer here with Rathar torn apart and infamous Holdo Maneuver.

Assuming one even accepts that dumpster fire trifecta as binding on the Legends / personal SWU, there are explanations other than realspace acceleration for what is seen on screen.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 5:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
My simple answer? Remove dice of Maneuverability and add some proportional amount to their Speed.

The freighter may be able to kick up the speed, but they'll lose the ability to maneuver. If the TIE fighter decides to slam it, though, they can get freaky fast (since it's like strapping a JATO unit to a Honda* in their normal operating mode, much less TRYING for speed.)


*I typoed this as "strapping a JATO unit to a Hondo", which is far different, but still amusing, image.


The trade off here makes sense for a very simple solution.

In "reality" the faster you are going, the more difficult it is to make complex maneuvers.

High performance vehicles are also capable of performing more complex maneuvers at higher speeds than "regular" vehicles.

Where I get lost is on (what seems to be) the conflation of acceleration and speed (or acceleration vs. velocity, if you prefer).

It seems to me that for a truly simple solution, "acceleration" (the ability to increase--and maybe even decrease--speed) could be folded into maneuverability, representing the ship's ability to gain distance after performing a slow, complex maneuver OR it's ability to perform that maneuver at a higher speed, despite being slower (less "horsepower") than the opposing ship.

Consider the difference between, for example, a Mazda Miata and a Dodge Challenger.

The main problem with this would be that "maneuverability" falsely enhances acceleration because the Miata, with a maneuverability of 4D would then accelerate faster than the Challenger with a maneuverability of 2D.

Then again, adding an "acceleration" mechanic to chases could be problematic: in a chase (or race), acceleration is extremely valuable because it allows the racer to achieve a higher speed sooner, but the times during a race (or chase) when acceleration matters are at the very beginning and after a maneuver that required a reduction in speed. Trying to implement this in an organic way seems a bit awkward to me (for most folks; I wouldn't mind adding more facets to a ship's capabilities which would help players actually make decisions when shopping for their stuff).
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 6:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One potential alternative would be something like what I included in the Agility skill write-up, where a character can travel a few meters / SUs further depending on how well they beat the Piloting Difficulty for the terrain & speed in question.

Short version, for every 5 points by which the character succeeds on their Piloting / Operations roll, they can add 1 SU to their total Speed, added after the multiplier is applied.

So say a YT-1300 is flying at Full Speed (Space 4 x2 for 8 SUs per round), but beats his piloting roll by 10 points, so he can add an extra 2 points for a resulting Speed of 10 SUs per round.
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 9:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I feel like that's a bit too... weird. Vehicles have an "absolute" top speed, as well as an "absolute" maximum rate of acceleration.

I would add a slight bit of complexity to your example above to account for this:

Use the ship's base speed as a factor (for example, the most that the ship can go beyond its move is equal to some fraction of its max speed (so with a move of 8 SU, the ship may take some time to get up to its all out speed of 32 SU, but with a phenomenal roll, you can cut that time down by a bit).

Example:
Move = 8 SU
Max/all-out speed = 32 SU;
Acceleration = -4 to +4 SU per round (pilot's choice).

No skill roll required to increase by +1 SU over the given move rate (i.e. +1 over cruise or hustle, for example), moderate to increase by +2, difficult for +3, and very difficult for +4. But the ship still tops out at 32 SU, once it gets up to that speed.
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PostPosted: Thu May 28, 2020 10:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

But all other things being equal, the superior driver/pilot will be better equipped to take advantage of the terrain and other circumstances. Sort of like a race car driver holding an optimal line in a curve in order to maintain as much speed coming out of it as possible.

And the faster a vehicle gets, the less the bonus will contribute. An A-Wing traveling at All-Out, with a pilot who beats the Difficulty by 10, will cover 50 SUs in a round, rather than 48.
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Darklighter79
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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2020 5:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:

The only description in 2R&E is sufficiently vague as to be unclear as to whether the acceleration is occuring in realspace or hyperspace. And in the absence of an actual realspace acceleration mechanic where there's some sort of "lane" within which a ship jumping to hyperspace can collide with another object in realspace, any acceleration must by default be occurring in hyperspace.


For the 99,9% it would be app. 1 light second (300,000 km) as ships jump immediately after leaving orbit at low sublight.

All other sources are consistent with one thing: to enter the hyperspace, one must break the barrier of lightspeed. It's impossible to be in hyperspace at lower than lightspeed.

Quote:
So say a YT-1300 is flying at Full Speed (Space 4 x2 for 8 SUs per round), but beats his piloting roll by 10 points, so he can add an extra 2 points for a resulting Speed of 10 SUs per round.


When you have a pursuit in open space with no hazards (straight line), this is interpreted as pushing engines more than designed for?
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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2020 8:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Darklighter79 wrote:
For the 99,9% it would be app. 1 light second (300,000 km) as ships jump immediately after leaving orbit at low sublight.

If this argument had been coherent, I'd counter by saying you're inventing a statistic in order to commit an Argumentum Ad Populum Fallacy, but instead, I'll just say, "Huh?"

Quote:
All other sources are consistent with one thing: to enter the hyperspace, one must break the barrier of lightspeed. It's impossible to be in hyperspace at lower than lightspeed.

No, all sources are not consistent, and those that are consistent with your stance are either ignorant of or in violation of basic physics. By the same token, it's impossible to actually reach lightspeed in realspace. A dimensional shift accompanied by an optical illusion that looks like a massive burst of acceleration neatly sidesteps the physics problem, and is also consistent with the fact that, no matter what any game fluff may say, none of the three gaming companies that have espoused this fallacy at varying times have ever actually accounted for it in their rule set; specifically, in all existing rule systems, a ship is not required to accelerate for X# of SUs (or their equivalent) along a specific flight path, with the attendant potential hazard of running into objects in realspace, before it enters hyperspace.

Quote:
When you have a pursuit in open space with no hazards (straight line), this is interpreted as pushing engines more than designed for?
No, this is a pilot putting their own skill to good use in order to make the best use of the terrain and/or local conditions to eke out fractionally better performance than would a less skilled pilot.
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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2020 1:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
But all other things being equal, the superior driver/pilot will be better equipped to take advantage of the terrain and other circumstances. Sort of like a race car driver holding an optimal line in a curve in order to maintain as much speed coming out of it as possible.

And the faster a vehicle gets, the less the bonus will contribute. An A-Wing traveling at All-Out, with a pilot who beats the Difficulty by 10, will cover 50 SUs in a round, rather than 48.


I like the concept and totally agree with it if allowing for the following considerations:

1) The "all out speed" as given in the rules is not an indicator of the vehicle's absolute top speed, but rather the "average top end" capability before accounting for specific variables.

2) The vehicle's stats use some sort of numerical or bracketed value which limits how fast it can accelerate (gain speed) that is separate from its actual top speed.

We can use real life as an example of what I mean: high performance cars can out accelerate high performance aircraft up to a certain point (especially in the sub-100 mph portion of the contest), but high performance aircraft can certainly achieve a much higher top speed than any car (and may out accelerate them within some portion of the car's maximum speed limit).

Another example might be something like a Formula 1 car which has a very fast acceleration but a relatively low top speed of around 220 mph. Nascar racecars do not accelerate as quickly as Formula 1 cars (much heavier), but have a similar top speed. There are other cars (even production cars or modified production) which are slower to accelerate than either of the racecars, but have higher top speeds than both (and vice versa: faster to accelerate, but lower top speed: late model Porsche 911 turbos and Bugattis and high end Ferraris, for example).
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PostPosted: Fri May 29, 2020 1:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:

Quote:
When you have a pursuit in open space with no hazards (straight line), this is interpreted as pushing engines more than designed for?
No, this is a pilot putting their own skill to good use in order to make the best use of the terrain and/or local conditions to eke out fractionally better performance than would a less skilled pilot.


To put CRMcNeill's comment in relatable terms, think of a racecar driver driving a manually shifted car.

The skilled driver can change gears faster than the unskilled driver. Even if the competitors are driving exactly the same vehicle in exactly the same conditions, the more skilled driver can shift faster and more smoothly than the less skilled driver. This results in less "shift lag" (the brief moment wherein none of the engine's horsepower is being delivered to the drivetrain), resulting in more power being delivered to the wheels in terms of "time on throttle." This difference adds up over the course of the race such that if the better driver can shift 0.01 second faster, and the race requires 150 gear shifts, the better driver will "save" 1.5 seconds over the course of the race. A 1.5 second difference at the finish line is drastic in terms of the visible distance between cars.

Also, in drag racing, the launch is the most critical part of the race. Being able to modulate the throttle in order to avoid spinning the tires (and thus wasting horsepower), while putting as much of the vehicle's horsepower to the ground as possible is a very fine needle to thread, but skilled drivers can do it consistently.

In racecar driving, everything comes down to managing tire traction. In starship piloting, it comes down to (technobabble), but essentially, skilled pilots/drivers are able to extract 100% (or nearly) of the vehicle's capability, while "average" pilots may be capable of 70% or 80% or maybe even 90%, but will never beat a "pro."
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