Jump Points

[Sgt_thomson]

Hi just a quick question about jump points. I was wondering if when jumping in system do all ships materialise in the same spot or within a certain radious of a jump point. Also i think i remember reading in one of the novels that if 2 ships were to jump at the same time and materialised in the same space as each other they would both be destroyed. What would happen if a figher jumped into a cap ship? Would the cap ship be destroyed aswell as the fighter?

 

[Halman]

Jump Point FAQ

 

[Sgt_thomson]

Thanks that answered a few of my questions but i was wondering if there was

1. A set area(km/m) that ships materialise in around a jump point.
2. If 2 ships materialised at the same point does it matter what size the ships were or would both ships regardless of size be destroyed.

 

[Ijuin]

From shots of ships jumping together in the games, it seems that vessels emerge from the jump in the same location relative to the destination jump point as they were at the source jump point. For example, a ship that jumps out from a system from z+90 meters relative to the center of the jump point would arrive in the new system at z+90 meters relative to the center of the arrival jump point.

As I understand it, two ships materializing in the same space causes some sort of quantum-level interaction (after all, their atoms materialize overlapping each other), which basically results in a huge explosion as every last bit of the overlapping matter's chemical energy is released.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

1. A set area(km/m) that ships materialise in around a jump point.
2. If 2 ships materialised at the same point does it matter what size the ships were or would both ships regardless of size be destroyed.

There's a passage from Fleet Action that addresses both of these questions at once, I believe: "The actual point of rematerialization was problematic, never occurring at precisely the same spot, and if a ship in transit should come out of jump in the same space occupied by another vessel no one in the two ships involved would ever even realize that their existence had suddenly winked out in a white hot explosion."

 

[Mace]

if a ship in transit should come out of jump in the same space occupied by another vessel

IMHO, this translates into jumping into another ship already at that location,
not a ship that is jumping at the same time on thesame spot(this would be
impossible, since two ships can not occupy the same space at the start of the
jump, therefore can not re-emerge in the same space, there always is a time/location difference to begin with.

I agree with ljiun, and i see jump nodes as wide "tunnels", not as exact coordinates
in space, these tunnels also vary in size, as the vesuvius in wing commander 4 could not travel all jump nodes, but the intrepid could.

 

[Sgt_thomson]

Also i was wondering that if you mined a jump point whats to stop incoming ships from materialising in the same space as a mine. And if they did because a cap ship was so much larger than a mine would the cap ship be completely destroyed or just damaged.

 

[LeHah]

Also i was wondering that if you mined a jump point whats to stop incoming ships from materialising in the same space as a mine.

Nothing really.

This brings up a question of my own - when someone drops mines at a jump point, they're doing it with the intention of having a ship jump into a mine field or jump into a mine "it's self"? It seems more like they just dump mines over a big area around a jump point and hope for the best.

And if they did because a cap ship was so much larger than a mine would the cap ship be completely destroyed or just damaged.

I think that the explosion has less to do with a warhead and more to do with two things slamming into each other at some minute subatomic level.

 

[Nomad Terror]

There is no direct correlation between entrance point and exit point. However, a number of ships entering a jump point at the same exact instant will maintain their relative positioning. That is to say, a squadron of jump-capable fighters or a couple of cutters could jump at the same instant and still be safely in formation at the conclusion of the jump.

However, if two ships in a line jump seperately, there is no way to predict what their arrangement will be at the jump exit. They may still be in a line, they may be side-by-side, one on top of the other, or they may overlap.

Overlapping will cause instant disintegration of the overlapping matter, releasing enormous amounts of chemical energy in the form of heat and light, with plenty of collateral damage from the enormous release of energy.

Two ships of comparable size that overlap will be eliminated. If a carrier jumps onto a mine, the carrier may not be destroyed, but will contain within it a large spherical hole many multitudes times larger than the mine was itself, due to matter disintegration. Then again, the explosion could be so huge that the carrier could lose a significant portion of its mass and be no longer spaceworthy.

 

[Haesslich]

There is no direct correlation between entrance point and exit point. However, a number of ships entering a jump point at the same exact instant will maintain their relative positioning. That is to say, a squadron of jump-capable fighters or a couple of cutters could jump at the same instant and still be safely in formation at the conclusion of the jump.

However, if two ships in a line jump seperately, there is no way to predict what their arrangement will be at the jump exit. They may still be in a line, they may be side-by-side, one on top of the other, or they may overlap.

Overlapping will cause instant disintegration of the overlapping matter, releasing enormous amounts of chemical energy in the form of heat and light, with plenty of collateral damage from the enormous release of energy.

Two ships of comparable size that overlap will be eliminated. If a carrier jumps onto a mine, the carrier may not be destroyed, but will contain within it a large spherical hole many multitudes times larger than the mine was itself, due to matter disintegration. Then again, the explosion could be so huge that the carrier could lose a significant portion of its mass and be no longer spaceworthy.

I'd have to argue this one - from what we saw in Fleet Action, the point where the jumping ship materializes is random, so formation would be completely lost as if ships A, B, and C all hit the jump point at the same time, then A could appear at point X, while B would appear at point Y which could be anywhere beside point X or halfway across the jump point. Or point X and Y could overlap, causing both shisp to vanish in a blaze of energy with scattered pieces of hull flying about to cause more problems.

Either way, no matter how big the ship that overlaps - you're looking at serious damage, and quite probably the hull itself will be compromised structurally, losing most or all integrity as well as atmosphere, depending on how fast one is moving, due to the loss of the support structures in the missing part of hull.

Again, I'm not sure how Prophecy drew that, and whether the ships that flew into the jump point (where the buoy activated the point, as per the WC4 novel) returned to normal space in formation because they flew into it together.. or if because the point acted more as a portal or doorway than a jump point, and so they just flew through a hole in space, rather than doing what we would call a traditional jump.

 

[Speradon]

I can't specifically recall any particulars, but are there any in-game cutscenes showing multiple vessels jumping out of one point and into another? Just wondering what their relative positioning was shows as prior to and after the jump.

 

[Nomad Terror]

This is subjective and certainly not definitive, but in the later Wing Commander works, jump points seem to be portrayed more and more as "holes" or "tunnels" rather than a place where a ship disappears and reappears elsewhere.

I would speculate that a number of small ships that entered the same jump hole would remain in relative formation to one another. However, had they entered seperate holes then their desinations would be unpredictable.

But that's just speculation.

 

[Speradon]

This got me thinking (forgive me, I'm super tired), was there ever any explanation given for the different portrayal of jumppoints in the WC games? For instance, in WC 1 and 2, you just go to a point in space, but in Privateer, you fly into the blue bubble thing.

Also, does anywhere explain why the jumps themselves are different (a white flash in WC-1 to a wormhole-like colored thing in WC-IV) or do we assume better graphics capability = cooler effects?.

 

[Quarto]

This got me thinking (forgive me, I'm super tired), was there ever any explanation given for the different portrayal of jumppoints in the WC games? For instance, in WC 1 and 2, you just go to a point in space, but in Privateer, you fly into the blue bubble thing.

I would speculate that it had to do with gameplay concerns. In WC2, you only jumped after the enemies were all dead. On the other hand, in Privateer, they wanted you to be able to use the jump point while there were enemies still around - and it would be too easy if you could jump from anywhere in the general vicinity of the navpoint. So, they added the blue spheres, which clearly defined the area in which you could jump, and allowed you to easily find the jump point while tracking a bunch of other targets.

The other thing is, the blue spheres were only about a thousand metres in diameter. Having bigger blue spheres would be weird... and keeping the blue spheres in that size would result in problems whenever you've got big capships jumping - so that presumably is at least one of the reasons why these spheres didn't appear in any post-Priv games.

Also, does anywhere explain why the jumps themselves are different (a white flash in WC-1 to a wormhole-like colored thing in WC-IV) or do we assume better graphics capability = cooler effects?.

Most likely, yes .

 

[Silverain]

This brings up a question of my own - when someone drops mines at a jump point, they're doing it with the intention of having a ship jump into a mine field or jump into a mine "it's self"? It seems more like they just dump mines over a big area around a jump point and hope for the best.

When I read this, I kept thinking of WW2 movies where a submarine is moving through waters that have been mined - those spikey balls tethered by chain at different heights to the sea floor.

Wouldn't the intention be both? The 'goal' is to have a ship physically connect with (or at least come close to) a mine, for the mine to cause damage (explosion, etc). The field is there to create a greater opportunity for any one mine to have that contact.

As to jumping on a mine itself, well that just short-circuits the process of a ship arriving in the field after a jump, then impacting against the mine.

Either way, the ship interacts with a mine (either by jumping on it directly, or impacting against it while moving through the field) and sustains damage. The minelayer is not trying to get a ship to deliberately jump onto a mine, but if it does, well, that's just a bonus.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

IMHO, this translates into jumping into another ship already at that location,
not a ship that is jumping at the same time on thesame spot(this would be
impossible, since two ships can not occupy the same space at the start of the
jump, therefore can not re-emerge in the same space, there always is a time/location difference to begin with.

Well, the entire paragraph reads: "The maneuver was insane. Standard fleet procedure was to have at least one minute intervals between jumps. The actual point of rematerialization was problematic, never occurring at precisely the same spot, and if a ship in transit should come out of jump in the same space occupied by another vessel no one in the two ships involved would ever even realize that their existence had suddenly winked out in a white hot explosion."

I can't specifically recall any particulars, but are there any in-game cutscenes showing multiple vessels jumping out of one point and into another? Just wondering what their relative positioning was shows as prior to and after the jump.

Wing Commander III has cutscenes like this -- although I believe that they involve opening a single jump point for an entire battlegroup rather than using multiple drives... still, they're decidedly the odd man out in terms of jump visuals.

Also i was wondering that if you mined a jump point whats to stop incoming ships from materialising in the same space as a mine. And if they did because a cap ship was so much larger than a mine would the cap ship be completely destroyed or just damaged.

My guess would be that mines can't be left stationary in the actual area where ships can materialize -- the antigravitons would naturally repel them away from the "maw" of a jump point.

This got me thinking (forgive me, I'm super tired), was there ever any explanation given for the different portrayal of jumppoints in the WC games? For instance, in WC 1 and 2, you just go to a point in space, but in Privateer, you fly into the blue bubble thing.

Jump points themselves are invisible -- Privateer is giving you a (presumably computer assisted) visual representation of the antigraviton sheath that surrounds them.

Also, does anywhere explain why the jumps themselves are different (a white flash in WC-1 to a wormhole-like colored thing in WC-IV) or do we assume better graphics capability = cooler effects?.

Well, certainly that's the case in actuality... but the Handbook does attempt to retcon this somewhat by claiming that the 'flash' of a jump point is excess light and neutrinos caused by jump drives emitting more 'antigraviton energy' than is necessary to perform a jump. It talks about how some stealth ships have special "variable flux engines" that can eliminate the flash alltogether by measuring exactly the amount of energy necessary to perform a jump.