Can this little thing jump?
- Thread starter Deacan
- Start date
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Sure -- Wing Commander Prophecy starts with Casey and Maestro ferrying two Piranhas... "I've been ahead of you since the last jump point".
Jason_Ryock
Vice Admiral
Wow, I have new found respect for the Piranha.
I could be wrong, but isn't there a sequence in WCP where we see the Midway open a jump point and a bunch of fighters fly through it as the ship is passing through it? Or was that WCIV?
I could be wrong, but isn't there a sequence in WCP where we see the Midway open a jump point and a bunch of fighters fly through it as the ship is passing through it? Or was that WCIV?
Lt.Overload
Rear Admiral
That was WCIV, Jason, when Blair and company first landed on the Intrepid.
Dundradal
Frog Blast the Vent Core!
TPOF actually mentions a UBW device (I forget if they say it was a Confed toss off or something else) that could open a jump point for fighters to travel through even if they did not possess a jump drive. IIRC it was a satellite dish that somehow opened the jump point.
Clarification someone?
Clarification someone?
TEOC Viper
Rear Admiral
I recall the device, and I want to say it was some kind of dish/array mounted on a transport. But I don't have my novel remotely onhand to check into it for sure.
Wojo
Rear Admiral
I know that it's not kosher around here, but the jump drive physics explanation in the Wing Commander (movie) Confederation Handbook does a pretty good job at explaining how fighters might have jump drives...
To simplify, fighters can do short jumps, capships can do long jumps. Has to do with the energy needed to travel the jump line - there is an explanation that if one were to run out of energy during a jump, you would be stranded in the void somewhere... So to carry that bit of info to it's conclusion, the engine size and power of the craft would dictate which jumps it would be capable of. Might mean that a small fighter has to take 'the long way around'.
Now, what I want to know is the physics behind the scene towards the end of WC4, when the Intrepid (chasing the Versuvius) as a "...smaller ship, has other options..." There follows some random talk about 'fitting through' a jump point. What? Has space got 'low bridge' signs now? That was the worst plot device ever. I'm gonna make a big call and say _Worse than all the mistakes of the Movie_.
[awaits flaming bags of poop]
M.
To simplify, fighters can do short jumps, capships can do long jumps. Has to do with the energy needed to travel the jump line - there is an explanation that if one were to run out of energy during a jump, you would be stranded in the void somewhere... So to carry that bit of info to it's conclusion, the engine size and power of the craft would dictate which jumps it would be capable of. Might mean that a small fighter has to take 'the long way around'.
Now, what I want to know is the physics behind the scene towards the end of WC4, when the Intrepid (chasing the Versuvius) as a "...smaller ship, has other options..." There follows some random talk about 'fitting through' a jump point. What? Has space got 'low bridge' signs now? That was the worst plot device ever. I'm gonna make a big call and say _Worse than all the mistakes of the Movie_.
[awaits flaming bags of poop]
M.
Me too... I mentioned it earlier, its very sad we did not use that bird more often...
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Woah there--it's totally kosher. All the movie material is "canon", as the kids are saying these days.
In fact, the 'physics of jumping' article you're referencing was actually done by Origin for the series bible in 1992. The editors of the Confederation Handbook reprinted the entire piece with various minor changes and additions to tie it to the movie (ie, further explanation of the NAVCOM).
Ever wonder why the books and such are remarkably consistent about particular jump-drive related facts that don't appear anywhere in the game? Multiple authors talking about 'jump sickness' and how ships have to slow before jumping and so on? It's because of that article, which went out to everyone working on the Wing Commander license over the years...
(The jump stuff in the games themselves, though, was never visually consistent. Remember the Victory's whole fleet going through a single space hole in WC3 system transitions?)
I don't have a copy of the book at work and will check when I get home, but let me get in on this. My memory says it was an old corvette with an oversized parabolic antenna. Blair recognized the technology as something the Confederation had experimented with but was surprised to see it in use.
ChrisReid
Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
I actually don't believe that's the first time that that particular subject gets brought up. I believe it's the Hakaga carriers in Fleet Action are noteworthy for having some special system that allows them to jump lines that ships their size would not normally be able to transit.
Jason_Ryock
Vice Admiral
Well I really couldn't disagree more, at some point you have to take into consideration the energy constraints for opening a jump point, and holding it open, and realize that every second that passes (which is going to be necessarily longer for a bigger ship) the energy needed scales up and the issue isn't the size of the jump point, it's the size of the ship. And when you think about it like a window opening and closing that ship has to fly through you realize that a smaller more maneuverable ship is going to be able to travel faster to hit a smaller window then a larger ship would be able to do, letting it cut some corners on the time it takes to jump.
Dundradal
Frog Blast the Vent Core!
Yeah they have a new jump system which allows ships of their size and mass to pass through "smaller" jump points. I think it gets mentioned a few times during the discussion of the Hakagas.