Hyperspace & n-space

Do the physical features of n-space have an influence on hyperspace?

I mean, there are numerous references to ship astrogators having to plot a route through hyperspace. What all does that involve.

Also, a ship has to exit hyperspace before a certain distance from a star in order to enter that star system. If it doesn't drop out of hyperspace, could it then proceed unhindered and unharmed right through the spot where the star is located in n-space?

Nico wrote:Do the physical features of n-space have an influence on hyperspace?

I mean, there are numerous references to ship astrogators having to plot a route through hyperspace. What all does that involve.

Also, a ship has to exit hyperspace before a certain distance from a star in order to enter that star system. If it doesn't drop out of hyperspace, could it then proceed unhindered and unharmed right through the spot where the star is located in n-space?

Not discernibly. By that I mean hyperspace grav waves and shears could be a result of gravitional interactions, but aside from the hyper limit(which exist around gas giants and presumably planets in orbits far away from the primary) effect, there is no direct link.

Plotting courses through hyperspace seems to involve avoiding rogue gravity effects in certain higher bands(there's an example in Shadow of Saganami where Helen Zilwicki catches the computer missing a more efficient course plan) and rogue waves, like the Selker Shear in HAE, which would destroy ships crossing into them.

A ship in hyperspace can fly through where the star's relative position was. There are no stars in hyperspace.

munroburton wrote:

Nico wrote:Do the physical features of n-space have an influence on hyperspace?

I mean, there are numerous references to ship astrogators having to plot a route through hyperspace. What all does that involve.

Also, a ship has to exit hyperspace before a certain distance from a star in order to enter that star system. If it doesn't drop out of hyperspace, could it then proceed unhindered and unharmed right through the spot where the star is located in n-space?

Not discernibly. By that I mean hyperspace grav waves and shears could be a result of gravitional interactions, but aside from the hyper limit(which exist around gas giants and presumably planets in orbits far away from the primary) effect, there is no direct link.

Plotting courses through hyperspace seems to involve avoiding rogue gravity effects in certain higher bands(there's an example in Shadow of Saganami where Helen Zilwicki catches the computer missing a more efficient course plan) and rogue waves, like the Selker Shear in HAE, which would destroy ships crossing into them.

A ship in hyperspace can fly through where the star's relative position was. There are no stars in hyperspace.

Besides hazards to navigation, the biggest thing is to take advantage to grav waves going in the right direction, which will save fuel. And avoid grav waves going in the wrong direction, since they take a lot more work to navigate and don't do that much.

That is mostly theoretical though, since the books seem to plot time as distance. There's usually no indication that there are any reasons to navigate.

JohnRoth wrote:Besides hazards to navigation, the biggest thing is to take advantage to grav waves going in the right direction, which will save fuel. And avoid grav waves going in the wrong direction, since they take a lot more work to navigate and don't do that much.

That is mostly theoretical though, since the books seem to plot time as distance. There's usually no indication that there are any reasons to navigate.

Grav waves going in the right direction can also save you (a little) time. While ships do spend most of their time cruising at the max safe speed for their rad/particle shielding the roughly 10x acceleration boost you get from a grav wave does shave some hours off the early trip acceleration phase.

Oh, and while grav waves do have a directional 'wind' that much older ships couldn't sail directly into (forcing them to tack back and forth) one of the early book infodumps explains that by Honor Harrington's day ships could sail 'upwind' for only a minor increase in wear to thei sail tuners (and IIRC it doesn't hint that they might be slower moving against the 'wind'...


Finally grav waves are also slightly safer in poorly charts areas because a rouge eave can't intrude into a normal wave - so you need not worry about running up on one while moving too fast to avoid it.

Jonathan_S wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:Besides hazards to navigation, the biggest thing is to take advantage to grav waves going in the right direction, which will save fuel. And avoid grav waves going in the wrong direction, since they take a lot more work to navigate and don't do that much.

That is mostly theoretical though, since the books seem to plot time as distance. There's usually no indication that there are any reasons to navigate.

Grav waves going in the right direction can also save you (a little) time. While ships do spend most of their time cruising at the max safe speed for their rad/particle shielding the roughly 10x acceleration boost you get from a grav wave does shave some hours off the early trip acceleration phase.

Oh, and while grav waves do have a directional 'wind' that much older ships couldn't sail directly into (forcing them to tack back and forth) one of the early book infodumps explains that by Honor Harrington's day ships could sail 'upwind' for only a minor increase in wear to thei sail tuners (and IIRC it doesn't hint that they might be slower moving against the 'wind'...


Finally grav waves are also slightly safer in poorly charts areas because a rouge eave can't intrude into a normal wave - so you need not worry about running up on one while moving too fast to avoid it.

Yeah, but that "wind" affects your radiation and particle shielding. If you're going against it, your radiation shielding limit is going to make you go slower.

JohnRoth wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Oh, and while grav waves do have a directional 'wind' that much older ships couldn't sail directly into (forcing them to tack back and forth) one of the early book infodumps explains that by Honor Harrington's day ships could sail 'upwind' for only a minor increase in wear to thei sail tuners (and IIRC it doesn't hint that they might be slower moving against the 'wind'...

Yeah, but that "wind" affects your radiation and particle shielding. If you're going against it, your radiation shielding limit is going to make you go slower.

That seems logical - I just don't remember RFC actually spelling that out anywhere. (Much less how much it might force you to slow)

Thank you for the info, everyone.

I am not so sure about flying right through a star while in hyper because the star is not there. While the star may not be there physically, one might think the AFFECTS of the star upon hyper would preclude ANY starship from getting to close to one while in hyper.

The book series has certain rules about flying around. One is grav waves. Probably caused by the interactions of millions, (billions?) of star systems, black holes, singularities, rogue planets, etc.. Another is the hyper limit. Again flat space required for hyper.

So ... lots of fun for the astrologer. Probably meant to resemble the navigator on old sailing ships, combined with the present computer generated best steaming courses for todays ships. Consider space kinda like our worlds oceans. Very dynamic. Yikes!

Edited by HB. Very dynamic to include winds, gales, storms, big waves, bigger waves, rogue waves, tidal waves, reefs, shoals, shallows, sea monsters, water spouts, lightning, lee shores, safe ports, any ports, floating debris, etc. and so on. More yikes!

HB of CJ wrote:I am not so sure about flying right through a star while in hyper because the star is not there. While the star may not be there physically, one might think the AFFECTS of the star upon hyper would preclude ANY starship from getting to close to one while in hyper.

The book series has certain rules about flying around. One is grav waves. Probably caused by the interactions of millions, (billions?) of star systems, black holes, singularities, rogue planets, etc.. Another is the hyper limit. Again flat space required for hyper.

So ... lots of fun for the astrologer. Probably meant to resemble the navigator on old sailing ships, combined with the present computer generated best steaming courses for todays ships. Consider space kinda like our worlds oceans. Very dynamic. Yikes!

Edited by HB. Very dynamic to include winds, gales, storms, big waves, bigger waves, rogue waves, tidal waves, reefs, shoals, shallows, sea monsters, water spouts, lightning, lee shores, safe ports, any ports, floating debris, etc. and so on. More yikes!

Don't give RFC any more ideas. He is having trouble keeping his writing up with the ones he already uses

HB of CJ wrote:I am not so sure about flying right through a star while in hyper because the star is not there. While the star may not be there physically, one might think the AFFECTS of the star upon hyper would preclude ANY starship from getting to close to one while in hyper.

The book series has certain rules about flying around. One is grav waves. Probably caused by the interactions of millions, (billions?) of star systems, black holes, singularities, rogue planets, etc.. Another is the hyper limit. Again flat space required for hyper.

So ... lots of fun for the astrologer. Probably meant to resemble the navigator on old sailing ships, combined with the present computer generated best steaming courses for todays ships. Consider space kinda like our worlds oceans. Very dynamic. Yikes!

Edited by HB. Very dynamic to include winds, gales, storms, big waves, bigger waves, rogue waves, tidal waves, reefs, shoals, shallows, sea monsters, water spouts, lightning, lee shores, safe ports, any ports, floating debris, etc. and so on. More yikes!

The astrogator probably sails around stars much like a RW sailor would navigate around rocks shallows islands etc.