Slower hyperdrives for fighters

[MrNexx]

[CRMcNeill]

Alternately, you could equip starfighters with a miniature version of the Solid Fuel Convertor from Tramp Freighters, allowing the pilot to <ahem> make his own fuel...
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

Or he just eats MRE's and cloggs himself up for 3-4 days!
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Sutehp]

[garhkal]

[Naaman]

[Ning Leihrec]

My reasoning is that I suspect some power should be compromised for miniaturization despite the smaller size of the propelled craft. Way stations or carriers are essential for longer trips anyway because of short range consumables. One of the main advantages for a hyperspace capable fighter is hit & run, so a staging point near the target is ideal, in which case a slower hyperdrive wouldn't effect that function as much. It seems like a realistic trade off that creates interesting tactical circumstances.

[Zarn]

I disagree. Supercruise is much easier to achieve for a smaller fighter plane than a larger one, for instance, so if anything I feel that a fighter might be even faster than one of the larger ships because there's less mass that the universe must be convinced it can ignore.

I suspect that you're trying to say something about range, really. That the hyperspace jumps of a hyperspace-capable fighter should be shorter jaunts rather than long cruises. For one, there's the bathroom issue. Though one might solve it the way the Sukhoi Su-34 did.

Essentially, the range of a fighter is its consumables divided by its hyperspace multiplier - halved (unless your tactics require the fighter to land and provision on its target). Which means that a generic Y-Wing could potentially have a hyperspace jump of 2 days each way and still have some time on the target. Similarly for most models of the X-Wing.

So, what I'm getting at is this - I do agree that the range of a starfighter's hyperspace jumps might be significantly shorter than, say, a light freighter's typical jump. However, I still feel that the speed with which the starfighter traverses hyperspace should be fast - perhaps even faster than the fairly typical x1 multiplier used for many fighters.

There is, after all, the issue of pilot endurance. The cramped cockpit of, say, an A-Wing doesn't seem to have room for a Su-34 style solution to that problem. Yet the A-Wing has the same amount of consumables that an X-Wing does - 1 week.

Let's say that you double the speed of the typical x1 starfighter to x1/2, but that you similarly require that it can spend at most one quarter its consumables time in hyperspace per jump - which essentially limits its hyperspace range to 2.5 days (the standard Galactic Week is 5 days).

[Naaman]

Excellent point. In fact, Id be inclined to limithyperspace jumps for fighters to hours rather than days both on the basis of capacity and pilot endurance.


Or else at the very least, require at least one stop each day for relief and to access the cargoare for the day's consumables.

[Wajeb Deb Kaadeb]

[Sutehp]

[Ning Leihrec]

Hibernation trance & instinctive astrogation make lightspeed trips in a fighter much easier for Force users.

[Sutehp]

[Whill]

[Sutehp]