Hyperspace Structure and Movement
Hyperspace is a companion dimension of our own "normal space", that is shaped by the gravity forces of our universe. It is a "multi-layered dimension", with different energy levels, or frequencies (Hz). Higher penetration of these Hz increases the effective speed, and distance an object is capable of traveling within hyperspace. Entrance into hyperspace is accomplished via an injector drive that propels a unit to the desired Hz of transits. When the energy put into the object's trajectory runs out. it is ejected into "normal space" (Zero Hz) by the fabric of the companion dimension.
Every level or Hz of hyperspace is divided into "low" "middle" and "high" octaves. These octaves represent the resonance within each Hz of hyperspace. In general, drives and transit networks are tuned to specific cords, that they maintain at any given Hz. When transitioning from Hz to Hz, units jump straight from the octaves in each Hz. For convenience, the frequencies of hyperspace accessed by Known Sphereä technology are divided into three sections, alpha, beta, and gamma. Each section contains 12 Hz of hyperspace. Currently, most ships, especially military vessels, and networks utilize the gamma section, which contains the highest Hz of hyperspace.
Entry and Exit
Star systems are divided into three regions, the Soft Zone, the Jump Zone, and the Hard Zone. The following descriptions assume a single star with one solar mass.
The Soft Zone
This is the area ranging from the edge of the solar system to about the mid-point between Jupiter and Mars. All ships reentering normal space must arrive within the Soft Zone; attempts to exit more deeply into the solar system will result in the destruction of the vessel.
The Soft Zone offers an important form of movement known as "skipping". Skipping allows any unit with a hyperdrive or injector drive within the soft zone to instantaneously "hop" or "jump" from one area to another. The maximum distance of a skip for a modern ship is of the diameter of star's hard zone.
The Jump Zone
This small area ranges from inside the orbit of Mercury to the surface of the sun. This is the only area with enough deformation of space to allow for injection into hyperspace. A fleet within the Jump Zone can be injected into Hyperspace in a matter of minuets.
The Hard Zone
Technically, the Hard Zone extends from the surface of the sun to the boundary of the Soft Zone, however it is usually thought of as beginning at the edge of the Jump Zone. Within the Hard Zone, Skipping is impossible, and fleets are at their least flexible.
Network Travel Speeds
The primary mode of travel throughout the Known Sphereä for commercial and civilian traffic is the extensive Transit Networks established by each government. These networks allow vessels without injector drives to be hurled from system to system and cluster to cluster. Using any type of Node within a network requires being "caught" and guided into the Soft Zone of a system, and then traversing the majority of that systems Hard Zone to be injected along its next hyperspace path. Consequently, units wishing to "stand by" to jump to other star systems on short notice must orbit within the Hard Zone. Since gravity systems are inoperable and fusion reactors are unable to maintain their normal efficiency within hyperspace, all units must eventually drop out of hyperspace to restore their power cores to full and recharge their batteries.
Network travel, within and between clusters has a variable speed depending on the granularity of the hyperspace traversed. Using choice selection of known paths, and avoiding "weather", the highest speed currently achievable by Known Sphere units is 93,000 times the speed of light. This averages to around 10.5 light years an hour. Non-military travel speed is about 1/2 to 2/3 slower than this, as most of those units are unable to maintain a high enough frequency achieve these speeds. Also, the slower travel time of these units in normal space greatly eats into their travel average.
Pseudospeed
Pseudospeed is a term used to describe movement through hyperspace. Three-dimensional pieces of matter do not move through hyperspace in a conventional geometric sense. From the object’s point of view, it is the normal universe that is moving. Pseudospeed describes a ship’s relative speed in relation to normal space, (Zero Hz). Pseudospeed changes with frequency and with granularity. The higher your frequency, the higher your pseudospeed. Granularity has been known to shift within an area particularly after severe storms, creating new "channels" and making areas impassable.
Granularity
Granularity (p) is a measure of terrain in hyperspace. Granularity affects three areas: pseudospeed, vector maintenance, and frequency maintenance. Increasing granularity alters the effective Hz of an object and thus decreases its pseudospeed. Granularity can also force an object to expend energy to maintain its current pseudovector.
Displacement Factor
A given area of hyperspace also has a Displacement Factor (Df). The Df of a region describes the maximum size of hyperspace fields that a given object can have around it within any given Hz. This could prevent a ship from penetrating into higher levels of hyperspace within certain areas.
Pseudovector
Travel in hyperspace is a matter of perspective. Vessels use injector drives to increase their frequency. Once in hyperspace, objects have a pseudovector, that correlates to their direction of movement in normal space. The pseudovector is maintained by the object’s hyperdrives as it travels. Upon returning to normal space, the amount of time an object spends on a particular pseudovector at a given Hz determines the distance the object has traveled in normal space. The object does not appear to move through hyperspace, but instead the granularity "appears" and "disappears" around the object as it "travels" along its pseudovector. Also, objects can occupy the same space if they are traveling along different Hz
Unlike normal space, hyperspace is a dynamic, changing environment, with the effects of gravity exaggerated across great distances. These forces can act as "currents", form pathways, and even produce "storms". Storms are great disturbances in hyperspace, that can cut across frequencies , sometimes covering all three known sections of hyperspace. Storms may "blow" ships off their pseudovectors, change the granularity of existing areas (depending on the category of the storm), and generate gravity waves, of awesome power. Objects passing through these waves can be damaged, and ships unable to change Hz to avoid a storm run the grave risk of being reduced to subatomic particles. Usually such storms only occur between clusters, but especially severe ones have been known to penetrate clusters and wreak havoc on the local networks. Storms are monitored, and usually avoided. While some military drives are powerful enough to ride out minor disturbances, major storms should be feared and avoided at all costs.
Types of Drives
While all ships enter and exit hyperspace in the same way, there are different drive types to make interstellar travel happen.
Hyperdrives
Hyperdrives are used exclusively to maintain Hz and Pv within Hyperspace, and they can increase their Hz as long as the local area of hyperspace the unit is occupying has granularity less than the unit's Hz maintenance rating. Hyperdrives cannot bypass a region of hyperspace where the granularity is greater than the unit's Hz maintenance.
Hyperdrives are most commonly found on civilian ships and transports that travel solely on networks. While these drives cannot be used to inject a ship into hyperspace, they do allow ships to safely emerge from hyperspace into normal space (provided they can traverse the required granularity. Almost all objects transiting through hyperspace are equipped with hyperdrives.
Hypersails
Hyperspace sails, or "hypersails" are the most primitive type of hyperspace maneuvering system. First used to guide units that had been injected into hyperspace, hypersails are still used for transports within clusters, due to the low level of "weather" inside clusters. Hypersails are unable to increase a unit's Hz, and can only slow the units "fall" to lower Hz.
Hypersails are generally placed on most sloops or other small ships that do not have the more expensive, issinium using hyperdrives. The Irrosa Homeworld Federation has pioneered the use of hypersail pods that carry a squadron of fighters from point to point. Hypersails are often used on one-shot probes by exploration and military vessels. While hypersails can guide a unit safely into normal space, they tend to be grossly inaccurate about reentry.
Injector Drives
Units equipped with injector drives are able to propel themselves into hyperspace, and are capable of injecting other units of similar mass, however these drives are not currently capable of creating a hyperspace funnel. In the past, injector drives were found only on the BVB, BVS, and IBW ("Bow" Ships), but they now are small enough to be placed on FF and DD classes. Injector drives use an order of magnitude more issinium than hyperdrives and thus tend to be left to military and more expensive private vessels.
From hyperspace, injector drives can be used to form a reverse injection tube or "retrojection" tube. The unit with the injector drive can retroject other units through a region of high granularity back to another Hz of hyperspace or back into normal space. Injection drives also have the highest Hz maintenance and Pv maintenance of any drive types.
Once a unit with an injector drive has traversed an injection or retrojection tube, it can no longer maintain the tube and it collapses. While more accurate at returning to normal space than hyperdrives, retrojection still tends to increase the scatter effect of a battle group to a large extent, unless the drive can move several units at once. However Injector drives are able to achieve high Hz, and therefore can maintain 80%-90% of network speeds.
Hyperspace Reentry
All units reentering normal space from hyperspace have a nearly zero velocity in relationship to the systems main gravity well. Super-stabilization of N-Fields is reset (see normal space movement), forcing the units to spend time to achieve full thrust. Units not using hyperspace funnels experience a great deal of inaccuracy in position when returning to normal space. Fleets often arrive scattered at the edge of a system and must regroup before heading in system for an offensive.
Networks
Node Types
Though many military vessels carry their own injector drives, whenever possible, they utilize the Transit Networks as the preferred means of travel from star to star and cluster to cluster. For most non-military vessels, Network Travel is the only way to move beyond the confines of light.
These nodes inject units into hyperspace using Injectors Stations (see below), and "intercept" units in hyperspace by casting Hyperspace Funnels (see below). The higher the frequency reached, the greater the amount of power needed to build the funnel or injector.
The networks are composed of different types of stations that inject and retroject ships from hyperspace. Despite the singular names, these stations are not always one monolithic structure, but are often several structures, sometimes spread out across a given orbit. All types of nodes must be in close solar orbit, averaging about the orbit of Mercury from a solar mass of one, but varying with the mass of the star. Multiple stars in the same system, allow for a significant reduction in the energy needed for Hyperspace Transit Operations.
Transit Nodes: The largest, and often most spread out, Transit Nodes are capable of propelling ships into and out of clusters. They are almost always found within gravity flux of binary or trinary stellar systems within the cluster, or at the most important worlds within a nation. Transit Nodes are capable of creating dozens of injection tubes and several hyperspace funnels.
System Node: The next size down, System Nodes are usually found within developed systems. These can usually create a few funnels and several injection tubes.
Routers and Terminus.: The smallest class of Nodes. A Terminus is a node type that simply sends and receives from one system, while a Router is simply a Terminus that routes ships through its system along the transit line.
All nodes can generate a limited number of Hyperspace Funnels. These Funnels inject ships straight into high Hz and catch ships traveling to their destination. The smaller and more limited functioning Router and Terminus nodes are "hard wired" to limited octaves, whereas the larger, and more expensive System and Transit nodes can change their "settings". Most systems use a limited range of hyperspace frequencies for transit, and each nation has its own series of octaves. In the Central Alliance, however, both the Rukira and Hyrunians have decided to integrate their systems and use the same octaves.
Hyperspace Funnels
Hyperspace funnels are generated by nodes, for the purpose of facilitating a controlled "re-entry" into normal space. Once "energized" and tuned to specific octaves, funnels can be used by any unit traveling through hyperspace within the frequencies of that funnel's octave range. Funnels can change the octaves they are tuned for, however, this requires the complete powering down of the funnel and time spent in realignment.
Fully powered funnels can be used to guide units out of high levels of hyperspace and into normal space. The tip or "nozzle" of the funnel can place an object to within approximately 1000 Jupiter diameters. While powered, the node can shift the nozzle to different regions of the soft zone for a minimal amount of energy. A funnel in the initial stages of powering up, or a funnel that is being powered down can still be manipulated, albeit with far less accuracy once it is over 40% underpowered. The accuracy approaches normal with the square of the percent power within the funnel. In addition, incomplete and collapsing funnels lose not only their ability to direct units, but also become less likely to intercept units in the first place. The probability of interception decreases by 5% for every 1% of power below maximum.
Each funnel requires a constant applications of power to be energized, a process that requires around 88 hours to complete. Once created, the funnel can be maintained for a nominal energy expenditure, however, funnels hold a tremendous amount of energy and take nearly 71 hours to collapse once power is terminated. Actively draining power from the funnel, a process which is energy intensive, requires slightly over 20 hours.
Hyperspace Injectors
Hyperspace injectors use an artificial injector tube to transfer a unit from normal space into a maximum hyperspace frequency. Each injector is aligned to a specific octave, that can only be changed though retooling the actual injector, a process that can take several days. Depending on their masses, more than one unit may be sent through a given injector tube at a time, however, for the sake of safety, units usually are sent one at a time. Tubes require 3 to 7 minuets to create, and can be maintained as long as power is applied.
Injector tubes require a constant feed of power. Once power is cut to the injector, the tube collapses, and must be rebuilt. Tubes are also less stable than hyperspace funnels and can be disrupted by the presence of other hyperspace injectors and local conditions.