Approved Tech The Meyer Drive

[Kurt Meyer]

​

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To Sub Kurt's great invention
• Image Source: Maymoun C
• Canon Link: N/A
• Restricted Missions: N/A
• Primary Source: N/A

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

• Manufacturer: Various Licensed Manufacturers, Kurt Meyer
• Model: Meyer Drive
• Affiliation: Open-Market
• Modularity: Yes
• Production: Semi-Unique
• Material: Durasteel, Dallorian Alloy, Various Engine Components

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Variable Fit
• Easy Adjustment
• Open Design

Strengths:

• Mixed Engine: The Meyer Drive is an engine that is in essence a mixture of a hyperdrive and a standard ion engine. The design function of this is actually quite simple, mixing the two so they in essence become a single component. The advantages of this are three fold. The first is for a more streamlined starship, requiring only a single engine bay rather than an engine bay and Hyperdrive. The second is that it allows the standard Engine to draw on the power that would normally be taken up by the hyperdrive, increasing speed and power to the engines. The third advantage is that of the Meyer drives ability to 'fold' a vessel into hyperspace.
• Hyperspace Fold: The standard hyperdrive that has existed in the galaxy for eons essentially forces a starship to "jump" in acceleration, opening a rift so that a vessel is essentially forced into hyperspace in an instant. The Meyer Drive however does this differently. Instead of forcing an initial quick jump into hyperspace, the Meyer drive first accelerates into extreme sub-light speeds before slowly folding the vessel into hyperspace. This 'fold' has two main advantages. The first is that this method uses less fuel than a standard hyperdrive, potentially saving a credits over long term use. The second is that the Meyer drive is essentially unaffected by Gravity fields. The drive essentially pushes a vessel into extreme sublight speeds then "folds" them into hyperspace, This affect is not because the Meyer Drive ignored gravity fields themselves, but because the drive pushes a ship at such extreme speeds that it makes it very difficult to stop or even see with the naked eye. The Drive also requires extreme speed in order to actually 'work'(At least Very High speed in ship stats).

Weaknesses:

• Inertia: The Meyer Drive pushes a vessel into extreme speeds, so fast that they are just at the cusp of what is actually survivable by living beings. This means that vessels equipped with the Meyer Drive require intense use of Inertial Compensators for them to actually survive. A ship utilizing the Meyer Drive quite literally cannot survive without these devices. This means a vessel using the Meyer Drive requires additional Inertial Compensators at the expense of other systems(Generally weapons or maneuverability).
• Overheating: Unfortunately, due to it's design the Meyer drive is rather prone to overheating. The actual function of the device and it's squished together parts mean that things have a tendency to get rather hot. At times this will mean the Meyer Drive will require a cooldown period after use, something that can be incredibly dangerous for military or other combat Vessels*
• Sensor/Trajectory: Though The Meyer Drive pushes a ship to extreme speeds, it does not make the vessel invisible to sensors. A starship would technically still be able to track and even target a vessel utilizing the Meyer Drive, especially considering that the ship is on a predictable trajectory.
• Interception: The Meyer Drive does not have the capability to entirely ignore an interdictor field once in hyperspace. If a fiel is projected over it, the Meyer Drive using ship will still be torn from hyperspace. The Drive only "avoids" fields due to it's speed outside of hyperspace, and thus is still affect by interdiction while traveling through hyperspace.

DESCRIPTION
Kurt Meyer has never been particularly smart, intelligent, or anything of that sort.

Most of his life has been spent floating from place to place, choosing the easy option and doing whatever he could to get by. As of late this has changed in his life, with both his best friend and his girlfriend pushing him to be greater than he ever was before. This 'push' lead Kurt to seek a new lot in life.

This new lot, as it were, turned out to be an education.

Spurned on by his friend, [member="Kaileann Vera"], leaving, as well as his girlfriend's [member="Jamie Pyne"]'s political position, Kurt realized that he needed to do something better with himself. This pushed him into a state of contemplation, and after a while he decided that school was the way to go.

With Jamie's help Kurt managed to gain entry into the prestigious Kalinda University.

It was here that Kurt's natural affinity for engineering and specifically starships began to rear it's head.

Having spent the last few years modifying, changing, and refitting his former ship The Messa along with Kaile, Kurt had a natural sort of knack for the modication of starship components. This talent showed through quite well within his more mechanically inclined courses, and it wasn't long before his teacher took a special interest within him.

For the next few months Kurt worked on his off hours within the Kuhn Science building, toiling away and often gaining help from a new found friend @Adder. It was here that Kurt eventually managed to slip into an odd sort of discovery, fusing a regular Ion Engine with the components of a hyperdrive.

He was able to fit these two components together, shifting things around until eventually he managed to create a working drive. With the help of his teacher and his new friend Kurt managed to refit an old fighter with this engine, and successfully test it. Though the test nearly killed him due to the ship only containing a singular Inertial Dampener, Kurt was more than overjoyed at the success of his invention.

His teacher, as well as the University itself, helped Kurt spread the news of the Meyer Drive, and through them managed to secure several contracts with small manufacturers to begin the production of his drive in full scale.

*Roll Dice after use in combat situations, 1d6, if Higher than 3 Engine requires Cooldown of Five IC posts.

 

[Gir Quee]

Under Review.

 

[Gir Quee]

Instead of forcing an initial quick jump into hyperspace, the Meyer drive first accelerates into extreme sub-light speeds before slowly folding the vessel into hyperspace. This 'fold' has two main advantages. The first is that this method uses far less fuel than a standard hyperdrive, potentially saving a vessel thousands of credits a year.

Hyperdrive travel is actually more fuel-efficient than sublight travel. From Rogue Squadron, pg. 133

"The hyperdrives barely sipped fuel, while the sublight engines gulped it. Running up to a lightspeed jump burned a lot of fuel, though not as much as maneuvering through a dogfight"

The second is that the Meyer drive is essentially unaffected by Gravity fields. The drive essentially pushes a vessel into extreme sublight speeds then "folds" them into hyperspace, meaning they essentially just ignore any gravity fields. This also allows the ship to slowly 'fold' back into realspace much closer to gravity fields as well.

This is going to need some gameplay balance for this significant advantage, but lets talk physics first. I may need some clarification from you on this to make sure that I'm understanding parts of your submission right.

Essentially, we exist in the bradyonic state in real life (at sublight speeds in Star Wars). Hyperspace exists in the tachyonic state (faster than light). Accelerating from the bradyonic into the tachyonic state (and this is based on my current understanding of this sub, in which I could be wrong), is technically impossible using conventional physics. As we get closer and closer to the speed of light, more and more effort and power is needed before we could reach this event horizon (acceleation is an exponential function). Mathematically, it's not possible to achieve this event horizon. Now, we are in the Star Wars universe and use space magic (called hyperdrive motivators) to cross over this barrier.

This isn't to say that the Meyer Drive isn't possible, but it's not likely going to be more fuel efficient than hyperdrive with the amount of effort needed to accelerate close to light speed, and it will likely need a very long time to fully accelerate to an area where we could whip up some sort of space magic that allows it to cross the barrier.

So at this point, I am going to ask if this actually travels in the realm of hyperspace at all, if it's another dimension, or if we're basically "warping" around sublight space not unlike ships in Star Trek.

Weaknesses:

I not certain these balance out the Meyer Drive's ability to ignore interdictors, at least as how I currently understand these weaknesses.

Inertia: The Meyer Drive pushes a vessel into extreme speeds, so fast that they are just at the cusp of what is actually survivable by living beings. This means that vessels equipped with the Meyer Drive require intense use of Inertial Compensators for them to actually survive. A ship utilizing the Meyer Drive quite literally cannot survive without these devices.

As far as I know, pretty much all starships have inertial compensators or something very similar as part of their standard equipment (this includes the Tie Fighter, notorious for not having many of the basics). It is notable that pretty much any ship jumping to hyperspace would already require inertial dampeners for the same reason. I can maybe see the Inertia working as a weakness if they have to have specially equipped inertial compensators that effectively reduce the statistic / rating of another piece of the ship.

Overheating: Unfortunately, due to it's design the Meyer drive is rather prone to overheating. The actual function of the device and it's squished together parts mean that things have a tendency to get rather hot. At times this will mean the Meyer Drive will require a cooldown period after use, something that can be incredibly dangerous for military or other combat Vessels*

This is a good start (based on the asterisk note). The main issue with this though, is that while it is a possible strategic weakness, it would seem to occur after encountering a potential interdictor. Now, this is possible with HIMS as well (and it too tends to suffer damage from being used), but it is notably restricted to the ship already being in motion within hyperspace. I think that this needs something more to it than that to compensate for being able to escape an interdictor while starting out in realspace.

Collision: Though also a danger with a standard hyperdrive, the Chance of a collision occurring with a vessel utilizing the Meyer Drive is somewhat higher. Once the ship properly begins to accelerate, it is unable to actually maneuver. This means a clever opponent could calculate the ships trajectory and move something in the path of the vessel.

Related to my question above about where this ship is travelling, where would these possible collisions occur? (sublight space, hyperspace, some other dimension, etc).


If you haven't seen this already, I really recommend checking out Curtis Saxton's page on Hyperspace. It covers some of the material that I've brought up here, but you can synthesize it from other places as well.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

Hyperdrive travel is actually more fuel-efficient than sublight travel. From Rogue Squadron, pg. 133

It was my understanding that this is only true once the ship is actually in Hyperspace, and that the Initial "Jump" Takes up a massive amount of fuel(My example of this would be TLJ though I think I can't state specifically what I mean due to Spoiler rules?). This is what I meant by the Engine being more fuel efficient. Though the drive pushes you to go very very fast it is still less than this jump would be.

So at this point, I am going to ask if this actually travels in the realm of hyperspace at all, if it's another dimension, or if we're basically "warping" around sublight space not unlike ships in Star Trek.

It is hyperspace.

I have reworded the submission a bit to better reflect this. The Meyer Drive does not push you to the edge of lightspeed, my intent was not for it to be a "warp" drive. Rather the drive accelerates a ship to the point where it can transition into hyperspace at a slower rate than the normal 'Jump' to hyperspace. Basically instead of Jumping super fast(which is necessary to breach that barrier), the drive goes to a certain edge and then 'folds' the ship into hyperspace.

There is no 'actual' physics involved in this, Hyperspace is described as an alternate realm of existence, this is just another way to reach said realm.

I can maybe see the Inertia working as a weakness if they have to have specially equipped inertial compensators that effectively reduce the statistic / rating of another piece of the ship.

This is exactly what I intended, the use of the Meyer Drive requires extra Inertial Compensators which would obviously add to a ship and require compensation in other areas.

I thinkthat this needs something more to it than that to compensate for being able to escape an interdictor while starting out in realspace.

I'm not sure what you'd have in mind. This effect always happens with the use of the Meyer Drive, I can make it worse on the die roll(higher than 3 instead of just four)

Related to my question above about where this ship is travelling, where would these possible collisions occur? (sublight space, hyperspace, some other dimension, etc).

Realspace is what is specifically referred to in the submission though of course this ship, just like any other, could create hyperspace collisions. It is specifically a weakness here however because one could easily enough plot the trajectory of a ship using the Meyer Drive to escape since the Drive literally can only push you into a singular straight line. This means if an opponent is clever and has appropriate resources they could stop the ship.

 

[Gir Quee]

It was my understanding that this is only true once the ship is actually in Hyperspace, and that the Initial "Jump" Takes up a massive amount of fuel(My example of this would be TLJ though I think I can't state specifically what I mean due to Spoiler rules?). This is what I meant by the Engine being more fuel efficient. Though the drive pushes you to go very very fast it is still less than this jump would be.

Spoiler's ban ended on January 14th. (Reference is here). There's a good amount of Star Wars that I don't know (especially the newer stuff), so I'd like to hear about this.

I have reworded the submission a bit to better reflect this. The Meyer Drive does not push you to the edge of lightspeed, my intent was not for it to be a "warp" drive. Rather the drive accelerates a ship to the point where it can transition into hyperspace at a slower rate than the normal 'Jump' to hyperspace. Basically instead of Jumping super fast(which is necessary to breach that barrier), the drive goes to a certain edge and then 'folds' the ship into hyperspace. There is no 'actual' physics involved in this, Hyperspace is described as an alternate realm of existence, this is just another way to reach said realm.

So essentially, we're talking about a slower, but more fuel efficient, acceleration into hyperspace?

If so, I'm open to that idea. I'm not sure if it would dramatically more fuel efficient (that's something I'd have to look at more, and it sounds like you may know something that I do not).

Perhaps the bigger issue is though, that if we are using hyperspace, mass shadows still apply to ships travelling within the realm of hyperspace, regardless of the drive being used. The wookiee article on hyperspace mentions that hyperspace and realspace are "coterminous": actions in one can still affect the other.

This is exactly what I intended, the use of the Meyer Drive requires extra Inertial Compensators which would obviously add to a ship and require compensation in other areas.

Cool, if you'll make this more explicit in the submission itself, I'd appreciate that.

I'm not sure what you'd have in mind. This effect always happens with the use of the Meyer Drive, I can make it worse on the die roll(higher than 3 instead of just four)

I'm satisfied with the inertial compensator weakness in conjunction with this.

Realspace is what is specifically referred to in the submission though of course this ship, just like any other, could create hyperspace collisions. It is specifically a weakness here however because one could easily enough plot the trajectory of a ship using the Meyer Drive to escape since the Drive literally can only push you into a singular straight line. This means if an opponent is clever and has appropriate resources they could stop the ship.

This I'm not really sold on. Hyperspace jumps aren't any different canonically, at least in Legend materials. People can and do plot jump trajectories off of escaping ships. They're usually pretty limited in usefulness though (as it would be with this drive as well) because they do not determine the actual distance that the ship would be jumping to (so a ship could make a short jump to throw its pursuers, and then simply hop away a completely different vector to its actual destination).

 

[Kurt Meyer]

Spoiler's ban ended on January 14th. (Reference is here). There's a good amount of Star Wars that I don't know (especially the newer stuff), so I'd like to hear about this.

Well just to be safe; TLJ SPOILERS:

Spoiler

In TLJ the main Rebel fleet has a limited amount of fuel. It is mentioned several times in the film that they could either cruise in real space for a little while or make a single jump to hyperspace. They end up choosing the former option(an integral plot to the film).

Due to this my assumption is that a jump to hyperspace takes a LOT of fuel initially but then almost nothing after the jump. The only evidence I have really is the film itself, but since star wars 'canon' is so flimsy you'll have to take that as it is.

Perhaps the bigger issue is though, that if we are using hyperspace, mass shadows still apply to ships travelling within the realm of hyperspace, regardless of the drive being used. The wookiee article on hyperspace mentions that hyperspace and realspace are "coterminous": actions in one can still affect the other.

I think you've misunderstood the intention of the sub a bit. This drive does not stop a vessel from being completely affected by Mass Shadows or Planetary gravity once it's IN Hyperspace. A Gravity Generator, and even planetary gravity can still force the drive out of hyperspace out at any time.

The drive simply "avoids" the initial gravity well because it pushes the ship so fast before jumping that it essentially becomes moot. The same for when it transitions back, it "folds" out of hyperspace as such speeds that it transitions closer. However if a SUDDEN Gravity well were to appear the Vessel would be ripped from hyperspace like with any other drive. Does that make more sense?

Cool, if you'll make this more explicit in the submission itself, I'd appreciate that.

Done

I'm satisfied with the inertial compensator weakness in conjunction with this

Done

This I'm not really sold on.

What if I rework this weakness into something else? Instead of collisions make it more about how due to the nature of the drive a Tractor lock on the vessel is far more simple/easy to apply than it would be with a normal hyperdrive and can cause the drive to stop it's folding transition?

 

[Gir Quee]

In TLJ the main Rebel fleet has a limited amount of fuel. It is mentioned several times in the film that they could either cruise in real space for a little while or make a single jump to hyperspace. They end up choosing the former option(an integral plot to the film). Due to this my assumption is that a jump to hyperspace takes a LOT of fuel initially but then almost nothing after the jump. The only evidence I have really is the film itself, but since star wars 'canon' is so flimsy you'll have to take that as it is.

I'll admit, that plotline is an area I'm pretty curious about myself about a couple of things. I have a couple of ideas on this (fuel efficiency and optimization per types of engines, etc), but I do not have any conclusive answers. It's also quite possible that while starfighters like the X-wing above use the same fuel for both sublight and hyperspace travel, capital ships may not. Or alternatively, it could be matter of the exact fuel source (Rhydonium versus hypermatter, etc).

This drive does not stop a vessel from being completely affected by Mass Shadows or Planetary gravity once it's IN Hyperspace. A Gravity Generator, and even planetary gravity can still force the drive out of hyperspace out at any time. The drive simply "avoids" the initial gravity well because it pushes the ship so fast before jumping that it essentially becomes moot. The same for when it transitions back, it "folds" out of hyperspace as such speeds that it transitions closer. However if a SUDDEN Gravity well were to appear the Vessel would be ripped from hyperspace like with any other drive. Does that make more sense?

So it essentially ignores gravity wells while going into hyperspace?

It's not only a matter of the ship's speed. Essentially, both hyperspace and realspace are connected("coterminous"). Relatively large gravitational fields between both of those areas do not change. So there is no intermediate area between the bradyonic and tachyonic spectrums where the gravity would not be an issue.

The only way I see this working is that the ship is moving so fast at sublight speeds before entering the jump, that it escapes the gravity well in realspace before entering hyperspace.

What if I rework this weakness into something else? Instead of collisions make it more about how due to the nature of the drive a Tractor lock on the vessel is far more simple/easy to apply than it would be with a normal hyperdrive and can cause the drive to stop it's folding transition?

I need to think about this more. I might even just completely strike off this weakness entirely, as it doesn't really seem integral to me to the submission's concept in general. I'd put this on hold right now as we discuss the gravity well issue. Based on how that goes, we'll come back to this if it's really needed.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

I'll admit, that plotline is an area I'm pretty curious about myself about a couple of things. I have a couple of ideas on this (fuel efficiency and optimization per types of engines, etc), but I do not have any conclusive answers. It's also quite possible that while starfighters like the X-wing above use the same fuel for both sublight and hyperspace travel, capital ships may not. Or alternatively, it could be matter of the exact fuel source (Rhydonium versus hypermatter, etc).

Right, so since there's no conclusive answer, I don't think keeping the fuel claim is too much of an issue as long as I tone it down a bit?

The only way I see this working is that the ship is moving so fast at sublight speeds before entering the jump, that it escapes the gravity well in realspace before entering hyperspace.

This is essentially what it does, except i described it the way I did because when the ship gets to a point it essentially goes so fast that to the naked eye and probably even sensors it's already "gone".

 

[Gir Quee]

Right, so since there's no conclusive answer, I don't think keeping the fuel claim is too much of an issue as long as I tone it down a bit?

Agreed.

This is essentially what it does, except i described it the way I did because when the ship gets to a point it essentially goes so fast that to the naked eye and probably even sensors it's already "gone".

This is tricky.

Essentially, in practical effects, we're talking about making a ship extremely fast at sublight speeds and simultaneously making it invisible. I don't think I can approve something like that, at least not at that speed in character.

I can maybe see this working sort of like a SLAM drive, accelerating it quickly on a straight course towards its hyperspace vector until it clears the gravity well. This will obviously not be an instantaneous process though, and the ship would have to have some significant drawback to attain something that is probably "very high" or "extreme" speed on our ship's speed scale while it runs away over the course of several minutes to escape the gravity well.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Gir Quee"]

I think perhaps I used the wrong terminology. The drive wouldn't make the ship invisible, but once you accelerate to a certain speed things basically become impossible to see. You can witness this today even with modern Automobiles going 250-300mph. The naked eye just perceives them as a blur rather than an actual car.

My intent is basically once the "hyperdrive" part of the engine is engaged the vessel is pushed into extreme speeds and beyond, unable to maneuver but literally just going in a straight line very very fast until it passes out of the gravity well and "folds" into hyperspace. I also don't intend for it to be instantaneous, hence my mention of tractor beams. Just at a certain point, seeing, and stopping, the ship using the drive becomes somewhat impossible due to the speeds involved(Which is the actual strength/Advantage of the drive while the weaknesses are the ones I have listed before)

 

[Gir Quee]

I think perhaps I used the wrong terminology. The drive wouldn't make the ship invisible, but once you accelerate to a certain speed things basically become impossible to see. You can witness this today even with modern Automobiles going 250-300mph. The naked eye just perceives them as a blur rather than an actual car.

I can get behind this with the naked eye, but that's still going to show up on most sensors. If we make that explicit, I can get behind this.

My intent is basically once the "hyperdrive" part of the engine is engaged the vessel is pushed into extreme speeds and beyond, unable to maneuver but literally just going in a straight line very very fast until it passes out of the gravity well and "folds" into hyperspace. I also don't intend for it to be instantaneous, hence my mention of tractor beams. Just at a certain point, seeing, and stopping, the ship using the drive becomes somewhat impossible due to the speeds involved(Which is the actual strength/Advantage of the drive while the weaknesses are the ones I have listed before)

Cool. Let's make it explicit within the submission then that this is not an instantaneous fold into hyperspace then, but that the ship remains in realspace while it's getting ready to fold into hyperspace. During this time, since it is in realspace, it will still be able to get targeted and tracked by computers and sensors, especially since it is using a predictable trajectory.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Gir Quee"]

I believe i have made all the edits we discussed.

 

[Gir Quee]

Awesome. Pending Secondary Approval. Thanks! [member="Jamie Pyne"]

 

[H3xle]

Approved.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

[member="Kurt Meyer"] I've removed this from an approved state to request the following edits:

1. Please notate in the weaknesses that interdiction fields still apply to this drive when traveling through hyperspace, as well as until the ship has reached the edge of the gravity well field.
2. Please also add that in order to use this tech, a speed rating must be increased to nothing lower than Very High by default to utilize the drive on any ship it is fitted to.
3. Please drop production to semi-unique.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Edited.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

<p>Approved.</p>