I phrased it badly. When the U-wing left Jeddek it was in atmosphere, and it is the first time we ever saw a ship jump to hyperspace while in the gravity well of a planet. one of the major plot points of TFA was reverting from hyperspace in the planet's atmosphere to avoid the shields. Thus, it seems not that Gravity wells do not affect hyperspace travel anymor

I was more annoyed with that ship and how it moved it's wings. It moved them forward when it left atmo, as if it needed them to the side to fly in atmosphere. Ok fine, that makes sense, this is a universe with repulsor technology and artificial gravity technology (otherwise nobody would be walking around on those non-rotating ships), but sure, it needs wings to fly. But then when it lands on the new planet it flew to, it keeps the wings forward!! So why the heck do they move?!?! They serve no purpose other than to look cool and make fans go "oooh! it moves the wings!" *fangasm*

As to gravity effecting jumps, I still don't see the problem. All we have been told in the movies, that I can recall, is "Without proper calculations, you could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova, and that would end your trip real quick wouldn't it?" Nothing that was done in TFA contradicts that as far as I'm concerned. They never said you CAN'T fly close to gravity objects, just that it's a Bad Idea. Remember, the "we pull you out of hyperspace" thing is only in the games/books/etc, which is non-canon. Maybe they did it in Clone Wars, talking about bumping into a gravity well and it pulling them out, but I don't remember. The only time I recall anyone shutting down hyperspace was with a technological device, that messes with hyperspace drives that are close. That's not gravity, that's technology messing with technology.

The fact that Han was jumping into an atmosphere was still incredibly dangerous, because he might slam right into the planet...like what he warned Luke about. But he apparently had "precise calculations", and was an ace pilot.

Yes, real time conversations existed via the Holonet. But before SW:Rebels, The rebellion had no access to instantaneous communication (as far as we knew). If it were possible I think the rebellion would have found a way to make sure the Rebel Strike force lead by Han Solo on the forest moon of Endor had some way of communicating with the Rebel Fleet. Which would have allowed the rebel fleet to hyper in, as soon as the shields were down

How do you know the rebels didn't have access to that type of communication prior to rebels? The technology clearly existed, and was common enough (and small enough) to fit into starfighters (Obi-Wan's fighter in Attack of the Clones) That implies that the technology was commonplace, and ubiquitous. There is no reason to assume the various ships and outposts of the rebellion didn't have at least some access to it. I mean heck, their fighters probably had the stuff if nothing else, and those massive cap ships? You think they didn't build those with long range communication in mind from the production level?

As to your example from Return, don't forget that the Empire had set up a trap for the rebellion, and Lando even says "Well how can they be jamming us if they don't know.......that we're coming?" So clearly the ability to communicate was being hampered by the entrenched Imperial forces. That's not speculation, that's flat out established, and clued Lando in early enough to save the fleet. So yeah, jamming all comms in that sector that weren't hardened and secured to Imperial circuits? Seems perfectly logical strategy for a group doing an ambush.

In Clone Wars a ship malfunctions and jumps to hyperspace from atmosphere.

In Rebels, Interdictors are made canon and rip ships out of hyperspace.

I don't recall anything in the canon thus-far that actually shows a ship calculations in hyperspace messing up due to a planet being too close by.

I believe the canon answer regarding gravity wells and hyperspace is that ships dropping out of hyperspace near sufficiently massive objects is a safety feature of the hyperdrive, meant to prevent unfortunate collisions. Massive (how massive? who knows?) objects also "exist" in hyperspace, and collisions with such objects kill ships. All the navcomp/astromech calculations are to get the ship to the destination without one of those collisions. That means that if one disabled those multiple redundant safety measures, one could ignore planets, Interdictors, and so forth. Of course, one's ship might subsequently be highly likely to fly into a star somewhere.

Han Solo in TFA has 30 more years of experience in astrogation and piloting. In game terms, skill five, higher ability score, more talents - and destiny points to flip to make the impossible (jump to hyperspace from inside a ship! exit in an atmosphere!) possible -- albeit very difficult; I'd say there was more than one challenge die mixed in with the purples when arriving at Starkiller Base, since he did crash land the Falcon. That, or TFA Han has a yet-to-be-described signature ability.

As for Rogue One, that was totally a destiny point flip, IMO. "Oh crap we're all gonna die, can we flip a destiny point to survive?" "Sure, give me an Astrogation check - say, difficulty 4, upgraded twice?"

Edit: A Coyote stole my punch-line.

In Clone Wars a ship malfunctions and jumps to hyperspace from atmosphere.

In Rebels, Interdictors are made canon and rip ships out of hyperspace.

I don't recall anything in the canon thus-far that actually shows a ship calculations in hyperspace messing up due to a planet being too close by.

Some history to explain why it's an issue for some of us:

Before TFA and R1, ships were seen reaching at least orbit (or beyond) before jumping to hyperspace.

"Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova." This statement could be interpreted different ways. But, the idea that you have to worry about stellar objects while in hyperspace probably led to the idea that you don't want to have a route that gets close to a star or some other large object like a planet. Combine this with seeing ships only jump after leaving orbit and its a sensible conclusion they can't or possibly shouldn't (dangerous) jump near a planet.

It was considered a dangerous thing to do in TFA awakens. At least for a jump TO a planet.

EU has explained that Interdictors project gravity wells (as if the ship is a planet) in order to prevent hyperspace jumping or to pull a craft out of hyperspace. I don't recall if the Rebels episode mentioned the science behind the Interdictor. If not, what we are left with is the EU explanation which makes lots of sense. Edit: Doing some research, it looks like gravity effects on hyperspace jumping are now canon per Rebels and the Tarkin novel. They specifically mention gravity stopping hyperspace travel.

Question: I haven't watched all Clone Wars episodes. Other then the malfunction you mentioned (so, not a normal thing), were there ever any instances of starships jumping before orbit in the Clone Wars series? Or Rebels for that matter? I don't recall any.

In my personal opinion, the contradictions are explained by saying it's possible to do such, but it's dangerous. The danger of jumping very close to a planet is obvious - impact. But we see ships waiting to clear orbit to jump nearly all of the time, so jumping from close proximity to a planet is also dangerous (screws up the calculations somehow?) is a way to explain why they aren't just jumping right after lift off.

But how come the Interdictor stops hyperspace using gravity well projectors if ships can jump near a planet (even if it's dangerous)? This was discussed previously and the only answer I recall making sense was a safety device put on ships that is illegal to tamper with or turn off (but possible). As a safety measure, hyperdrives are meant to shut themselves down immediately when a gravity source is detected nearby - collision prevention or preventing an errant jump due to gravity distortion. A scoundrel mechanic could figure out a way to disable this device in order to make hyperspace jumps ending or starting near a planet. This would be illegal if detected during a customs inspection, but not something Han or a Rebel Captain would be worrying about. Especially with rumors of the new Interdictor floating about.

You could also rule (in your game universe) that an Interdictor creates such a large gravity influence (Rebels Interdictor created a small black hole iirc) that turning off your safety devices has no affect. It can still stop a ship even with the devices disabled.

well they never howed how long it took on journey even back in New Hope.

Not specifically, no. But they did put some scenes in the middle there, to show that it did take at least some time. The movie doesn’t tell us exactly how much, but it could easily have been days.

While I admit that it's not irrefutable proof, Han's line about outrunning the Imperials always left me with the impression that they'd left Tatooine very recently. Sure, it could have been a few days before he was certain that he'd ditched them, but that's not the way it comes across to me.

I phrased it badly. When the U-wing left Jeddek it was in atmosphere, and it is the first time we ever saw a ship jump to hyperspace while in the gravity well of a planet. one of the major plot points of TFA was reverting from hyperspace in the planet's atmosphere to avoid the shields. Thus, it seems not that Gravity wells do not affect hyperspace travel anymor

I was more annoyed with that ship and how it moved it's wings. It moved them forward when it left atmo, as if it needed them to the side to fly in atmosphere. Ok fine, that makes sense, this is a universe with repulsor technology and artificial gravity technology (otherwise nobody would be walking around on those non-rotating ships), but sure, it needs wings to fly. But then when it lands on the new planet it flew to, it keeps the wings forward!! So why the heck do they move?!?! They serve no purpose other than to look cool and make fans go "oooh! it moves the wings!" *fangasm*

As to gravity effecting jumps, I still don't see the problem. All we have been told in the movies, that I can recall, is "Without proper calculations, you could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova, and that would end your trip real quick wouldn't it?" Nothing that was done in TFA contradicts that as far as I'm concerned. They never said you CAN'T fly close to gravity objects, just that it's a Bad Idea. Remember, the "we pull you out of hyperspace" thing is only in the games/books/etc, which is non-canon. Maybe they did it in Clone Wars, talking about bumping into a gravity well and it pulling them out, but I don't remember. The only time I recall anyone shutting down hyperspace was with a technological device, that messes with hyperspace drives that are close. That's not gravity, that's technology messing with technology.

The fact that Han was jumping into an atmosphere was still incredibly dangerous, because he might slam right into the planet...like what he warned Luke about. But he apparently had "precise calculations", and was an ace pilot.

Yes, real time conversations existed via the Holonet. But before SW:Rebels, The rebellion had no access to instantaneous communication (as far as we knew). If it were possible I think the rebellion would have found a way to make sure the Rebel Strike force lead by Han Solo on the forest moon of Endor had some way of communicating with the Rebel Fleet. Which would have allowed the rebel fleet to hyper in, as soon as the shields were down

How do you know the rebels didn't have access to that type of communication prior to rebels?

Please cite an example in ANH, ESB, or RotJ where the REBELS, or rebellion have faster then light communication

I am not disputing the fact of faster then light communication, i am disputing the fact we did not see the rebellion using it in the movies

I can't remember a scene in the three films when the Rebels actually needed a faster than light communication, so it was never showed. The fact that they had their main base in out of the way planet (Yavin, and even more so Hoth) strongly suggest that they had faster than light comms, or they wouldn't have been able to coordinate the rebel military effort.

Also we know the empire has FTL comms only because of the talk between Vader and the Emperor, if they had deleted that scene we wouldn't know how they communicate.

Some form of FTL coomunication is necessarily required to make both the rebellion and the empire function, even when not clearly shown on screen.

The interdictor could also be producing a gravity well where none is expected, or included in the calculations, making the hyperdrive shut down for safety so that it doesn't do something stupid. The equivalent of an autopilot switching off when it sees impossible sensor readings. That would make it different from dealing with gravity wells that can be predicted.

The interdictor could also be producing a gravity well where none is expected, or included in the calculations, making the hyperdrive shut down for safety so that it doesn't do something stupid. The equivalent of an autopilot switching off when it sees impossible sensor readings. That would make it different from dealing with gravity wells that can be predicted.

That's exactly how the interdictor works, and based on that we can use it to guess how the hyperdrive safeties work. The common assumption is that they would also intervene if the pilot didn't manually revert to realspace on arriving at his planet of destination.

FTL hologram messaging apparently doesn't work in asteroid fields according to Empire Strikes Back unless I misunderstood that scene.

The interdictor could also be producing a gravity well where none is expected, or included in the calculations, making the hyperdrive shut down for safety so that it doesn't do something stupid. The equivalent of an autopilot switching off when it sees impossible sensor readings. That would make it different from dealing with gravity wells that can be predicted.

That's exactly how the interdictor works, and based on that we can use it to guess how the hyperdrive safeties work. The common assumption is that they would also intervene if the pilot didn't manually revert to realspace on arriving at his planet of destination.

If, however, it were strictly a safety feature there would eventually be some engineer / tech who would remove the safety feature in order to defeat the Interdictor. In other words, if gravity wells don't pull ships out of hyperspace and its just a safety-feature shut-down, the Interdictor can easily be rendered ineffective against galactic scofflaws who don't plan on obeying Imperial law to begin with: pirates, rebels, smugglers, scum, villiany. I propose that the original notion of hyperdrive in canon was that it didn't work in gravity wells and now that subsequent writer's have deviated from the original baseline in favor of writer's caveat, we fans are now spinning our wheels to come up with an explanation we like better than "thoughtless scriptwriter."

Lets assume an Interdictor doesn't just create a gravity well, but an extreme gravitational anomaly that disrupts the basic physics of a hyperdrive from functioning..........and call it done............

FTL hologram messaging apparently doesn't work in asteroid fields according to Empire Strikes Back unless I misunderstood that scene.

Vader's line was to take his ship out of the field so that he could get a clear signal. Since it was his boss aka the most powerful man in the galaxy, he didn't want to run the risk of some important detail getting left out during their chat, to say nothing of not wanting to appear weak or incompetent to his master if it could be avoided.

I've seen Rogue One three times.

And if it's still playing on Sunday, when I go on my days off, I will most likely go see it again.

I, too, have seen it 3 times. I almost saw it again in my dreams last night until I woke up and remembered a lot of that junk I was experiencing was from a long time ago in a state far, far away...

Or alternatively; a high gravity well can change the direction of a ship; drawing them into celestral bodies if they drift too close.

I think the real danger with blind jumps is that without the safety feature one would smack bang into anything and die without being aware. The movie probably showed quite nicely what would happen if they didn't when a star destoryer appeared right infront of several hyperjumping ships. Sure you can turn the safety feature off, upgrade your check by equal to difficulty of the lane on any astronavigation checks made; even the slightest error in wild space could result in ships being lost. Hence even desperate rebels wouldn't usually turn their safeties off; the ability to avoid one ship isn't worth crashing into a celestral body due to a minor miscalculation.

I, too, have seen it 3 times. I almost saw it again in my dreams last night until I woke up and remembered a lot of that junk I was experiencing was from a long time ago in a state far, far away...

I don't know the set up for last night's dream but I was GMing, the game was wrapping up and I go "Oh yeah, by the way, Vader is here and he is PISSED" to the players as Vader was utterly wrecking the Rebel's S.

No more weed for me before bed.

OK. Saw it for a second time and the parts that stuck out with me (AT-CT having thin armor (believable vs a combat version), Cassian shooting the guy with the grenade (he was definitely going to toss it at Jyn/the tank)) were rectified. I was even satisfied with the character development; every character had a minor arc (except for Chirrut) the pilot redeemed himself, Jyn became a believer, Cassian became a skeptic, K2 grew faith in humanity, Baze regained his faith in the Force. Chirrut can be forgiven because he started the story as a badass.

But here's my main sticking point, and I'm actually surprised that it hasn't been mentioned yet... Is anyone disappointed with the TPK, not BECAUSE it's a TPK, but for the reasoning behind it?

The Death Star arrives, they are informed that the archive on Scarif is compromised, and Tarkin immediately decides to fire the superlaser? The weapon that is most guaranteed to erase all information on how the rebels were able to infiltrate the facility? Wouldn't you want an after action report? Something to prevent the rebels from infiltrating in the future, maybe?

I mean, couldn't a 1 minute call to the surface have informed them that the rebels were routed (as seen in the film, few, if any, were still alive), that the facility was secure, etc etc.

We're talking a multi-million (billion?) credit investment at least on the defensive structures, TIE strikers (apparently made for the express possibility that the planetary shield would be breached, so this was not unanticipated), not to mention manpower, training, and most importantly, ALL OF THE TOP SECRET INFORMATION STORED. I guess it's okay to assume that the Empire stores schematics in others places, but still...

I can't explain why the Death Star would be used, except for the dramas: Jyn and Cassian had to die, and Krennic? sweet poetic justice I suppose?

I saw it more as Tarkin going "Geeze dude, you've really made a hash of this. Fine, I'll clean up your mess"

And if there's only one after action report, there's no way to contradict that report.

Well, if they destroy the facility, then they don't have to worry about the rebels infiltrating it in the future, so problem solved.

More seriously, the Empire has a tendency to respond decisively with overwhelming force. The entire purpose of the Death Star, after all, is to cause destruction on an epically wasteful scale. It's the ultimate scorched earth policy, denying the enemy an entire planet but denying the Empire that planet as well. And the same doctrine that gave birth to the TIE fighter justifies destroying your own base as well. Everyone on the planet was ultimately expendable.

I suspect part of the reason behind the decision to destroy the facility was to make absolutely sure the leaks were contained. While the rebels were routed, there was still the possibility that survivors might be able to exfiltrate with additional stolen data. They at least knew that the one set of plans had made it off the planet and had a good idea where they were, the last thing they needed was a second set of plans slipping away without their knowledge. Nuking the site from orbit was the only way to be sure.

I phrased it badly. When the U-wing left Jeddek it was in atmosphere, and it is the first time we ever saw a ship jump to hyperspace while in the gravity well of a planet. one of the major plot points of TFA was reverting from hyperspace in the planet's atmosphere to avoid the shields. Thus, it seems not that Gravity wells do not affect hyperspace travel anymor

I was more annoyed with that ship and how it moved it's wings. It moved them forward when it left atmo, as if it needed them to the side to fly in atmosphere. Ok fine, that makes sense, this is a universe with repulsor technology and artificial gravity technology (otherwise nobody would be walking around on those non-rotating ships), but sure, it needs wings to fly. But then when it lands on the new planet it flew to, it keeps the wings forward!! So why the heck do they move?!?! They serve no purpose other than to look cool and make fans go "oooh! it moves the wings!" *fangasm*

As to gravity effecting jumps, I still don't see the problem. All we have been told in the movies, that I can recall, is "Without proper calculations, you could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova, and that would end your trip real quick wouldn't it?" Nothing that was done in TFA contradicts that as far as I'm concerned. They never said you CAN'T fly close to gravity objects, just that it's a Bad Idea. Remember, the "we pull you out of hyperspace" thing is only in the games/books/etc, which is non-canon. Maybe they did it in Clone Wars, talking about bumping into a gravity well and it pulling them out, but I don't remember. The only time I recall anyone shutting down hyperspace was with a technological device, that messes with hyperspace drives that are close. That's not gravity, that's technology messing with technology.

The fact that Han was jumping into an atmosphere was still incredibly dangerous, because he might slam right into the planet...like what he warned Luke about. But he apparently had "precise calculations", and was an ace pilot.

Yes, real time conversations existed via the Holonet. But before SW:Rebels, The rebellion had no access to instantaneous communication (as far as we knew). If it were possible I think the rebellion would have found a way to make sure the Rebel Strike force lead by Han Solo on the forest moon of Endor had some way of communicating with the Rebel Fleet. Which would have allowed the rebel fleet to hyper in, as soon as the shields were down

How do you know the rebels didn't have access to that type of communication prior to rebels?

Please cite an example in ANH, ESB, or RotJ where the REBELS, or rebellion have faster then light communication

I am not disputing the fact of faster then light communication, i am disputing the fact we did not see the rebellion using it in the movies

Well we don't see them use toilets either, are we going to claim they didn't have plumbing technology either? Or air conditioning? My point is that this tech was presented in the prequels as already being common place. Or at least small scale enough to fit in a freaking fighter. Are you seriously implying that every non Imperial version of that technology suddenly vanished from the galaxy, without a trace, or an engineer that could build it, because he'd been working on it for years?

well they never showed how long it took on journey even back in New Hope.

The problem is that they don't even acknowledge that as an issue and have fun putting planets all over the galaxy from Yavin. If Eadu was a bit closer everything would work, and if Scarif was on the northern Hydian Waym, say near Mirial, rather than near Cristophsis it would be much more believable.

But back in TPM Maul arrrived from Colruscant to Tatooine in a single day.

A moment from ESB that I was reminded of earlier tonight:

The Falcon drives straight for the Star Destroyer bridge and diverts up over the tower (attaching itself to the back of the tower to hide). The Imperial fleet begins a scan of the area, which seems to take just long enough for Captain Needa to shuttle to the Executor and have his apology "accepted" by Vader. Immediately after killing Needa, he gets a report that the scan of the area has been completed; that, "If the Millennium Falcon went into lightspeed, it could be on the other side of the galaxy by now."

Let's assume one, maybe two hours (despite Needa's apparent haste in hopes that personally apologizing for losing the Falcon would result in him still living) to pass. The expectation is still that, in a short span of time, a ship can cross the galaxy.

I think if it all made sense it probably wouldn't be fun anymore. Plus it isn't simply a matter of distance. There would be millions of systems within even just a couple thousand light years. It is really the proverbial square peg in the legendary round hole trying to shoehorn sense and fact into Star Wars science.

I saw it more as Tarkin going "Geeze dude, you've really made a hash of this. Fine, I'll clean up your mess"

And if there's only one after action report, there's no way to contradict that report.

Agree.

1. Krennic was Tarkin's upstart nemesis.

2. We knew the rebels were losing winning, but that doesn't mean Tarkin had any idea what exactly was going on below.

3. The rebels were after the plans to the uber project Tarkin had helped complete. So, very, very important they are stopped.

Easy decision for Tarkin. I've got a chance to rid myself of a nemesis with no questions asked (I was correcting his mess, I had to) while stopping the rebel infiltration completely (at least he thought so). Of course he pushes the instant win button.

A moment from ESB that I was reminded of earlier tonight:

The Falcon drives straight for the Star Destroyer bridge and diverts up over the tower (attaching itself to the back of the tower to hide). The Imperial fleet begins a scan of the area, which seems to take just long enough for Captain Needa to shuttle to the Executor and have his apology "accepted" by Vader. Immediately after killing Needa, he gets a report that the scan of the area has been completed; that, "If the Millennium Falcon went into lightspeed, it could be on the other side of the galaxy by now."

Let's assume one, maybe two hours (despite Needa's apparent haste in hopes that personally apologizing for losing the Falcon would result in him still living) to pass. The expectation is still that, in a short span of time, a ship can cross the galaxy.

That always struck me as a turn of phrase like "Geeze this thing weighs a ton" or "I could eat a horse" more than an accurate assessment of the Falcon's distance. Mind you, one would think that you wouldn't be so flippant with a boss that could kill you from across the room with his mind, but it still didnt sound like a serious statement.

I'll still stand by the time that it takes Maul to get from Courscant to Tatooine as a pretty good indicator of speed. True we don't see much from Maul's side, but we do see the events of a day (and then a bit more) pass from the Tatooine side, with Maul arriving at dawn on the second.