Just got back from the press screening for the new Predator flick (TL;DNR - it was pretty good), but the story opens with a gizmo and I instantly starting thinking "Wow, how can I steal that for a game!"

So, you have a Good Predator being chased by a Bad Predator, ships zipping along in outer space, Bad Predator whoopin' the stuffing out of Good Predator's ship. Good Predator fires a missile thingie from his ship, away from Bad Predator and when it explodes, it opens a FTL Door and Good Predator gets away. And I went "Man, I need to have some Imperial R&D lab somewhere working on that!"

I don't know how I can use it, where I can use it or what form it will eventually take (if any), but I thought I'd share This Cool Thing with you guys.

Just be patient; I'm sure Episode IX will introduce some new way to screw with all previous understandings of hyperspace.

2 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Just be patient; I'm sure Episode IX will introduce some new way to screw with all previous understandings of hyperspace.

So much bitterness... Just let it go, man.

1 minute ago, OddballE8 said:

So much bitterness... Just let it go, man.

Nope. I have far too many IRL XP invested into Embrace Your Hate.

And yet another thread derailed by Happy daze...

Yeah, that sounds like a cool way to handle it that opens up many storytelling possibilities. Having to create an FTL entrance some distance from your ship gives room for maneuvering and interesting tactical exploits.

6 hours ago, Desslok said:

Just got back from the press screening for the new Predator flick (TL;DNR - it was pretty good), but the story opens with a gizmo and I instantly starting thinking "Wow, how can I steal that for a game!"

So, you have a Good Predator being chased by a Bad Predator, ships zipping along in outer space, Bad Predator whoopin' the stuffing out of Good Predator's ship. Good Predator fires a missile thingie from his ship, away from Bad Predator and when it explodes, it opens a FTL Door and Good Predator gets away. And I went "Man, I need to have some Imperial R&D lab somewhere working on that!"

I don't know how I can use it, where I can use it or what form it will eventually take (if any), but I thought I'd share This Cool Thing with you guys.

In a way, it kind of reminds me of the jump gate tech from Babylon 5.

I agree, it is a neat idea, though in Star Wars it'd really only be practical for smaller craft such as snubfighters, as pretty much anything Silhouette 4 or up is going to be able to install a hyperdrive without much problem.

I agree it'd be something Imperial R&D would likely be working on, as perhaps a more cost-effective way to have their TIEs be hyperspace-capable without needing actual hyperdrives installed or using the old hyperdrive rings that the Delta-7 and Eta-2 series fighters were reliant upon.

Or, it could be used as an inversion of the indictor field and short-circuit enemy crafts' ability to escape through hyperspace (something the Rebels are quite good at since just about everything they fly has a hyperdrive), or even just as a weapon as forcibly shunting a ship into hyperspace could mess with a ship's navi-computer and possibly even lock the target in hyperspace. It would certainly be the worrying sort of "doomsday weapon" the Empire would concoct, as fairly certain that fears of being permanently trapped in the void of hyperspace sends shivers down the spine of many a grizzled spacer, and thus certainly worthy of at least an adventure, if not a campaign arc.

Or alternatively, maybe it's old, pre-Republic tech, an earlier version of getting a ship into hyperspace (again, ala Babylon 5's jump gates) that the PCs either encounter or hear about, with various history museums willing to pay premium credits for a working version of such a device, and thus putting them into conflict with other, less scrupulous groups of would-be treasure hunters.

What if you made it like a the gun from Portal?

You can open a gate at one position and the other entrance/exit in another and jump all around the battle field. That could be pretty cinematic.

50 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

What if you made it like a the gun from Portal?

You can open a gate at one position and the other entrance/exit in another and jump all around the battle field. That could be pretty cinematic.

I love that sort of stuff in other settings, but I don't think it feels right for Star Wars. There's some crazy Force stuff in the cartoons that goes into this direction, but I wouldn't make it too... how to put it... technical? Hard SF?

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

In a way, it kind of reminds me of the jump gate tech from Bab  ylon 5.  

Yep, that's what I thought of almost immediately, too. The show is a great example of establishing the rules of the gates and then slowly doing new things with them. Violently collapsing jump gates by throwing some weird bomb into them to destroy escaping ships. Opening one inside a gas giant's atmosphere to create an huge explosion.

1 hour ago, Stan Fresh said:

Yep, that's what I thought of almost immediately, too. The show is a great example of establishing the rules of the gates and then slowly doing new things with them. Violently collapsing jump gates by throwing some weird bomb into them to destroy escaping ships. Opening one inside a gas giant's atmosphere to create an huge explosion.

I think the bomb one was more a case of opening a new jump gate inside an active jump gate, something the EarthForce looked into during the Earth-Minbari war, deeming it the "bonehead maneuver" because you'd have to be boneheaded to even attempt it. The White Star only pulled it off because it was faster than EarthForce destroyers on top of being the bleeding edge of the younger races' technology.

Which does open up an interesting military application for tech such as what's seen in the movie... if you know a ship is going to leap into hyperspace along a certain path, you plant something like this as what amounts to a space mine, and when it triggers, you get what is tantamount to putting a portable hole inside a bag of holding, resulting in a catastrophic explosion that destroys the enemy ship.

Be a heck of a way to lock down an area of space and keep Rebels from fleeing an engagement once it starts to turn bad; either they stand and fight (and likely lose) or they try to flee and get blown up.

14 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I think the bomb one was more a case of opening a new jump gate inside an active jump gate, something the EarthForce looked into during the Earth-Minbari war, deeming it the "bonehead maneuver" because you'd have to be boneheaded to even attempt it. The White Star only pulled it off because it was faster than EarthForce destroyers on top of being the bleeding edge of the younger races' technology.

I meant the time a Shadow vessel launched some biotech snotball into a jump window to destabilize it.

9 hours ago, Desslok said:

w  hen  it explodes, it opens  a FTL Door an  d Good Predator gets aw   a  y  .

So, basically, he walked through a door to a new dimension.

Midichlorians=The Macguffin

I like the idea of using it offensively on the bad people. Fire it off and just not bother with those silly calculations from the navicomputer....lets spin the wheel n see where they pop out....

7 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I agree it'd be something Imperial R&D would likely be working on, as perhaps a more cost-effective way to have their TIEs be hyperspace-capable without needing actual hyperdrives installed or using the old hyperdrive rings that the Delta-7 and Eta-2 series fighters were reliant upon.

Or it might just be a case of too much left over in the budget at the end of the season, not enough oversight from Imperial Center and a bunch of Mad Scientists with free time on their hands.

7 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Or alternatively, maybe it's old, pre-Republic tech, an earlier version of getting a ship into hyperspace (again, ala Babylon 5's jump gates) that the PCs either encounter or hear about, with various history museums willing to pay premium credits for a working version of such a device, and thus putting them into conflict with other, less scrupulous groups of would-be treasure hunters.

Oooh, I like that - make it long lost tech, something that you cant easily replicate (thus maintaining the status quo for the setting), and tons of potential for a long treasure hunt story arc. Of course you have to have an Act Two Cliffhanger with the players fleeing from Lots of Bad Guys, a disabled hyperdrive, and a "You want to me do WHAT?" from the Pilot as the Heavy slides one of the precious artifacts into the torpedo tubes.