"Invention of the Frame Shift Drive" - what was there before?

[Soda Popinski]

In the official manual, there's a section (emphasis mine):

Inhabited space has remained fairly static, but now, with the invention of the frame shift drive
and its ability to warp and compress space shortening journey times that used to take weeks
into mere moments, humanity stands on the threshold of a new golden age of discovery
and expansion.

I'm new to the Elite franchise. What was there before for faster than light travel? I know Super Cruise is new (compared to Elite 2), so I'm guessing hyperspace jumps were already in the old games, with time compression for in system travel. Or would you say it was retconned to have Super Cruise as the way travel was done, at a top speed of 2000 c or so.

In other words, were the weeks of travel in system or interstellar?

 

[Adept]

Before that, there was the jump drive. Travel between systems took some time, and you ended up at the outer edge of the system. Then you used the star dreamer to pass the time, as it took weeks to get where you were actually going. (Combining the 1984 Elite and Frontier stuff here)

 

[Soda Popinski]

So the weeks of travel were 1 week (or so) for the jump, though the pilot doesn't experience this. Then weeks of traveling within the system at sublight speed. Makes sense.

 

[Googol]

Before that, there was the jump drive. Travel between systems took some time, and you ended up at the outer edge of the system. Then you used the star dreamer to pass the time, as it took weeks to get where you were actually going. (Combining the 1984 Elite and Frontier stuff here)

Yep, used to mash that "J" key a lot

 

[EAGLE 5]

I believe the original hyperspace was a crude version of the current which ran on quirium fuel and was particularly susceptible to malfunctions and misjumps something the thargoids exploited. The in system version was only a point and shoot version of sc which mass locked easily and was neither sustainable not steerable. From the 3200s onwards you got that thing that messed with time and made you old and crazy.

 

[Captain Breton]

Jumping a large amount of mass, like a fully loaded Panther Clipper through hyperspace could take many days before you re-entered real space.