Will a 40 LY jump range get you to your destination twice as fast as a 20 LY jump range? No, we all know that... but how much faster will it get you there?
Shamelessly splitting off from this thread, I did my own analysis.
Based in Zeta Horologii, I picked six destinations about 1000 LY in cardinal directions.
M7 Sector SO-G B11-5 (987.61 LY toward the core)
Swoiwns JP-U A2-1 (988.99 LY in a spinward direction)
Col 173 Sector BX-J D9-83 (995.87 LY in a trailward direction)
Synuefe YX-D C1-2 (999.88 LY in a rimward direction)
Wregoe OS-U C18-0 (988.1 LY to the galactic north)
Synuefe XL-D D12-2 (991.6 LY to the galactic south)
I then tried out 25 different jump ranges between 6.66 LY and 55.46 LY. For each configuration, I plotted courses to the six destinations and recorded the number of jumps needed. This looked at a total of 5718 individual jumps.
First up, the two lowest configs (6.66, 8.44 LY) couldn't make any of the journeys. Synuefe, toward the rim, could only be made with a jump range of at least 14.04 LY. The galactic north and south could only be penetrated with at least 29.83 LY jump range. For these reasons, I neglected the lowest two configs, starting at 9.76 LY, and am only looking at the coreward, spinward and trailward journeys (which were all similar).
With that said, here's the average number of jumps needed for each configuration. Skip this if you just want the bottom line.
In pretty graph form, here are the number of jumps you need to make vs. your jump range:
What turns out to be really nice is that this is very clearly a 1/x curve. (For those interested in the logic of it, click the spoiler.)
The equation is actually like this:
Number of Jumps = Distance to Destination / (1.0092 * Jump Range - 3.0424)
Let's make this a bit more useful by answering a few hypothetical questions.
As my jump range goes up, how much more 'straight' is my route?
Here's a graph!
At...
10 LY — only 60% of the distance you cover is in the direction you're actually trying to go.
15 LY — we're up to 80%.
19 LY — 85%.
25 LY — 90%.
40 LY — 95%, and doesn't really get much better after this point. i.e. if you can jump 40 LY, your route is about as straight as it's going to get.
I mostly fly in the bubble. What's the point of diminishing returns?
This is really up to you, but if we assume an average 'trek' across the bubble might be up to 250 LY, then these estimates might help you:
10 LY — expect 36 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 32.
15 LY — expect 21 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 20.
20 LY — expect 15 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 14... probably.
25 LY — expect 12 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 11... maybe.
30 LY — expect 10 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 9... sometimes.
35 LY — expect 8 jumps. An extra +1 LY range probably won't change that.
40 LY — expect 7 jumps. An extra +1 LY range probably won't change that.
45-50 LY — expect 6 jumps. An extra +1 LY range definitely won't change that.
55-60 LY — expect 5 jumps. An extra +1 LY range definitely won't change that.
Anything over 40 LY is likely to disappoint you, and that's for a 250 LY trek. For something more like 100 LY, 30 LY jump range will get you there in 4 jumps and you don't reach 2 jumps until about 55.
I'm an explorer, what about me?
Again, it's up to you... but the truth is, more is still better, and if you want to get somewhere far away quickly, maximising jump range is probably going to continue to be your priority. For a 1000 LY leg of your journey:
40 LY — expect 27 jumps.
45 LY — expect 24 jumps.
50 LY — expect 22 jumps.
55 LY — expect 20 jumps.
60 LY — expect 18 jumps.
As you can see, though, don't fret too much about small changes. Squeezing out +1 LY at the upper range might save you only five or six jumps from the bubble to Sagittarius A*. I'm not an explorer myself, but I'd try not to get too caught up in numbers above 45 LY. 40 -> 45 will cut 11% off your journey, but after this point, +5 LY is single digit savings.
How does this change in regions of high/low stellar density?
Great question! And... it will change things a little. But sadly, it's enormously more work to do the same analysis starting from a neutron star field or the far rim. So use your imagination.
"No, there is too much. Let me sum up."
1. Don't fly 1000 LY north/south unless you can jump about 30 LY.
2. 45 LY jump range is the point I'd stop fretting as an explorer, but sure, certainly up to 60 it's still helping.
3. For a 250 LY hop across the bubble, you're unlikely to care about more than 40 LY jump range.
4. Whereas if you make short, 100 LY journeys, much above 30 LY is probably going to feel wasteful.
5. Goes without saying: really small jump ranges are awful. Avoid them. Nobody likes Vultures, Fer-de-Lances and Federal Corvettes anyway... right? Oh. Right.
Shamelessly splitting off from this thread, I did my own analysis.
Based in Zeta Horologii, I picked six destinations about 1000 LY in cardinal directions.
M7 Sector SO-G B11-5 (987.61 LY toward the core)
Swoiwns JP-U A2-1 (988.99 LY in a spinward direction)
Col 173 Sector BX-J D9-83 (995.87 LY in a trailward direction)
Synuefe YX-D C1-2 (999.88 LY in a rimward direction)
Wregoe OS-U C18-0 (988.1 LY to the galactic north)
Synuefe XL-D D12-2 (991.6 LY to the galactic south)
I then tried out 25 different jump ranges between 6.66 LY and 55.46 LY. For each configuration, I plotted courses to the six destinations and recorded the number of jumps needed. This looked at a total of 5718 individual jumps.
First up, the two lowest configs (6.66, 8.44 LY) couldn't make any of the journeys. Synuefe, toward the rim, could only be made with a jump range of at least 14.04 LY. The galactic north and south could only be penetrated with at least 29.83 LY jump range. For these reasons, I neglected the lowest two configs, starting at 9.76 LY, and am only looking at the coreward, spinward and trailward journeys (which were all similar).
With that said, here's the average number of jumps needed for each configuration. Skip this if you just want the bottom line.
Code:
[TABLE="width: 172"]
[TR]
[TD]Range[/TD]
[TD="align: right"] Jumps[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9.76[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]162[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]11.16[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]129[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]12.11[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]114[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]13.06[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]101[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14.04[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]91[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14.7[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]85[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]16.08[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]76[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]16.94[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]71[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18.09[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]65[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18.5[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]63[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19.3[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]61[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20.56[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]56[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]21.42[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]53[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]22.07[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]51[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]23.14[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]49[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]23.98[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]47[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]29.83[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]36[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]35.72[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]30[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]49.65[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]21[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]50.98[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]21[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]52.39[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]20[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]53.88[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]20[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]55.46[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]19[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]In pretty graph form, here are the number of jumps you need to make vs. your jump range:
What turns out to be really nice is that this is very clearly a 1/x curve. (For those interested in the logic of it, click the spoiler.)
I plotted the inverse of the number of jumps, and got this:
Letting Excel do the work for me (feeling lazy), that gives a slope of 0.001009213, and an intercept of -0.00304241. Confidence is 0.9994, i.e., yes. Didn't bother with error bars except in the graphing itself.
That's then: N = 1 / (0.001009213 j -0.00304241). But since we went 1000 jumps, it's better to report it as...
Letting Excel do the work for me (feeling lazy), that gives a slope of 0.001009213, and an intercept of -0.00304241. Confidence is 0.9994, i.e., yes. Didn't bother with error bars except in the graphing itself.
That's then: N = 1 / (0.001009213 j -0.00304241). But since we went 1000 jumps, it's better to report it as...
The equation is actually like this:
Number of Jumps = Distance to Destination / (1.0092 * Jump Range - 3.0424)
Let's make this a bit more useful by answering a few hypothetical questions.
As my jump range goes up, how much more 'straight' is my route?
Here's a graph!
At...
10 LY — only 60% of the distance you cover is in the direction you're actually trying to go.
15 LY — we're up to 80%.
19 LY — 85%.
25 LY — 90%.
40 LY — 95%, and doesn't really get much better after this point. i.e. if you can jump 40 LY, your route is about as straight as it's going to get.
I mostly fly in the bubble. What's the point of diminishing returns?
This is really up to you, but if we assume an average 'trek' across the bubble might be up to 250 LY, then these estimates might help you:
10 LY — expect 36 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 32.
15 LY — expect 21 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 20.
20 LY — expect 15 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 14... probably.
25 LY — expect 12 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 11... maybe.
30 LY — expect 10 jumps. An extra +1 LY range will drop that to 9... sometimes.
35 LY — expect 8 jumps. An extra +1 LY range probably won't change that.
40 LY — expect 7 jumps. An extra +1 LY range probably won't change that.
45-50 LY — expect 6 jumps. An extra +1 LY range definitely won't change that.
55-60 LY — expect 5 jumps. An extra +1 LY range definitely won't change that.
Anything over 40 LY is likely to disappoint you, and that's for a 250 LY trek. For something more like 100 LY, 30 LY jump range will get you there in 4 jumps and you don't reach 2 jumps until about 55.
I'm an explorer, what about me?
Again, it's up to you... but the truth is, more is still better, and if you want to get somewhere far away quickly, maximising jump range is probably going to continue to be your priority. For a 1000 LY leg of your journey:
40 LY — expect 27 jumps.
45 LY — expect 24 jumps.
50 LY — expect 22 jumps.
55 LY — expect 20 jumps.
60 LY — expect 18 jumps.
As you can see, though, don't fret too much about small changes. Squeezing out +1 LY at the upper range might save you only five or six jumps from the bubble to Sagittarius A*. I'm not an explorer myself, but I'd try not to get too caught up in numbers above 45 LY. 40 -> 45 will cut 11% off your journey, but after this point, +5 LY is single digit savings.
How does this change in regions of high/low stellar density?
Great question! And... it will change things a little. But sadly, it's enormously more work to do the same analysis starting from a neutron star field or the far rim. So use your imagination.
"No, there is too much. Let me sum up."
1. Don't fly 1000 LY north/south unless you can jump about 30 LY.
2. 45 LY jump range is the point I'd stop fretting as an explorer, but sure, certainly up to 60 it's still helping.
3. For a 250 LY hop across the bubble, you're unlikely to care about more than 40 LY jump range.
4. Whereas if you make short, 100 LY journeys, much above 30 LY is probably going to feel wasteful.
5. Goes without saying: really small jump ranges are awful. Avoid them. Nobody likes Vultures, Fer-de-Lances and Federal Corvettes anyway... right? Oh. Right.
Last edited:
