Hyperdrive?

[coco146 (OP)]

Can someone explain what Hyperdrive does, what situations it is useful for and will civilian shipping line ships make use of it?

[Rabid_Cog]

A hyperdrive does the following: if a hyperdrive-equipped ship is outside the 'hyper limit' of all stars (some distance depending on the size of the star, you can check it somewhere) it can perform the order 'activate hyperdrive'. This increases its maximum speed to 10 fold (if I remember correctly) its normal maximum speed. There are no limits to this, it uses no extra fuel and has no combat penalties (as far as I know). The only restriction is that if your ship ever enters the hyperlimit of a star while the hyperdrive is engaged, the game will produce an interrupt every 5 seconds and your ship will be unable to move until you deactivate its hyperdrive.

There are two main uses for hyperdrives, as far as I have been able to tell. If you have some way of coaxing an enemy to leave the hyper limit, your combat ships would suddenly have a massive speed advantage. Secondly, some systems, especially those with multiple suns (binary, etc), have vastly spaced planets or planetary systems either outside the hyperlimit or, in the case of multiple suns, with a gap between the two stars' hyperlimits. If these systems do not have convenient Lagrange Points, then hyperdrive equipped freighters can significantly shorten the travel time to these planets or planetary systems.

Hyperdrives are really annoying, though, since you have to switch them on and off manually or at a waypoint every time. In truth, I don't think many players use them, simply because they are so irritating.

[Rabid_Cog]

Oh yes, with regards to civilian shipping lines: they will build hyperdrive equipped freighters (just like they will build anything with cargo hold), but they will never activate the hyperdrive.

[Person012345]

The only restriction is that if your ship ever enters the hyperlimit of a star while the hyperdrive is engaged, the game will produce an interrupt every 5 seconds and your ship will be unable to move until you deactivate its hyperdrive.

This is not correct. It can pass through the hyper limit with the hyper drive activated, but it cannot stop inside the hyperlimit with the hyperdrive engaged.

[Havear]

I've not tested it myself, but I've heard ships in hyper are sensor-blind and cannot fire their weapons.

[Nathan_]

Secondary system hyperlimits don't seem to effect ships, only the primary one from the central star does.

[coco146 (OP)]

So I should just forget about the otherwise impossible to reach planet then?

[Garfunkel]

Unless it's extremely valuable, yes. Civilian ships will be lost forever as they try to do business with that colony and manually handling its input/output supply will be a PITA.

[coco146 (OP)]

Shame there are precious few viable planets in this game.

[Nathan_]

Do hyperdrives throw off any kind of EM signature to mark their usage?

[andrea69]

I find the idea of hyperdrives very good, it's a pity the implementation requires too much micromanagement to be usable. Can't remember if anything is changing with 5.7, though.

[Bouchart]

If it just automatically worked when outside of the hyper limit it would be fine.   But there's probably some issue with a ship moving from outside the hyper limit to inside of it that makes it hard to implement.

[Garfunkel]

Shame there are precious few viable planets in this game.

Tut-tut, that's entirely random. In my latest game I've found three colony cost <2 worlds in four systems, plus four more <10 CC worlds. Not including Mars, Venus or Mercury. So with a little bit of terraforming, there's plenty of real estate available without even exploring any other systems.

So keep surveying, you'll find good worlds a plenty.