Zxarr's Ramblings

A device used to slingshot ships and other non-hyperdrive equipped craft vast interstellar distances without the requirement of their own FTL system.

The device itself is generally made of four or more struts, set in an even, equidistant spacing from each other, allowing a starship to pass between them. The struts themselves house all the equipment to generate a hyperspace window, as well as imbue the craft with a subspace field to keep them in hyperspace long enough that they reach their destination. Slingshots need no receiving device at the destination and take up less initial power than something similar, like a mass relay, which must keep the FTL tunnel open the entire time the ship is in transit.

Once a ship is in transit, it will continue until the subspace field around the ship dissipates and the ship will cleanly exit into normal space. This is all calculated pre-jump. Ships can be outfitted with a device to allow them to set their own exit points, by manually dissipating the field, or they can use their own FTL system, if required.

Each strut houses the following:

• Computer Cores
• Multiple power sources
• Hyperdrive window generators
• Hyperdrive field coils
• Sublight manoeuvring thrusters
• Tractor emitters

A ship with clearance, will request a destination along the path of the slingshot. The slingshot will scan the craft, calculate the required field strength, orient itself in the correct direction, and send a flight path for the inbound ship to follow. If required, the slingshot will use tractor emitters to guide the craft.

This will vary with size and power levels, they can be set up for just about any hyperspace achievable speed, however; the greater the distance, the more unstable the field can get over time. Hyperspace Slingshots are generally, only used within a host galaxy of under 100,000 light years. They are are rarely used with intergalactic distances, but their range can be extended.

Any hyperspace speed is possible, as can be seen with the Helix Catapult. Often these slingshots charge a price for transit, the faster or farther you go, the more it costs as the more energy is required for the initial charge.

To extend the range of a Slingshot, they can either be built on a massive scale, such as the Helix Catapult, or built as a relay system, with ships exiting hyperspace within range of the next Slingshot.

The Helix Catapult was a massive 100km long, helical slingshot, designed with the sole purpose of intergalactic transit. It was build by the Yolarans, in year 12,540(Zx) and is where Zxarr obtained the original design.

The Catapult itself was made of thousands of small, independent slingshot systems that were in a swarm resembling a massive helix in space. Ships entering this slingshot would spend almost an hour waiting for the field strength to build, and most ships sent had their own hyperdrive that could balance the charge en route. Once charged, the catapulted object would enter Hyperspace, obtaining a speed of just under 1.5 million light years per hour, allowing the Yolarans to send craft to all the galaxies in their local galactic supercluster in mere days.