Ships in Battlestar Galactica travel across space and to other stars by use of their hyperspeed engines. These are part of their main drives and allow the ship to travel to another system. Normally this happens before or after combat, but sometimes it is necessary for a ship to leave the field of combat by methods other then simply trying to outrun their opponents. As ships cannot (C7.1) Disengage by Acceleration, this leaves them the option of Disengaging by Hyperspeed.
To be able to Disengage by Hyperspeed, a ship must meet the following condition.
If all these conditions are satisfied, then the ship is able to disengage by Hyperspeed. If any of these conditions are lost at any point during the Hyperspeed Activation process, then the ship is no longer able to enter Hyperspeed.
To be able to travel at Hyperspeed, a ship must expend energy to prime its engines, and must plot it is course through Hyperspeed.
A ship must supply energy to the engines to be able to allow to achieve hyperspeed. The amount of energy needed is 50% of the original warp engine boxes.
For example, a Battlestar has 30 warp boxes and therefore must provide 15 points of power to the engines. If, during the course of a battle the Battlestar was reduced to 20 point of warp, it must still provide 15 points of power.
This power need not be supplied all at once, and can be provided over the course of several turns if desired. The only stipulation is that if provided over the course of several turns, at least 1 point of power must be supplied per turn. If this is ever halted, then the stored energy is lost and the sequence must be started from scratch. Once the Hyperspeed energy requirement is fulfilled, the energy may be held if desired. The cost to hold this energy is equal to 10% of the original warp engine boxes. If ever this energy is not paid in the energy allocation phase of the turn, then the engines lose their charge and must be filled again from scratch.
For example, if the Battlestar above had filled it is hyperspeed engines but did not want to enter hyperspeed, it must pay 3 points of energy per turn to hold the engines at readiness.
Once a ship has filled it is engines with energy for a hyperspeed journey (or before if plotting over several turns), a ship must plot it is course. This takes an amount of phases equalling 16 with the following modifiers:
During this course plotting sequence, a ship may function normally with regards to movement, launching fighters and firing weapons.
On the final phase, the ship enters hyperspeed, and may not move, fire weapons or launch and retrieve sub craft. Instead, when the ship should move, it enters hyperspeed and leaves the map board. This means that it can still be effected by seeking weapons.
What happens is that the engines are stored with energy, and then the hyperspeed course is plotted. On the final phase of the plotting, the ship enters hyperspeed and is removed from the map board.
However, it does not have to work like that. As long as the energy build up has been completed on the phase before the final phase of course plotting, then a successful hyperspeed journey may take place.
Hyperspeed energy build up can be detected by using (D17.0) Tactical Intelligence and getting level I information.
Certain small craft are also capable of hyperspeed travel. These include, but are not limited to, fighters, shuttles and the like. While they are big enough to mount hyperspeed engines, they just take longer during the flight itself. This aspect of hyperspeed is not covered in these basic rules.
For a small craft to achieve hyperspeed, it must follow a similar procedure to other craft (as listed above) with the exception of the fact that as small craft do not use energy, a small craft may ignore this. However they must still plot their course.
In addition, for a small craft to be able to eligible for hyperspeed travel, they must not be crippled. Fighters must have 1/3 of their damage points remaining.
Sometimes a fleet wishes to travel into hyperspeed together. Reasons for this could include a rag-tap fleet getting their jumping co-ordinates from a central source (a Battlestar perhaps), or a strike force jumping into enemy territory where only the Flag Commander knows the actual location and wishes the entire fleet to arrive in one place at one time.
For this to happen, one ship must be designated as the Hyperspeed Controller. This ship must obey all the normal hyperspeed restrictions as listed above, and in addition must have a function Flag Bridge box.
All other ships must obey normal conditions.
If the Hyperspeed Controller ship ever loses the ability to travel into hyperspeed, then the link to all ships is broken. The individual ships may still continue to jump on their own if possible. If an individual ship loses the ability to jump, then only that ship will not jump.
When working out the Course Plotting, compute the time based on the Hyperspeed Controller only. No other ship or crew has the ability to effect this.
At the time of impulse of jumping, all ships must be facing in the same direction (although speeds need not match). Any ship not facing in the same direction will not jump and will be left behind.
Actual hyperspeed travel rules are beyond the scope of this section, but see the Astronavigation section for more details.