Hyperdrives and Jump Ranges

A hyperdrive lets you travel its maximum range in seven days, which is 168 hours. Travel time is linear with distance, so you will use one day to travel a seventh of your hyperdrive range. For a class n drive you will need n2 tons of fuel to travel the maximum range, except for the class 8 hyperdrive which actually is a class 9 drive and therefore uses 81 tons for a maximum range jump. The fuel consumption is linear with the distance, using only integer amounts of fuel, so you will need e.~g. #math161#⌈#tex2html_wrap_inline2078#⌉ tons of fuel to travel half the maximum drive range. The only difference between the civil and military versions of a drive is the weight of the drive and the type of fuel used.

The relation between jump cost c  [t], jump time t  [h], ship mass m  [t] and jump distance d  [lj] can be expressed a little more exact to give you a few numbers to crunch. Here the equations:

#math162#
c = #tex2html_wrap_indisplay2085##tex2html_wrap_indisplay2086##tex2html_wrap_indisplay2087#
, *1cm#tex2html_wrap_indisplay2088#
(5)
If you set the time to the maximum 168  h in the second equation you can calculate the maximum range of the drive of a given class in a given ship. If you do this for the class 8 drive in a Panther or Boa you get inconsistencies. From table #tab:ships#264> you can see that the class 8 drive behaves like a class 9 drive in the Panther and like a class 7.79 drive in the Boa. I hope this indicates a mistake in the table. The maximum ranges for the Lynx Bulk Carrier and the Long Range Cruiser are calculated as if the class 8 drive were actually class 9 drive. I don't know whether these ships can carry hyperdrives at all.