[Space] FTL Ideas/Thoughts

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Alternatively, merchant lanes are patrolled by rescue ships that pop out of hyperspace and back every so often to listen for stranded merchants. Going off the patrolled lanes with a portal incapable ship is pure stupidity though.

That's going to depend heavily on how long the lanes are, and how many patrol ships you can afford to spend on them. With one hour stops to listen for distress signals (allowing you to detect signals from up to 1 light-hour away), you have to make a stop every 2 light-hours or so to ensure you don't miss something. Ignoring transit time, that means one ship would take a year to patrol two light-years of space. If the maximum acceptable time for a ship to be stranded is about a week (~1/50th of a year), that means you need about 25 patrol ships working 24/7 for every light year of distance. Assuming I've done the math right, that is. You can cut that down to 6 ships per light-year if a month is an acceptable time to be stranded.