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    Navigation computer

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    Navicomputer-TOTJGOAS3
    Click here for Wookieepedia's article on the Canon version of this subject.   This article covers the Legends version of this subject.  
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    "Travelin' through hyperspace ain't like dustin' crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"
    ―Han Solo, to Luke Skywalker[2]

    A navigation computer, also known as an astrogation computer, navicomputer, navicomp,[3] or nav computer,[4] was a device that made the careful calculations necessary to navigate through hyperspace.

    History

    During the Expansionist Period of the Galactic Republic, shipboard navicomputers had memory for a few hyperspace routes and took significant time to calculate the massive amount of data around obstacles. The Republic relied on more powerful supercomputers stored in Hyperspace beacon along hyperspace routes.[5]

    In the following centuries, technology in computing power advanced exponentially, and even shipboard computers were able to store thousands, then millions of routes, and could make immense calculations much faster, gradually making the beacons obsolete. [5] In the modern era, all navicomputers contained the Galactic coordinates for all star systems in the known galaxy.

    Usage

    Navicomputers would calculate data like the exact destination, the quickest and safest route to it, and the number of hyperspace jumps necessary.[5]

    Most starships carried a nav computer of some sort, though some starfighters made do with only the astrogation buffer of an astromech droid. Smaller ships often possessed limited nav computers, capable of containing data for only a small number of jumps; larger ships had large dedicated nav computers capable of storing coordinates for nearly any foreseeable destination. Some nav computers were handheld. Smugglers tended to voice-print their navicomputers to hide where their ship had been.

    Navicmputers synchronized their data with that of the Space Ministry; the Ministry obliged spacers and pilots to upload and share their data (refusal to comply was considered anti-social and illegal) and in turn navicomputers were updated during standard docking procedures.[5]

    As computers were prone to hazards such as ion storms and power surges or other technical fails, resulting to marooned spacers. Many spacers kept an up-to-date backup computer off-line for such a case. The ultimate resolve was the primitive method of using an astrogation plotter and chart of pulsars and variable stars so that the pilot could determine their location manually.[5]

    Appearances


    Non-canon appearances

    Sources


    Notes and references

    1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game
    2. ↑ Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
    3. ↑ Crosscurrent
    4. ↑ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 The Essential Atlas
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