Hyperspeed is Insanely Fast

I think all ships in Star Wars travel at the speed of plot.

Meanwhile in Warhammer 40k, of you use FTL travel: - you may not arrive at the right time - you may not arrive at the right place - you may not arrive at all

Yes, but you forgot Spaceballs and their Ludicrous Speed

"They'll never get there in time to save him, they have to come half-way across the galaxy." -- Padme, Attack of the Clones

Hyperspace speeds absolutely vary depending on the hyper-routes. Ships can move much faster through well-charted hyperlanes (like the Correllian Run or Hyperion Way for example). Minor hyperlanes are not as well charted and ships must go slower through them. And the difference can be vast. Going from the core world of Coruscant to Tatooine is like a day, whereas it can be weeks to get to someplace much closer because there are no major hyperlanes in that direction. This has all been established since the 1980s. That's why speed is rated as a multiplier of travel time, and not an absolute speed (like lightyears per hour, etc). Instead, you look at the travel times on the chart, which is all about the nature of the hyperlanes, and then you multiply by the hyperdrive multiplier.

Hyperspace speed is heavily dependent on the amount of data available. Using a major trade lane will let you cross the galaxy at mindblowing speeds. Traveling throw the middle of nowhere - well.

FTL is always interesting grounds in SciFi. Star Trek has Warp Speed which may well be slower, but it's a slower paced franchise in general. Halo is interesting where Human ships could escape into slipspace only to find the Covenant fleet that left hours after them, waiting for their emergence. Forerunner mastered FTL to the point their infantry have it. And then there's Warhammer 40k, where you can arrive as early as yesterday and as late as 500 years in the future.

Since Star Wars doesn’t really care about science and hyperspace is a different dimension maybe there are hyperspace currents

In legends, they measured hyperspace closer to 1,500x the speed of light....it's very inconsistent...I think Hyperspace speeds are as fast or slow as the script and screen writers need it to be.

I always thought that "hyperspace" travel was basically going into a separate, parallel type of space and then exiting out at a different point. In the normal space, it would be like traveling faster than light, but you would still be traveling at regular speeds around actual obstacles in that other space. It, therefore would vary based on the route in hyperspace.

Everybody gangsta until the flying space church comes out the inmaterium with echoes of the damn souls of hell at it back.

Late to the party, but I always took hyperspace to be essentially near-infinite speed, primarily limited by finding paths not interdicted by natural gravity wells. Thus, the hyperspped factors of engines are not velocity, but tolerance of gravity wells, allowing you to take longer jumps with less lane clearance.

Trips in Star Wars across the galaxy take a matter of hours or at most days. Trips in Star Trek across the galaxy take Decades. It's the foundational plot point of Voyager.

"Prepare the ship for ludicrous speed!"... "They've gone to plaid!"

In SW lore, hyperspace is pretty much teleport. The distance traveled matters little, what makes going to point A to point B take a second or a year is how well know an hyperspace route is, how powerfull your navicomputer is and how many jumps are required to get in there. You could travel from the core to the tip of the galaxy arm in a second if your route was solid enough, or you could take a century navigating inside a nebula to find your way out. Distance is not a problem in SW lore, how you know your path is.

4:04 "So that means one of two things..." You are neglecting a third possibility: the writers are complete hacks.

Having different speeds at different locations for hyperspace makes sense: after all battles are fought over hyperspace lanes

The inconsistency of Hyperspace speeds is pretty consistent with what we know from previous canons. It's why hyperspace lanes are important. They presumably make hyperspace lanes faster.

It's magic and we know that a wizard arrives exactly when he intends to.

Nothing beats Dune's folding space. Travelling without moving.