I don't think you're an idiot, so I'm guessing the reason you misunderstood my trigonometry analogy was bias. Either way, I'll explain it again in terms of the rings so that there's no way you can misunderstand. Imagine the rings fire not one but two blasts. Blast A travels in normal space to a distance of X. Blast B travels in slipspace to distance X. At distance X, blast A enters slipspace and blast B enters normal space. Blast A travels in slipspace to a distance of 2X, and blast B travels in regular space to a distance of 2X. At distance 2X, blast A reenters regular space and blast B reenters slipspace. They continue to alternate in this manner on an interval of X. Each blast travels only half as much distance in normal space, therefore each blast takes twice as long to dissipate, so the ring's effective range has been doubled. Now imagine the rings fire trillions of blasts. Each blast only moves for a very short distance before entering slipspace and being replaced by another blast. The ring's effective range is now trillions of times greater.