Hyperspace, Travel, YT-1300s.

By RebelDave, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Posted at

A few questions:

Hyperspace Travel

So, how do people think this actually works?

I have been told by a friend, that ships within hyperspace 'turn', to fly around things like planets, suns, blackholes, etc, as opposed to a Point to Point (Straight Line) type affair.

Straight Line, A to B would require multiple jumps to get from Start to Destination, so I can see the advantages of 'hyperspace turns' as such.

A navicomputer can (according to Wikipedia) store coordinates for hyperspace routes.
A droid can do the same to a limited fashion.

But surely, a 'route' requires a Start point and an End.... if you start point moves, the route as a result must be different. (I admit, in the scale of the galaxy, a 'start' point might simple have to be within a solar system)

So if you have a droid, with a set of coordinates (a ROUTE) for... lets say... Ryloth to Tatooine, Tatooine to Naboo, and Tatooine to Geonosis... I am assuming you cannot make a jump from Naboo to Geonosis... you would be limited going via Tatooine, as your droid does not have the route required.

However, a Navicomputer would be able to compute this?

So, if this is the case, would it be theoretically be possible (given enough fuel) be able to program a Hyperspace route, from one side of the galaxy to the other... or indeed, a circular route around the edge of the galaxy and end at the point you started?

A ROUTE I can imagine might be complicated, but a simple set of coordinates (X is HERE) would surely mean an Astromech can compute to any location, if it knows the destination, and as I understand, Galactic Coordinates are simply 9 digits long: 000,000,000 = Coruscant)

I read a post about travel times being determined by how 'clean' hyperspace is... does Hyperspace take place 'outside' normal space, or is it simply traveling through normal space at high velocity? (Would debris in normal space, cause collisions in Hyperspace?)


What are peoples thoughts here?

PLOT IDEA: Gravity wells pull ships out of hyperspace, would passing too close to say.. a derelict star destroyer, cause enough of a 'pull' (Star Destroyers are pretty big and have a large mass after all) a ship out of hyperspace?

SHIP DEFENCE QUESTION
Am I right in thinking, that a ship that has Forward and Aft shields of 1 each, has a total defence rating of 2? (Excluding armour), and could thus have 2 points in a single shield zone?
(The Kryat Fang has only a single 'defence' point, while a Stock YT-1300 has 1 forward and 1 aft, which is 2 total correct?)

YT-1300 QUESTIONS
I have found at least 3 different deckplan layouts for YT-1300s:
The Falcon (from an earlier SW RPG, and are also used on Wookieepedia), the Kryat Fang, and a Blueprint design from another book
-All three of these are the same layout, witht he exception of the tiny room just off the main hold on the port side... which seems to be depicted as a Kitchen on the Kryat Fang, and a Circuitry Bay on the other two.

The other two are also from the same earlier SW RPG, also on wookieepedia, that show a Cargo varient, and a Passenger varient, with cabins instead of cargo bays.

Now my question: All three designs have a cargo hold at the front, easily accessable from the cargo doors between the mandibles... and by extension; the main hold.
However, the Cargo varient has two holds either side of the engine room, which makes for difficult access as everything would need to be moved round the ring corridors and THROUGH the engine room to reach... which seems abit impractical.
However, these designs also state there is a freight elevator in the floor of the engine room.

Is this a likely setup? Surely, being so close to the engines, this area would be full of engine-ey type... stuff?

Are the mandiples on a YT class ship designed to carry cargo containers? Could you possible modify the ship and a container to give you access to the container from the cargo doors?

Am I simply over thinking all of this??

Cheers

RD

Edited by RebelDave
Posted at

I don't think cross-galaxy or circle-the-galaxy single routes are possible. The fact is, the big trade routes were plotted millennia ago and are relatively direct from big system to big system and are stable, hence why they're used so much. Low risk, high reward for trade along those routes. Which as I said are stable, and used constantly, so there's not a big risk of something strange or unexpected happening. Higher risk drives up costs, which drives down profits.

Circling the galaxy or even crossing it would be high risk, because of distance and the amount of data that has to be considered. Passing through the Deep Core is a no-go because of travel restrictions on top of the unstable gravity dangers that deep into the galaxy. Even going from one fringe to another would be tricky (assuming supplies/fuel not an issue) just because the further the trip, the more data has to be evaluated and risks avoided.

Hyperspace is effectively generating and entering a contained wormhole, that is largely outside of real space. You don't need to worry about micrometeorites in hyperspace; however, the gravity of planets and stars projects a "shadow" in hyperspace that can tear a ship apart if it gets too close. Hence why ships have to get far enough away from planets and stars to safely make the jump to hyper - outside a certain range of the planet's natural gravity well.

It should be noted that astromechs are substitutes for navicomputers but not full computers themselves. I think. They can store a few common jumps in a buffer, or maybe plan out a relatively uncomplicated jump, but for the most part a dedicated navicomputer is needed. This notion may in fact be wrong with Luke and R2 going to Dagobah, but the movie may have simply skipped the scenes where Luke researched Dagobah and plotted the course using a dedicated Rebel navicomputer and then uploaded the route into R2.

Star destroyers don't have the relative gravity to pull a ship out of hyper. However, Interdictor cruisers generate an energy field that mimics a planet or moon, causing hyperdrives that pass into the bubble of effect to kick in their failsafes, pulling ships in hyper back into real space or preventing a jump to hyper. Certainly there could be a damaged/scuttled ship like that that occasionally malefactions and brings its gravity well projectors on randomly. But you have to ask why the hulk is there, as opposed to being towed back to a shipyard if that damaged to be scuttled or repaired.

As to the rest, I think it's a little overthinking especially the deck plan stuff. I like the abstract stuff this system presents and drawing out the ship on a grid for anything more than "possible fight aboard ship" is not interesting for me. But that's just me; if it interests you, I'm not trying to dissuade your interest.

Posted at

You might want to review this thread first. Just keep in mind there is no canonical source that defines how hyperspace and astrogation works with any great exactitude:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/102798-math-and-hyperspace-question/

That is the post I have read, but doesnt address my original question.

And yes, I am fully concious that there is probably no 'correct' or 'accurate' answer, and its all opinions at this point... I was just wondering what other people felt was most fitting...

The original Hyperspace query can probably be boiled down to:

Are Hyperspace Coordinates a 'Map' from point A to Point B. (And thus useless if you are not at Point A or Point B)

Or are they simply: X is HERE, and calculate from where you are NOW. (Requiring a NavoComp to deal with the complexity)

However, if the answer is the latter.... those Coordinates must be REALLY complex if a Droid can calculate from Current Location to Point A, but not to Point G (As it can only hold 6 points).

If that made... any sense at all?

Posted at

As to the rest, I think it's a little overthinking especially the deck plan stuff. I like the abstract stuff this system presents and drawing out the ship on a grid for anything more than "possible fight aboard ship" is not interesting for me. But that's just me; if it interests you, I'm not trying to dissuade your interest.

Im not looking at mapping things, I was just looking for peoples opinions and view points on the topic.

I personally HATE Mechanical RPs that rely on the rules (Despise D20 with a passion).

Posted at

SHIP DEFENCE QUESTION

Am I right in thinking, that a ship that has Forward and Aft shields of 1 each, has a total defence rating of 2? (Excluding armour), and could thus have 2 points in a single shield zone?

(The Kryat Fang has only a single 'defence' point, while a Stock YT-1300 has 1 forward and 1 aft, which is 2 total correct?)

I think the Krayt Fang only has 1 defence because its from the beginner box which, to keep things simple, did not allow for zones, nor the movement of shields to different zones. In any case, you don't "total" the defences, they only apply when a shot hits that zone. You can "angle the deflector shields" to move 1 defence from forward to aft (or vice versa), in which case if there is a shot aft of the ship it will get 2 setback dice, but a shot forward will get none.

The original Hyperspace query can probably be boiled down to:

Are Hyperspace Coordinates a 'Map' from point A to Point B. (And thus useless if you are not at Point A or Point B)

Or are they simply: X is HERE, and calculate from where you are NOW. (Requiring a NavoComp to deal with the complexity)

However, if the answer is the latter.... those Coordinates must be REALLY complex if a Droid can calculate from Current Location to Point A, but not to Point G (As it can only hold 6 points).

Personally I'd treat it as a Map. If you're on a mission with your R2 unit, you know where you're starting from and the points you need to hit along the way, so you'd have up to 6 Maps stored in the R2. I imagine there's a fudge range, eg: you follow Map1 to a small moon and take out a pirate's fuel container, but the opposition is greater than you expected, so you have to flee (in real space) to the other side of the system before jumping along Map2...the R2 can probably account for your shift in the real-space starting point for Map2 and still get you to your Map2 destination.

Those "Maps" in the R2 are probably only good for a while, depending on the region it might be as little as a day, or as long as a week or month.

The NavComp comes in when you need to plot a new Map NOW, as you said. If you're going from Coruscant to Corellia you can probably get the latest Map from local broadcast/satellite sources just seconds before the drives kick in...assuming you haven't had your privileges revoked because of Imperial entanglements, or your subscription to BOSS.com/coruscant/latest-maps.html hasn't expired :) If you can't get a fresh Map, then your navcomp needs to do all the work, hopefully using the latest star charts, ideally updated daily. The star charts are probably provided in most places as a public service that anyone can access.

There's all kinds of room here to treat this as hazily or as super detailed as you like. I prefer "hazy", until it matters...

Posted at

Between this, and the other thread, I think I have a nice idea of how it could work, which should be sufficient.

It all essentially boils down to...

How fast do you need this trip to take?

How often do you need your players to stop?

Or the P.L.O.T. Equation, I think its called

Many thanks on those bits... how about the YT1300 bits?

Posted at
Is this a likely setup? Surely, being so close to the engines, this area would be full of engine-ey type... stuff?


Are the mandiples on a YT class ship designed to carry cargo containers? Could you possible modify the ship and a container to give you access to the container from the cargo doors?



Disclaimer: It doesn't matter. It works in Star Wars, because it does. There are too many things that the Star Wars Universe breaks physics wise for any of it to make sense. Don't be such a nitpick about these sort of things because everybody will hate you at the table.


Now that we've got that out of the way... Let's just play it out as if it DOES matter! Because that's what's fun! Let's nitpick!


First off, you should pickup The Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual. There's an invaluable amount of information there. Next, let's try to boil down what your question really means.


"Is this a likely setup?" I don't think you're trying to ask if it's a likely type of random new YT-1300. I think you're trying to ask about ergonomics, design, and as to the most optimum sort of design most smugglers would take.


I think your question is "What is the best YT-1300 setup?". A YT-1300 could simply have nothing in the two areas adjacent to the engine room (like completely hollow with no hull even) and it would still technically fly. Anything goes, right? But what's the best?


First, what can't you change? The engine room's location, the Ventral Gun housing, and the mandibles. The mandibles are known to house the secondary components of the ship: Concussion Missiles, Tractor Beam, etc. She's gotta have her guts too! If you want to increase the depth of your sessions (and possibly anger or bore the other players), open up one of the existing deckplans and edit them so that they house more secondary components like the radiator, power core, etc, all stuff you can find in the cross sections book, or the owner's workshop manual. You can either add guts to the ship from the inside so that a character would be able to access these components directly, or you can just say that they're embeded between the hull and the living space. It's a lot more fun if you can see the ship's components from the inside, and it makes just as much logical sense because there's no way you can really compare some of the sizes of these components. Is the Falcon really just an overblown X-Wing with 2 turrets, and a bigger engine, or are the components greater in number and larger in size? With so many different Falcon designs, it's really up to you.


You could put the cockpit in the front, between the mandibles. I think that most YT-1300s should look like that, because the Falcon currently has this big neck that one must traverse for no apparent reason. Couldn't they just not had a neck wall, and have more room for cargo?


And then you have the four quadrants of the ship that you can store stuff in. Han's got a Dejarik Table set up. Not very good for cargo, but good for keeping the Wookiee happy. To finally directly answer your question, you can reserve as much space in these quadrants as desired for passengers/cargo, since you define how much space the ship components must take.


If I was a smuggler, I'd make it a middle mandible cockpit and empty out all the 4 quadrants for cargo with the exception of sleeping quarters and some maintenance consoles. Each quadrant has a freight loading elevator. We can just say that the Falcon's hull is basically Inspector Gadget and components take absolutely no room on the ship, except whatever's in the engine room. The side ports double as docking rings AND escape pods.


Even when you nitpick, it turns out it doesn't matter.