Hello there!

I just got Onslaught at Arda I yesterday (seems like another great book by FFG BTW) and as I was leafing through I noticed that at some point it is recommended for the player to do micro-jumps to avoid being followed.

I didn't read the AoR CRB yet since I am playing a EotE game at the moment but I don't remember any specifics in the rules about micro-jumps. As I understood the lore micro-jumps seems to be a complicated thing since when you jump you risk a collision with an hyperspace shadow if you don't calculate a safe route (which takes time). Also, when exiting a successful micro-jump, wouldn't it be very hard to calculate a new route, since you are in the middle of nowhere? Multiple micro-jumps would be very time-consuming and dangerous, right?

Also, I don't recall either seeing anything in the rules about following another vessel which just entered hyperspace. How do you do this?

Thanks for the help!

Micro jumps in the books were usually *to* a specific point from a very short distance away, and usually involved being very close to other vessels or astronomical bodies. The ones it sounds like are short jumps on random headings before jumping to your true destination to obscure the direction of travel - for the first few seconds they can track your vector, and determine any habitable systems or likely destinations along that path.

*edit* whups, missed it was a multi-question. I haven't seen anything about tracking ships through hyperspace in RAW; I would assume it to fall under Astrogation with potential boosts depending on the sophistication of your tracking sensors.

As to danger - presumably the micro-jumps are still nearby the planets or moons, otherwise yes, the navicomputer would probably have trouble sorting out the jump coordinates and safe path. You may want to make it 25% longer to calculate the jump - or 50% in deserted systems out in the rim - but the time to calculate only really matters for the first couple, because after that you've presumably lost the pursuit that *may* have been coming.

We usually plot a course to some out of the way nowhere if we suspect we're being observed (1st Astrogation roll), then another to get to our intended destination (2nd Astrogation roll). The theory is that if they make an assumption as to your destination based on the vector you departed on it won't help them. (I think there's tech that actually detect your trail hours after you've departed, however, so chaps with as good or better hyperdrives than may still be able to follow us.)

We frequently use on-board navigation only (not logging on to the HoloNet, which normally provides drift chart and other environment updates each time you log on), which our GM tells us increases the difficulty by 1.

In our games micro-jumps have, historically, refered to using your hyperdrive in-system. That's always been a very dangerous prospect (we haven't done it in the FFG system but I imagine it upgrades the difficulty twice).

It's one of those GM as the story requires things, so doing micro jumps instead of a direct jump can be as hard or easy as you like.

How I do it:

When a ship enters hyperspace a savvy sensor operator can determine the direction it entered, and take that to the navigation/astrogation officer who can cross reference the jump direction with routes and possible destinations and (combined with additional info from the ships intel officer) make an educated guess about where the target ship is going. How good or bad this guess is depends on many many factors, but it can work.

The point of a micro jump is to deny the enemy the info about your jump. Instead of jumping direct from Hoth to Bespin, you instead plot a course that fits a route to Nal Hutta (or possibly nowhere at all), but cut it short and then plot a new course when you're clear of your pursuer, hoping he goes to Nal Hutta looking for you while you sit in the Royal Casino drinking Tattooine sunburns and hitting on the cute Twi'lek sabacc dealer.

Micro jumps aren't complicated if you plan them, if anything they can be easier because you aren't going very far, so if you're merely being observed, it's no biggy, you just plot a course to some random point along the nearest hyperlane, jump there, then plot your true course. It's only really a problem if you are doing it when you are actively being pursued by an opponent. In this case you are kinda correct, you'd probably plan a jump to Nal Hutta, and then slam on the breaks after a couple light-years, and spend the next way too many hours figuring out where the heck you are and how to get to Bespin from there. But depending on what's going on, that might be the best option...

Mechanically I'd do it about like this:

Planned Microjumps have a base difficulty of P or PP, and take a little longer to plan then a normal jump (since the navcom has to find a random point in space as opposed to using preset destinations). But once you arrive at nowhere plotting your new course is no difficult or time consuming then normal.

Unplanned microjumps have a base difficulty of PPP or more, or the base of your "fake" destination, and take about as long to plan as an ordinary jump. Setbacks are a given. After you slam on the breaks, plotting your new course is base PPP minimum, there will be setbacks, and it take twice as long to plot your new course.

In both cases I would allow a "take 20" (from D20; with GM approval if the player just took 20ish minutes to do something slowly and carefully they automatically succeed instead of rolling) type thing to happen if the jumps, time taken, and difficulty wasn't a worthwhile story point. So if they were just micro-jumping to lose the empire, but it wasn't important they be anywhere in a certain amount of time, I'd just add an extra day or two onto the travel time and call it good.

The modular encounter I wrote for Suns of Fortune "Corellian Shuffle" includes micro-jumps.

If someone want to follow you through hyperspace, they have to enter hyperspace immediately behind you (within two rounds is what we use). At this point we use the chase rules as you try to get away from your pursuer with Astrogation replacing Piloting. Making a micro-jump wouldn't really help since as soon as you leave hyperspace, your pursuers would appear right on top of you (ala the Tantive IV in ANH). So you need some time in hyperspace to lose your follower first, either outrunning them or using terrain to zip around to gain distance.

That's how we do it.

I see it primarily as a narrative tool--if you want to follow somebody through hyperspace, it's an Astrogation check. I'd set the difficulty higher than the original difficulty (or upgrade the check, if you want to create the possibility of catastrophic failure). Possible sources of boost dice may include a tracking device on the target ship, good sensors, etc. Setback would include things like not following right away, poor sensors, etc.

As for losing or foiling pursuit, it seems like that would upgrade both the astrogation check for the group trying to get away and the pursuer's check...narratively, you're talking about micro-jumps or simply a convoluted route.

I don't think I'd go with multiple Astrogation rolls for micro-jumps. Instead, I'd do it like Evasive Maneuvers. I can take a number of upgrades to the Difficulty of my Astrogation rolls and anyone trying to follow me takes a similar number of upgrades to their check to follow me.

Following someone who jumps to deep space then jumps from their to their destination would be virtually impossible IMO unless you have a tracker on their ship. While you could get a direction for the first jump with a decent sensor operator given what we know of ship sensor ranges you would either need most of an Imperial sector fleet or more to check every spot they could come out at in the time it would take them to plot a jump to their true destination, even if they took 20 minutes to plot the second jump.

And of course they could always use multiple waypoints before heading to their true destination to make finding where they are going even harder. When I rp a Rebel fleet commander unless there's an IC emergency and my force needs to reach where it is going immediately I usually make two or even three waypoint jumps between my force's base and my target and vice versa launching fighters at the last waypoint before reaching the destination and picking any fighters which don't have serious damage, and need to be recovered in the target system up at the second.waypoint of the return trip.

The other concern isn't tracking - but interception. Unless the target point is known ahead of time by all ships jumping, communicating it from one to the other can be intercepted by nearby Imperial craft - and a couple of the novels point this out happening/ ways around it (such as a pre-arranged method of transposing numbers so that coordinates transmitted are not quite the coords jumped to).

Comm intercept isn't a concern in the case of one ship jumping of course and yyeah the Cracken Twist was brilliant for fleet jumps, but just having both sets of waypoints set pre-mission would work as well.

I don't think I'd go with multiple Astrogation rolls for micro-jumps. Instead, I'd do it like Evasive Maneuvers. I can take a number of upgrades to the Difficulty of my Astrogation rolls and anyone trying to follow me takes a similar number of upgrades to their check to follow me.

How many rolls would depend on how important the chase is to the overall plot. If you're being chased by a Star Destroyer, you'd want to play it out as dramatic as possible so multiple rolls would work here. That way the next time the players are in a cantina they can brag about outrunning one of the big Correlian ships.

Where does it say that a ship in hyperspace can detect another one dropping out? There's no evidence anywhere I know of saying that. Even the times I remember seeing ships trying to track one that's jumped away rather then jumping into hyper them they instead start plotting likely destinations based on their course then jump to one of those.

Not to mention the pursuing ship would need to plot a jump before it could enter hyperspace and by the time it does that the pursued ship would have a massive lead.

The modular encounter I wrote for Suns of Fortune "Corellian Shuffle" includes micro-jumps.

Just checked out the sidebar on micro-jumps. Looks interesting but I cant seem to find the regular jump rules it contrasts to. It say that it takes one round execute. Does that mean it takes one round before the jump activates? And 2 rounds to calculate the jump. Does the astrogator have to take an action each round calculating, or can he just set it in motion?

The modular encounter I wrote for Suns of Fortune "Corellian Shuffle" includes micro-jumps.

Just checked out the sidebar on micro-jumps. Looks interesting but I cant seem to find the regular jump rules it contrasts to. It say that it takes one round execute. Does that mean it takes one round before the jump activates? And 2 rounds to calculate the jump. Does the astrogator have to take an action each round calculating, or can he just set it in motion?

I always have the astrogator make his check at the start, then subtract rounds from the calculation time based on successes beyond the first. Or add rounds for multiple failures. Once the calculation time is done, the computer goes "ping" and the pilot can pull the handles and jump to hyperspace.

Where does it say that a ship in hyperspace can detect another one dropping out?

If you're following, you just go where they go. If you have a homing beacon, as Obi Wan did, you set a course to where the homing beacon is and adjust from that point.

Following is made a bit easier since you can detect them powering up their hyperdrive well before they jump (TCW S1E4, S1E6, et. al) so you have plenty of time to match their course.

Where does it say that a ship in hyperspace can detect another one dropping out?

Han could detect the Star Destroyers chasing him as he left Tatooine, so if you can detect something in hyperspace, you can detect when it is no longer in hyperspace. Otherwise, you couldn't explain how the Devastator came out of hyperspace right on top of the Tantive IV (if you follow the radio drama account) or how Obi Wan came out right where Jango Fett did in AotC (and just 6 seconds behind.

A: Are we certain that the Star Destroyers chased Han into Hyperspace? The only ones I recall chasing the Falcon were doing so before she jumped.

B: I believe Leia's ship had either a tracker, a traitor, or both on it which was how Devastator was able to follow her so precisely though. (Yeah I jut checked and one of the droids on the ship was an Imperial agent who informed them where she was heading. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/U-3PO )

Thanks everyone for your answers and suggestions. I will think about this and come up with a clear rule before my players leave the planet they are on.

I was asking because when they will leave the planet they will probably be chased by other hyperspace capable ships. In my old D6 game entering hyperspace always meant you automatically evaded pursuit but it feels less exciting. Micro jumps were used only when the pilot had no time to calculate a route and just wanted to randomly jump anywhere for a few seconds to run away (and after that he had to take hours to find out where he were and get a good astrogation roll to find his way back). This felt a bit boring to be honest.

Now I think that I will explain to them that they CAN be chased in hyperspace and that micro-jumps can help but that they are dangerous and are not garanteed to lose pursuers. I just need to work out the rules with your suggestions to make this happen (and thanks Keith for the Suns of Fortune rules, I will consider them).

I took a bit of time to go through Suns of Fortune (had it for a few weeks but since I bought so many books at the same time I hadn't time to read it yet) and I found something relevant for this topic on page 101: a Bothawui Communications Conglomerate HSI-280 Hyperwave Signal Interceptor, which is described as being a tool that can track a ship through hyperspace. It doesn't describe HOW (a computers check I guess) though.

I will use this kind of device to explain why and when certain ships can track my group...

One thing that might be considered is to have the characters make the astrogation check with one or two setback dice or increase the difficulty.

Then if the players want to make it so that the can't be tracked, roll the astrogation or computers skill of astrogators on the tracking ship roll, adding the players astrogation skill as an opposed roll.

Tracking devices may lower the difficulty of this check.

Just a guess. I'm just learning these rules

Hey got to remember that given different speeds of hyperdrives the chase craft could reach destination before the craft being chased

Hey got to remember that given different speeds of hyperdrives the chase craft could reach destination before the craft being chased

Good point...I would use the difference in speeds to increase or decrease the difficulty of an opposed check, or perhaps add Boost/Setback dice.