Astrogation Times and Difficulties

By GM Hooly, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Yes and this is where my own rules come into play. Example of map as follows:

Dominus Sector

The rules for interpreting the map are found here:

Using the Map

Wow... This is pretty solid. Takes me way back to Traveller (Or Space Master maybe...). Nicely done! I hope your players appreciate the work here.

You made that sector map using Google?

That's a Traveller subsector map. It appears to have been made with Campaign Cartographer? But, there are many utilities out there for making such maps.

Upon my second run through, this is what I came up with:

Astrogation Difficulty Sheet v1.1

I must be blind...where is the "Table: Sublight Travel Times"?

I think it's a really cool idea, and nicely laid out. Not to be a negative-Nancy, but:

First, it's tailored for a game that uses a hex grid. I'm not sure how useful it would be to calculate, say, Tatooine to Coruscant, or the impact of having to jump from a minor to major trade route...or maybe somebody has put the galaxy on a hex grid already?

Second, it seems that travel times-per-hex along major routes are considerably faster than minor ones, and I'm not sure that the extra boost dice alter that appropriately.

Also, the fuel consumption kind of demands that fuel capacity be part of every ship's stat. Maybe a solution:

- the fuel cells scale to Silhouette so that the base-line is that every ship comes with 50 appropriately-sized cells

- each cell costs 100cr * Silhouette

- you can store extra cells: 5 cells take up Silhouette in Encumbrance.

Ultimately the problem is that in Star Wars, hyperspace travel has never been quantified, and the media almost goes out of its way to make it impossible to do so. Tatooine-to-Alderaan took long enough for Luke to learn to parry blaster fire, while in TCW, Anakin jumps directly to Saleucami from Coruscant within a few minutes. So hyperspace is this weird mix between Battlestar Galactica insta-jumps and Star Trek warp space. Sometimes distance is no factor at all, assuming you have a good "route"...if a "route" can be said to have no distance...anomaly alert!

I dislike the "speed of plot" answer to this conundrum, I really do, but I'm not sure a grid based solution accounts for everything. Perhaps Triumphs should allow skipping grids, speeds along known routes should be orders of magnitudes faster, and sometimes you can find wormhole-like anomalies that let you get ridiculously far distances in the blink of an eye. The latter would be extremely valuable, as military secrets or for sale to trade guilds.

I must be blind...where is the "Table: Sublight Travel Times”?

Yeah, I was wondering that, too.

I think it's a really cool idea, and nicely laid out. Not to be a negative-Nancy, but:

First, it's tailored for a game that uses a hex grid. I'm not sure how useful it would be to calculate, say, Tatooine to Coruscant, or the impact of having to jump from a minor to major trade route...or maybe somebody has put the galaxy on a hex grid already?

Note that this sheet is specific to the game that Hooly runs, and he has posted his hex grid maps elsewhere on the forum. So, these sheets won’t be as generally useful as some of his other stuff that is not specific to his particular game.

That said, I think they’re great for what they are, and I’d love to see something derived from this that is generally applicable to all FFG SWRP games, like his other sheets. And I hope that what he’s got here is one giant step towards that goal.

I must be blind...where is the "Table: Sublight Travel Times"?

Age of Rebellion Core Rules p 260 (Table 7-12)

That's a Traveller subsector map. It appears to have been made with Campaign Cartographer? But, there are many utilities out there for making such maps.

It most certainly is. I did the whole thing in photoshop using only a grid.

Edited by GM Hooly
You made that sector map using Google?

No. Obsidian Portal uses the Google Maps facility to upload campaign maps to.

Forgive me for being dense, but I don't get how rushed and thorough calculations work within the context of the game and how it effects the pool, may I request a few examples of how you would apply it?

OK, so here goes:

The heroes have recently acquired the database for the Imperial Supply Run which will be happening between Ossus III and Trigandium later that day. The heroes hope to get back to base and warn the fleet so that a plan can be put into motion to intercept the shipment of the much needed medical supplies. The heroes are being pursued by TIE fighters and the warning alarm has just activated. A Star Destroyer has just jumped into orbit and appears to be maneuvering itself towards the minimal safe jump distance - in other words, between where the hereos are now, and where they need to be. The heroes have a number of rounds before they can get there, and the Mon Cal Co-Pilot is frantically entering code into the navi-computer in order to make the jump to hyperspace.

Zax (Pliot): Tanus!

Tanus (Mon Cal): I saw it Captain. That's an ISD II out there. Could be worse. It could be an Interdictor!

Zax (Pliot): Well get us the hell out of here already.

Tanus has Intellect 4 and Astrogation 2.

The difficulty to get from where they are on Ossus III (C Class World) and the Rebel Base on Flitter (E Class equivalent) is:

d (Base Difficulty) + dd (The lower of the two worlds is E Class) = ddd (Base Difficulty)

The base difficulty will take 10 minutes to calculate. That's not going to cut it. Tanus' player decides to make the calculation in 2 rounds. This is 2 tiers down the scale, and so the difficulty increases by dd.

The total of the difficulty is: ddd (Base Difficulty) + dd (Rushed Calculations) = ddddd

The final pool is aassddddd

This ain't gonna be easy!

Edited by GM Hooly

Conversely, if they managed to get away without being detected, and have heaps of time to navigate, they could 4 hours to run the calculations, they could get the difficulty down to a single difficulty dice.

I like that idea, although I think you need to make it clear that you increase/decrease the difficulty by the difference in time tier. Your explanation made things much more clear. :)

The base difficulty will take 10 minutes to calculate. That's not going to cut it. Tanus' player decides to make the calculation in 2 rounds. This is 2 tiers down the scale, and so the difficulty increases by dd.

How do we know it is two 'tiers' down the scale? There isn't any scale or the like to show us on your PDF to suggest what a "level" of time is when it comes to doing hyperspace coordinates, and nothing to tell us how long setting the coordinates should take for a given jump in the first place.

Other than that, the extra rules are quite cool, thanks :)

Under Travel Duration there is table which is Plotting Difficulty VS Time to Calculate.

Look at the base Plotting Difficulty (as calculated in Step 1) and marry that up to the Time to Calculate. This then is your position on the scale. Obviously the minimum amount of time to calculate is 1 round, while the maximum is 4 hours. Each tier in the Time to Calculate up or down increases or decreased the difficulty.

Sorry if the chart doesn't make that entirely clear.

Edited by GM Hooly

Sorry, I blame not seeing it on looking at it before I had my morning coffee :P

Note that Fly Casual has some pretty big changes in store for Astrogation.

You might want to check that out before you spend too much more time on this issue.

Oh dear...

Your link on the first page broke....at least for me.

Don't know what happened. The link has been corrected :) Thanks for picking that up.

First I must thank you for creating such a detailed sheet for Astrogation calculations, it´s a very handy doccument. Second, I was wondering if there was an update of this great resource? Have you had enough time to incorporate the Hyperspace rules found on the Fly Casual sourcebook?

I do not want to sound anxious but on Saturday my players will have to escape in their ship and perform several jumps to avoid being hunted and your sheet would come very handy.

Thanks.

I have yet to get my copy down here in Australia :(

Edited by GM Hooly

Ok, don´t worry.

Thanks anyway.

Sorry dude :(

I have yet to get my copy down here in Australia :(

We can fix that problem. I happen to have a spare copy. ;)

Send me a PM with your shipping address and phone number, and I’ll get that sent right out to you.

I'm still waiting on my writer's copy :)