With the various vehicles and ships rated only by a abstract movement rate, how do you determine the flight/drive times for planetary trips?
Player: "We rent a speeder and will head out to the mining complex the old guy talked about."
GM: "Ok, no problem, your on your way."
Player: "How long will it take to get there?"
GM: "hmm, well its about, 1300km away and your speeder is Speed 3 so, well... that's how many kph? Oh, it doesn't say."
As long as the story needs it be, this may not be satisfying but is really the basic answer to so many technical questions in the star wars universe.
Lets go behind the curtain for a minute. If it really maters enough to the story then you (GM) will have already planed it out and the speed of the vehicle has no effect on their arrival time.
If on the other hand it doesn't matter to the story then just make it up on the spot, it didn't matter when they got there so it doesn't matter what the answer is.
Either way the Players don't need to know how you got to the answer.
This is similar to the trick of answering the question of "whats behind door number 3". in that case its often exactly what would have been behind door number 1 or 2 had they opened one of them first! so long as the story progresses the exact answer isn't going to cause any problems.
It's a game system in which the combat rounds don't even have hints of length. Just say that it takes a couple hours and problem solved.
It's a game system in which the combat rounds don't even have hints of length. Just say that it takes a couple hours and problem solved.
A combat round is about a minute. says so in the book. But that is as accurate as they get.
So the answer you are looking for is it takes about x long. Could be because of traffic. Could be because of lack of traffic. The trick is to learn not to be specific.
How about: Speed * 30 mph. Quadruple that if the thing can fly. So a landspeeder at speed 2 can go 60 mph, a speed 3 speeder bike at 90 mph, and a T-16 Skyhopper at speed 4 can go close to 500 mph (about what a commercial jet flies.) [speed * 50 kph for the metrically inclined]
However, you're probably better off just setting up the overland map by noting the time between points rather than do all that conversion.
It doesn't really matter if nothing important hinges on it.
They take off, screen wipe, they're there.
So ground speeders always struck me as top end being like a floating sports car, maybe 150 mph. Air speeders more or less fighter jets of one variety or another. Seemed like the most I needed to think about for it.
It doesn't really matter if nothing important hinges on it.
It can be handy to tell them for flavor reasons. If the mine is a 10 hour drive away, it will feel more remote to the players than if it's a 30 minute trip.
It doesn't really matter if nothing important hinges on it.
It can be handy to tell them for flavor reasons. If the mine is a 10 hour drive away, it will feel more remote to the players than if it's a 30 minute trip.
Then that is the right answer. Whereas if you did have precice calculations available you might find the "remote mine" you had come up with actualy turns out to be 42 minutes and 23 seconds drive away, not as impressive as you'd hoped.
I try to handwave all distances and times to vague amounts that suit the story Im telling, rather than get bogged down in precision that will only serve to bite me in the arse later.
As above, travel time should only really matter if there is some time constraint in play. Or if the PCs want to do something on the way there, like attempt some repairs or medicine checks.
With the various vehicles and ships rated only by a abstract movement rate, how do you determine the flight/drive times for planetary trips?
Player: "We rent a speeder and will head out to the mining complex the old guy talked about."
GM: "Ok, no problem, your on your way."
Player: "How long will it take to get there?"
GM: "hmm, well its about, 1300km away and your speeder is Speed 3 so, well... that's how many kph? Oh, it doesn't say."
I work it out in advance. I have a list of the locations and even chase scenarios prepped so I can give rough answers to any journey that is made and have it all make sense at the end of the adventure. Thinking on the fly isn't my strong suit so this works for me. If I have to improvise a new location, then the list still helps because I can use it as a benchmark.
In The Cestus Deception, there's a reference to a maximum speed of 550kph for the Aratech 74-Z. The core rulebook puts that speed at "3". So, if you want to create hard numbers, there's a data point...
In The Cestus Deception, there's a reference to a maximum speed of 550kph for the Aratech 74-Z. The core rulebook puts that speed at "3". So, if you want to create hard numbers, there's a data point...
Meanwhile the Lambda Shuttle, also speed 3, can do 850km/h in atmosphere acording to Wookiepedia. I admire your scientific approach but I fear this could be a looong process with a lot of inconsistancies to confuse the issue.
Mmmmh
the "story speed" is good for someone, but for someone else is important to tell how much time you need to go from A to B with some vehicle.
Most of time the player just says "ok we go to B, are we already here?" so is not important, but for plot consistency is good to have a rough idea: ie something like "a speeder bike goes roughly 600 km/h; a landspeeder goes 3-400; an air speeder goes double of speeder bike, while starship goes faster than everything else"
a precise calculation make things easier, you know, so you can just look at an equation and voila, there is a roughly estimate of average speed of this particular vehicle. And thus, being consistent on planning adventure
In The Cestus Deception, there's a reference to a maximum speed of 550kph for the Aratech 74-Z. The core rulebook puts that speed at "3". So, if you want to create hard numbers, there's a data point...
Meanwhile the Lambda Shuttle, also speed 3, can do 850km/h in atmosphere acording to Wookiepedia. I admire your scientific approach but I fear this could be a looong process with a lot of inconsistancies to confuse the issue.
One is piloted using Pilot: Planetary and one is piloted using Pilot: Space.
Additionally, they're entirely different classes of vehicle.
I'm not arguing for a particular interpretation, I just came across that information and thought that it might be relevant and the OP might be interested.
As always YMMV.
Of course with vehicles capable of spaceflight its probably quicker to just lift off, make orbit in what? 5 minutes or so I believe its stated, then zoom around the planet at the incredible tactical speeds the ships exhibit and then land again. You could make a trip to the opposite side of most planets in well under an hour regardless of your speed.
In The Cestus Deception, there's a reference to a maximum speed of 550kph for the Aratech 74-Z. The core rulebook puts that speed at "3". So, if you want to create hard numbers, there's a data point...
Meanwhile the Lambda Shuttle, also speed 3, can do 850km/h in atmosphere acording to Wookiepedia. I admire your scientific approach but I fear this could be a looong process with a lot of inconsistancies to confuse the issue.
One is piloted using Pilot: Planetary and one is piloted using Pilot: Space.
Additionally, they're entirely different classes of vehicle.
I'm not arguing for a particular interpretation, I just came across that information and thought that it might be relevant and the OP might be interested.
As always YMMV.
Actually, by the rules, a Lambda shuttle flown in the atmosphere is using Pilot:Planetary. Seems a bit whacky but the book actually states that. Says something about handling in gravity field being very different to handling in no gravity. And I can actually see the logic in that. I guess we're all used to driving and piloting being different skills but should a speeder bike be that different to driving a regular motorbike? And if it isn't, at what altitude does it suddenly become a different vehicle?
I've gone back and forth on this but eventually settled on doing it as the book says.
Meanwhile the Lambda Shuttle, also speed 3, can do 850km/h in atmosphere acording to Wookiepedia. I admire your scientific approach but I fear this could be a looong process with a lot of inconsistancies to confuse the issue.
One is piloted using Pilot: Planetary and one is piloted using Pilot: Space.
Additionally, they're entirely different classes of vehicle.
I'm not arguing for a particular interpretation, I just came across that information and thought that it might be relevant and the OP might be interested.
As always YMMV.
Actually, by the rules, a Lambda shuttle flown in the atmosphere is using Pilot:Planetary. Seems a bit whacky but the book actually states that. Says something about handling in gravity field being very different to handling in no gravity. And I can actually see the logic in that.
Yeah, gravity, plus atmospheric drag.
As for the original topic, I'm one of those people who like to have a baseline to do off-the-cuff calculations from. Helps me get a feel for planning... if the bad guys are driving a faster vehicle, then I know I might be going into an ambush. If a location is 5 hours from medical help, then I know a critically injured NPC may not make it if the doc isn't there for that session. Some people like to gloss that over, and that's 100% ok. I just like to know, for the same reason I'd really like to know how long hyperspace travel actually takes - it gives my tiny little brain something to plot and scheme with.
I guess, as a very very rough estimate, I'd assign between 150-200kph per speed rating. This is for planetary scale travel, not necessarily space travel. Things described as high-performance machines I'd tend towards the upper bounds, clunkers towards the bottom. That way a 'family sedan' rated at speed 3 and a racing swoop rated at speed 3 (example completely made up on the spot, dunno what kind of speed ratings those things have off the top of my head) are still roughly in the same neighborhood while retaining some flavor difference.
As for me the first thing I do when including a planet in our game is print out a blank global map and start locating the various ports, cities, mountain ranges, temples or whatever. That's after a quick sketch of coastlines and general topography, based on the description. That way the players have an actual planet to, or at least that's how I look at it. So when they decide to travel to the mountain top temple or whatever, its not a matter of coming up with a travel time, its a matter of showing where it is and then deciding how to get there.
As for me the first thing I do when including a planet in our game is print out a blank global map and start locating the various ports, cities, mountain ranges, temples or whatever. That's after a quick sketch of coastlines and general topography, based on the description. That way the players have an actual planet to, or at least that's how I look at it. So when they decide to travel to the mountain top temple or whatever, its not a matter of coming up with a travel time, its a matter of showing where it is and then deciding how to get there.
What do you use as your blank map?
I googled images till I found a blank Wagner projection and then leave a spot below it to fill in scale. 1cm = 300km or whatever.
I paste one of these at the bottom of each Planetary Data form (something I just whipped up that organizes the basic info for each planet I flesh out) I considered the well respected Isohedral map but it just seemed too "Traveler" for me.
Oh, so you have to draw on the contientes etc. Not my style of GMing at all but I can definately respect it.
Well actually I open the image in a paint program and edit it with the computer but amounts to the same thing.
I just run it like the movies. How long did it take Luke and C-3PO to cross the Jundland Wastes while looking for R2? How long did it take Luke and Obi Wan to travel to Mos Eisley? How fast and how far was that speeder bike chase? It was the speed of the story, that's it.
If your PCs leave point A going to point B, and you need them to arrive during daylight hours, fine. If it doesn't matter, then maybe they get there at night. I just can't quite see how I might need to know exactly how long it would take for certain vehicles to go certain distances.