Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

One thing I always try to remember is that while the Falcon may be the fastest hunk-a-junk in the galaxy on screen, my players are the stars of our game. if my players want a ship that's faster (and make their mechanics rolls), then guess who just made the Kessel Run in lest than 11 parsecs (or whatever)? Ultimately, my advice is err on the side of what's fun for you and good for your game.

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

One thing I always try to remember is that while the Falcon may be the fastest hunk-a-junk in the galaxy on screen, my players are the stars of our game. if my players want a ship that's faster ( and make their mechanics rolls ), then guess who just made the Kessel Run in lest than 11 parsecs (or whatever)? Ultimately, my advice is err on the side of what's fun for you and good for your game.

And if they F them up they totally end up where they don't wanna be....albeit really fast.....

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

One thing I always try to remember is that while the Falcon may be the fastest hunk-a-junk in the galaxy on screen, my players are the stars of our game. if my players want a ship that's faster ( and make their mechanics rolls ), then guess who just made the Kessel Run in lest than 11 parsecs (or whatever)? Ultimately, my advice is err on the side of what's fun for you and good for your game.

And if they F them up they totally end up where they don't wanna be....albeit really fast.....

Except that it's really pretty easy to make that first Mod, and on something that starts with a Class 1 or Class 2, that's as much as you need to hit Class 0.5 and be in the "fastest" category.

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

I have personally house ruled that the progression goes from Class 4/Class 3/Class 2/Class 1.5/Class 1/Class 0.75/Class 0.5 and I allow up to three "improve hyperdrive class" Mods to be added to the Hyperdrive Generator. The Attachment itself and each Mod move the ship one space to the right on the line I listed.

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

I have personally house ruled that the progression goes from Class 4/Class 3/Class 2/Class 1.5/Class 1/Class 0.75/Class 0.5 and I allow up to three "improve hyperdrive class" Mods to be added to the Hyperdrive Generator. The Attachment itself and each Mod move the ship one space to the right on the line I listed.

I did nearly exactly the same, excepting the 1.5 step; deeming a further decrease to .25 "impossible" and very "challenging". And I ruled, that Astrogation difficulty increases with speed.

Furthermore, don't forget an illegaly fast hyperdrive will lead to discrepancies in the ship's log, a diligent spaceport official or customs inspector might spot.

My first thought to use classes below 1 is to use fractions, where class is the denominator. I.e. class 3, class 2, class 1, class 1/2, class 1/3, class 1/4, class 1/5, class 1/6, etc. This is just to keep it simple.

In our game the travel times are anyways defined by narrative needs. As our game is fairly sandboxy, I mostly don't have a need to ensure certain travel times.

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

I have personally house ruled that the progression goes from Class 4/Class 3/Class 2/Class 1.5/Class 1/Class 0.75/Class 0.5 and I allow up to three "improve hyperdrive class" Mods to be added to the Hyperdrive Generator. The Attachment itself and each Mod move the ship one space to the right on the line I listed.

I did nearly exactly the same, excepting the 1.5 step; deeming a further decrease to .25 "impossible" and very "challenging". And I ruled, that Astrogation difficulty increases with speed.

Furthermore, don't forget an illegaly fast hyperdrive will lead to discrepancies in the ship's log, a diligent spaceport official or customs inspector might spot.

The 1.5 keeps the progression smooth. You'll note that every two steps to the right halves the travel time. It also makes Class 1 less common on civilian ships--I come from WEG days where Class 1 and better drives were exclusively military since most of them will now have to add at least one Mod to get there.

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

0.5 is the minimum you get with the hyperdrive upgrade. It's in the description of the attachment. There are a few 0.25 speed ships, but they are experimental, expensive and the falcon ain't one of them, the falcon is still just a conventional 0.5 factor ship with a **** good astrogation droid brain and a pilot who likes to take risk with his routes. And I guess chewie is a real smart wookie too, so they roll 4 yellows at least. ;-)

Ok, maybe Han really has astrogation 5 ... I kind of doubt it, because his triple droid brain config is a risky combination and he would not need it if he would be this good on his own.

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

One thing I always try to remember is that while the Falcon may be the fastest hunk-a-junk in the galaxy on screen, my players are the stars of our game. if my players want a ship that's faster ( and make their mechanics rolls ), then guess who just made the Kessel Run in lest than 11 parsecs (or whatever)? Ultimately, my advice is err on the side of what's fun for you and good for your game.

And if they F them up they totally end up where they don't wanna be....albeit really fast.....

Oh no, they had a mechanic do it on their ship. The party mechanic just took the tree so she could, and I quote: "Hardwire the ships that we steal". She hasn't used the skill yet, let alone hardwired any ships. The whole party is terrified of stormtroopers , and a Star Destroyer in orbit is usually enough to scare them from any wrongdoing…

Some of the characters at my table have a class 1 hyperdrive on thair ship and plenty of hard points. They want to get a hyperdrive upgrade, but they're already as low as you go without becoming Slave 1 or the Millenium Falcon. Should I use fractions, and how much?

I have personally house ruled that the progression goes from Class 4/Class 3/Class 2/Class 1.5/Class 1/Class 0.75/Class 0.5 and I allow up to three "improve hyperdrive class" Mods to be added to the Hyperdrive Generator. The Attachment itself and each Mod move the ship one space to the right on the line I listed.

I did nearly exactly the same, excepting the 1.5 step; deeming a further decrease to .25 "impossible" and very "challenging". And I ruled, that Astrogation difficulty increases with speed.

Furthermore, don't forget an illegaly fast hyperdrive will lead to discrepancies in the ship's log, a diligent spaceport official or customs inspector might spot.

I've bolded & underlined for my question: Are there any official FFG game rulings/RAW splat regarding illegal hyperdrives, which means I've missed something, or is this just a bolt on/left over/throw back from WEG/D20 SWRPGs?

I've bolded & underlined for my question: Are there any official FFG game rulings/RAW splat regarding illegal hyperdrives, which means I've missed something, or is this just a bolt on/left over/throw back from WEG/D20 SWRPGs?

Nothing official, at least so far as I know. In fact, I don’t believe that FFG actually talks about the issue of modifying your ship to be “illegally fast” in any respect.

It’s up to the GM to decide how those sorts of things should be handled, presumably in a narrative manner.

Now, there are black market modifications, like changing your hyperdrive transponder. Or fiddling around with the BoSS datapad that’s on your ship to change what cargoes are shown, or where you’ve been.

But, so far as I know, just making your ship faster isn’t on the list of black market modifications.

A slight tangent, but this reminded me of a plot I ran where plans for a "0 Variance" hyperdrive (instantaneous travel between two points, however all the math showed it would utterly annihilate a planet's atmosphere if engaged too close) was found by the PCs. The Empire was after it, the Alliance was after it, the Hutts were after it...pretty much everyone. "Luckily", the only ones who knew they had it were a pretty out-there group of anti-Imperials who planned to build it, then use it on Coruscant...

They didn't get it, of course, and the PCs decided to destroy the plans, reasoning nobody should have something like that. It was pretty **** cool.

IMHO as it relates to this game, hyper space travel time is pointless. It is all narrative. Hyperspace time is subject to speed of plot. If the GM needs to delay the players, then delay them. If a GM needs to get them their earlier than they do.

Unless there is a plot element where hyperspace speed can translate into some kind of player boon. Otherwise, again IMHO, it is a waste. I would suggest my players to invest their credits into something else, or do as someone above recommended and have them do a mechanics check to make their ship faster with very little if any credit cost.

In our game, to make Astrogation more viable, we roll an Astrogation check every time before we jump. The GM sets the difficulty, an Astrogation check is rolled and depending on the results, will determine if we get there on time, in one piece, with or without ship damage, and/or if we avoided any "Imperial Entanglements".

IMHO as it relates to this game, hyper space travel time is pointless. It is all narrative. Hyperspace time is subject to speed of plot. If the GM needs to delay the players, then delay them. If a GM needs to get them their earlier than they do.

Unless there is a plot element where hyperspace speed can translate into some kind of player boon. Otherwise, again IMHO, it is a waste. I would suggest my players to invest their credits into something else, or do as someone above recommended and have them do a mechanics check to make their ship faster with very little if any credit cost.

In our game, to make Astrogation more viable, we roll an Astrogation check every time before we jump. The GM sets the difficulty, an Astrogation check is rolled and depending on the results, will determine if we get there on time, in one piece, with or without ship damage, and/or if we avoided any "Imperial Entanglements".

The previews for Friends Like These set a very tight timetable for completing the adventure. Assuming it involves hyperspace travel, having a slow hyperdrive might cost you any real chance of success.

IMHO as it relates to this game, hyper space travel time is pointless. It is all narrative. Hyperspace time is subject to speed of plot. If the GM needs to delay the players, then delay them. If a GM needs to get them their earlier than they do.

That's 100% true if you're doing transit time narratively, but not everyone does. I personally use hyperspace routes with consistent baseline travels times, and there have already been a couple of occasions in which the PC's have commented that it would be nice to have a better hyperdrive.

In the games I've run, a fast hyperdive is always one of the first things players are looking for on their starships. The galaxy is big, and traveling across it in the slow lane isn't very appealing.

In the games I've run, a fast hyperdive is always one of the first things players are looking for on their starships. The galaxy is big, and traveling across it in the slow lane isn't very appealing.

The galaxy is big and the slow path outside of the main roads is the one which does not get you constantly into imperial controls … which makes the fast hyperdrive even more important, because outside of the big main trade routes travel is a lot slower.

IMHO as it relates to this game, hyper space travel time is pointless. It is all narrative. Hyperspace time is subject to speed of plot. If the GM needs to delay the players, then delay them. If a GM needs to get them their earlier than they do.

Unless there is a plot element where hyperspace speed can translate into some kind of player boon. Otherwise, again IMHO, it is a waste. I would suggest my players to invest their credits into something else, or do as someone above recommended and have them do a mechanics check to make their ship faster with very little if any credit cost.

Personally while I agree that travel is as narratively relative as you need it to be, I wouldn't hinder (or even suggest) to my players that their credits are better spent elsewhere. The fact that they have a group goal to get a better hyperdrive is a plot thread begging to be used. Use it. Let them "waste" their money. You now have a quest and defining goal for the party (at least short term). You can use the need for cash to entangle them in all sorts of obligations and favours owed to nefarious beings.

Hell, if my players all said "we want a new hyperdrive!" I'd be all over that. Narratively they'd get there sooner, but the journey to go faster would be so much more worthwhile.

The galaxy is big and the slow path outside of the main roads is the one which does not get you constantly into imperial controls … which makes the fast hyperdrive even more important, because outside of the big main trade routes travel is a lot slower.

The way I ran it, the hyperspace buoys which were put into place to define the main hyperspace travel lanes also had sensors on them to detect which hyperdrive transponders passed by. If the same hyperdrive transponder passes by a number of buoys really fast and then suddenly disappears, that might draw a lot of attention. If there’s a different hyperdrive transponder that starts showing up right after another one stopped, there were enemies that could put that kind of information together.

Since the PCs had gotten a ship that already had a really fast hyperdrive and then they modded it to be even faster, they ended up sticking out like a sore thumb. And they never bothered to go any slower than the fastest possible speed they could travel.

Imagine a single aircraft that is flying around the world at hypersonic speeds, and keeps showing up on the screens at Air Traffic Control. And certain high-impact events are closely correlated to their arrival or departure. Somebody is gonna figure that out, sooner or later.

The galaxy is big and the slow path outside of the main roads is the one which does not get you constantly into imperial controls … which makes the fast hyperdrive even more important, because outside of the big main trade routes travel is a lot slower.

The way I ran it, the hyperspace buoys which were put into place to define the main hyperspace travel lanes also had sensors on them to detect which hyperdrive transponders passed by. If the same hyperdrive transponder passes by a number of buoys really fast and then suddenly disappears, that might draw a lot of attention. If there’s a different hyperdrive transponder that starts showing up right after another one stopped, there were enemies that could put that kind of information together.

Since the PCs had gotten a ship that already had a really fast hyperdrive and then they modded it to be even faster, they ended up sticking out like a sore thumb. And they never bothered to go any slower than the fastest possible speed they could travel.

Imagine a single aircraft that is flying around the world at hypersonic speeds, and keeps showing up on the screens at Air Traffic Control. And certain high-impact events are closely correlated to their arrival or departure. Somebody is gonna figure that out, sooner or later.

This isn't a bad way to envision the various buoys along the various lanes. To add to this, I'd envisioned the buoys as short range data collection and transmission units (short as in they do the data transfer when a ship drops out of hyperspace within 1AU of a given buoy or less). They gather the identity of the ship that exited, collect data from it about the conditions of hyperspace along the route it recently took and hands off the data that it has collected from other ships about conditions "ahead" so that a ship can make a safe transition to the next buoy. Lather, rinse, repeat for each ship at each buoy.

So, the more traveled the route, the more up to date the data is in a given buoy making longer/faster routes possible.

For BOSS or other forces to know what ships were where, they'd have to collect it from the various buoys by traveling to them and collecting it, then doing correlation analysis of the various transponders. On major traffic lanes, you're taking about 10s of thousands of ships going up and down them to move all the various types of traffic that quadrillions of beings need from the various markets. This is how you end up with highly specialized systems.

Coruscant - Political capital with nothing but imports (food, equipment, etc...) as it is a government world.

Agri worlds - Places that do nothing but grow food. All those nerfherders live in a few contained systems and their products get shipped all over the galaxy.

Mining worlds - Places that are stripped for all they're worth and then left to rot once all the needed materials are pulled out. These worlds would have been targeted by the original design purpose of the Death Star (prior to the canon wipe).

etc...

So, a big droid with lots of memory might pick up on discrepancies, but they'd always be weeks or months behind the ship(s) causing the discrepancy and wouldn't know where it went if it went off the beacon paths (such as making a jump through uncharted space).

This isn't a bad way to envision the various buoys along the various lanes. To add to this, I'd envisioned the buoys as short range data collection and transmission units (short as in they do the data transfer when a ship drops out of hyperspace within 1AU of a given buoy or less). They gather the identity of the ship that exited, collect data from it about the conditions of hyperspace along the route it recently took and hands off the data that it has collected from other ships about conditions "ahead" so that a ship can make a safe transition to the next buoy. Lather, rinse, repeat for each ship at each buoy.

So, the more traveled the route, the more up to date the data is in a given buoy making longer/faster routes possible.

That’s basically the way I ran it, at least up to this point.

In my game, those Hyperspace Buoys were also the backbone of the Galactic Holonet, and so massive amounts of data is being transferred anyway, and it would be possible for sufficiently powerful parties to have active listening posts on each buoy looking for any traffic they consider to be “interesting”.

The real-world example of that sort of thing would be the ECHELON network operated by the “ FIVE EYES ” governments around the world.

And you better believe that the Imperials (and others) would be very interested in knowing the constant whereabouts of any vehicles in the galaxy that had a 0.5 hyperdrive or faster.

At least, that’s true in my universe.

In away, you all have help support my point, from a certain point of view. The RAW (so far) provides no mechanical element for hyperspace travel. Which has lead many GMs to fill in the blanks as needed in order to help provide a rich and supportive universe to play in. But that is my point we as GMs/players have to fill in that gap. Which is not heavy lifting, I get it. However, unless GMs have added some house rules or are willing and able to create house rules for them, then having a faster hyper-drive is moot. I have seen many of players get extremely pissed when there state of the art hyper-drive turns to them and says " you get there, when you get there."

For example, in the book, Indictors can produce gravity wells that pull star ships out of hyperspace. Where is it written or explain how having a lower hyper-drive provides a better chance of getting past an Indictor? Simple it doesn't. Good GMs have to create stuff to fill the whole. Again, not heavy lifting. Just a whole we have to fill.

All I am saying is, that currently, there is no mechanical RAW benefit to hyperspace travel. So if your players want to beat the Kessel run in less 12 parsecs, then be prepared to create something to make that happen. Because currently, there is no reason why a Class 4 cannot do it.

Table 7 - 14 gives basic travel times. That's more than "no mechanical" RAW. Beyond that I don't think personally I'd want to be hemmed in by a bunch of crunchy rules regarding it.

The galaxy is big and the slow path outside of the main roads is the one which does not get you constantly into imperial controls … which makes the fast hyperdrive even more important, because outside of the big main trade routes travel is a lot slower.

The way I ran it, the hyperspace buoys which were put into place to define the main hyperspace travel lanes also had sensors on them to detect which hyperdrive transponders passed by. If the same hyperdrive transponder passes by a number of buoys really fast and then suddenly disappears, that might draw a lot of attention. If there’s a different hyperdrive transponder that starts showing up right after another one stopped, there were enemies that could put that kind of information together.

Since the PCs had gotten a ship that already had a really fast hyperdrive and then they modded it to be even faster, they ended up sticking out like a sore thumb. And they never bothered to go any slower than the fastest possible speed they could travel.

Imagine a single aircraft that is flying around the world at hypersonic speeds, and keeps showing up on the screens at Air Traffic Control. And certain high-impact events are closely correlated to their arrival or departure. Somebody is gonna figure that out, sooner or later.

Granted.

IMHO as it relates to this game, hyper space travel time is pointless. It is all narrative. Hyperspace time is subject to speed of plot. If the GM needs to delay the players, then delay them. If a GM needs to get them their earlier than they do.

Unless there is a plot element where hyperspace speed can translate into some kind of player boon. Otherwise, again IMHO, it is a waste. I would suggest my players to invest their credits into something else, or do as someone above recommended and have them do a mechanics check to make their ship faster with very little if any credit cost.

In our game, to make Astrogation more viable, we roll an Astrogation check every time before we jump. The GM sets the difficulty, an Astrogation check is rolled and depending on the results, will determine if we get there on time, in one piece, with or without ship damage, and/or if we avoided any "Imperial Entanglements".

The previews for Friends Like These set a very tight timetable for completing the adventure. Assuming it involves hyperspace travel, having a slow hyperdrive might cost you any real chance of success.

Good point, but where do you draw the line between not-slow hyperdrive and insanely-fast hyperdrive? And if I'm going to play Friends Like These, how much of an advantage do you think they'll get from having a hyperdrive of 0.00000000001?