One of the common questions is how to make Astrogation not only interesting, but a part of play that creates worthwhile tension. Generally speaking, you want characters to eventually get where they are supposed to go. Not arriving at a destination can be a great plot point, but doesn't fit every session. So a failure leading to no jump can be a bit of a derail and annoyance to a GM. Personally I prefer to come up with specific penalties for failures, such as arriving in a disadvantageous place in the target system, lost time, informing the enemy, minor collisions, ect. Still, I also wanted to setup a backup of a general failure that still allows the characters to arrive at the story indicated place that can be more meaningful than just saying the narration of lost time when time isn't a resource in that adventure. So what I have been using more recently is a concept of fuel that is more narrative and less precise modeled on the item damage system.

Each failure can result in fuel loss down one category. The categories are:

• Full Reserves - No penalties to any checks based on fuel reserves
• Safe Reserves - Add one setback to astrogation
• Low Reserves - Upgrade the difficulty of all astrogation
• Empty Reserves - Cannot make hyperdrive jumps

The failure only affects the hyperdrive used. So this gives backup hyperdrives further usage if the main hyperdrive is drained. Despairs can result in further drops of fuel reserves. Or even risk to the backup hyperdrive. Backup fuel reserves cost the silhouette of the ship times 2000 credits. Nothing to ignore, but not outright devastating. Likely might require some Obligation to get off some rocks... If you want to make the cost of fuel scale more dramatically, try the silhouette of the ship squared times 1000 credits.

Thoughts?

For my own campaign the PCs are natives to a planet far off the beaten track, and it takes 8 jumps +/- failures/successes to get somewhere "useful". Each jump costs 100cr ... and sometimes I use that as a pretext to toss in an encounter (that I was going to do anyway... ). I find a cost easier to deal with than fuel, since there isn't really anything about fuel in the rules.

There's a chart for spending dice results in astrogation checks that isn't all just "you end up in another sector". It's in Stay on Target, the Ace sourcebook.

There's a chart for spending dice results in astrogation checks that isn't all just "you end up in another sector". It's in Stay on Target, the Ace sourcebook.

What if you don't have that book? /shrug haha.

I think Whafrog's solution is clean and simple. I like the idea of fuel as a resource but it does add more things to micromanage which may or may not appeal to you.

There's a chart for spending dice results in astrogation checks that isn't all just "you end up in another sector". It's in Stay on Target, the Ace sourcebook.

What if you don't have that book? /shrug haha.

I think Whafrog's solution is clean and simple. I like the idea of fuel as a resource but it does add more things to micromanage which may or may not appeal to you.

I mean, you could buy it at some point. I was just throwing something into the conversation that hadn't been mentioned.

There's a chart for spending dice results in astrogation checks that isn't all just "you end up in another sector". It's in Stay on Target, the Ace sourcebook.

Actually it is in the Fly Casual book. Stay on Target has charts for various stellar terrain.

For my own campaign the PCs are natives to a planet far off the beaten track, and it takes 8 jumps +/- failures/successes to get somewhere "useful". Each jump costs 100cr ... and sometimes I use that as a pretext to toss in an encounter (that I was going to do anyway... ). I find a cost easier to deal with than fuel, since there isn't really anything about fuel in the rules.

Having a directly tracked fuel source is another good option. While I myself enjoy those style of micromanagement games not everyone in my group does. So I came up with this as a solution to fit the general feel of narrative bad/good luck.

I sit corrected. Thanks for fixing my error.

What about fuel usage as an affect on System Strain? For sake of simplicity your could say Silhouette limits the number of jumps before causing SS...

What about fuel usage as an affect on System Strain? For sake of simplicity your could say Silhouette limits the number of jumps before causing SS...

That could be another one. Though more for my usage just saying that a failed roll causes 3 system strain would be more fitting.