Simple question, are there any rules in place governing how Public Transportation in the Star Wars galaxy works? This is both for planets and between planets. If not, suggestions?

My character is going to attempt in the future to bring down various slavery rings and it would be nice to have some mechanics for public transit to send freed slaves off to.

Define "public transit". On a planet? Between planets? Between systems?

1 hour ago, Cifer said:

Define "public transit". On a planet? Between planets? Between systems?

All of the above.

What kind of rules are you looking for? How much they cost, how often they run, etc? At present there are no rules, I expect having them codified in a book would be pointless and limit a GM's creativity.

One reason I love shows like the Clone Wars and Rebels is they give insight into how the SW universe works on a day-to-day basis.

• TCW S2, E11 - Lightsaber Lost: Great sequence showing the Coruscanti version of "rail" transit.
• TCW S4, E20 - Bounty: similar-looking train moving underground
• TCW S5, E17-20: the whole arc has a huge number of glimpses into public elevators, cars for hire, streetcars, etc
• TCW S6, E4 - Orders: Fives takes a taxi
• Rebels S1 E1 (or E3, depending on how it's catalogued) - Droids in Distress: the crew takes a shuttle to Garel. Clearly this is intended to be fairly inexpensive public transit, like a bus between NY and Boston.

From those glimpses I'd infer that public transit is very common and available to most income brackets. High-traffic places will have something like "rent-a-bike" where you plug in your credit stick and can rent a repulsor sled. Depending on the income level of the planet, you can vary the cost, comfort, and reliability to suit your situation.

In Episode 2, Anikan and Padme took a public transport to Naboo.

12 minutes ago, whafrog said:

From those glimpses I'd infer that public transit is very common and available to most income brackets.

Also, don't forget Episode 2 where Anakin and Padme pretty much take a Space Greyhound off of Courscant. So yeah, it exists, but it's pretty much whatever you want it to be.

Damnit! @kaosoe Ninja'ed me!

It probably depends strongly on the worlds involved too. After all, present day Earth has extremely different modes and quality of public transportation even within single countries.

Densely settled worlds like Coruscant have extensive networks with dense schedules. The lower you go, the worse the transportation gets - delays become more and more common and the vehicles and stations are not as well maintained.

The aforementioned rent-a-bike might exist, but I'd consider it likely that the median income versions will mostly have droid-brains. No sense in risking an expensive speeder to a bad driver. They've got speed limitations and certain hive-of-scum-and-villainy destinations are off-limits (unless you pay extra for insurance). If you want more than that, either shell out more for a ride with a manual mode or ask your friendly neighbourhood slicer.

Additionally, autonomous speeders are a great thing to have on sparsely populated worlds. Can't afford your own speeder for when you need to bring those droids in for a memory wiping? Just rent one via holonet. Of course, lower-price ranges might see you shuttled through three other homesteads to take on more passengers before actually arriving at Anchorhead. And better hope yours doesn't get diverted via slicing into the waiting claws of some bandit types...

Public Transportation between planets in the same system probably depends on how developed and populous the systems are. Places like Corellia should have tons of transport between worlds and planets with habitable moons and lots of space station should also have a good amount of transport between those locations. The cost and regularity depends on how common it is to travel between the two.

For Public Transportation between systems you are going to get into the equivalent of travel between cities and countries on earth. Car, Bus, and Trains for short distance or on a budget equate to the type of easily available shuttles and transports. Ships, Commercial Air, or Private Planes for long journeys are equivalent to getting on a luxury liner or passage on a freighter, transport ships, or owning your own starship.

If you really want to get serious about transporting large numbers of freed slaves the easiest way is probably to get in touch with a larger organization that has the resources and ships to handle it, or to capture a bunch of slaver ships and use them to create your own transport fleet. The logistics and resources needed are probably a little outside the scope of most game sessions, but you could probably handle it with the homesteading/business rules.

I'll skip intra-system because Star Wars very often portrays things as if there was only ever one interesting thing within one system. At best, there might be a moon (or a space station - those can be difficult to tell apart).

Now, interstellar travel. There will be massive amounts of travel along the largest hyperspace lanes. Getting from Corellia to Coruscant may be as simple as going to your nearest space dock and learning whether you'll have to wait one hour or two for the next ship leaving (assuming you don't have particular needs when it comes to accomodation). With backwater planets, you may still be in luck - considering the scales involved, there will be very few planets that have so few people it's not economically viable to connect to them at all. Of course, it may still be possible you have to change vehicle three times and wait a month or two to get where you want to go, but as long as you have all the time in the world, it's doable. If you want to hurry things up a bit, you can lower your standards and widen your search by looking out for cargo transports that take on passengers. Or you could pay the credits to charter an entire ship that may or may not have made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.

You can keep a destiny point on stand by to use.

Star Wars: The Old Republic game also has a very cool take on public rail while on Corellia. From memory, the "Jedi Academy" FPS game also has a similar thing, though I can't remember if it's on Corellia.

I guess my thinking is - what serves the story. If you need to have your characters stand around at three in the morning at the depot waiting for the next Space Greyhound, then public transport is rare. Otherwise, I'd just Scene Wipe to the next important bit with them on the greyhound.