Under a Black Sun Adventure, are the Sectors mentioned Levels of Coruscant or really Sectors on one LeveL?

By Fl1nt, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Hey :)

Just been prepping Under a Black Sun for my Group to play and wanted to ask for what your Interpretation of the "Sectors" mentioned in the Adventure are.

Example: The Umbra Club is mentioned to be in Sector 1459, while the Kerelium Factory is in Sector 943.

My interpretation is that this could well be Levels (which in turn would make the players cover a lot of ground).

I find this kind of cool, but just wanted to hear how you have interpreted this.

I think of it as 3D chess in a way. Different levels sure but some are bigger than others, you can go up, down, or side to side.

What's your interpretation of a "level"? One "shell" around Coruscant on a certain height? I doubt that's it, because that would be rather useless for navigation purposes on its own.

Edited by Cifer

Yeah I think 3D chess is a good description.

@Cifer no I hadnt interpreted it as one certain height, but more of some Buildings / Skyscrapers cover often several Levels and so on. Have to say I still havent got a real image in my had how Coruscanti underground looks like ?

Google (other internet search engines are available ? )The concept art for the sadly “no longer in development” pc/console game Coruscant 1313... that should give u some good ideas ?

Check it out in SWTOR.

Personally I would just treat it as a pseudo coordinate/address system. Sector 943 would mean level 9, area 43. Sector 1459=level 14, area 59.

Would 99 areas per level be enough to cover a whole planet? Probably not, but if you really needed to give it a huge sense of scale you could just add extra digits: 14.001 through 14.999. Treat the area 029 as always being in the same place, just up or down a level. However, even with players using speeders I can't imagine them traversing a distance so large that I needed to address that type of scale where the whole planet is a city though.

In Star Wars Canon (both Disney and Legends) Coruscant and other citywide planets/moons like Taris or Nar Shadaa with thousands of levels from surface to upper levels. usually are divided on a grid pattern where each portion of the grid is called a sector. In the Clone Wars Animated Series, it is shown that each sector is thus divided in levels, which comprises several stories (sometimes thousands) of Coruscant's infrastructure.

On 6/28/2018 at 12:36 PM, ThreeAM said:

Personally I would just treat it as a pseudo coordinate/address system. Sector 943 would mean level 9, area 43. Sector 1459=level 14, area 59.

Would 99 areas per level be enough to cover a whole planet? Probably not, but if you really needed to give it a huge sense of scale you could just add extra digits: 14.001 through 14.999. Treat the area 029 as always being in the same place, just up or down a level. However, even with players using speeders I can't imagine them traversing a distance so large that I needed to address that type of scale where the whole planet is a city though.

The problem is that Corruscant's "vertical coordinates" have thousands of levels, each comprising a number of stories in height, rather than dozens. Its just like a zip code or neighbourhood designation, this sector is located in this area of the planet, starts here, ends there, and encompasses all this area, and have this main purpose. For instance the Works is the Industrial District of Coruscant, which would be bigger than most countries in our Earth. One of the most overlooked aspect of SW Universe, is the time it takes to do stuff and between events, like going from one place to another.

The movies usually don't give us a good estimate of how long these things takes. For example, Luke and Obi-Wan's trip from Tatooine to Alderaan in ANH took roughly a week, the events between the end of ESB and the beginning RotJ took roughly 6 months, and the events in RotS took between half a year and year. Even the events in The Phantom Menace took weeks to unfold. The average air speeder velocity is between 350-800 km/h the average atmospheric ships are around 800-1600km/h. So if these sectors are really very far from one another it is a trip that could take many hours. Which is why it seems that it is not exactly the case in this adventure.

11 hours ago, nichendrix said:

The problem is that Corruscant's "vertical coordinates" have thousands of levels, each comprising a number of stories in height, rather than dozens. Its just like a zip code or neighbourhood designation, this sector is located in this area of the planet, starts here, ends there, and encompasses all this area, and have this main purpose. For instance the Works is the Industrial District of Coruscant, which would be bigger than most countries in our Earth. One of the most overlooked aspect of SW Universe, is the time it takes to do stuff and between events, like going from one place to another.

The movies usually don't give us a good estimate of how long these things takes. For example, Luke and Obi-Wan's trip from Tatooine to Alderaan in ANH took roughly a week, the events between the end of ESB and the beginning RotJ took roughly 6 months, and the events in RotS took between half a year and year. Even the events in The Phantom Menace took weeks to unfold. The average air speeder velocity is between 350-800 km/h the average atmospheric ships are around 800-1600km/h. So if these sectors are really very far from one another it is a trip that could take many hours. Which is why it seems that it is not exactly the case in this adventure.

I know, I agree. That's why I indicated the second part about adding a decimal and then extra digits, ie 231.4790. you can scale it up or down as much as needed.

That being said, I am not disagreeing with you by any means, however as a GM there are the things I am trying to keep in mind, (in order generally).

  • What does the Plot require?
  • Giving them LIMITED options.
  • Setting the scene. Give my player an idea of scope, the vastness of the city, its sights, sounds etc.

Bearing these in mind: Sure I want to provide them with a setting that is as close to correct as possible, scale, time, distance, etc. But I also need them not to have 1 million choices, and 99% of the time I am just going to scene wipe any time travel anyway unless plot calls for it.

All I am saying is that the Size and Scope of Coruscant only needs to be as big as your plot demands.

4 hours ago, ThreeAM said:

I know, I agree. That's why I indicated the second part about adding a decimal and then extra digits, ie 231.4790. you can scale it up or down as much as needed.

That being said, I am not disagreeing with you by any means, however as a GM there are the things I am trying to keep in mind, (in order generally).

  • What does the Plot require?
  • Giving them LIMITED options.
  • Setting the scene. Give my player an idea of scope, the vastness of the city, its sights, sounds etc.

Bearing these in mind: Sure I want to provide them with a setting that is as close to correct as possible, scale, time, distance, etc. But I also need them not to have 1 million choices, and 99% of the time I am just going to scene wipe any time travel anyway unless plot calls for it.

All I am saying is that the Size and Scope of Coruscant only needs to be as big as your plot demands.

I don't disagree with you, no one would like to play travel time, nor anyone would need to bother about how many levels/stories are on Coruscant's underlevels. I don't think the movies are wrong in skiping those things, nor I think they would commonly be part of RPG. I just assume that if they are going somewhere, they implicitly know all this stuff (sector/level/specific place on the sector and level). Sometimes, when I think it could be interesting, I may be more realistic, but it is just bits here and there, not an habit.