Are there official rules or not to manage the interception of transmissions and messages? Can anyone explain to me how exactly the interception of messages in the Star Wars galaxy works please?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interception

I would think Cyphers and Masks would have something on this. I don't have the book in front of me but I can check when I get home tonight

4 hours ago, Grievous999 said:

Are there official rules or not to manage the interception of transmissions and messages? Can anyone explain to me how exactly the interception of messages in the Star Wars galaxy works please?

No official rules, but it's not really any different from any other encounter. Depending on how complex you want to make it, it can be a single roll or a whole session.

Anyway, unless you have a compelling reason to invent a whole new physics, transmissions would be the same as it is IRL. Basically, messages are either broadcast or tight-beam. Both are encrypted. Anybody can pick up a broadcast (wifi, radio, etc) but broadcast messages tend to be sent in packets (discrete chunks of a maximum size), so putting a message together requires finding all the packets that hold the message (which may not be sent in logical order) and decrypting them all. Tight-beam would require knowing the source and the target, and putting in some kind of splitter so you can receive a duplicate of what is sent without the receiving party knowing it was intercepted (if they don't receive something, it's an alert).

In game terms, the simplest for broadcast interception is to just use the Computers skill, which really shouldn't be anything less than Daunting difficulty imho, and higher for banks and militaries. You can flesh this out by giving the party the opportunity to reduce difficulty (or provide boost dice) by getting the decryption keys...in which case that becomes more of a "heist" adventure which could use any skills (social skills or stealth to get into the source building, other computer or mechanics tests to slice or place equipment, etc). Tight-beam interception requires at minimum the placement of some kind of receiver (ideally a splitter, the creation of which could be its own test), and computers to decrypt and piece it all together.

Rebels season 1 has a pretty good episode where they hack a communications tower...you could easily use that as a model of what's required.

The General Purpose Scanner has it in it's description that "intercepts standard comlink frequencies"

Obviously decrypting would be a perfect job for a Slicer or Thief and a great way to have players use those talents removing setbacks from deciphering (Imposed by Comm Scrambler for example)

4 hours ago, Rimsen said:

The General Purpose Scanner has it in it's description that "intercepts standard comlink frequencies"

Obviously decrypting would be a perfect job for a Slicer or Thief and a great way to have players use those talents removing setbacks from deciphering (Imposed by Comm Scrambler for example)

Thank you! That's what I was looking for! Do you know even if there are similar tools for hyperspace communications?

It really depends how com signals are interpreted in your setting. Are they "walkie talkies" with wave lengths that can be traced? Or are they signals that feed into a call hub that is then transmitted out, which gives the imperials ample time to comb the com calls if they know what they are looking for? A mixture of the two, depending on how advanced the calling device is? (The long range commlink/encrypted comlink's have greater range.). Usually how your setting handles com calls and information transfers would be exactly how it would track this information, given that in most settings the empire control the information, I've always assumed that slicing is as much about being undetected in the imperials scouring process as it is about actively slicing.

Of course such a system would "always" have the empire as a potential threat in your setting, we as a matter of habit tend to be careful with comcalls because of precisely that. Prevents an instant spread of information across great distances.

2 hours ago, Grievous999 said:

Thank you! That's what I was looking for! Do you know even if there are similar tools for hyperspace communications?

I second @LordBritish that it really depends on your setting.

My PCs are not the pilot types, so it's rarely at my table.

However my baselines are that the Empire controls the Holonet (which is like a 3D propagandist TV broadcast for civilians, and a highly secured comm for the military. My PCs and the NPCs are all Underworld figures, usually use Hyperspace capsules, and Couriers to get important messages, packages bypassing the system. It usually makes up great settings and lots of adventure options.

My SO in an other game set up a relay in the Imperial Garrison (she's a clawdite infiltrator) on Kashyyyk so she can keep in touch with the wookiee guerillas in the Shadowlands. Provided she can reach a Holonet Relay she can send / recieve messages to / from the wookiees.