@Donovan Morningfire s last post in the Hyperspace skipping thread got me thinking.... The Hyperspace rules as he noted were created 30 years ago...Maybe we should adjust them to more accurately fit what we see in the media. And if we did so what would those travel times be?

I pulled some numbers on travel times (Legends about the Millenium Falcon point A to B) and did some math, the number I came up with that I use in my games is 6 hours for every inch on the EotE Galaxy Map (at class 1). Threat/Advantage to then further adjust the times. (in map squares, that's about 3 3/8 hours)

The way I accommodate shorter travel times on established hyperspace lanes is to simply grant Boost/Setback etc. depending on the situation rather than adding some sort of multiplier.

I did this math a while ago, but that's what I use and it works pretty well. Your mileage may vary.

I used the WEG tables for a long time and still reference them when I feel lazy, but they are probably more conservative than they need to be. One thing I have noted when looking at maps retroactively produced for both the original and sequel trilogies is that there was some effort made to put the locations fairly close together. If you look at the maps Bespin-Hoth-Gagobah are fairly close together; Scarif is not far from Tattooine; the Resistance base in TFA/TLJ is not far from Crait, etc. And the screen swipes in the films also tends to obscure elapsed time. We often don't know how much time passed. Minutes? Hours? Days?

For instance, the transition between Tattooine-Alderaan-Yavin IV in ANH and between Tattooine-Fleet-Endor in RotJ don't have clocks on them. Neither do most of the screen swipes in Rogue One and Solo. That is not at all the case with many transitions in the Prequels (just wow) and some of the locations on after-the-fact maps for the Sequels are clearly not well considered. It might pay to move the presumed positions of Canto Bite and Starkiller base into a tighter neighborhood with the other movie locations, for instance.

Poe's hyperspace skipping? We don't actually know how far those micro-jumps actually took the Falcon. It might have only been through a string of neighboring systems or an ill-advised sprint across a single sector. It might not be as big a problem as it first appears. You have to be nuts to do it to begin with so its not the normal way of doing it. And Han's Kessel Run record in Solo not only used the Star Wars equivalent of a nitrogen oxide injection into the hyperdrive, but wen't off the mapped and presumably indirect (longer) safe route. In fact, that second factor might sort of explain his "12 Parsecs" comment.

I think P-47's 6 hours per map inch, which I would normalize to 6 hours per grid square, is a fairly workable benchmark. Just keep in mind that most civilian ships will have a class 2-4 hyperdrive. Its will mostly be Cool Hero Ships (TM) and military vessels that rock the uber-sexy Class-1 drives. We could modify that based on 1) hyperdrive class, 2) route selection (safe vs. dangerous vs. known vs. experimental). One non-canon question that should be asked is: did the biggest established hyperspace routes like the trade spines evolve out of old mechant stopovers or did those become stopovers because they were in areas where hyperspace travel was clearer-faster-easier?

But, I like 6 hours per square. Its a good baseline.

2 minutes ago, Vondy said:

I think P-47's the main factors 6 hours per map inch, which I would normalize to 6 hours per grid square, is a fairly workable benchmark.

But, I like 6 hours per square. Its a good baseline.

If you are talking about actually using my number, that would come to about 3 hours per square. With a class 2 (the class my players are using), that comes out to 6 per square.

23 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If you are talking about actually using my number, that would come to about 3 hours per square. With a class 2 (the class my players are using), that comes out to 6 per square.

So, to make sure I understand your metric, 3 hours with a class 1 hyperdrive, which doubles to 6 for a class two hyperdrive?

Its still a working baseline and I like it.

Just now, Vondy said:

So, to make sure I understand your metric, 3 hours with a class 1 hyperdrive, which doubles to 6 for a class two hyperdrive?

Its still a working baseline and I like it.

Per square, yes.

They should fluctuate, sometimes travel times to one system to another should be three hours, other times that same trip could be three days.

Hyperspace can be finicky like that.

2 minutes ago, Voltron64 said:

They should fluctuate, sometimes travel times to one system to another should be three hours, other times that same trip could be three days.

Hyperspace can be finicky like that.

This could play into the notion that the big hyperspace lanes exist because they are fairly reliable and stable compared to other areas of space.

When figuring out how long a voyage takes, I just convert the word "days" into "hours" and go from there. It gives it more the movie feel for hyperspace travel and is simple.

10 hours ago, Daeglan said:

@Donovan Morningfire s last post in the Hyperspace skipping thread got me thinking.... The Hyperspace rules as he noted were created 30 years ago...Maybe we should adjust them to more accurately fit what we see in the media. And if we did so what would those travel times be?

Easiest solution is to simply change days to hours for standard hyperspace travel. Sure, you may have things like luxury starliners that deliberately go at a slower pace (not unlike luxury cruise ships in the real world).

That said, taking a more direct route from Point A to Point B would probably be more difficult, and thus carry with it an increased difficulty for the Astrogation check. This in turns makes Astrogation a much more valuable skill, especially if the party is racing to beat a deadline.

8 hours ago, Voltron64 said:

They should fluctuate, sometimes travel times to one system to another should be three hours, other times that same trip could be three days.

Hyperspace can be finicky like that.

I dunno if I'd go to that extreme. Maybe as a Despair the hyperspace trip takes that extreme an amount of time, but it should be a rather rare thing, especially given how commonplace hyperspace travel is in the GFFA.

On 1/7/2020 at 7:58 PM, Vondy said:

One non-canon question that should be asked is: did the biggest established hyperspace routes like the trade spines evolve out of old mechant stopovers or did those become stopovers because they were in areas where hyperspace travel was clearer-faster-easier?

The second. Hyperspace routes would be a grid instead of an asterisk if the first were the case since there'd be no reason the stopovers are only in a line from themselves to the core, rather than having lines between them.

Maybe we figure out a baseline speed and then the route have divisors. The major hyper routes being the biggest.

I'd say perhaps X *.75 for the main routes (Hydian Way, Corellian Run, etc.), X *1 for the smaller routes (the little gray ones running between worlds), and X *1.25 for "uncharted ones" where there isn't a direct line visible. (not that there isn't a charted hyperspace route, just that we don't know of one)

8 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I'd say perhaps X *.75 for the main routes (Hydian Way, Corellian Run, etc.), X *1 for the smaller routes (the little gray ones running between worlds), and X *1.25 for "uncharted ones" where there isn't a direct line visible. (not that there isn't a charted hyperspace route, just that we don't know of one)

So x*.75*hyperdrive rating?

3 hours ago, Daeglan said:

So x*.75*hyperdrive rating?

Yep.

5 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Yep.

would that be per inch? or grid square?

X is the time between point A and point B, so in the case of a 3 inch/6 grid square journey on the same route (Hydian Way) with a class 2 hyperdrive would be 18*.75*2=27 hours.

Might help us get a better judge on travel times

Ouch. That looks pretty broken.

2 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Might help us get a better judge on travel times

Frankly, that's so broken that I would just write it off as ridiculous and unworkable. It looks like a coked-up toddler frentically scribbled lines on a map. You could calculate travel times based on that, but you would also render the Star Wars universe irrational from a working universe perspective. Using those would introduce far more difficult questions than the single easy question it would answer. Those are "speed of plot-hole" maps. The Rise of Skywalke r was an impressive tent-pole spectacle and I had a lot of fun watching it, but I would never rely on an Abram's Special (TM) when trying to figure out how any universe should work. I doubt he cared enough to stop and think about it.

Abrams has never let story get in the way of action, character in the way of plot, intimacy in the way of cool, reason in the way of fan-service, or scale in the way of wow. There are no pauses or downbeats to give emotional nuance or let the characters deal with big ideas or express motives. He just hits them with a constant rapid-fire series of action beats and forces the characters to constantly react. The audience never has time catch its breath or think about what is happening. His pacing and style are so fast and impressionistic that his movies don't even have "scenes" in the classic sense of the word. There are times when I wonder if he's afraid of intimacy and connecting with the characters.

4 minutes ago, Vondy said:

I doubt he cared enough to stop and think about it.

Same can be said of George Lucas, whose focus was more on the themes/story being told rather than the background details or fiddly science-related bits. Lucas was very much a "hey, this looks cool!" type of creative, as exemplified by having WW2 style dogfights IN SPACE! or a group of lasersword-wielding mystics whose belief system was cherry-picked and then kit-bashed from several oriental religious belief systems. Even the original trilogy films were meant more to be spectacle than anything else.

It was only years later that people started fleshing things out and trying to explain/rationalize every bit of dialogue seen on the screen; prime case in point is the huge amounts of fanwankery created in trying to justify Han's comments about making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, when the reality is that Lucas thought it sounded good, and from Alec Guisness' facial expressions was likely intended to be a line of BS that Han was tossing out to what the smuggler thought were a couple of local rubes, except that being an experienced traveler Kenobi recognized the line for what it was (BS) but was in a situation where he didn't have the luxury of being choosy.

Sure Abrams' stuff may not be good for figuring out how things work in the GFFA, but if nothing else he's just following in Lucas' footsteps in that regard.

13 minutes ago, Vondy said:

Frankly, that's so broken that I would just write it off as ridiculous and unworkable. It looks like a coked-up toddler frentically scribbled lines on a map. You could calculate travel times based on that, but you would also render the Star Wars universe irrational from a working universe perspective. Using those would introduce far more difficult questions than the single easy question it would answer. Those are "speed of plot-hole" maps. The Rise of Skywalke r was an impressive tent-pole spectacle and I had a lot of fun watching it, but I would never rely on an Abram's Special (TM) when trying to figure out how any universe should work. I doubt he cared enough to stop and think about it.

Abrams has never let story get in the way of action, character in the way of plot, intimacy in the way of cool, reason in the way of fan-service, or scale in the way of wow. There are no pauses or downbeats to give emotional nuance or let the characters deal with big ideas or express motives. He just hits them with a constant rapid-fire series of action beats and forces the characters to constantly react. The audience never has time catch its breath or think about what is happening. His pacing and style are so fast and impressionistic that his movies don't even have "scenes" in the classic sense of the word. There are times when I wonder if he's afraid of intimacy and connecting with the characters.

I agree. but it might be worth figuring out what that number is and comparing to the number for A new Hope. Maybe if we take all the movie times for the whole saga we can find a happy medium that would allow for triumphs to get those numbers and be more reasonable over all. Maybe Galaxy mapper talend plays a part?

22 minutes ago, Vondy said:

Frankly, that's so broken that I would just write it off as ridiculous and unworkable. It looks like a coked-up toddler frentically scribbled lines on a map. You could calculate travel times based on that, but you would also render the Star Wars universe irrational from a working universe perspective. Using those would introduce far more difficult questions than the single easy question it would answer. Those are "speed of plot-hole" maps. The Rise of Skywalke r was an impressive tent-pole spectacle and I had a lot of fun watching it, but I would never rely on an Abram's Special (TM) when trying to figure out how any universe should work. I doubt he cared enough to stop and think about it.

Abrams has never let story get in the way of action, character in the way of plot, intimacy in the way of cool, reason in the way of fan-service, or scale in the way of wow. There are no pauses or downbeats to give emotional nuance or let the characters deal with big ideas or express motives. He just hits them with a constant rapid-fire series of action beats and forces the characters to constantly react. The audience never has time catch its breath or think about what is happening. His pacing and style are so fast and impressionistic that his movies don't even have "scenes" in the classic sense of the word. There are times when I wonder if he's afraid of intimacy and connecting with the characters.

To be fair I think he was cramming 2 movies worth of stuff into one in order to make it work....

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

Maybe Galaxy mapper talend plays a part?

One possible option (which would make the talent a lot more useful) is that you keep the previously established travel times, but that Galaxy Mapper lets you reduce the total travel time either in place of or in addition to reducing the time needed to calculate the jump. So if you don't have at least one Galaxy Mapper, then hyperspace travels can take days, but if the person plotting the course does have the talent, then the journey takes hours instead.

Or, for any tree that has multiple ranks of Galaxy Mapper, just deep-six the most expensive appearance of the talent and replace it with an Improved Galaxy Mapper, which lets the character reduce the travel times from days to hours when calculating a jump.