Gravity.

Here’s my concept for playing X-wing near a planet’s gravity well.

The Planet is 4 diameter circle. Crossing into that is considered the same as leaving the edge of the map.

A string is used to create a 12 inch diameter circle which is placed around the planet representing when a ship will be affected by gravity.

If a ship crosses the string then Gravity will be a 2 inch movement toward the center of the planet. This extra movement from gravity takes place after all other movement. This movement due to gravity occurs even if the ship merely passed through (crossed the string twice) during the same movement phase.

Please give constructive criticism about my idea.

Constructive comment: Use range/maneuver templates when dealing with distance for rules in game and during setup. The ONLY point in the game that ever references inches is the official organized play game-mat size (36"x36"). Everything else references the range ruler or maneuver templates, and none of those translate nicely into inches (although it doesn't work with metric, if you are into that sort of thing: 1 range of the range ruler is 10cm. 1 unit of movement on the maneuver templates is equal to 1 base length, which is equal to 4cm).

Not very constructive comment: I wouldn't bother with anything of the such. I feel it would unnecessarily complicate the game without really adding "real" realism. For example, everything in space is always in orbit around something else. In our real world example, as soon as you excape Earth's orbit, you are now in orbit around the Sun. There is no simply flying around in space in whatever direction you want. If I wanted to fly to the Sun, I cannot simply point my spacecraft right at the sun and thrust until I get there. I would need to escape Earth's orbit and gain an orbit around the sun. Then I would burn my thrusters retrograde (exact opposite direction of my orbit) until my periapsis (the point of my orbit closest to the body being orbited) is now inside the Sun (most effective place to burn is at the apoapsis, or the point of the orbit furthest from the body you are orbiting). Then I cut the thrusters and wait until my new orbit crashes me into the Sun. None of this sounds very sci-fi, interesting, Star Warsish, does it? That's why I try to limit how much "realism" I want to add to a game like this. In reality, space battles would be faught likely in matching orbits around a planet. If you were in opposite orbits around a planet you would fly past eachother at 5200 mph (in a near earth orbit). In matching orbits you would then be moving in the same inertial reference frame, and could now maneuver relative to eachother. I was briefly entertaining the idea of something like a blackhole, for use instead of a planet, since it would have a more profound impact on gravity… but in reality that would just mean you would already be in orbit around said blackhole. All in all, I just don't feel like it fits into a game of this scale. Even something like the Kessle Run (region of black holes) wasn't about actually piloting around the region, but by planning a series of short hyperspace jumps, hardly cinematic.