When the stress is on, and the characters are winging it to hyperspace with the authorities hot on their trail. When can they get into hyperspace and how long should it take to make the astrogation skill check? If you are leaving the ever dangerous Planet X with a swarm of TIE fighters winging in towards the ship from that big metal Dorito in the sky, how long is it before they can make the jump?

In our old West End days, we generally said the ship had to clear the gravity well of the planet before they could make the leap, and assuming average speeds that generally took about 3 rounds, give or take depending on circumstances. That usually gave the characters a couple rounds to trade gunfire with the badguys. Once clear, the check by game rules took a minute, but we allowed a rushed roll in one round, with increased difficulty.

Any thoughts on this? Space Combat seems a bit more lethal, and more expensive, then West End had it, so I don't want the characters fighting so long they get blown up or have 5,000 credits in repairs after each skirmish, but having a little conflict as you flee a planet can add excitement.

Distance from a planet is of course a lot more subjective here than in WEG's D6 system, so that's mostly up to the GM. But for actual calculation times I think I'll be converting my old house rule on astrogation time from the D6 system into something like this:

Easy difficulty: Takes 2 rounds to calculate, 2 Advantage reduce time 1 round (to minimum 1 round), 2 Threat increase time 1 round. Can be rushed at 1 round in exchange for taking 2 Setback dice.

Average difficulty: Takes 4 rounds to calculate, Advantage/Threat work as above, rush in 2 rounds.

Hard difficulty: Takes 6 rounds... and so on.

To get to hyperspace I think takes 6 rounds just to get the hyperspace coordinates punched in and ready. I think that's plenty of time to get out of a gravity well.

About the expense, I was thinking the same, but I think I like it better. It's also easy to leave the "big risk, big repairs" to specific adventures, and if you want to move the game along in time you could just say "you spend a month running cargo around with little incident. Make an easy/average Mechanics roll to keep up with the ship's maintenance during that period."

To get to hyperspace I think takes 6 rounds just to get the hyperspace coordinates punched in and ready. I think that's plenty of time to get out of a gravity well.

Do you know where it says it takes 6 rounds? I've been scouring the book for some guidance, but it's a big book, so could easily have missed it.

And don't forget that the Galaxy Mapper talent lets you cut the necessary time in half. That's a huge benefit when TIE's are barreling down on you...

To get to hyperspace I think takes 6 rounds just to get the hyperspace coordinates punched in and ready. I think that's plenty of time to get out of a gravity well.

Do you know where it says it takes 6 rounds? I've been scouring the book for some guidance, but it's a big book, so could easily have missed it.

Also, planets have varying mass, their projected gravity wells will vary in size. Use whatever is suitable for the planet/adventure/scenario - there doesn't need to be a hard and fast scientific rule or principle - this is Star Wars, not "Stephen Hawking's Space Game."

Ok, thanks all. As they haven't included the mass of each planet I won't be able to use my Newtonian physics.

F = Gm₁m₂/r²,

So you leave the gravity well at the speed of drama.

It does seem weird that they'd create a talent that halves the time of Astrogating, without even giving a baseline for what that time is. Oh well, I've never been afraid to make things up.

Based on something I read on tis board I have them make astrogation checks one per round until they have a total of 6 cumulative successes.

To get to hyperspace I think takes 6 rounds just to get the hyperspace coordinates punched in and ready. I think that's plenty of time to get out of a gravity well.

Do you know where it says it takes 6 rounds? I've been scouring the book for some guidance, but it's a big book, so could easily have missed it.

Sorry, I don't think it does. I thought it was in the beginner book that way, but since I gave that away to a friend I can't verify. I like fjw70's suggestion, 6 cumulative successes.

On page 246 there is a table that says it takes 5-15 minutes to get from orbit to a safe hyperspace jump distance. It might take a few extra minutes from the surface (SW ships seem to break from atmosphere pretty rapidly despite low listed atmospheric speeds). Each round is roughly one minute.

Based on something I read on tis board I have them make astrogation checks one per round until they have a total of 6 cumulative successes.

Agreed, this seems like an excellent solution, since it makes a skilled pilot a very valuable asset, and an unskilled pilot becomes a major risk.

Do uncancelled failures count against the total? So could a roll make negative progress?

The d20 version used the following times based on how well known/travelled a route was. "Known" refers to being known by the Navicomputer rather than the pilot. Luke knew about Dagobah but his computer may not have, for example:

Known route = 1 minute (10 rounds) @ Difficulty 10, for each round you want to shave off, increase difficulty by +2

New route between known systems = 30 minutes (300 rounds) @ Difficulty 15.

New route to unknown system = 1 to 4 hours @ Difficulty 20

Don't know where you are to begin with = 6 to 36 hours @ Difficulty 25

Also, according to the d6 WEG game:

Well Travelled Route = 1 minute (in an emergency you can reduce this to 1 round by DOUBLING the difficulty!)

Known Route = half an hour (many captains calculate coordinates while they are still at spaceport)

Never been there before = "Several Hours"

Don't know where you are = 1 Day

*Translating these into SWFFG, I'd say:

Known Route = 1 Round @ Easy

New Route between known systems = 30 rounds @ Average (Take one setback dice per each halving of this time: 15, 8, 4, 2 and 1 round respectively)

New route to unknown system = 4 hours @ Hard

Don't know where you are = 1 day @ Daunting

The above numbers are purely guestimates and should be taken with a pinch of salt

Hope this helps!!

Do uncancelled failures count against the total? So could a roll make negative progress?

I'd have said so, since it indicates you cocked up a calculation, and have to fix it before you can jump safely.

On page 246 there is a table that says it takes 5-15 minutes to get from orbit to a safe hyperspace jump distance. It might take a few extra minutes from the surface (SW ships seem to break from atmosphere pretty rapidly despite low listed atmospheric speeds). Each round is roughly one minute.

I must have read that page 15 times, but never noticed that entry in the chart. Thanks for pointing that out.

I like the six successes idea, then if you have the Galaxy Mapper you would just need 3.

On page 246 there is a table that says it takes 5-15 minutes to get from orbit to a safe hyperspace jump distance. It might take a few extra minutes from the surface (SW ships seem to break from atmosphere pretty rapidly despite low listed atmospheric speeds). Each round is roughly one minute.

I must have read that page 15 times, but never noticed that entry in the chart. Thanks for pointing that out.

I like the six successes idea, then if you have the Galaxy Mapper you would just need 3.

Yep, the original idea I saw was 5 successes but I bumped it up to 6 because of GM.