Maybe noob questions here, but I just recently started GMing in Edge of the Empire and don't know much about Star Wars fluff apart from the movies.

Question 1

How does the Empire (or any other government) control taxes along major hyperlanes. I mean, how do they know if a spaceship is really using a major hyperlane or just using a "less secure" route to access a system?

Question 2

How do patrols work in between systems? Or are they only patrolling intra-system?

Question 3

Related to piracy, when and how do pirates attack a spaceship? Can they attack in between systems? If so, do they create an interdiction field? How long does it take for a spaceship to jump to hyperspace in order to avoid an attack?

In Escape from Mos Shuuta, I decided from the suggestion in the adventure that it would take the PCs 6 full rounds for their spaceship to arrive to a safe hyperspace jumping area in the system. It worked quite well narrative-wise, as there was enough combat with the pursuing TIEs... Any hard info about this somewhere?

1) I don't think they do. The taxes are probably charged based upon where the ship's flight plan says was the point of origin, which can be easily forged if you've got a decent slicer as part of your crew. And for smuggling, taxes are pretty much irrelevant since what you're doing is illegal to begin with.

2) It's likely kept intra-system, unless there's been multiple confirmations of pirates or other brigands operating within a certain sector. A lot of the Empire's attention is focused on hunting down Rebels, and planetary patrols typically only have jurisdiction within their system.

3) There's a lot of different methods, but one of the more common ones is to simply arrange for debris (such as asteroids) to find it's way into a known hyperspace route and hope something good pops out when the debris' mass shadow forces the vessel to drop out of hyperspace. The pirates probably also have informants at various space ports in the areas they operate out of, who give the pirates advance notice of particularly valuable prizes in exchange for a "finder's fee," which will at least give the pirates a better chance of knowing what route a ship is taking and cut down on the chances of the ship dropping out of hyperspace being an Imperial cruiser. I'd think that more than one arrogant pirate captain met his end when that luxury liner/merchant vessel he'd planned to ransack turned out to be an elaborate ruse that featured an Imperial Star Destroyer dropping out of hypersrpace instead.

There's some good info on the EOTE book; check out pages 384-385.

Q1: The Empire, via the Imperial Space Ministry and the independent BoSS, might be able to track a given ship's transponder and know where it's going, and ding it for a tax / tariff, sort of like how a car using a toll transponder can automatically pay a toll. I don't think I'd bother tracking this in-game, though, unless there was a good plot reason for it. Otherwise you're adding a layer of economics that I think would get tedious.

Q2: I'd guess that since there's a lot of empty space between systems, the bulk of patrols happen closer to systems than out in deep space. But, if you need a patrol to happen in deep space or between systems, go for it.

Q3: I think the 6 round timing for getting to a hyperspace jump point sounds good. The guideline in the book (p. 246) is 5-15 minutes to get from a planet's orbit to a safe jump point, and while timing of a round in this game is pretty flexible, I think 6 full rounds fits well.

Thanks for the answers!

I specially like the idea of pirates using asteroids... I'll use it at some point in my campaign.

I recommend you, as the GM, some SW D6 sourcebooks: Platt's Smugglers Guide, Platt's Startports Guide and Pirates and Privateers. There is a lot of about Imperial fleet duties, pirates, trade and regulations in the galaxy.

I'm just going to address #1, since others have more than sufficiently addressed the other two in my opinion.

Traveling through hyperspace is very much of a 'black box' affair. If you happen to be watching, you can tell where a ship entered the black box, and you can tell where a ship came out of the black box, but the actual route within the black box is anybody's guess. As a result, tracking a ship through hyperspace is very similar to calculating a jump through hyperspace. You can't actually be tracked while *in* hyperspace, unless there is a tracking beacon on the ship, but your entry/exit point, provides a starting point, from which a list of of potential destination/source systems can be determined. There is margin for error, and some routes may share sections, similar to how the same segment of the interstate highway system can be used as part of the route to get to *many* destinations.

Smugglers will often do whatever they can to look like they're part of 'normal' traffic traveling to/from a very different place than their actual source or destination. This can be done by way of one or more short jumps which are designed to *look* as though you are headed out of System X toward System Y or Hyperlane Z. Dropping out of hyperspace shortly after entering it, having traveled only a few light years at most, and calculating a new route from that point to your real destination, or toward another such 'pirate dog-leg'.

The danger of using 'non-standard' hyperspace routes is two-fold.

1) The standard routes are more thoroughly mapped, and therefore less dangerous.

2) Using a non-standard route brings you in system in a non-standard, and therefore suspicious location.

Imagine that you're in Philadelphia, and you need to get to Washington DC. That's easy enough. You just hop on the interstate, and start following signs to DC. That's a standard hyperspace route.

Now let's say that you need to convince someone who can see you leave, but can't watch you the whole way, that you're *actually* going to Pittsburgh. You don't jump on an east-bound interstate. Instead, you take a west-bound interstate, get off a few exits down the line, and wind your way back east of Philly on back roads. Once you're out of Pennsylvania, you can go ahead and hop onto an interstate, and go to DC. If you planned things correctly, you arrive in DC *before* they'd expect to hear of your arrival from their minions in Pittsburgh.

This isn't nearly as effective if you're starting in Pittsburgh, and you want to convince someone you're going to Philly instead of DC, because the vast majority of the route is the same, and DC remains a possible destination for the highway you're traveling, and you'd already be *missed* in your supposed destination before you reached your real one.

This is how Boba Fett managed to determine that the Falcon was traveling to Bespin, arrive, find the link, and notify the Empire in time for the trap to be set.

Smugglers will often do whatever they can to look like they're part of 'normal' traffic traveling to/from a very different place than their actual source or destination. This can be done by way of one or more short jumps which are designed to *look* as though you are headed out of System X toward System Y or Hyperlane Z. Dropping out of hyperspace shortly after entering it, having traveled only a few light years at most, and calculating a new route from that point to your real destination, or toward another such 'pirate dog-leg'.

My players did exactly this last session and that's what got me thinking about hyperspace travel...

Follows a Long Arm of the Hutt spoiler: