Astrogation house rule

[ebertran]

I've decided to not complicate my life too much in regards to my game's Astrogation rolls and travel durations. At the end of the day, a ship should travel at the speed of plot, and it was becoming a mess keeping track of how long trips took to and from places, so I'm going to implement a house rule that ignores the RAW astrogation rules. It makes a few assumptions:

1. Travel times can vary depending on a few factors, such as hazards and traffic on certain lanes.

2. Calculating a jump to light-speed can be fairly routine. The main issue is how well you can sit at the computer and plot a few routes.

3. A 1 on the wild die will always trigger a complication from the R&E rulebook.

So succeeding on the following difficulties will generate the following travel times / in hours / to where ever you are going:

Very Easy - Easy 3d6 x hyperdrive modifier
Moderate 2d6 x hyperdrive modifier
Difficult+ 1d6 x hyperdrive modifier

So a navigator rolling a 10 (Easy) on his Astrogation roll will roll a 3d6 to determine how long the trip will take. Say 9, and multiply his hyperdrive modifier, say a 2. The trip will then take 18 hours.

The better you roll, the shorter the durations can be. There is a chance of a shorter duration resulting from a worse Astrogation roll, but so be it...

Quick, dirty, and will work just fine for my game.

[atgxtg]

If you want to simplify it even further, you can replace with random dice rolls and make the difficulty the base travel time, and subtract 1 hr per point rolled over the difficulty.

For example, if the trip is difficulty 14, the base time would be 14 hours (for a x1 hyperdrive). If the navigator rolled a 20, he'd make the trip in 8 hours (14-6).

[Naaman]

... And so shall it be henceforth.

[DougRed4]

I've really enjoyed the one Mikael Hasselstein came up with, and it really makes things quick and easy, but the times seem to take significantly longer than they should. At least it seems that way. Our characters have had a couple of trips that have taken around a month, which seems a bit long to me.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[atgxtg]

One of these days I'd like to come up with something that fits what we see in the films, TV series, and the stats for the ships. IMO the ships move much faster than what we see in WEG. Yoda manages to get from Corscant to Kamino to Geonosis all in time to rescue Obi-wan, Anakin, and Padme.

I get the feeling that you can get from just about one side of the galaxy to the other in under a day.

[DougRed4]

Yeah, they really do move at the speed of plot.

Which is cool and all. But the lengthier trips allow for the characters to spend some of their Character Points on stuff (travel seems to be one of the only "down times" my group has).

I've considered switching things to hours, but that seems too fast.
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[Jerrod Owex]

[atgxtg]

[DougRed4]

No, not first edition. I was making a reference to Mikael's post about converting 'days' to 'hours' (above).
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green

[atgxtg]

[Tupteq]

There's lot of mess in hyperspace travel in SW universe. Characters in movies travel in hours across the galaxy, but on the other hand for some reasons trade routes exist like in the middle ages and information spreads slowly (even for years). This is an obvious inconsistency, but I tried to explain that by using two (somehow related) factors: availability and cost.

I don't allow players to travel directly from point to point. They have to use a route. They don't have to visit each system, but for example travel from Nar Shadda to Etti took them at least 5-6 jumps, 1-5 days each.
I'm using this map as a reference - i'm treating all lines there as established routes. If different maps (more detailed) are available, then I'm using them. I decided to use this approach after I read Twin Stars of Kira adventure, refer this chart describing travel times only on-the-route.

Faster travel is possible, but it requires to "step over" more systems in the middle. The more systems skipped, the more difficult is the astrogation calculation, but travel time is shorter. I don't have a fixed rule for this, but normal jumps are Easy to calculate, step over a system or two makes it Moderate etc. Some additional modifiers may apply (traffic, location etc.).

Travelling outside of routes is possible, but very hard - at least Difficult for short jumps, with average around Heroic for significant shortcuts like Klatooine-Roche ending at Heroic+20 for jumps across the galaxy. Such routes require enormous computing power to calculate, so only most wealthy and/or powerful organization may afford of them (Republic, Rebellion, Empire, BoSS etc.). Also, they are valid for only short period of time (days to weeks), long term valid routes are even harder to calculate and generally have to be slower than short term ones.

So, my PCs normally use routes with some step overs to speed up travel and sometimes they calculate short out-of-the-route jump. Occasionally they also receive a long distance off-road jump, but it's usually valid only for short period of time.

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[Jedi Skyler]

While this issue has been debated by countless gamers, (and yes, I have to give props to Mikael; he is THE bomb on astrogation), the mechanics of the thing basically gives way to the plot.

Also, having all that time in hyperspace gives the players an opportunity to roleplay amongst themselves, and to possibly build their characters. Most GMs I've worked with allow character development during hyperspce travel, and it's worked out well.

[Mikael Hasselstein]