Limited Jump Navcomputers

[atgxtg]

[DougRed4]

But surely losing said pilot and/or ship is far better than giving away the location of your secret base!

Nobody ever answered my earlier question, where I pointed out that in my campaign, our group has two Jedi Starfighters (each a Star Saber XC-01), and each says "Can store coordinates for 2 hyperspace jumps". Does that mean they can only hold two jumps total (to and from one location)? And being thousands of years old, what are the ramifications when dealing with modern astrogation?
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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

[CRMcNeill]

I recall mention in one of the X-Wing novels (can't remember which) to the effect that combat astromechs were highly resistant to data intrusion attempts.

Also, in the Black Fleet Trilogy, when faced with potential capture, the Recon X-Wings used a shaped charge to destroy their astromech before activating their own self destructs.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[garhkal]

[DougRed4]

Thanks, garhkal. But then, if they wanted to jump back to point A again, do they have to start new calculations? Wait a certain amount of time?

As I understand things, they could 'store' (in the case above) points B and C, but then wouldn't have any more points stored in their system. So if they jumped from A to B to C, they could only jump to either of those (B or C), and if they wanted to go anywhere else (A, D, E, F, etc.) they'd have to start making astrogation/navicomputer calculations all over again.
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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

[Leon The Lion]

Seeing as traveling from B to A is the same as traveling from A to B, only in reverse, personally I'd allow travel in both directions using a single stored "jump".

For my own game, I use the following rules:

A pre-calculated jump will “keep” for about a month (20+2D days). After that it should be re-calculated or risk a mishap.

The difficulty of re-calculating a stored jump is the basic difficulty -5, +1 per 1D days the jump is “expired”, up to the normal basic difficulty.

When using an “expired” pre-calculated jump, roll 1D, +1 per 1D days the jump is “expired”. A total of 6 indicates a jump mishap occurs. Roll on the Astrogation Mishap Table.

Many starports offer “fresh” pre-calculated jump data to typical destinations for download at a modest fee (50 - 200 Cr).
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[garhkal]

[jmanski]

And I think there has to be some sort of time constraint, as well. You can't plot a jump and take it a month later; stuff in space moves and that needs to be reflected somewhere.

I remember one of the Zahn trilogy referencing a freighter Mara was piloting had a course preset and it took considerably less time to calculate since it had only been a week or something, but it needed to be calculated for safety.
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[Leon The Lion]

[vanir]

Our House interpretation of strict RAW is "2 sets of jump coordinates stored"
Meaning point of origin is irrelevent, these are destinations. Presumably the sensor window takes current astronomical posititioning data and this is used in manual calculation of the specific jump, to the coordinates stored, from anywhere. You can jump to either from anywhere, meaning an A-Wing can store an attack coordinates and a rendezvous coordinates following the attack, and calculate the first jump from another staging point, but the jump to the 1st destination is done by calculating current astronomical position references in conjunction with the destination coordinates. In fact you can take that A-Wing to the area a dozen times and it can jump to either location within range at normal difficulties, from anywhere you care to drop it off, until the navcomputer is reprogrammed. And keep in mind they can still jump to elsewhere, the difficulties are simply the same has "no navcomputer", but if you're a talent it's no problem. Starfighters usually don't go far.

That would mean Imperials couldn't download base locations (cruisers take the starfighters to those), but they could get unquestionable evidence of the last attack that starfighter was involved in.
Well, unless we're dealing with a small, forward X-Wing base that uses astromechs on all craft to ensure several coordinates are stored, including the base coordinates, and the starfighters operate within range of the base.
But the Imperials would already have to have some kind of bead on that base to be in the area to catch one of those starfighters and download the base location. They'd have to already be hot on the rebel's tails. Then it's an Echo Base situation and totally SWRPG

[shootingwomprats]

I disagree, per RAW it takes roughly 30 minutes to calculate a hyerpspace jump. This takes into all sorts of things including, spatial drift, space hazards, the shortest route, etc. This means the path must be calculate from point to point. If you are going from the methodology there is nothing between you and your destination and its a straight line then yes point of origin doesn't matter, but that is not how astrogation calculations are explained.

That is not to say you cannot change it to fit your game I am just pointing out RAW. Below are the rules I was able to cobble together from RAW with a single personal change. See how you like them:

What is required to make a jump to hyperspace:
1. Plot the trip (30 minutes to several hours).
2. Input trip into the Nav-comp
2a. Typically a Moderate difficulty [13+] astrogation roll.
2b. Requires the ship to be in space (Nav-Comp accesses sensor information and makes calculations taking into account current space conditions, galactic drift, known natural hazards, etc).
2c. 12 rounds to safely and optimally calculate the hyperspace coordinates for the trip.
2d. A hasty entry into hyperspace may be attempted. Requires 1 round but the difficulty doubles.
3. Enter hyperspace (required to be 50 spacial units from gravity well before engaging hyperdrives).
3a. Alternate Mechanic: once a ship has reached planetary orbit the GameMaster makes a secret roll using the pilots starship piloting skill and rolls vs a target number of 30. The difference being the number of rounds before they can make the jump to hyperspace.

When making a hasty entry into hyperspace It is not explained if the characters must have a planned destination. We can infer that Nav-Comp calculations require a starting and ending point, thus facilitating an Astrogation roll. The Nav-Comp then calculates the needed hyperspace coordinates between the two points.

A hasty entry into hyperspace would not be an optimally calculated route. Assess a x2 to x5 time penalty to the trip. Depending on the conditions prior to the hyperspace jump the time penalty could be as high as x20.

If a trip would normally take 18 hours, a hasty hyperspace calculation would make the trip 36-90 hours (and as much as 360 hours). Making the 18 hour trip 1 to 3 days (and as much as 15 days). The astrogation difficulty is doubled and significantly increases the likelihood of a hyperspace mishap.

Precalculated trips can be purchased. The cost reflects how well known the trip is, (Alderaan to Coruscant or a vacation trip could be well-known trips, navigating the Kessel run is well-known but difficult, coordinates to a hidden planet are rare). This does not negate the need to make an astrogation roll to use the Nav-Comp to calculate the hyperspace coordinates.
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[griff]

These might be blasphemy, but in the first part of Star Gate (the movie) David Spacer give a great example of needing six points of reference to plot coordinates in a three dimensionals, and a seventh to calculate a course. Maybe the navcomputer stores two of these six points of reference (destinations) while current position will always be the seventh to plot a course.
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[Quetzacotl]

[garhkal]

[shootingwomprats]

"A character making an astrogation roll needs to make calculations for the jump to hyperspace"

"Calculating a route takes one minute if the character us using a well-traveled route or is using pre-calculated coordinates (in emergencies a character can try to jump into hyperspace in a one round instead of one minute)."

"Calculating a route between known systems takes about half an hour: many freighter captains calculate coordinates while still at the spaceport ..."
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Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter