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Mojomoe
Commander
Joined: 10 Apr 2010
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Location: Seattle, WA
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 Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 6:53 pm Post subject: Space vs Move |
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Ok so wait, how far is a Space unit? If you go by weapon ranges, it's 100m. If you go by the Space/Move conversion chart for speed in an atmosphere, it's 210m.
I needed to find out how far down the length of a Corvette a fired proton torpedo could reach because I had people inside the ship, and I came up empty.
Also, if you use the Speed/Move conversion chart, it's completely scrambled as far as distance in meters, while space weapons have a clean conversion of 1 space=100m. For ships, Space 1=210m, while Space 2 is only a few dozen meters more. Huh?
That means that a ship and a weapon range keep track if measured in Space, but lose equivalence if measured in meters.
Am I missing something? |
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jmanski
Arbiter-General (Moderator)
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Location: Kansas
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| Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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Move is the atmospheric conversion of Space, which is probably completely arbitrary.
This has been discussed before and the general consensus is, as you guessed it, that none of us agrees what it means.
There is a picture reference in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook that shows long engagement range for a Mon Cal cruiser at 60,000 meters. If that's the extent of turbolaser range (75 space units) then each space unit would equal 800 meters. So maybe round to 1 kilometer?
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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In "Running Space Combat" on pg. 122-123 of the 2R&E Rulebook, WEG states the following: | Quote: | Starships cover thousands of kilometers per second in open space. While they are moving much slower when orbiting planets and maneuvering through asteroid fields, their speeds are still incredible.
Rather than these use (sic) huge numbers for movement, the game uses "Space Units" to represent ship speeds and weapon ranges. The ships always move at the same proportional speeds. |
Key word is "proportional." Rather than have a dozen different speeds for orbit, open space, close combat, asteroid belts and so on and so forth, WEG just gave us one speed value that represents, proportionally, how much faster one thing is than another, regardless of circumstances. If you would like to run some calculations, WEG offers the following rules of thumb on pg. 116 of the 2R&E Rulebook: | Quote: | -5 minutes to fly from orbit to a safe hyperspace jump point.
-30 minutes to fly from a planet to one of its moons.
-2 to 6 hours to fly from one planet to the nearest planet in the solar system (2 for relatively close planets, like Earth to Mars, 6 for relatively distant planets like Earth to Saturn or Earth to Uranus)
-10 to 48 hours to fly from a star to the outer limits of a star system (roughly 15 for an Earth-type system). |
I paraphrased a little, but the basics are there.
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Mojomoe
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| Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:09 am Post subject: |
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Good info
I'm curious, how are rules as written supposed to handle massive objects, like Super Star Destroyers? These are objects that should clearly take up more than 1 Space unit, which would make space combat logistics... complicated.
Let's say your Y-Wing was trying to fly past it. Would it make it down the length of the SSD, or not? We'd need a hard-and-fast conversion of Space to Move (meters) to know.
I've seen values from 100m per Space to 210m, 800m, or even 1km.
What would you folks do?
What about a Death Star? Could you fly to the other side in 1 round? 5 rounds? What if an SSD was trying to fly around the Death Star?
Or is it, literally, incalculable... and designed to be that way? |
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JironGhrad
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 20 Jan 2016
Posts: 152
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| Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:48 am Post subject: |
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| I would say that flying past (or around) SSDs and Death Stars are definitely multi-round activities. Considering that a 'round' is defined as approximately 5 seconds, my recollection from the old X-Wing and Tie Fighter games was that it took 3-4 seconds to fly past a Star Destroyer at full speed. Given the general size disparity there (SSDs being vastly longer than a standard SD), that makes the most sense to me. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Mojomoe wrote: | | I'm curious, how are rules as written supposed to handle massive objects, like Super Star Destroyers? These are objects that should clearly take up more than 1 Space unit, which would make space combat logistics... complicated. |
But again, a SU doesn't have a fixed value, specifically because there are so many variables to take into account. SUs can also measure up to as much as the full diameter of a planet, including its upper atmosphere. WEG's official range for the KDY v-150 Ion Cannon gives its Medium Range as 1 SU (Low Orbit) and Long Range as 3 SU (High Orbit). Considering that, as far as the real world is concerned, Low Orbit is up to 2,000 kilometers and High Orbit covers anything above 36,000 kilometers, the actual value of an SU can vary far more than just from 200m to 1km.
In the end, the actual value of a Space Unit is whatever the plot needs it to be.
For me, it is simplest to picture the combat round as a snapshot of the action. In your example of the Y-Wing flying past a SSD, where it is and ends up will be entirely the result of how fast it was going and how far away it was the previous round. If it started the round 10 units away, and was moving at Full Speed (Space 7 x 2 = 14 SUs per round), it will end the round as much as 4 units away from the SSD on the opposite side (assuming it doesn't change course or use less than its maximum possible speed). At some point during that 5-second round, it passed through the same SU as as the SSD. How long it took is also a function of plot velocity, as the length of a round can be varied from the 5-second base value due to the requirements of the plot.
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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As for extended operations over the Death Star, ala the end of ANH, I'd ignore SUs entirely, and treat the Death Star as a planet, using atmospheric ranges and speeds, ruling that all combat is occurring within the same SU as the Death Star.
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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.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Mojomoe wrote: | Good info
I'm curious, how are rules as written supposed to handle massive objects, like Super Star Destroyers? These are objects that should clearly take up more than 1 Space unit, which would make space combat logistics... complicated.
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In games where i have used hexes to represent SU's, i have often gone with Vics as being 2 Su long, 3 for ISD and ISD2s. IF i had a SSD out there, it would be 12 SU's in size (hexes)..
| Mojomoe wrote: |
What about a Death Star? Could you fly to the other side in 1 round? 5 rounds? What if an SSD was trying to fly around the Death Star?
Or is it, literally, incalculable... and designed to be that way? |
I'd say incalucable.. Though 150 or so SU's is a good figure to go all around it...
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | As for extended operations over the Death Star, ala the end of ANH, I'd ignore SUs entirely, and treat the Death Star as a planet, using atmospheric ranges and speeds, ruling that all combat is occurring within the same SU as the Death Star. |
That's a good way to run it.. The thing imo is large enough to have its own gravity, which IMO is what causes you to drop to 'atmo' speed/ranges..
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:45 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | If you would like to run some calculations, WEG offers the following rules of thumb on pg. 116 of the 2R&E Rulebook. |
There is no basis for calculation because those benchmarks are not based on any specific speed.
And "a planet to one of its moons" is presumably from a terrestrial planet, but there is still a wide range of possible distances from a planet to its moons. Not mentioned in the benchmarks is gas giant moon to moon which can be dozens of times larger than a terrestrial planet to its moon.
And even in our solar system, the distance between inner terrestrial planets varies greatly depending on the type of orbit they have and where they each happen to be in their particular orbits at the time. Earth to Mars' farthest point considering having to go around the sun could be about triple the distance of it's closest point.
The scale increases dramatically when traveling to or between outer planets. Even at their respective closest points alone, Earth to Uranus is more than double Earth to Saturn. These distances are both much more than three times longer than from Earth to Mars closest point. If going from outer planet to outer planet on opposite sides of the sun, you are really getting up there.
As far as leaving the system, our system's Kuiper cliff is about 50 times the average distance from the Sun to the Earth. This could vary greatly in other star systems.
Realistically there would be acceleration and deceleration periods that may close the gaps somewhat, but according to RAW ships can speed up and slow down fairly quickly so even that wouldn't be a significant factor.
For all of these reasons, calculations that make any kind of sense are just not possible. The rules of thumb on R&E p.116 are arbitrary hand-waive benchmarks for the sake of just moving the story along. Most GMs don't even plot out their star systems in any detail to come up with reasonable distances. I do for star systems I create, which takes us back to SUs only being relative to each other and not representing any exact distances, so even I just try to deal with intra-system travel times as vaguely as possible.
| garhkal wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | As for extended operations over the Death Star, ala the end of ANH, I'd ignore SUs entirely, and treat the Death Star as a planet, using atmospheric ranges and speeds, ruling that all combat is occurring within the same SU as the Death Star. |
That's a good way to run it.. The thing imo is large enough to have its own gravity, which IMO is what causes you to drop to 'atmo' speed/ranges.. |
A Death Star is massive enough to keep its own atmosphere if it could attract one in the first place. A Death Star would probably have to fly through a nebula because you would think it would have to stay a good distance away from any planetary body's atmosphere, and even if they did attract and atmosphere, they would undoubtedly lose it when traveling through hyperspace. Gravity of a Death Star would really be a complicated thing because the artificial gravity would have to fight against the Death Star's own gravity and those adjustments would vary all through the ship. If "down" is consistently maintained as same direction throughout the station (a plane intersecting the south pole and parallel to the plane of the equatorial trench), then I would think that any atmosphere would collect on the southern hemisphere of the station. A more likely scenario than the Death Star collecting atmosphere in space would be a hull breach where they leaked its own internal atmosphere outside the ship.
All that being said, even without an atmosphere, because of the gravity I'd probably still run it like CRMcNeill and garhkal would and just use atmospheric info for simplicity's sake.
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 7:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | There is no basis for calculation because those benchmarks are not based on any specific speed. |
True, but they are the closest approximations the RAW offers. And sometimes, the easiest way to demonstrate to someone why a Space Unit has no fixed value is to let them run their best-guess calculations and figure it out for themselves...
| Quote: | | A Death Star is massive enough to keep its own atmosphere if it could attract one in the first place. |
My suggestion was based less on the physics of a Death Star actually having an atmosphere than it was about a default to existing rule that would simplify combat.
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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.
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Zarn
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| Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:39 am Post subject: |
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I'm sorry Whill, but unless the density is absolutely massive for a Death Star (sorry, Imperial Ore Extractor), or the New Order has engineered some sort of gravity well projectors dedicated to the task, then a Death Star is nowhere near big enough to have its own atmosphere. Weather systems in cavernous halls already pressurized, maybe.
The estimates for the diameter of the Death Star I are between 140 and 160 km. The estimates for the Death Star II are much less consistent - I've seen between 160 and 900 km on that one.
The diameter of our Moon is about 3400 km. It does have a tenuous atmosphere - about 10,000 tons of it, mostly from radioactive processes. The surface pressure is in the picobar range (daytime) or femtobar range (nighttime).
The largest size estimates of the DS II makes it about the size of Ceres. The largest size estimates of the DS I makes it smaller than Vanth. Neither Ceres nor Vanth have atmospheres.
Starkiller base... let's not go there. Starkiller base is a silly place. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:55 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | Quote: | | A Death Star is massive enough to keep its own atmosphere if it could attract one in the first place. |
My suggestion was based less on the physics of a Death Star actually having an atmosphere than it was about a default to existing rule that would simplify combat. |
| Whill wrote: | | All that being said, even without an atmosphere, because of the gravity I'd probably still run it like CRMcNeill and garhkal would and just use atmospheric info for simplicity's sake. |
| Whill wrote: | | Gravity of a Death Star would really be a complicated thing because the artificial gravity would have to fight against the Death Star's own gravity and those adjustments would vary all through the ship. If "down" is consistently maintained as same direction throughout the station (a plane intersecting the south pole and parallel to the plane of the equatorial trench), then I would think that any atmosphere would collect on the southern hemisphere of the station. |
| Zarn wrote: | | I'm sorry Whill, but unless the density is absolutely massive for a Death Star (sorry, Imperial Ore Extractor), or the New Order has engineered some sort of gravity well projectors dedicated to the task, then a Death Star is nowhere near big enough to have its own atmosphere. Weather systems in cavernous halls already pressurized, maybe. |
Technically artificial gravity technology is "gravity well projectors". I didn't speak to any specific air pressures, and I didn't say any atmosphere wouldn't be negligible. Even with the more dense superstructure and machinery, yes the overall density of a Death Star would indeed be less than a small moon. Without artificial gravity, yes everyone would be floating around inside of it. But the Death Star has more gravity than just what is generated by its total mass alone. Artificial gravity projectors generate the equivalent of standard Earth surface gravities, about 1 g. Even though artificial gravity is a completely hand-waived sci-fi miracle in the first place, I never imagined artificial gravity to just magically stop at the "top" surface of the vessels. The only way it makes sense to me is if it continues extending above it (decreasing as a function of distance like natural gravity). I don't see any need to add another equally outrageous hand-waive on top of the original one that a ship's artificial gravity doesn't exist "above" the vehicle.
If up and down are maintained consistently throughout all levels of the Death Star and north is up, then the southern levels would be the only place gravity would need to be generated. Since it is a sphere, the bottom level would have a plane of gravity generation being a circle that provides gravity for the area of the entire vertical axis. Then each level above the southern most level would have a ring of gravity projection with a hole above the lower level's gravity projection and so on through the level of the equatorial trench. Then 1 g gravity would exist above the entire northern hemisphere of the Death Star. Any space gas molecules attracted to the gravity might be more attracted to the northern hemisphere but would accelerate down along the surface towards the equator due to the gravity existing under the entire equatorial plane, which is why I said any gas collected would probably accumulate on the southern hemisphere ("down").
It seems to me that all ships with artificial gravity in Star Wars seem to orient down in the same direction throughout the ship. If I were designing the Death Star then I would put all of the artificial gravity in the equatorial plane in both directions, meaning that in the southern hemisphere of the Death Star down was north and up was south. But then when taking a turbolift from one hemisphere to the other, perhaps there is a level in the middle with no gravity but the turbolift would kick in its own gravity and reorient direction.
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dic1
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| Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:10 am Post subject: |
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All plans i have seen of the death star show it to be mostly hollow, and mention sectors or segments made up of structures like city blocks.
If the gravity plates are placed in each deck it would have a spherical gravity just like a regular planet, any atmosphere would collect at the lowest points or slightly more dense towards the rear based on motion of the engines. |
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D+1
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:12 pm Post subject: Re: Space vs Move |
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| Mojomoe wrote: | That means that a ship and a weapon range keep track if measured in Space, but lose equivalence if measured in meters.
Am I missing something? |
Yeah. It's less about having precise numbers than plot, pacing, interest, excitement, what makes for the best game. Having a btb, hard number answer is all fine and well but if the PC's need to live then the proton torpedo does not reach them. If an NPC needs to die (or just SEEM to die - comic book rules, after all) then the proton torpedo does reach. Not entirely clear on what the in-game situation is you're explaining but I'm fairly certain the book response is that if you can't find a numeric rules answer to make it up. |
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MrNexx
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2016 5:04 pm Post subject: |
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| dic1 wrote: | All plans i have seen of the death star show it to be mostly hollow, and mention sectors or segments made up of structures like city blocks.
If the gravity plates are placed in each deck it would have a spherical gravity just like a regular planet, any atmosphere would collect at the lowest points or slightly more dense towards the rear based on motion of the engines. |
I think it is safe to say that Star Wars inertial damping extends to acceleration, to the point where the difference in negligible.
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