Some Thoughts on Astrogation

[CRMcNeill]

As part of establishing in-universe background, I've put some thought into how hyperspace routes are established and maintained. My working theory is that starships are equipped with flight recorders that track gravity and radiation levels over the course of the jump. This data is then turned over to the BoSS at their next port stop (commonly in trade for a discount on port and restocking fees), which is then used to generate a detailed map of the routes in question, with BoSS Scout ships being sent out to examine potential anomalies.

While no PC would be willing to have their data turned over to official sources for fear of it being used against them, the vast majority of the galaxy's traffic is official and legal in nature, which provides BoSS with a wealth of data used to maintain accurate hyperspace routes and update navcomputer data as needed.

However, the available data is dependent on the number of ships who travel that route.

As such, what I'm thinking of doing is basing the Base Difficulty for a hyperspace course on how well traveled it is, using the same categories found in the SW Sourcebook:

Heavily-Traveled Route = Easy
Common Route = Moderate
Rarely-Traveled Route = Difficult
Uncommon Route = Very Difficult
"You want to go where?" = Heroic

_________________
"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

[jmanski]

Sounds like the "allow windows to report errors to better your experience" to me....

That's basically what I do, the less traveled a route, the more difficult.

I'm a simple kind of guy, so when I think of hyperspace I tend to visualize the highway system. The safest way to travel is via interstate highway.

But there might be a faster way using a shorter route with lesser known highways, county roads, and back roads. I've had success and failure in real life trying to find a shorter route; I take those as successful and failed "rolls".
_________________
Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[CRMcNeill]

[Bren]

[Naaman]

It's true: the fastest way to get to a place is usually the main highways. In such cases, the PCs might generally take longer routes (assuming they are fugitives) that are less trafficked.

You might consider increasing the time required in addition to the difficulty... heck, it might be safest to "take the long way around" in some cases (which may also be the road less traveled, to boot).

[CRMcNeill]

A thought on this...

In the OP, I suggested basing a jump's Astrogation Difficulty on how well traveled the route is, but I always felt there was something missing.

What I'm thinking now is this: have the Difficulty of the jump be equal to the Duration times how well traveled the route is, using the Cost of Passage Multipliers from pg. 47 of the Star Wars Sourcebook:

Heavily Traveled Route: x1
Common Route: x2
Rarely-Traveled Route: x3
Uncommon Route: x5
"You want to go where?": x?

So, say the characters wanted to make a 5-hour-long jump on a Rarely-Traveled Route, they'd multiply the duration (5 hours) by the Multiplier from the Chart (x3) to get a Difficulty of 15. Then, with that base number, they could modify the course length (and thus Difficulty) as needed.
_________________
"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

[Whill]

I've seen these ideas come up in other threads but I missed this dedicated thread back in 2017.

[CRMcNeill]

The other possibility would be corruption; finding a BoSS employee who is susceptible to bribery and paying extra to get the data without exchanging your own in return. This might even be a sub-set of local criminal enterprise as a whole, like the local info-chant having a deal with the local BoSS office supervisor to provide the data on the side in trade for whatever the supervisor's sin of choice is, which the info-chant then turns around and sells to whoever can meet his price.
_________________
"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

[MrNexx]

Hmmm... just a bit of a riff...

On some common routes, might the BoSS obviate the need for a navicomputer? Like, if you're doing the Coruscant-Corellia run, do you really need your own navicomputer, if the BoSS can just give you an astrogation path?
_________________
"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/

[CRMcNeill]

Presumably, considering the Difficulty of making a hyperspace jump without a navcomp increases by +30, even the simplest of routes are going to be hugely complex, with little to no margin for error, even when entering the route coordinates manually.

There is a device in Platt's Smugglers Guide called the Archaic Astrogation Plotter (page 47), which is "little more than a collection of slide rules, factor wheels and plot charts", but can be used in an emergency at a +10 (two levels) to Astrogation Difficulty. The data still has to be transferred electronically from a datapad to the motivator, but the actual math is done the old fashioned way.
_________________
"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

[MrNexx]

[CRMcNeill]

Well, there's precedent for that in the EU, but there's also precedent for the most obvious drawback. In The Last Command, the Falcon has to transmit a hyperspace route to Rogue Squadron, but there's a Star Destroyer and its escorts within sensor range, so they can't transmit the code in the clear, and thus use the "Cracken Twist" as a basic code to disguise their actual course.

So, there's precedent for ships (in particular, ships with Astromechs) to receive course info by remote, but if that course info is broadcast in the clear, then anyone within reception range will also know the exact course the ship is going to take. Which in turn makes the ship vulnerable to pirates or others with ill intent.

One possible alternative would be to pre-sell a ship an encryption key specific to their own course data, linked to a billing account, which would eliminate the need to dock and meet in person apart from making deposits to said account. Maybe something like a toll road or turnpike in space, where you jump along a string of beacon stations, each one transmitting the coordinates for the next jump leg.

Kinda reminds me of the Hyperspace Beacon, but that has its own set of drawbacks...
_________________
"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

[Whill]