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Limited Number of Jumps
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tetsuoh
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:27 pm    Post subject: Limited Number of Jumps Reply with quote

Can I get a description on how the starfighters limited number of jumps works.

I've been looking - are they supposed to be the number of trips o the number of legs of a trip? (the number of hyperspace activations?)

I've been trying to get this figured out, but can't find the answer in the books.

And before you ask, no I have never had to worry about this before - I've never really owned or operated the ships in our previous campaigns - I've always just been a mechanic - or the muscle. And numerous campaigns we bought our way around.

Edit: on this same note - astomechs come programmed with jumps - I imagine these are pre-programmed routes, but do they even need to roll astrogation then to link it to the ship or no?
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Mikael Hasselstein
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:42 pm    Post subject: Re: Limited Number of Jumps Reply with quote

tetsuoh wrote:
Can I get a description on how the starfighters limited number of jumps works.

I've been looking - are they supposed to be the number of trips o the number of legs of a trip? (the number of hyperspace activations?)

I've been trying to get this figured out, but can't find the answer in the books.

And before you ask, no I have never had to worry about this before - I've never really owned or operated the ships in our previous campaigns - I've always just been a mechanic - or the muscle. And numerous campaigns we bought our way around.

Edit: on this same note - astomechs come programmed with jumps - I imagine these are pre-programmed routes, but do they even need to roll astrogation then to link it to the ship or no?


While I can't cite rules at you, I don't think that the RAW takes multiple legs in a trip into account, so I don't think the RAW is going to help you answer this question. You can hop on over to the House Rule discussion on Astrogation difficulty to get a sense of the debate we're having on that subject matter, however. I think the discussion of waypoints touches what you're talking about, though may not answer it for you.

At first blush, I don't think that the number of legs should matter for star fighters from a data-capacity perspective. It's their incapacity to hold the full range of data that would allow for the computing of routes that would complicate matters. However, that should not be a problem in terms of just the data that tells the lightspeed autopilot when to move how.

That is just my speculation, however, and I'm not sure I'm fully convinced of this interpretation yet.
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Fallon Kell
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So far as I know, generally hyperspace trips don't occur in legs. A starfighter with three jumps might have the target destination jump, the jump back home, and the jump from the target to the alternate rendezvous site all programmed in.

A freighter with a limited number of jumps might have one jump to the destination, and one jump to a good safe hiding place from either end of the journey programmed in.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 6:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fallon Kell wrote:
So far as I know, generally hyperspace trips don't occur in legs. A starfighter with three jumps might have the target destination jump, the jump back home, and the jump from the target to the alternate rendezvous site all programmed in.
I don't believe this is explained well in the RAW.

Stackpole in his Rogue Squadron novels uses hyperspace transit in legs quite often. But the pilots and their droids calculate those jumps, so it is a bit inconsistent.

However I don't believe Zahn ever refers to the limit and Luke certainly hops about without any clear limitation.

In our games, we have basically ignored this. Since the pre-programming would just put limitations on where the starfighters could go and dramatically that has not been interesting to us.

If you want to include a limitation I would probably use one of two things:

    (1) Pick jumps as Fallon Kell suggests.
    (2) Use the limit as the maximum number of jumps the starfighter can make before it needs servicing and updating of its tiny Star database. So the jumps don't need to be pre-calculated, but a starfigher off on its own can only make as many jumps as its limit. If the number of jumps is exceeded then significantly increase the jump difficulty hazard.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How i have seen it is that ship X (say a trio of B wings or the like) have up to 10 preprogrammed jumps..
Site a.
Site B
Waypoint C through F
Alternate G and H
and so on.

This allows for quicker plotting (by the RAW having coordinates still requires a roll, but in one min at an easier diff)..
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 10:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm betting that Zahn just made the assumption that Luke could use Instinctive Astrogation (or some variant thereof) to render a navcomputer superfluous. Considering the near-precognitive nature of some Jedi abilities, allowing a Jedi to plot a hyperspace jump by "feel" (ala the Guild Navigators of the Dune series) is not too much of a stretch.

Also, with regards to the original post, IIRC, the Y-Wing Longprobe was a dedicated scout that replaced the gunner's seat on the Y-Wing with a full-sized navcomputer with no jump limit.
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jmanski
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 10:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And isn't there a navicomputer attachment for droids in Cynabars? Or am I making things up again...?
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Whill
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's rules in RAW for that. Just look at the stat blocks for the Rebel starfighters in R&E (p. 248-249), but yes, it may have been explained better in 1E.

A-wing & B-wing
"Nav Computer: Limited to 2 jumps"

X-wing & Y-wing
"Nav Computer: Uses Astromech droid programmed with 10 jumps"

What that means for As & Bs is they have a very limited navicomputer that can only have 2 jumps max pre-programmed into it. Before a mission, they are linked up to a full navicomputer and the 2 jumps are chosen and programmed into the ship. This would presumably be a route from where you take off from to the system you are jumping too, and then your escape route (not always back where you came from - perhaps another system with a base or a ship that picks you up). Then for a different mission two new routes are programmed in replacing the previous ones, and so on. However, if you just went somewhere and back to where you started, you could fly the same routes more than once without having to reprogram the navicomputers.

The Xs and Ys work in a similar way except the ships themselves have no nav computer of even a limited kind. Up to 10 routes are programmed into your astrodroid, and then you have more jumps you can make you can go to and from in-between getting new routes programmed into the droid.

Yes, one way around these limiitations is the Force powers for astrogation. I would also presume that with both the lmited navicomputers and the astrodroids you could still calculate a new jump route at the high difficulties.

One thing I've always allowed is that one pre-programmed jump in a limited navicomputer or astrodroid works both ways, meaning in you could travel from A to B to C to B to A with only 2 jumps programmed.

RAW doesn't go into legs of the journeys and the rules seem to refer to the start and end destination as a jump. I'd say a "jump" is any time you go into and then come out of hyperspace. If you pass through some systems without dropping out of hyperspace to get to others, then it doesn't count as the end of a jump.

But yeah if the # of jumps in RAW is too limited for your game than modify your starfighters or astrodroids and bump up the programmed jump capacity number.

EDIT: With the preprogrammed routes there still had to be some astrogation so a roll should have to be made somewhere along the way, if not on the ship than when the jumps are programmed into the navicomputer/droid.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 1:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
RAW doesn't go into legs of the journeys and the rules seem to refer to the start and end destination as a jump.
Which is why I said "I don't believe this is explained well in the RAW."
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:

One thing I've always allowed is that one pre-programmed jump in a limited navicomputer or astrodroid works both ways, meaning in you could travel from A to B to C to B to A with only 2 jumps programmed.


I don't think hyperspace works like that, but interesting rule none the less.
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jmanski
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 7:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is the method of having a ship with a navicomputer plot the course and transmit it to the unequipped ships. That was in one of the Zahn books.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 7:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jmanski wrote:
There is the method of having a ship with a navicomputer plot the course and transmit it to the unequipped ships. That was in one of the Zahn books.
Yes. We do that. For starfigher flights or squadrons the best astrogator (my PC's droid) usually calculates the jump and then relays it to the other ships' astromechs.
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ZzaphodD
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Always thought the idea of limited navcomputers was a bit dodgy, given the fact that a navcomputer costs almost nothing according to GG6..

So I never used that rule..
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 7:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bren wrote:
Yes. We do that. For starfigher flights or squadrons the best astrogator (my PC's droid) usually calculates the jump and then relays it to the other ships' astromechs.


Big issue i have seen there is if the enemy is eaves dropping they know where you are going.
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jmanski
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 9:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Then you encrpt it. Or, alternatively, you add 1 to each number or some such thing.
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