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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: Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:09 pm Post subject: Hyperdrive Difficulty Modifier Sequence |
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When I'm calculating the Difficulty of a Hyperspace Jump, I always apply the Jump Time Modifier (+1 for each hour saved) before I apply the ship's Hyperdrive Multiplier. However, the game isn't specific as to the proper order. Does anyone else apply the Time Saved Modifier after the Drive Modifier, and if so, why?
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griff
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:50 pm Post subject: |
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Normal math equation procedure is that multiplication is always figured first.
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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: Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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| griff wrote: | | Normal math equation procedure is that multiplication is always figured first. |
But practically speaking, why would that apply? If the idea is to plot a shorter course by "cutting corners" off the route, wouldn't a faster ship be able to travel the resulting route appreciably faster?
After all, the proper math equation procedure puts parenthesis ahead of multiplication. What if, instead of X + Y x Z = A, the equation is (X + Y) Z = A?
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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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griff
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 12:08 am Post subject: |
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I would still calculate the multiplyer/trip time then subtract the desired hours. It would not matter it the number of hours saved is arbitrary. It would matter if the subtraction of hours was to shorten the trip to a specific duration. Total trip time needs to calculated to know how many hours would need to be subtracted for trip time.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 12:58 am Post subject: Re: Hyperdrive Difficulty Modifier Sequence |
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griff is correct.
| CRMcNeill wrote: | | When I'm calculating the Difficulty of a Hyperspace Jump, I always apply the Jump Time Modifier (+1 for each hour saved) before I apply the ship's Hyperdrive Multiplier. However, the game isn't specific as to the proper order. Does anyone else apply the Time Saved Modifier after the Drive Modifier, and if so, why? |
There is no drive modifier to difficulty. Do you mean you that you apply the time jump modifier before applying the drive multiplier for calculating the duration of the trip? So if a standard duration is 16, a ship has a x2 hyperdrive and the base difficulty is 12, the players wants to get there 10 hours faster so for a difficulty of 12+10=22, the duration would be (16-10)x2 = 12 hours? If so, I don't for two reasons:
(1) The example on R&E p.118 has this exact scenario for a 16 hour standard duration and x2 hyperdrive, and the math used for calculating the duration when wanting to save 10 hours is (16x2)-10=22 hours.
(2) With your way you lose difficulty-to-hour equivalency for any hyperdrive different that X1. In doing the above example your way, you've intended to save 10 hours for the duration formula, but in the end you've saved 20 hours for a x2 drive while your difficulty is still only raised 10. Your slow drive is shouldn't multiply your time saved. So not only does the example show that the multiplier is applied to the standard duration before saving or adding extra hours to to duration, doing it that way is the only way the math works out correctly for each hour saved and extra hour taken.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 1:22 am Post subject: |
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Here's the problem.
Hyperspace courses are essentially a series of legs and waypoints in space, with each leg having a specific duration and each waypoint signifying a change in heading and attitude. Altering a course to save time is going to reduce the linear distance traveled by cutting corners or taking less-well-traveled and more hazardous routes. The route is calculated before the jump is made, so if you were to give an identical route to two ships, one with a x2 drive, and the other with a x1 drive, the x1 drive will cover the same linear distance in half the time.
What I'm saying is, based on how we understand hyperdrives, the Saved Time / Lost Time Modifier should be added "upstream" from the speed of the drive itself, not downstream.
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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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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:04 am Post subject: |
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Of course, it's not a very well thought out rule to begin with. For example, if the jump from Tatooine to Alderaan is only 7 hours, a ship with a x1 hyperdrive that takes a +8 penalty on their Astrogation modifier could potentially make it to Alderaan an hour before they left Tatooine.
Is reverse relativity a thing in the SWU?
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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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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:07 am Post subject: |
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IMO, a more equitable approach (which I vaguely recall being mentioned somewhere before) would be a .1 shift in Hyperdrive Multiplier for every 5 (or 10) points of Difficulty shifted on the roll.
So a ship with a x1 Hyperdrive that takes a +5 modifier on Astrogation drops to a x.9.
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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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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:40 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | Of course, it's not a very well thought out rule to begin with. For example, if the jump from Tatooine to Alderaan is only 7 hours, a ship with a x1 hyperdrive that takes a +8 penalty on their Astrogation modifier could potentially make it to Alderaan an hour before they left Tatooine.
Is reverse relativity a thing in the SWU? |
IIRC that was addressed (Don't quote me on where though), as a line i saw saying you can't shave any trip down to being less than 1 hr..
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Whill
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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: Fri Dec 29, 2017 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | My previous reply was regarding the interpretation of RAW. Since the discussion is now why RAW should be changed, please let me know if you would like this moved to House Rules. |
I think it's fine where it is. I don't have any real solution in mind at the moment; I just wanted to see what other people thought about the discrepancy between how we understand hyperspace travel and how the RAW applies it.
I have a nascent concept for basing Astrogation Difficulties on how well traveled the route is, and will probably work what ever solution I arrive at into that. However, I'm also trying to stay focused on wrapping up my various stat projects, so the Astrogation concept is just simmering on the back burner for the moment.
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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: Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | IIRC that was addressed (Don't quote me on where though), as a line i saw saying you can't shave any trip down to being less than 1 hr.. |
I'm reminded of a humorous quote from Mark Twain:"The Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. . . . Its length is only nine hundred and seventy-three miles at present.
Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and “let on” to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past . . . what an opportunity is here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue from! . . .
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. . . . There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” Merely quoting the numbers by which the Mississippi had become shorter leaves out the fact that much of the reduction in length was the result of various engineering projects that straightened many of the Mississippi's wildly off-course meanders. However, at some point, the river can't possibly be made any straighter.
My point is that, at some point, even a simple, linear course traveled at maximum velocity can only go so fast, and can only be shortened so much. Setting a hard limit of 1 hour does a poor job of taking this into account.
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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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Bren
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | In doing the above example your way, you've intended to save 10 hours for the duration formula, but in the end you've saved 20 hours for a x2 drive while your difficulty is still only raised 10. Your slow drive is shouldn't multiply your time saved. |
This. This right here is the the underlying reason why you should multiply drive rating times standard duration first and then subtract hours for cutting corners when trying to fly a shorter/faster route. |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Whill wrote: | | In doing the above example your way, you've intended to save 10 hours for the duration formula, but in the end you've saved 20 hours for a x2 drive while your difficulty is still only raised 10. Your slow drive is shouldn't multiply your time saved. |
This. This right here is the the underlying reason why you should multiply drive rating times standard duration first and then subtract hours for cutting corners when trying to fly a shorter/faster route. |
But the total trip would still take twice as long. Twenty hours sounds quicker than ten hours when taken out of context, but in-context, the overall length of both trips will be shortened by the same ratio. The x1 hyperdrive will still complete the trip twice as fast as the x2 hyperdrive.
Put simply, a hyperspace jump with a 30-hour base distance will be covered in 60 hours by a x2 drive ship, and 30 hours by a x1 drive ship. If, by tweaking the course, the base jump distance is shortened to 20 hours, the x2 ship will only take 40 hours to do the trip, while the x1 ship will do it in 20. So, while the x2 ship will save more time than the x1 ship, the x1 ship will still travel the actual distance in half the time of the x2 ship.
Now, if Astrogation had the effect of tweaking the ship's drive to extract more speed from it, I'd concede the point. But the wording of the RAW defines Astrogation as calculating the course, and the length of the course is measured in travel times, and all the calculation occurs prior to engaging the hyperdrive, which is when the multiplier comes into play, after the route has already been calculated.
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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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jmanski
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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20 hour trip, shave 5 hours off it.
CRM's way: (duration - time saved) x multiplier
x1 = 15 hours
x2 = 30 hours
x3 = 45 hours
My way: (duration x multiplier) - time saved
x1 = 15 hours
x2 = 35 hours
x3 = 55 hours
Here are my thoughts:
The x1 times are the same.
The x2 times will be close.
After that the numbers really skew.
Honestly, I see both sides of the argument, so I default to my creed: whatever works best in your game.
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