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Some Thoughts on Astrogation
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 6:05 pm    Post subject: Some Thoughts on Astrogation Reply with quote

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

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jmanski
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 6:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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

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".
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jmanski wrote:
Sounds like the "allow windows to report errors to better your experience" to me.... Wink

Bren raised a similar objection in a different topic, and it's something I took into account. Essentially, no group of PCs in their right mind is going to be contributing into this system, but that won't stop them from making use of it. Possible options include:
    -Using out-of-the-way ports for restocking, where fewer questions are asked, and port officials may be willing to look the other way for the right price.

    -Independent agencies will have their own navigation databases, likely derived from BoSS, but kept separate for security reasons. The Empire has its Sector Fleet Navigation branch, the Alliance has Alliance MasterNav, various corporations will have their own private routes, and so on. The Empire and private corporations may have arrangements with BoSS to give them partial route data scrubbed for sensitive information.

    -The Alliance wouldn't have direct access to official data, but the data would be available for a price. In fact, it could be as simple as having a simple tramp freighter, operating completely aboveboard and legal, who just happens to rendezvous every now and then with an Alliance scout ship to share current nav data, which is then used to update Alliance MasterNav.


Quote:
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".

As a truck driver, it's my go-to metaphor as well. What I've found is that the off-interstate routes are generally only faster if the interstate is blocked for some reason. In the SWU, the only thing that can really block up a major hyperspace route would be an Imperial Interdiction. Obviously, that's something most PCs would prefer to avoid, but that doesn't really make the alternate route faster.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Bren raised a similar objection in a different topic, and it's something I took into account.
I noticed that. Very Happy

CRMcNeill wrote:
jmanski wrote:
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".
As a truck driver, it's my go-to metaphor as well. What I've found is that the off-interstate routes are generally only faster if the interstate is blocked for some reason. In the SWU, the only thing that can really block up a major hyperspace route would be an Imperial Interdiction. Obviously, that's something most PCs would prefer to avoid, but that doesn't really make the alternate route faster.
I've been driving to Baltimore a lot lately and both Google and my GPS often route me off the highway and onto county roads and even city streets for part of the route. Usually this is due to a combination of traffic congestion and road construction. While I don't see construction translating directly to hyperspace lanes or routes, there might be nebular clouds, pulsars, or ion storms that have a similar temporary or periodic effect of increasing the time for travel or (more likely) raising the difficulty number.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 4:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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).
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 3:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 2:35 am    Post subject: Re: Some Thoughts on Astrogation Reply with quote

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

CRMcNeill wrote:
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.

In Legends and even Canon, BoSS is a private organization with a service that the Republic (and the Empire) used. I like that idea, so I see BoSS as making their money by way of service fees the governments pay. The way I see it, BoSS wouldn't really be in the position to offer discounts on port and restocking fees to starship captains. That money doesn't go through their hands.

I think the benefit starship captains would receive from sharing their ship's navigational data to BoSS would be to receive the navicomputer updates collected by BoSS from all the other ships. So it is a two-way trade, or nothing. If you want to have the most up-to-date navigational data in your navicomputer, every so often you'll plug in to BoSS while at port to get the updates. The only way to get the updates is to fork over your ship's data in the process. So a ship that hasn't been updating with BoSS would be missing updates but could also have better data for some journeys that haven't been shared with Boss. I see a couple way of circumventing sharing data for specific hyperspace trips and maybe even planets you may want to keep secret from BoSS.

One way is to delete the specific data of a hyperspace journey before plugging into BoSS. If you don't want to permanently lose your data because you may need it again, you can move it into temporary storage like an astromech droid, and the data could even be restored back to the navicomputer later, after the BoSS update.

A perhaps more difficult way would be to get updated specific hyperspace journeys data or even select BoSS updates directly from another more updated navicomputer instead of plugging directly into BoSS. A starship might even have two navicomputers, the normal one that links with BoSS at ports and another hidden one that is used for the trips they don't want to share with BoSS - The navicomputer that gets the updates transfer them to the underground navicomputer. Or Rebels or other underground groups may even have ships that only fly normal courses and get all the BoSS updates, and then that data is downloaded into navicomputers hidden at certain spaceports that other ships in the group can tap into to get the updates from instead of BoSS directly. Maybe these hidden port navicomputers can even be third party so a ship captain could go through the black market to gain access.

An extremely more difficult way would be to perform a one-way slice into BoSS to only get info without giving.

The other thing to consider is, with BoSS being a private organization they may not really care that you are making uncommon hyperspace journeys to and from places that aren't knows to have legitimate reasons for traveling there. BoSS is getting paid by the Empire and can stay neutral. However it would still be a good idea for Rebels and criminals to circumvent the BoSS data sharing process because the Empire has the same access everyone else does to all the data within BoSS. I can imagine Imperials analyzing BoSS data to attempt to locate secret Rebel or criminal bases.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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?
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 11:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 11:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
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.


I was picturing, basically, a transceiver that would communicate with BoSS, and get a route sent to the hyperdrive. So, instead of paying for a navicomputer, you paid for a cord to connect your radio to your navigation system.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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...
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Whill
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 23, 2020 8:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
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.

Sure, those are good possibilities too.
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