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Future Jump Calculations
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As I mentioned, Michael Stackpole's novel, X-Wing Rogue Squadron, touches on exactly what we're talking about here. It's definitely worth a read (and, so far, it's a good Star Wars yarn).

According to that book, the nav computer will take in data from sensors and/or other sources, work up a route to your destination, making all of those complex calculations, and then spit it out for you to use.

In the game, what is spit out from the nav comp has a Difficulty 15 Astrogation roll associated with it. Difficulty 15 at the base time provided by the Ref. You guys all know this.

Also in the game, the Difficulty can be lowered by 1 point per hour added to the trip.

Thus, a nav computer computes a route that comes with some risk, and it takes a good navigator to look at and fine tune the trip to get that risk down--down to 100% chance of success if 14 hours are added to the base time.

And, anybody can do this, as there is no roll in the game to increase time and decrease difficulty. You don't even need the Astrogation skill improved when all you have to do is play with the data, make routes slightly different, and longer. If you've got 3D MEC attribute, then you can go anywhere you want as long as you have a set of coordinates, when the base time is increased by 12 hours (as the minimum roll on 3D is 3)--or by 14 hours as the minimum roll is 1 when using the Wild Die.

The way Stackpole described it in the X-Wing book reminded me of using Google Maps to plan a car trip. You enter starting point and destination, and a map pops up showing you a suggested route.

You look at the route, and you know that there is a short cut on part of the route where you can get off the freeway, take a highway, then get back on the freeway, and miss a lot of traffic, cutting 10 minutes off your trip.

You can physically use your mouse pointer and drag the route to another freeway or road, and watch the base time change.

In the X-Wing book, Stackpole's description wasn't too far off from this. The book says that the reason some routes to the same destination are shorter or longer is the plot close to a gravity well. The nav computer will steer the path well clear of any gravity well in the plot, keeping the ship away from the galactic plane as much as possible.

The Astrogater looks at the route and decides to cut corner. He can tighten up a route around a star here, and clip a planet closer there, all based on his experience and knowledge in Astrogation.

This book says that this is why ships with more powerful Hyperdrives are quicker. (The WEG Hyperdrive multiplier.). A ship with a more powerful hyperdrive has the power to clip a hyper route close to a gravitational mass shadow where a slower ship would not have the power to escape the gravity well. In essence, faster ships flight straighter flight paths through hyperspace.
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

GRAVITY WELLS AND HYPERSPACE JUMPS

Another thing that Stackpole's book mentioned that it was impossible for ships to enter space from a gravity well--but that distance where the ship gets stuck varies according to the power of the hyperdrive.

I used to think that there were two examples of this "rule" being broken by the new films, but really, it is only the U-Wing in Rogue One entering from close to the surface of Jedah. Han Solo's trip to Star Killer Base is an exit--so, what he did was find a way to delay exit from hyperspace for a time that is not normally possible (inside the planetary shield).

I still struggle a bit with how to reconcile Cassian Andor's jump to hyperspeed from that close to a world's surface. I know a Force Point has to be involved.





HYPERSPACE AND COMMUNICATIONS

Also....about the discussion on communications from hyperspace: the X-Wing novel mentions that it is possible to communicate with other vessels while in hyperspace.

In the scene that I'm reading (top of page 134, if you have the novel), Corran Horn and his R2 astromech, Whistler, are in hyperspace when the droid starts hooting and reveals to Corran that there is a hyperspace shadow in their path--where one should not be.

Corran realizes that it must be an Interdictor, but it's too late. The safeties kick in, and Corran's X-Wing is pushed out of hyperspace by the gravity mass.

Corran's thought is to warn the others in the squadron with a broadcast, but he, and the rest of the squadron, are popped into normal space too fast for any communication to take place.





MERCHANT DATA

Another interesting topic that the X-Wing book brings up is merchant data. Most nav computers use merchant data that gives a system a wider berth for many reason. Maybe it is posted that there are known pirates and smugglers working in that system. A merchant ship would want to fly clear of these systems, not taking any chance of hitting a mass shadow and being knocked into normal space right in the middle of them.

Military vessels can often cut some fat off of merchant data routes for reasons like this. Another example is that maybe the star system is populated by xenophobes, or is dangerous for some other reason.
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
I still struggle a bit with how to reconcile Cassian Andor's jump to hyperspeed from that close to a world's surface. I know a Force Point has to be involved.




Now, I may change my mind on this, especially if I start seeing a lot of Star Wars stories where it is now possible to make the jump to Hyperspace from a gravity well. But, I'm thinking that what we saw in Rogue One was a miracle. It was the Force acting on the heroes. The Force was with them.

In game terms, this uses (from the 1E Core Rulebook) sections from Chapter One of the Adventure Section: Script Immunity, Avoiding Anticlimax, When to Fudge, When Can They Fail. And, from Chapter One of the Gamemaster Section: Making the Rules Serve The Plot.

What I think happened, in game terms, is that the GM set up this cool scene where this new, ultimate weapon was tested right in front of the PCs. Then, the GM set up this desperate move to get off the planet before the shock wave took them out.

The GM never had any intention of killing all of the player character. This is Star Wars! He wanted something BIG and EXCITING to happen.

So, when it looked like the shock wave would take out the U-Wing, the GM said to the players, "Blow a Force Point."

And, they did.

Fill in mumbo jumbo why it worked. Maybe the destruction of the city threw the gravitational flux into disarray just enough to allow the U-Wing to jump. Maybe it's just that the Force was with them, and they pulled off the impossible.

The only thing that is a little hard for me to swallow is that K2 seems to think it is possible to jump from a gravity well--as he is the one to start the calculations. And, droids don't know anything about the Force.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
But that won't apply to every route.
The route usually isn't the issue. Not wanting to be traced, followed, or predicted would be.

Quote:
Plus, in universe, BoSS is largely autonomous, as their control over nav services gives them a lot of pull, such that the Empire doesn't consider it to be worth the trouble to take it over.
I can't see extra-legal agents ever trusting BoSS. As far as any nominally legal corporation I can't see them trusting that BoSS can't be bribed, hacked, or infiltrated. And they may not want their competitors getting their hands on details about their ship movements.

Quote:
And anonymous, generic routes could simply be loaded on a datachip and transferred into the ship's nav computer (or manually entered, if one is worried about malware).
This makes no sense to me. Why would BoSS accept anonymous requests? These are the guys who monitor ship IDs. I can't see them being into giving or receiving anonymous info. In addition, how can one plot a generic route? The route has to go at a specific time from a specific point A to a specific point B. Leave out A or B and there is no way to plot a route. Leave out a specific time and you have no way to locate where points A or B are since both are moving with respect to each other and every other point in the galaxy.

Quote:
Obviously, there will be some routes you want to keep secret, but this won't always apply.
While there will be some routes that would be kept secret--here I am thinking of hidden bases for Rebels, pirates, and smugglers; secret research facilities for corporations and the military; and hidden systems for extremely valuable mining or natural resource claims--there will be far more people who want to keep their movements secret.
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Bren
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb's comparison to Google Maps and its ability to drag the route make a change is a good one. Google also allows choices for Highway/Non-Highway, No Tolls, etc. The SatNav in my wife's car routinely provides three route choices: fastest, shortest, and scenic from which one can select.

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
Also in the game, the Difficulty can be lowered by 1 point per hour added to the trip.
Picky point, but the 1E rules say days not hours. From page 59:
Quote:
Decrease the difficulty number by one for every extra day taken.
The Gamemaster’s Guide and the Second Edition rules changed this to a decrease of 1 for every extra hour taken, which seems more reasonable in some cases - though not if the route is already several days in duration.
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 12:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bren wrote:
Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
Also in the game, the Difficulty can be lowered by 1 point per hour added to the trip.
Picky point, but the 1E rules say days not hours. From page 59:
Quote:
Decrease the difficulty number by one for every extra day taken.
The Gamemaster’s Guide and the Second Edition rules changed this to a decrease of 1 for every extra hour taken, which seems more reasonable in some cases - though not if the route is already several days in duration.


Another picky point: The errata corrects the 1E rulebook. It was always supposed to be hours, not days.

That error is mentioned on page 17 of the Rules Companion.
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Wajeb Deb Kaadeb
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
I still struggle a bit with how to reconcile Cassian Andor's jump to hyperspeed from that close to a world's surface. I know a Force Point has to be involved.




Now, I may change my mind on this, especially if I start seeing a lot of Star Wars stories where it is now possible to make the jump to Hyperspace from a gravity well. But, I'm thinking that what we saw in Rogue One was a miracle. It was the Force acting on the heroes. The Force was with them.

In game terms, this uses (from the 1E Core Rulebook) sections from Chapter One of the Adventure Section: Script Immunity, Avoiding Anticlimax, When to Fudge, When Can They Fail. And, from Chapter One of the Gamemaster Section: Making the Rules Serve The Plot.

What I think happened, in game terms, is that the GM set up this cool scene where this new, ultimate weapon was tested right in front of the PCs. Then, the GM set up this desperate move to get off the planet before the shock wave took them out.

The GM never had any intention of killing all of the player character. This is Star Wars! He wanted something BIG and EXCITING to happen.

So, when it looked like the shock wave would take out the U-Wing, the GM said to the players, "Blow a Force Point."

And, they did.

Fill in mumbo jumbo why it worked. Maybe the destruction of the city threw the gravitational flux into disarray just enough to allow the U-Wing to jump. Maybe it's just that the Force was with them, and they pulled off the impossible.

The only thing that is a little hard for me to swallow is that K2 seems to think it is possible to jump from a gravity well--as he is the one to start the calculations. And, droids don't know anything about the Force.



Here's another thought...

What if Cassian is a Force user but doesn't know it? Luke didn't know that the Force flowed strongly through him until Obi-wan told him about the Force. Rey doesn't know that she's a Force user before the awakening that we see in TFA.

How many people are like that out there? People who are strong in the Force but just don't know it. People who are just "lucky" or seem "skilled" or "athletic" or a "natural pilot" and such?

Rey sure does a hell of a job with the Falcon without ever leaving the planet before.

What if Cassian Andor is strong in the Force? It sure would have helped him be a heck of an intelligence officer.

If this is true, then Cassian could have the Sense skill and not realize when he's using it. If he's got Sense 3D, or Sense 2D (and a Force Point is used), then Cassian could have pulled off that jump from Jedah by using Instinctive Astrogation.

It certainly was a last ditch, instinctive action he made, taking over the Astrogation job from K2.

Remember, what Instinctive Astrogation does is lower the difficulty number. The impossible becomes possible.

Just an idea.
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll be honest: after my 100-level astronomy class, I'm reasonably convinced that astronomy is complete hogwash based on either false premises or unfounded assumptions at it most fundamental levels. I won't go into why, but at this point, the notion of hyperspace is one that I relegate to the sci-fi realm, and for my purposes, "hyperspace" is "verisimilitude-ally" a very fast trip through real space, which is why the nave computer is needed, to avoid "verisimilitudal" collisions.

And with that, I'm out. Razz

Zarn wrote:
I partially disagree with that (of course I do).

Basically, when you're travelling in hyperspace, you're travelling in time. As amply demonstrated by the Harbinger. In order to do so safely, you need to simulate where things were and will be, in addition to where things are. This, in my opinion, tends to devolve to a variation over an n-body problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-body_problem
I
Throw in some extra hyperspace-related twirls and eddies, and you're deep into np-complete computational territory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-completeness

Which means that if you're doing 'safe' loop-de-loops deep in interstellar space, there should be little other than hardware failure that will mess you up. Rogue planetoids and (large) Kuiper belt or Oort cloud style objects should be rare enough that they're highly unlikely to trip the mass sensor.

If you're pushing a tighter trajectory, shaving a few hours here and there from your journey, or trying to do longer jumps without stopping to reorient ... it's much harder. Numerical methods will get you only so far.

Also, there's some evidence for pretty dense stellar clusters in Star Wars, such as Kuat. When you're using a couple of neighboring systems as staging areas for jumps into the system on very specific approach vectors, there's something going on because you have a way too big volume to defend if you're trying to build defenses there - which means that there's likely natural obstacles that remove fairly large swathes of possible approach volume.

Then, there's also some evidence that there may be 'weather' in hyperspace - I believe that hyperspace was shut down for travel a couple of times in the old EU, probably in the Kathol Rift or something, although the exact reference eludes me.
Razz Razz
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 3:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wajeb Deb Kaadeb wrote:
Here's another thought...

What if Cassian is a Force user but doesn't know it? Luke didn't know that the Force flowed strongly through him until Obi-wan told him about the Force. Rey doesn't know that she's a Force user before the awakening that we see in TFA.

How many people are like that out there? People who are strong in the Force but just don't know it. People who are just "lucky" or seem "skilled" or "athletic" or a "natural pilot" and such?

Rey sure does a hell of a job with the Falcon without ever leaving the planet before.

What if Cassian Andor is strong in the Force? It sure would have helped him be a heck of an intelligence officer.

If this is true, then Cassian could have the Sense skill and not realize when he's using it. If he's got Sense 3D, or Sense 2D (and a Force Point is used), then Cassian could have pulled off that jump from Jedah by using Instinctive Astrogation.

It certainly was a last ditch, instinctive action he made, taking over the Astrogation job from K2.

Remember, what Instinctive Astrogation does is lower the difficulty number. The impossible becomes possible.

Just an idea.


Hell, Han Solo has so many lucky occurrences, he seems like a latent Force-sensitive as well. He can successfully navigate an asteroid field at odds of 3,720 to 1, and on top of that, he managed to approach a planet at lightspeed without crashing. Cassian looks like a Force neophyte compared to Han Solo.
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, agreed, Sutehp.

Cassian is no Force user. "Rule of Cool" surely applied and Cassian spent a Force Point to make a dramatic getaway. Similarly, Han and his already high-ranking piloting and astrogation stats, rolled well and likely spent a Force Point navigating that asteroid field in ESB, as well as decades later in making both crazy jumps in TFA (out of the cargo bay and onto Starkiller Base).
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 1:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

More they had plot-shielditus cause that's how the writer made those scenes..
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 2:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
More they had plot-shielditus cause that's how the writer made those scenes..


Ah yes, Plot Armor. It saved Han Solo many times...until he tried to have a heart-to-heart with his son, then he got impaled with a lightsaber for his trouble.

Funny thing about that, when my Dad and I saw TFA in the theatre, he saw that last gesture Han made by touching Kylo Ren's cheek and thought it rang false. Dad told me as we were leaving the theatre that if I ever killed him with a lightsaber, instead of making any last loving gestures, he'd continue to argue with me until his last breath. Even though the likelyhood of murdering my own father with a lightsaber is so infinitesimally remote, I promised him I'd watch my step. Did I mention that he's a lawyer too? Laughing 8)
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 9:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sutehp wrote:
garhkal wrote:
More they had plot-shielditus cause that's how the writer made those scenes..


Ah yes, Plot Armor. It saved Han Solo many times...until he tried to have a heart-to-heart with his son, then he got impaled with a lightsaber for his trouble.


People love to talk about Plot Armor, but seldom about the Plot Grenade.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 11:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sutehp wrote:
Funny thing about that, when my Dad and I saw TFA in the theatre, he saw that last gesture Han made by touching Kylo Ren's cheek and thought it rang false. Dad told me as we were leaving the theatre that if I ever killed him with a lightsaber, instead of making any last loving gestures, he'd continue to argue with me until his last breath.

Interesting. The loving gesture does make more sense if Han activated the lightsaber to sacrifice himself to save his son from the dark stain of patricide.
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Sutehp
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 10, 2017 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Interesting. The loving gesture does make more sense if Han activated the lightsaber to sacrifice himself to save his son from the dark stain of patricide.


That idea is true insofar as it goes, but I don't think that's what happened. That look of shock and surprise on Han's face when he was impaled more than suggests that he didn't know it was coming. He might not have been surprised enough to cry out like Rey and Chewbacca did (and Finn didn't make a sound but the look of shock on his face was palpable enough), but there's no doubt in my mind that Han, even as savvy as he was, didn't see that coming.

It's like they say: It's only the ones you love and trust who can hurt you the most.

MrNexx wrote:
People love to talk about Plot Armor, but seldom about the Plot Grenade.


Is the Plot Grenade related at all to the Holy Hand grenade from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Mr. Green
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