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Yora
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 29 Jun 2018
Posts: 191
Location: Germany
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 Posted: Tue May 27, 2025 2:58 pm Post subject: I don't like the official Star Wars galaxy map |
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Today, I have come to the realization that the map of the galaxy (which I believe was first created in 1998) makes no sense and does not serve any actual purpose.
Going from what is seen and said in the movies, the Millenium Falcon takes maybe an hour at most to get from Tatooine to Alderaan. Luke can fly an X-Wing from Tatooine to Dagobah stuck the entire time in a tiny cockpit. And the Rebel Fleet launches its fighters at Sullust before making the jump to Endor, with no concern that the pilots will be negatively impacted from exhaustion and discomfort from being stuck in tiny cockpits for the whole trip.
And in Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine flies from Corruscant to Mustafar when Vader gets burned, and then takes him apparently back to Corruscant before he gets any medical attention. That also feels like it shouldn't take more than an hour.
Going by all of these references, and taking the map at face value, it takes maybe an hour or two to fly across the entire galaxy without need to refuel. And if we accept that this is how hyperspace travel in Star Wars works, then you can jump straight from every single planet to every other single planet. Time is not a meaningful factor. Fuel is not a meaningful factor. And that means the position of any planet in the galaxy is completely irrelevant and influences nothing.
You don't have to plan routes when you don't need to stop to refuel and resupply. There is no point in capturing connected territories of space when you can instantly move your fleet to any planet in the galaxy. You never have to look at the map for any reason. It makes no difference if two systems are right next to each other or on the other side of the galaxy.
And that's just really, really boring and uninteresting. If we accept the map as being real, then it's completely pointless to have a map in the first place. If we want to use a map that makes for relevant decisions by characters and has significance for stories, then it can't be this map.
I have purged it from my personal headcanon. (That mostly ends in 1998 anyway.)
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ThrorII
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Joined: 12 Jul 2019
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2025 1:10 am Post subject: |
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Also consider that "Hyperspace Routes" are a product of the early Expanded Universe novels and WEG D6 sourcebooks. And "Sectors" as political subdivisions of the galaxy did not exist prior to WEG D6.
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FVBonura
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Yora
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 29 Jun 2018
Posts: 191
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2025 3:39 am Post subject: |
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| FVBonura wrote: | | So Yora do you plan to propose an alternate model and possibly asolution to the problem? |
Are you trying to goad me into designing an alternative map that is consistent with portrayals of hyperspace travel from the 80s and 90s? 
I think the best approach is probably really just to ignore the map exists in the first place, and come up with relatively travel distances for the planets that appear in a campaign case by case.
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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: Wed May 28, 2025 1:44 pm Post subject: Re: I don't like the official Star Wars galaxy map |
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| Yora wrote: | | Going from what is seen and said in the movies, the Millenium Falcon takes maybe an hour at most to get from Tatooine to Alderaan. |
This is an assumption on your part. It could easily be several hours, as well, but there’s no sure way to tell. It’s also generally accepted that travel times are much faster along major hyperspace lanes, so having Tatooine be a backwater that just happens to be in close proximity to a major route is a possible explanation.
The OT kept travel times sufficiently vague as to justify longer travel times (which also helps justify a successful Rebellion, as it makes it a lot harder for the Empire to rapidly concentrate forces to combat them. Recall Mon Mothma’s quote from RotJ: “With the Imperial Fleet spread throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage us…” Having military forces dispersed means nothing if they can be reconstituted in a matter of hours.
| Quote: | | Luke can fly an X-Wing from Tatooine to Dagobah stuck the entire time in a tiny cockpit. |
It’s long been established that Jedi and Sith can hibernate to make long-distance trips easier. This also helps explain some of the long-distance trips made in the prequels.
| Quote: | | And the Rebel Fleet launches its fighters at Sullust before making the jump to Endor, with no concern that the pilots will be negatively impacted from exhaustion and discomfort from being stuck in tiny cockpits for the whole trip. |
Alternately, the fleet jumped to a rendezvous point somewhere near Endor, launched their fighters, then made a short jump the rest of the way in, leaving their fleet train behind, but close enough to be able to respond rapidly after the battle.
| Quote: | | And in Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine flies from Corruscant to Mustafar when Vader gets burned, and then takes him apparently back to Corruscant before he gets any medical attention. That also feels like it shouldn't take more than an hour. |
This is one of the harder ones to justify, but gets easier if you assume that Palpatine sensed Vader was in danger long before Padme and Obi-wan got to Mustafar (not implausible for someone like Palpatine), and that his personal shuttle had onboard medical support systems (the finest available) in case of emergency,
| Quote: | | Going by all of these references, and taking the map at face value, it takes maybe an hour or two to fly across the entire galaxy without need to refuel. |
The working theory is that the hyperspace travel network is somewhat analogous to a country’s road map. You have major highways where you can travel at relatively high speeds, but they don’t go everywhere, so you also have lesser (slower) highways and such down to the stellar equivalent of an unpaved country road. Travel times increase in inverse proportion to how heavily traveled the route is.
Also worth noting that Disney has been awful in this regard by making travel times incredibly short, which ultimately undermines the verisimilitude of the setting.
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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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FVBonura
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 9:29 am Post subject: |
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| Yora wrote: | | Are you trying to goad me into designing an alternative map that is consistent with portrayals of hyperspace travel from the 80s and 90s? |
No.
I myself, try to make it a point that if I find a mistake, I point it out and usually have a solution in mind or proposed to correct it. I was curious as to how you would correct the problem.
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Yora
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 29 Jun 2018
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 11:05 am Post subject: |
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My personal preference is to approach running Star Wars campaigns and writing stories under the assumption that there is no map.
Because Star Wars stories never see situations in which characters have a time limit to reach a planet, that affects their decisions how they are going to get there.
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FVBonura
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 11:58 am Post subject: |
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I lament that WEG did not start a map in 1987. Most RPGs have a world map for various settings. Star Wars needed a map for GMs who utilize such a degree of detail and players who would use such a map for strategic actions.
Alas...
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ThrorII
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| Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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One way of doing it is to ignore Sectors and Hyperspace lanes, but still use the "official" SW Galaxy map (from the Essentials Atlas and later FFG). Just count "grids" for distances and factor in the x2,x1, or x0.5 hyperdrive modifiers.
For example: treat every grid-square as "1 hour" of hyperspace travel at x1. Tatooine to Alderaan is 6 grid-squares, so 6-hours at x1, or 3-hours at x.5 (Millennium Falcon's speed).
Alternately, you could speed up or slow down the per-grid base speed as you see fit for your Star Wars universe.
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pakman
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2025 10:17 am Post subject: |
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This horse has been beat - a lot.
TLDR: What we see in the movies does not make sense because hyperspace works at the speed of plot.
This is fine for a set narrative, but not for establishing structure for an interactive game.
Don't over think it - it really is that simple. You have to remember lucas was a storyteller first and foremost.
Now - most gamers want more than just a hand wave on this topic - and for those that do - there are tons of maps and articles out there on hyperspace travel (like...a lot) which dissect many points in various sources to try and build something useful for gamers, that is at least mostly compatible with various narrative sources.
Don't focus on movie logic consistency - just decide how much logic you want in your game.
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FVBonura
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| Posted: Fri May 30, 2025 11:26 am Post subject: |
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I agree, be it a TTRPG or a video game. We are playing a game and most games have a game board or something that serves as an equivalent. The game board be it an abstract grid on carboard, a placemat for cards or a world/galaxy map for navigation, it is a tool for maintaining consistency, position, and progress in the game format. Our game is no different.
The map is a tool, and not all artisans choose to use it.
It was a tool asked for by the fans as evidenced by letters written to the Star Wars Adventure Journal. Voyages SF an unofficial RPG magazine tried to help with galactic navigation back in First Edition days (c. 1990) because the demand for a map was so great. I recall many galactic mapping efforts back in the 90's on the juvenile internet.
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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 May 30, 2025 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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The article in question…
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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.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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FVBonura
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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 May 30, 2025 6:37 pm Post subject: |
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| FVBonura wrote: | | I award a character point to CRMcNeill. That publication is insanely rare. |
I just did a Google search and found it on Scribd. You have to have an account to download the pdf, but saving the pages as jpg’s is free.
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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.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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