Talk:Prototype "Simplified" FTL Piloting and Astrogation Rules

--Dieter the Bold (talk) 00:14, 18 November 2016 (CST) I really like the new rules! The numbers, modifiers and math make much more mechanical and narrative sense, and failures have real consequences. I very much approve! Some questions after the initial reading:

Astrogation TN: When you say that the Astrogater subtracts their skill level from the initial TN, do you mean their die type, or the ranks in the skill?

--Melonberg (talk) 18:42, 18 November 2016 (CST)That would be their rank in the skill. So a person with 1 rank (skill level 0) would subtract 1 from the TN.

Astrogation mods: Are the penalties for larger ships due to their decreased maneuverability, or are larger ships more subject to influence in tachyon hyperspace?

--Melonberg (talk) 18:42, 18 November 2016 (CST)The latter. I am throwing out this notion that mass of a vessel in hyperspace reacts in a sort of exaggerated manner to real-space gravitational anomalies. To reflect that, I posit that an astrogator may have to be more careful in their calculations when plotting a course for a larger vessel, as they would be impacted far more intensely by gravity wells in tachyon space.

Emergence deviations: Is the scatter plot solely on the Z-axis to avoid scattering into the jump envelope?

--Melonberg (talk) 18:42, 18 November 2016 (CST)For a small-scale deviation, the pilot either dropped out of FTL too early, or too late, or miscalculated one of the virtual beacons and veered slightly off course, or some combination of those mistakes. A proper plot to a system would allow for the gravity well to sort of assist in pulling the ship out of FTL in the proper place (at the edge of the jump envelope), and the FTL drives will normally have failsafes that will not kick in if you get too close to a gravity well and drop the vessel out of hyperspace. Because space is so huge and empty and because we are usually only concerned with a few objects at a time within it, it is easy to use the common Sci-Fi trope where all spaceships have the same "up." So, in this case, while the emergence deviation could land the ship short of the target, overshoot it, veer to port, starboard or high or low, what really matters (for the most part) is how far away from the target you are. If it makes a difference in particular situations, we can figure out a way to simulated a 3D scatter, I'm sure.

Signature Masking: Are the mods solely for when entering hyperspace to avoid being tailed, or do they also apply to escaping notice upon emerging as well? If not, what would be the rules for masking the ship's emergence? Narrowing the jump window? Is that related to a ship's signature?

--Melonberg (talk) 18:42, 18 November 2016 (CST)I don't think we've fully fleshed out the notion of "stealth" per se. I think we have been operating on the premise that certain events (like entering or leaving FTL) will leave unmistakable evidence, just like a sub pinging active sonar will tell every vessel within range exactly where it is. With the jump masking, however, Jason has introduced the notion of being able to spoof sensors so that, while they can tell when you're leaving, but they may not be able to trace where you're going. I threw in the bit about emergence signatures, because the FTL signature of a vessel will appear several minutes before the ship drops out of hyperspace, and people on the target end ought to be able to tell where that signature came from. For practical purposes, however, I think it is more likely to be useful to mask your jump signature to prevent from being followed rather than prevent people from knowing where you came from. We may not want to separate the different types of masking, also, and one modifier might cover both. That is definitely open to discussion. The mod for narrowing the jump window is solely to try and minimize the "tachyon drift," and emerge from FTL very close to a target point, though maybe a narrow jump window might be harder to detect with deep-space sensors...might be an interesting point for discussion.

--Jason (talk) 21:13, 18 November 2016 (CST)Some suggestions for lost in space: If either check critically fails and the other fails at all. If both critically fail. If the navigator fails and the pilot is forced to add a maintenance counter to the jump drive.

--Melonberg (talk) 18:37, 19 November 2016 (CST)I can agree with those permutations. It makes the "lost in space" situation a real possibility, but not so common as to run the game, or potentially infrequent that it never comes up in a campaign (or so I would imagine).