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D6 Rules...What Have The New Films Changed?
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cheshire
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We know that gravity affects light and changes its tragectory. We also know that NASA has used planetary mass for a velocity catapult.

What happens if you go without safeties on, and assuming you don't die? You could play pinball on gravity wells changing your trajectory and rocketing you out into the middle of nowhere. I can imagine it would be like finding yourself in the middle of the Atlantic on a rowboat.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 11:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When WEG re-did the stats for how gravity wells function (see Wanted by Cracken), they gave them, essentially, a blast radius effect, where the closer the targeted ship got to the center of the gravity well, the harder it was to jump to hyperspace.

One possibility that occured to me - based on how this combined with the results on the Hyperdrive Mishap chart - is that gravity could have the effect of throwing a ship off course, which even if it happens by just a tiny amount at the beginning of a jump can throw a ship badly off course before the end of it. That could be an initial reason as to why hyperdrives were equipped with safety cut-outs in the first place (in addition to crash avoidance during the jump); ships would need to be well clear of a gravity well for gravity levels to be sufficiently low as to not throw the ship off course.

Of course, in the event of a blind jump, there isn't really a set course to be thrown off of, since the goal is just to GTF away from wherever you are blind-jumping from as quickly as possible.
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cheshire
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 12:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And there are gravitational forces that could probably just tear a ship apart. Getting too close to a star might throw you wildly off course, but the mass shadow in Hypserpace might just crush the ship on the way through if you went dead center.

It's probably less a problem if you blind jumped a short distance, since space is vast and there isn't much out there. But the more light years you go, the more likely it is that you'll hit something terrible that would kill you.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I knew I recalled this discussion from somewhere...
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Darklighter79 wrote:
Yes. But how many players are good citizens, obeying the laws? My guess is that team outlaw tech first modification will be single-switch for easy turn on/off the safety protocols. Very Happy

WEG never discussed the possibility of a blind jump, but it must be presumed that the potential consequences are pretty severe. Several of the results on the Hyperdrive Mishap table mention near collisions that cause the hyperdrive to cut out early, so what would happen if the cut-out wasn't able to cut out?
.


Collision with grav field, ship destroyed... IMO that's what the possible consequence would be..
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Darklighter79
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 4:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:

Collision with grav field, ship destroyed... IMO that's what the possible consequence would be..


Well, if this was true, Rouge 1 and Millenium Falcon should have been destroyed for jumping/exiting hyperspace within gravity field (Jedha, Starkiller base, gravity field of a hangar).

And from what we see in movies: the problem is not the gravity field - solid matter is - and its mass shadow generated in hyperspace.

As long as ship does not try to pass through the mass shadow, it's safe.

By the way: "Contact with an object’s hyperspace shadow results in the instant destruction of the ship. (The object in realspace remains undisturbed.)" - page 122 REUP
So the scene with Holdo maneuver should be interpreted as a collision during acceleration but before entering hyperspace, right?
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 4:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Darklighter79 wrote:
garhkal wrote:

Collision with grav field, ship destroyed... IMO that's what the possible consequence would be..


Well, if this was true, Rouge 1 and Millenium Falcon should have been destroyed for jumping/exiting hyperspace within gravity field (Jedha, Starkiller base, gravity field of a hangar).

And from what we see in movies: the problem is not the gravity field - solid matter is - and its mass shadow generated in hyperspace.

As long as ship does not try to pass through the mass shadow, it's safe.

Agreed. The problem isn't the gravity well directly; gravity wells just signal the presence of something with a mass shadow, and that's what a ship actually collides with.

Quote:
By the way: "Contact with an object’s hyperspace shadow results in the instant destruction of the ship. (The object in realspace remains undisturbed.)" - page 122 REUP

So the scene with Holdo maneuver should be interpreted as a collision during acceleration but before entering hyperspace, right?

That doesn't match with the EU. There is at least one instance of a battlecruiser (circa the Clone Wars) colliding with a planet while in hyperspace, causing catastrophic natural disasters (although it was vague as to whether or not the planet itself blew up Death Star-style). The Holdo Maneuver was more likely a mutual mass shadow collision, with the Raddus' real-space mass shadow colliding with the Supremacy at several hundred times the speed of light
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cheshire
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 4:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Darklighter79 wrote:
By the way: "Contact with an object’s hyperspace shadow results in the instant destruction of the ship. (The object in realspace remains undisturbed.)" - page 122 REUP

So the scene with Holdo maneuver should be interpreted as a collision during acceleration but before entering hyperspace, right?

The Holdo Maneuver was more likely a mutual mass shadow collision, with the Raddus' real-space mass shadow colliding with the Supremacy at several hundred times the speed of light


I think that it's pretty safe to say that what is "most likely" and "should be interpreted" is going to vary quite a bit from user to user. I expect reasonable people will disagree.

Unreasonable people will probably bellow red-faced and brandish cudgels.
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Last edited by cheshire on Mon May 28, 2018 4:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 4:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's what I proposed in the link above...

The more I think about this, I think there need to be separate rules for blind jumps. Pretty much all the penalties and mishaps for normal jumps are the result of failed calculations where the ship goes off course. But in the case of an emergency blind jump, there are no calculations to screw up. I'm thinking a completely separate result chart, drawing from the Astrogation Mishap Table:
    -On most ships, the hyperdrive cut-out cannot be disabled without an Easy Repair Roll and 15 minutes. However, some ships (smuggling vessels and special missions craft) are equipped with an in-cockpit control that allows them to deactivate the cut-out as a Free Action. Naturally, such cut-outs are highly illegal, and are generally concealed as some other, nondescript ship's function in order to deceive inspections and customs agents.

    -Just spitballing some numbers, I'd say that a blind jump has a duration of 2D minutes, placing the ship at a random location in deep space. Calculating a new jump from that location adds +2D to Astrogation Difficulty.

    -Because of the disabled hyperspace cut-out, any Blind Jump result chart would have to include a very real chance of the ship colliding with a large object at hyperspace velocities, resulting in the instant destruction of the ship and all aboard. At a minimum, it would need to be a 1-in-6 chance on a 2D, so either as the 7 result, or as 2-4 or 10-12. Possibly more. Making it the result of a 2-5 or 9-12 increases the possibility very nearly to 1-in-3 (5 to 18). It needs to be high enough that PCs might chance it, but the first time they suffer a TPK will make them rethink it next time...

    -In addition, because a blind jump is linear and of short duration, it can be tracked and duplicated at Very Easy Difficulty by a pursuing ship.

    -In fact, I think I may make the TPK result on the upper end of the scale, with a modifier based on how long the ship stays in hyperspace on the blind jump. Like, for every extra 10 minutes, increase the Difficulty of being tracked and pursued, but also shift +1 up the result chart, toward TPK range.

Obviously, it needs some work, but I think the core idea is good.
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In fact, here:
    Blind Hyperspace Jumps
    Modifying Your Ship
    For obvious reasons, deactivating your ship's hyperdrive safety cut-out is a Very Bad Idea; it's called a Safety Cut-Out for good reason. However, some ships (generally those involved in illicit or covert activities) occasionally find themselves in situations where risking likely death by making a blind hyperdrive jump is preferable to the alternative.

    On the vast majority of ships, the hyperdrive cut-out is hard-wired into the system, and can not be easily deactivated (to do so requires a Difficult Repair roll that takes 15 minutes). However, some ships (smuggling vessels and intel special missions craft in particular) are equipped with a discrete control switch that allows the ship's crew to deactivate the cut-out as a Free Action. Naturally, such switches are highly illegal, and are usually disguised as some other, nondescript ship's function in order to deceive inspections and customs agents. Installing the switch and mechanism requires a Very Difficult Repair roll and takes 4 hours.

    The Jump
    With the safety cut-out deactivated, the ship will have no advance warning of mass shadows in its path, and any collision will be fatal. Whereas most of the results on the standard Hyperdrive Mishap table have to do with the ship being off course due to bad course calculations, in the case of a blind jump, there is no course to miscalculate, as the ship has simply jumped a linear course in whatever direction it happened to be pointed when the hyperdrive engaged. As such, it's only a matter of time before the ship collides with something.

    Making a blind jump requires an Easy Piloting roll. On a successful jump, roll 2D. If the result is 10 or less, the ship emerges from hyperspace at a random location 2D minutes away from the jump's starting point. On a roll of 11 or 12, the ship collides with a mass shadow and is obliterated, with everyone onboard killed instantly.

    On a successful jump, the ship must re-engage its hyperdrive cut-out and calculate a new jump from its current location (+2D to Astrogation Difficulty)

    Complications
    Because the jump is linear and of short duration, it can be tracked and duplicated at Easy Difficulty by a pursuing craft. The characters may wish to stay in hyperspace longer in an attempt to throw off any pursuit (Difficulty increases at a rate of +5 for every additional 1D minutes spent in hyperspace). However, this increases the likelihood of a collision (re-roll 2D, with a modifier of +1 for every additional 1D minutes spent in hyperspace).

    It is impossible to reconnect the safety cut-out while the ship is in hyperspace. Any attempt to do so will destroy the cut-out completely.

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Last edited by CRMcNeill on Mon May 28, 2018 11:30 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Zarn
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 5:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A ~9% chance of instant obliteration is a bit much, isn't it? If you change it so that snake eyes on the 2D makes the ship instantly obliterated, that's still a ~3% chance of getting smeared all over Creation.
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cheshire
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 5:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

On a 10-11, then they have only a 5.56% chance of getting killed on a 2D6. Sounds like good odds with what we've narrative described as a bad idea.

Also, just eyeballing it, the time it takes to disengage the safeties on the fly seem pretty short and easy. As a real-world ground, do we have any idea how easy or difficult it is to do something as simple as deactivate your airbags?

I'm just trying to get some frame of reference, really. Maybe disabling real-world safeties are easier than I thought. Though it may be more like trying to disable piloting computer-correction in a modern aircraft. I've heard pilots say that piloting isn't so much about flying, but about asking the plane's permission to perform actions. And I have NO idea what it's like trying to modify something that complex.
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cheshire
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Zarn wrote:
A ~9% chance of instant obliteration is a bit much, isn't it? If you change it so that snake eyes on the 2D makes the ship instantly obliterated, that's still a ~3% chance of getting smeared all over Creation.


HA! Zarn think's it's too severe. I think it's not severe enough.

My advice to you CRM, is remember that you can't please everyone. Smile
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 6:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

cheshire wrote:
Also, just eyeballing it, the time it takes to disengage the safeties on the fly seem pretty short and easy. As a real-world ground, do we have any idea how easy or difficult it is to do something as simple as deactivate your airbags?

My thinking was more along the lines of making it hard for a ship to pull off without some sort of pre-planning, so that the captain or the engineer has to get into the guts of the system and manually bypass the cut-out in a manner that still allows the drive to function. This makes a quick blind jump (ala what we see in Rogue One) virtually impossible unless the craft is pre-designed to make it possible.

A possibility that just occurred to me is to permanently disable the safety cut-out on the backup hyperdrive, and then use that for any emergency blind jumps. That way, you don't have to mess around with disconnecting and reconnecting it if you are operating under a time crunch (like being chased by TIE Fighters or trying to outrun an explosion).

Should the chance of an impact be affected by the ship's hyperdrive modifier? For instance, if two ships - one with a x1 hyperdrive, the other with a x2 - both attempted a blind jump that lasted 8 minutes, the x1 would cover twice the distance as the x2, with double the chance of hitting an obstacle. On the other hand, a backup drive making the same 8 minute jump would cover much less distance, and thus have much less chance of an impact...
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2018 6:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Zarn wrote:
A ~9% chance of instant obliteration is a bit much, isn't it? If you change it so that snake eyes on the 2D makes the ship instantly obliterated, that's still a ~3% chance of getting smeared all over Creation.

I'm happy with what I got; a 6% difference of opinion is just going to boil down to personal preference. The main idea is that this should not be something characters attempt in anything but the most dire circumstances. I want there to be a very real chance of Total Party Kill, with the added chance of an enemy ship still managing to pursue them even if they survive, to make them think twice before they commit to this.

As an aside, what effect should Force Points and Character Points have on this? I could see allowing player characters to spend either one here to influence the Blind Jump result roll.
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