Astrogation Difficulty

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[CRMcNeill]

Perhaps the number of waypoints in a route is directly related to the route's difficulty number. A route that has to travel an arc or some other non-linear path would, by definition, be more difficult than a simple Point A to Point B.
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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

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[Whill]

[Mikael Hasselstein]

Now, I understand that this whole exercise is about adjusting the RAW, which is, perhaps, a little too simple, but I'm not interested in bringing EVERYTHING together into a really complex whole.

My aim is to create an automatic target number generation system, allowing for the RAW factors of astrogation, coupled with just an extra factor to have it make sense over long runs (ie. the waypoints).

I would like to offer an automatic dice-roller, working with the probabilities that have already been discussed.

Now, I do like the idea of more mishaps in an automatic table that comes up in case an astrogation mishap does occur. I'll use the RAW table items, but I would like some others besides, including ones that have color, but not too much game impact.

Would you guys care to suggest some?

[vanir]

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[vanir]

You do realise in data handling terms you've just assigned an AI capability to the navcomputer to freely assign and reassign waypoints as mid course adjustments?

I mean a jet multimode can do this, but it's all governed by the pilot, there's no AI (in game terms a limited navcomputer with 4 jumps, 2 are used but the pilot has manual charts and enters more en routé).

And even in SWRPG if you've AI it's supposed to be an astromech, not a shipboard navcomputer.

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[vanir]

Well then what you're talking about, the inverse is that you're plotting a whole series of waypoints into one astrogation jump and just referring to it as "giving obstacles more/less of a berth"

and I'm saying on a limited navcomputer each one takes up one of the preprogrammed set of hyperspace coordinates.

that was basically the whole point of what I was getting at originally, which we seem to repeatedly lose somehow. Either you're saying the navcomputer plots meandering paths (whether reactively or by AI) or the pilot does, but you can't have the alternate every time I adopt one or the other, you kind of have to settle on one or the other.
Both are unrealistic or have an issue, that is to say I'm quite sure I've been mentioning a logical fallacy unless the waypoint system in common with real world navigational networks is used.

Which is just a breakdown of normal logical procedure. Draw a line of where you want to go, meandering as you want. Get a ruler and make it into a composition of direct paths and course changes. Every one is a waypoint. That's what you have to enter into the flight computer.

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[vanir]

Quite right, I didn't mean to seem impatient.

What I'm trying to do is breakdown the systems used, to extrapolate them rather than redefine them in a different way, using any logical guideline irrespective of convenience of which I can imagine.

I should understand that indeed you are doing quite the same thing.
The real difference is you've a GM tool in mind which is admirable and difficult, it brings about its own challenges and I've simply Player banter in mind during round by round RP.

I've by far the easier task simply sitting here and throwing anything in the air I feel like. Sorry about that

[Mikael Hasselstein]

[vanir]

I find to maintain consistency with advancing navigational systems in use, one should approach it from a more processing descript than topical one.

Waypoints really describes how the computer is using information. You want to come at it like a computer and not like a book.

The way I use the term is relative to any time I know in a modern fighter jet in the real world I have to enter a new set of navigational coordinates to get where I am going whilst avoiding danger and obstacles. I do it using a numpad typically next to the HDD or engine panel.
In other words the flight computer doesn't plot safe paths, I do using waypoints.

Any alternative contention means one of two things: the navcomputer is plotting waypoints using AI, or I am relying on the collision avoidance system to alter course as necessary on a linear path I have plotted. Jets can have these features and do to a limited extent, the F/A-18 will right itself if the pilot G-locs and engage its own limited-AI autopilot, using the terrain-hugging software so I mean it flies really well.

Either the craft goes in a dead straight line, or you enter a waypoint to bend that line, or the computer does, or the emergency protocols do so reactively. You can't have it more than one way, you have to pick one way that it works and make that your house rule.
It affects the way limited navcomputers work and that's where it becomes very important in gameplay.

You can't say that you only plan one jump and the computer puts in a curvy flight plan, because you're saying this, and you've been repeating this several times throughout the thread, no offence:
"the pilot doesn't need to plot waypoints, the navcomputer plots waypoints without using waypoints."

it doesn't make any sense.

a waypoint is every time a line isn't straight. that's what one is. instead of making a long parabolic curve which flight computers don't like and neither does physics, what you do is select, by navigator training common to flight crews, a parabolic apex, you straighten up the flight path to lines and turns, then you call the turn a waypoint and you mark it on a flight plan. The tower will allocate legs of the flightplan as corridors to give you that parabolic back in real world physics, but makes it all compatable with computers.
then when you sit in the plane on the runway, you have to punch numbers into a numpad. It has to match the flightplan you handed the tower before you could get permission to fly that day.
The flight computer just goes to the waypoints, one by one. It doesn't know what a course is, and it won't stop at any of them unless you take over the controls.
It just follows it like...a flight plan.

What I'm saying is the smartest approach for SWRPG is to use this for hyperspace navigation, and not at all for normal flight.
Just treat normal space flight as free roaming. If you have waypoints they're completely under pilot active control input and conscious round by round gameplay, and can be marked on a hex space map with counters as selected. They don't need to be entered into a flight computer, the equivalent is to just say to the astromech to fly the craft to point B.

But in hyperspace navigation, using the normal flight navigation system of military craft (NATO in particular) you have a very analoguous system that extrapolates the nature of varous avionics and astromech very nicely.
It confirms class and type starship capabilities.


If it helps I believe the strictest military definition of a course waypoint is each location in which you can specifically predict a time of arrival that any aircraft in the flight should be able to match, on average modified by elapsed time of the stream and any circumstantial alterations like weather (both will be automatically compensated by a flight computer).

In other words is a waypoint is every time you turn on a mission, with a stipulation that you should be able to look around your aircraft and see your squardon mates, or something is seriously wrong and you need to get on the radio.
What you've been calling waypoints are staging areas (in theatre) or rendezvous (out of theatre).

[Mikael Hasselstein]