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ebertran
Lieutenant Commander
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Location: Miami, FL
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 Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 5:45 pm Post subject: Data rules in Cracken's Rebel Field Guide |
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I'm having trouble understanding how they work. Each file is assigned a die code (1d-13d) with the Death Star file having a 10d as an example....
What's the point of the die codes? How are they used? I'm not understanding their purpose. |
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cheshire
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| Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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Funny you should ask that, as there is a discussion going on about that now on the G+ community. Or were you asking because of the thread?
IIRC, the die code corresponds to a knowledge roll you can make to search the files for the necessary information you require. It's linked back to a 1st edition ruleset of knowledge and data storage.
I'm afraid that's as specific as I can be at the moment, as I don't have much experience with first edition.
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Raven Redstar
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 1:26 am Post subject: |
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That seems to make sense chesh, and it was sort of what I figured would be similar, or possibly could be used as a bonus to certain rolls associated with the topic by cross-referencing.
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ebertran
Lieutenant Commander
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 10:54 am Post subject: |
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I'm confused.
So Death Star has 10d.
What exactly can my slicer do with those 10d?
Is that what the GM rolls to create a difficulty number?
Is that what I roll to read the files?
What does the 10d mean or do? I don't get it. |
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cheshire
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 11:50 am Post subject: |
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The 10D knowledge of the Death Star would equate to having a data core with sensitive, detailed information on the Death Star. What could a slicer do with this? Probably sell it for the money listed beside it on the table. Once sold, what could someone do with it? They could roll 10D to see if they could find any information on a weakness in the battle station. Once the alliance has that datacore, they might roll a 44 on the 10D and find that there is a small thermal exhaust port right below the main port.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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IIRC each D of 'data' also represented a specific amt of data storage capacity needed to copy the info from the source. So if you had say only 3 data pads (iirc each pad is a flat 1d) you could at most copy 3D worth of info from a storehouse of data.
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shootingwomprats
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | IIRC each D of 'data' also represented a specific amt of data storage capacity needed to copy the info from the source. So if you had say only 3 data pads (iirc each pad is a flat 1d) you could at most copy 3D worth of info from a storehouse of data. |
Per CRFG p.5, "Common pocket computers can store 5D at most (although many store less) ...
It makes no mention of 1D for a datapad. In fact one could assume a datapad could store 1-5D with 3D being the median range for most.
Portable computers 20D
Capital ship computer 30D
Planetary computer 100D
Going by this stuff, R2-D2 stored at least 10D in Death Star plans and still had some room for a recorded data message. This does bring up some interesting ideas though.
An R2 unit can story up to 10 hyperspace jumps. When R2 stored the Death Star plans this information was probably erased in favor of storage space for the plans. This tells us that an R2 can store up to 10D and that a hyperspace jump is probably around 1D storage. Most Nav computers can store 10-20 jumps I think. So, a ship probably has 10-20D in storage capacity, at least for jumps. Nav computer use negates the +30 modifier for Astrogation rolls to calculate a hyperspace route, granted it takes time to do this. But we can assume that a Nav computer has Astrogation 8D.
Does everyone understand where I am going with this? We can develop logical mechanics for Knowledge skills and general skills as well as possible skill bonuses (or synergy bonuses) for equipment. We can start making things make sense!
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cheshire
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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If things made sense, how would we know it was still Star Wars?
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Raven Redstar
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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If everything made at least pseudo-sense, it'd be Star Trek.
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lurker
Commander
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 5:57 pm Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: | | If things made sense, how would we know it was still Star Wars? |
Blink, blink  
Toooooo funny & toooooo true
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cheshire
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| Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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| shootingwomprats wrote: | Going by this stuff, R2-D2 stored at least 10D in Death Star plans and still had some room for a recorded data message. This does bring up some interesting ideas though.
An R2 unit can story up to 10 hyperspace jumps. When R2 stored the Death Star plans this information was probably erased in favor of storage space for the plans. This tells us that an R2 can store up to 10D and that a hyperspace jump is probably around 1D storage. Most Nav computers can store 10-20 jumps I think. So, a ship probably has 10-20D in storage capacity, at least for jumps. Nav computer use negates the +30 modifier for Astrogation rolls to calculate a hyperspace route, granted it takes time to do this. But we can assume that a Nav computer has Astrogation 8D. |
Okay, after having some time to think about this, I'm trying to come up with some way of figuring out exactly what the memory systems of the R2 unit are in relation to other devices. It's difficult because we're operating on much different terms of understanding memory and data than they were in the 1970's. After all, they were still talking about "data tapes." That made perfect sense back then, as much of the high storage capacity media were magnetic tapes.
The data was stored in R2. Were the actual tapes transfered to him? Was a copy made and then the original destroyed (after all, there was no sign of the suspect data on board the blockade runner)? Did they add it to his version of the "onboard memory" or did they just slap the equivalent of an internal drive in him.
Regardless, one would think that a nav computer would store incomprehensible amounts of data to house all the star charts, relative planet motions, account for galactic drift, and all the various bits of minutia it would have to calculate in order to put a starship between the furthest systems.
Don's got a few interesting points. It seems to me that it is perfectly reasonable to have an incredible amount of storage space. The question is, with all that data required to do navigation calculations (not limited to the five like the R2), I wonder how much storage space would be left.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2014 3:01 am Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: | Regardless, one would think that a nav computer would store incomprehensible amounts of data to house all the star charts, relative planet motions, account for galactic drift, and all the various bits of minutia it would have to calculate in order to put a starship between the furthest systems.
Don's got a few interesting points. It seems to me that it is perfectly reasonable to have an incredible amount of storage space. The question is, with all that data required to do navigation calculations (not limited to the five like the R2), I wonder how much storage space would be left. |
| shootingwomprats wrote: | | Most Nav computers can store 10-20 jumps I think. So, a ship probably has 10-20D in storage capacity, at least for jumps. |
Just a little point. Navicomputers don't store jumps. They calculate jumps between any requested origin and destination. All navicomputer may not have the same calculation power, but according to The Essential Atlas, "All navicomputers contained the Galactic coordinates for all star systems in the known galaxy." The coordinates of course are used to calculate a path through hyperspace between any two systems (the "jump") when requested of it. The astronomical data of all known star systems in the galaxy along with the calculation power to calculate paths through hyperspace (safely connecting two coordinates) would indeed be an incredibly massive amount of information.
Or are you saying that a navicomputer can or should be able to store 10-20 pre-calculated jumps on top of the ability to calculate any jump, the advantage of using one of those 10-20 stored jumps would be that it only took the shorter one minute time to implement and go to lightspeed? The idea doesn't sound unreasonable, but that doesn't seem to be RAW.
Astromech droids aren't navicomputers and thus can't calculate jumps at all. They can only store a limited number of jumps that must be pre-calculated by an actual navicomputer. So, if an R2 unit can store the Death Star plans, the data file size capacity of a navicomputer storing galactic coordinate for the entire galaxy must be a much more massive than the Death Star plans. Just sayin'.
I know this wasn't the whole of the conversation here, but I thought these things were worth mentioning.
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Zarn
Force Spirit
Joined: 17 Jun 2014
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:00 am Post subject: |
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To elaborate on what Whill said, several of the smugglers I've played with and GMed over the years, have had as a policy to calculate an "emergency exit jump" out of a system when you jump into the system.
We generally played it as being a valid jump out of the system from a particular heading, and that it was valid only for a short time (a day or two at most), with double the amount of wild dice for mishaps. As an exit strategy, it was meant as a Hail Mary pass at any rate.
One thing that never made sense to me back in the day, was the way I read the original data rules to never be able to combine files again - splitting a 2D file into two 1D files was fine, but combining two 1D files into a 2D file wasn't. I may want to rework that now.
Oh, and by the way - data tapes are still in use, and still have their place. So they might still be in use in the SW universe, though it is slightly less credible given that they seem to have holographic storage through the use of data crystals. |
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DougRed4
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, my players usually have a micro-jump (actually, more like two) stored up in case they need to immediately jump out of a system. In fact, they've had to use it before as well!
IIRC, a recent episode of 60 Minutes went down into an active military missile silo (for the first time by journalists). They still have computers, but are completely closed off from the net, and still to this day use big data tapes.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 6:30 pm Post subject: |
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But how can they have that jump calculated ahead of time, when they should need to have their entrance point into hyperspace plotted as part of it?
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