What do the astrogators (or interstellar navigators, as system appropriate) of 100-700ish dTon ships actually do in YTU?
According to the rules for CT, the Generate program on the ship's computer is responsible for actually generating the jump solution (though starports also sell jump solutions for 10kCr. per jump rating), all the navigator does is input the destination coordinates (ST:39). This task hardly seems to merit the 5kCr. a month, base salary listed on the crew salary schedule.
MgT rules are even more problematic, IMHO. Per MGP 3800, the astrogator must make an easy EDU check to plot a jump course (141), and for this is paid the same 5kCr. salary as the CT navigator. However, standard ship's computers can run Jump Control software which includes astrogation software, the program at rating 10 pays for itself over a the cost of an astrogator in 3.3 years (113). Or at TL 14, one could just drop 105kCr. on a laptop with with expert astrogation 3 (91-92), paying for itself over a less qualified astrogator in 1.75 years!
Personally, growing up on Heinlein stories, I never wondered what the astrogators did to earn their pay. One day I was running a MgT game and the person playing the astrogator asked why he was making the check, since the computer had better stats than he. I bluffed some nonsense about spacers not trusting computers, a superstition like jump dimming and the low lottery. But really, at TL 8+ user error is the only real concern and that's not going away with a slide rule, log tables, starcharts, vernier stereograph, etc.
Later, I decided that even if the computer could generate the jump solution after receiving destination coordinates, the astrogator still needed to determine the 4-dimensional starting location, but if the starport can sell you a jump solution on self-erasing-cassette that doesn't work.
So, ideas? How do your astrogators earn their pay, what is the astrogation skill really about.
Bonus question: how does one steer a jump bubble?
According to the rules for CT, the Generate program on the ship's computer is responsible for actually generating the jump solution (though starports also sell jump solutions for 10kCr. per jump rating), all the navigator does is input the destination coordinates (ST:39). This task hardly seems to merit the 5kCr. a month, base salary listed on the crew salary schedule.
MgT rules are even more problematic, IMHO. Per MGP 3800, the astrogator must make an easy EDU check to plot a jump course (141), and for this is paid the same 5kCr. salary as the CT navigator. However, standard ship's computers can run Jump Control software which includes astrogation software, the program at rating 10 pays for itself over a the cost of an astrogator in 3.3 years (113). Or at TL 14, one could just drop 105kCr. on a laptop with with expert astrogation 3 (91-92), paying for itself over a less qualified astrogator in 1.75 years!
Personally, growing up on Heinlein stories, I never wondered what the astrogators did to earn their pay. One day I was running a MgT game and the person playing the astrogator asked why he was making the check, since the computer had better stats than he. I bluffed some nonsense about spacers not trusting computers, a superstition like jump dimming and the low lottery. But really, at TL 8+ user error is the only real concern and that's not going away with a slide rule, log tables, starcharts, vernier stereograph, etc.
Later, I decided that even if the computer could generate the jump solution after receiving destination coordinates, the astrogator still needed to determine the 4-dimensional starting location, but if the starport can sell you a jump solution on self-erasing-cassette that doesn't work.
So, ideas? How do your astrogators earn their pay, what is the astrogation skill really about.
Bonus question: how does one steer a jump bubble?