Referee's Tool: System Travel Times

[Stan Shinn]

While I love the idea of realistic astrophysics to calculate system travel times, as a referee, I don't really want to slow down during the game to do math. So I'm thinking of creating a table for in-game reference which makes some assumptions for travel times. Assuming you have a Far Trader vessel, I'd calculate travel times for the following:

World & Star-System Travel Times
----------------------------------------------
World Surface to World Orbit -- XX Minutes
World Orbit to Jump -- XX Minutes
World Orbit to Close Neighboring World -- XX to XX Minutes
World Orbit to Far Neighboring World -- XX to XX Minutes

What do you think of this approach? What times would you put for a table like this?

Thanks,

-- Stan

 

[Stan Shinn]

Referee Tool: System Travel Times

Sorry about the incomplete title on my post -- I meant to call it 'Referee Tool: System Travel Times'. Looks like you can't edit the title once you post though o:

 

[robject]

But I can


And while I'm posting...

World & Star-System Travel Times
----------------------------------------------
World Surface to World Orbit = 1 space combat round (20 minutes)
World Orbit to Jump          = 1 hour + World Size/2 hours
World Orbit to Close Neighboring World = one to five days
World Orbit to Far Neighboring World   = eight days to two weeks

Calculated from here: http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/scripts/vilanitools.html (click on the "UWP and Distance Calculator" tab)

 

[Vargas]

World & Star-System Travel Times
----------------------------------------------
World Surface to World Orbit -- XX Minutes
World Orbit to Jump -- XX Minutes
World Orbit to Close Neighboring World -- XX to XX Minutes
World Orbit to Far Neighboring World -- XX to XX Minutes

What do you think of this approach? What times would you put for a table like this?

CT, for example, provided some "typical" values for at least the latter two; just pre-calculate the travel time based on the ship your using. For the first two entries, I say go with robject's suggestions.

 

[Stan Shinn]

This is awesome! Exactly what I wanted. Thanks folks

 

[Supplement Four]

Some CT adventures (Tarsis and Beltstrike come to mind) would have these tables pregenerated for the Ref.

When I run CT games, and I know that the PCs will spend some time on the world, I would pregenerate some data before we play. Every main world within a certain range, I'd always generate the local gravity, because I used that in games for load and such.

If I know some time will happen in a system, I'll generate data that I think I'll need--sometimes, the entire system with orbits and such.

 

[SpaceBadger]

The Traveller Book has a table that I have used a LOT on page 54, with some common travel distances and the travel-time based on different M-drive G-ratings and typical accelerate-flip-decelerate straight line travel. For trips that don't match the distances given, I interpolate (or just fudge).

MgT Core Rulebook has a similar table on p.145.

I've often wished for more detailed rules on realistic transfer orbits for lower tech vehicles that actually have to consider fuel-to-payload ratios, specific impulse of drives, delta-V of particular designs. Yeah, I can do a simple Hohmann orbit, but when you get to altering that to get faster travel with a bit more delta-V, it goes beyond my retained physics and math capabilities.

Plus, with most Traveller ships, you don't need to worry about all that and don't need those details.

 

[aramis]

The Traveller Book has a table that I have used a LOT on page 54, with some common travel distances and the travel-time based on different M-drive G-ratings and typical accelerate-flip-decelerate straight line travel. For trips that don't match the distances given, I interpolate (or just fudge).

MgT Core Rulebook has a similar table on p.145.

I've often wished for more detailed rules on realistic transfer orbits for lower tech vehicles that actually have to consider fuel-to-payload ratios, specific impulse of drives, delta-V of particular designs. Yeah, I can do a simple Hohmann orbit, but when you get to altering that to get faster travel with a bit more delta-V, it goes beyond my retained physics and math capabilities.

Plus, with most Traveller ships, you don't need to worry about all that and don't need those details.

DGP's Starship Operator's Manual had playably simplified rules for that.

 

[SpaceBadger]

DGP's Starship Operator's Manual had playably simplified rules for that.

Oh, gee, thanks, Wil. Give me another reason to wish I had a copy of that book.

 

[aramis]

Oh, gee, thanks, Wil. Give me another reason to wish I had a copy of that book.

Oh, how I wish Roger would either release to Marc or release to freeware the DGP materials...