Speed of Travel

[Steve]

I am writing up an Early Interstellar Era campaign, and the region I wanted to work with was within 25 about light-years of Sol. Given that, what is a good hyperdrive speed to use? I was thinking 5 LY/week, since that would require a little over a month of travel to get from Sol to the frontier.

 

How do you determine a good travel speed for a Star Hero campaign?

[EvilDrPuma]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

I guess it all depends on the feel you want to create. A month from Sol to the frontier doesn't sound bad to me. It'll feel a little like global travel by steamship in the late 19th/early 20th century, before commercial air transportation became a big deal; if that sounds like what you're looking for, then go for it. You might want to go for something a bit lower if you're thinking of an "Age of Sail" analogue.

[GreenLagoon]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

I would probably say one or two lightyears per week, so that travel out to the frontier is a journey that you have to want to take. Besides, the technology is still experimental. You could always have it malfunction, and after a month they are far beyond where they are intending to go.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

How big do you want your game's overall reach. Just the 25LY or more?

[Steve]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

How big do you want your game's overall reach. Just the 25LY or more?

 

Well, I wasn't planning it as an exploration type game, but more like frontier adventure, something like Firefly. Basically, the PCs are out to make enough money to keep the ship flying and food in their bellies. I have a couple of alien races in mind, and I'm also going to be borrowing from Alien Wars and Surbrook's Kazei Five sourcebook (one of the NPCs I have in mind has a Lynx acting as first mate on his ship). Over the past few days I've been looking over starcharts to see what stars would make good choices to have habitable worlds and possible routes among them.

[Steve]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

I would probably say one or two lightyears per week' date=' so that travel out to the frontier is a journey that you have to want to take. Besides, the technology is still experimental. You could always have it malfunction, and after a month they are far beyond where they are intending to go.[/quote']

 

That's a thought too. I don't want to make the trip too arduous timewise though. Maybe three or four LY per week would be better though. That sets Alpha Centauri a little over a week's travel away from Sol, and it takes a month and a half to get to the frontier. That's not quite Age of Sail speeds, but it has a bit of that feel.

[JohnTaber]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Hi Steve: I think you approach is perfect. How long does it take for someone to travel from one end to the other? That is really the key. Figure that out then make everything else match.

[Cancer]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Actually, the meta-question raised by this question is interesting. Historically, there have been people willing to take multi-year round trips of discovery, but for the most part, intentional and human-planned one-way we're-gonna-live-where-we-end-up migrations are always shorter (always less than a year?). The only clear exception that springs to mind to that is the Biblical escape from Egypt to Judea, and that wasn't really "human-planned".

 

A lot depends on what you think of nomadic expansion, but most of that was cyclical and seasonal, I think.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

That's a thought too. I don't want to make the trip too arduous timewise though. Maybe three or four LY per week would be better though. That sets Alpha Centauri a little over a week's travel away from Sol' date=' and it takes a month and a half to get to the frontier. That's not quite Age of Sail speeds, but it has a bit of that feel.[/quote']

 

Reading this got me thinking...

Then Cancer addressed some of the same thoughts I was pondering...

 

Actually, the meta-question raised by this question is interesting. Historically, there have been people willing to take multi-year round trips of discovery, but for the most part, intentional and human-planned one-way we're-gonna-live-where-we-end-up migrations are always shorter (always less than a year?). The only clear exception that springs to mind to that is the Biblical escape from Egypt to Judea, and that wasn't really "human-planned".

 

A lot depends on what you think of nomadic expansion, but most of that was cyclical and seasonal, I think.

 

The speed you came up with does mean that a deep survey vessel on a year long survey trip is gonna be able to venture quite a ways past the frontier... 52 weeks, 26 outbound & 26 inbound is what? 104 lightyears out. Quite a range of semi-explored or explorable space within reach. Deep surveys might be expensive, but I'd expect to see a setting like this just exploding outbond...probably very Aliens-esque, with corporate funded resource suvey missions, followed by prospector missions, bio collections.

 

Are you going to be using some sort of Coldsleep?

[Steve]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Reading this got me thinking...

Then Cancer addressed some of the same thoughts I was pondering...

 

The speed you came up with does mean that a deep survey vessel on a year long survey trip is gonna be able to venture quite a ways past the frontier... 52 weeks, 26 outbound & 26 inbound is what? 104 lightyears out. Quite a range of semi-explored or explorable space within reach. Deep surveys might be expensive, but I'd expect to see a setting like this just exploding outbond...probably very Aliens-esque, with corporate funded resource suvey missions, followed by prospector missions, bio collections.

 

Are you going to be using some sort of Coldsleep?

 

Now that's an idea I hadn't considered, using coldsleep during hyperspace travel. It would give it a feel more like the Alien movies.

 

If I drop the speed down to 2 light-years per week, that puts Alpha Centauri about two weeks away, and the edge of the frontier (which I'm looking at as the most recently colonized regions) at 3 months distance. Deep space exploration would then be roughly double that, going out about 50 light-years from Sol.

 

Speed of communication is another matter. If courier vessels carrying messges are the only way to send messages between the colonies and Earth, ships become even more important for keeping mankind linked together.

 

I was thinking of calling this scattering of mankind through the stars the Terran Diaspora.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

I would use the idea that communication is limited to the speed of ships. I would also allow different classes of ships to have different levels of drive, a homage to Traveller.

[Evil Steve]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Two thoughts...

 

1-Since you want a Firefly feel, go with Firefly RPG travel times. The travel time from point A to point B is as long as is dramatically appropriate.

 

2-You could also have some crew in Coldsleep, others on regular cycle. Not much happens in the depths of space, why keep everyone burning supplies and lifesupport.

 

Side note for Cancer:another historical example of more-than-a-year was the trek undertaken by my maternal great grandparents from Vancouver, British Columbia to Fort Fraser, British Columbia. Took, if I recall the tale correctly, seven years. Most of that was due to the fact that there were no roads, just trails. They were relocating permenently to a very isolated fort in the late 19th century, and they had to stop every fall to build a cabin so they could survive the winter. I can do that drive in about twelve hours now.

[Steve]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Two thoughts...

 

1-Since you want a Firefly feel, go with Firefly RPG travel times. The travel time from point A to point B is as long as is dramatically appropriate.

 

2-You could also have some crew in Coldsleep, others on regular cycle. Not much happens in the depths of space, why keep everyone burning supplies and lifesupport.

 

Part of the reason why I'm considering more fixed travel times is because it provides a logical dimension to me for determining how big known space is, and I'd like to have a harder science fiction feel as far as technology goes (though I admit FTL is pretty rubbery). I would imagine the frontier would be irregular, with some regions spiking out a bit further than the average and maybe some areas not as far.

 

Courier vessels for mail could be unmanned, able to handle a higher sustained hyperspace speed. Slower vessels would be down to maybe 1 light-year per week, maybe for cargo or coldsleep colony ships that don't need to race any faster.

 

In this setting, mankind has made tentatively friendly contact with one other humanoid race just expanding into space on its own, one at a roughly equal tech level as far as starship engineering goes, maybe with a colony. The colony might have been where they first met mankind. I also have a couple of lower technology races in mind.

 

Coldsleep does make sense for preserving consumables, although it might be used more often on manned deep space probes, the ones heading out a couple of dozen light-years beyond the colonized regions. On runs between known ports closer to Sol, I'm thinking coldsleep would be something used to save money instead, and not every ship's crew would feel the need to do that. In my mind, coldsleep would be essentially steerage class when it comes to passengers, the cheapest way for colonists to reach their new home, but it's not for everyone.

[GreenLagoon]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Part of the reason why I'm considering more fixed travel times is because it provides a logical dimension to me for determining how big known space is' date=' and I'd like to have a harder science fiction feel as far as technology goes (though I admit FTL is pretty rubbery). [/quote']

 

Well, the math (read, theoretical physics) is literally almost there to make the theory a possibility. The math was there, but very few people could understand it, in the late 1950's early 1960's.

 

The difficulty with the current theory, though, is that the power consumption according to that model is enormous even for small items, let alone human-sized or larger objects.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Part of the reason why I'm considering more fixed travel times is because it provides a logical dimension to me for determining how big known space is, and I'd like to have a harder science fiction feel as far as technology goes (though I admit FTL is pretty rubbery). I would imagine the frontier would be irregular, with some regions spiking out a bit further than the average and maybe some areas not as far.

 

Courier vessels for mail could be unmanned, able to handle a higher sustained hyperspace speed. Slower vessels would be down to maybe 1 light-year per week, maybe for cargo or coldsleep colony ships that don't need to race any faster.

 

In this setting, mankind has made tentatively friendly contact with one other humanoid race just expanding into space on its own, one at a roughly equal tech level as far as starship engineering goes, maybe with a colony. The colony might have been where they first met mankind. I also have a couple of lower technology races in mind.

 

Coldsleep does make sense for preserving consumables, although it might be used more often on manned deep space probes, the ones heading out a couple of dozen light-years beyond the colonized regions. On runs between known ports closer to Sol, I'm thinking coldsleep would be something used to save money instead, and not every ship's crew would feel the need to do that. In my mind, coldsleep would be essentially steerage class when it comes to passengers, the cheapest way for colonists to reach their new home, but it's not for everyone.

 

Sounds about right to me. Reminds me of Early Traveller Tech. Travel times are short enough that people with the funds to do so might well prefer a cruise ship style voyage to being a corpsesickle. Coldsleep makes a sharp distinction between passenger classes... Frozen passengers are, for all intents and purposes, cargo.

[egaroadkill]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Cool Steve you’re aiming square for the style of space game I love running/playing. I have a campaign based off a modified 2300AD universe that about fits what you’re looking for. Here are some links that can lead you to the flavor of this game.

 

Human known space is about 40LY in diameter with your average ship taking up to three months to reach the outer limits of the periphery. Mankind has settled around 25 marginally habitable planets with only a handful truly decent to live on. Ships are limited to 7.7ish LY hops due to a radiation buildup in drive components that can only be removed in a gravity well.

 

I’ve been busily converting this game over to hero and hope to have something decent to put on the web soon if the guys with the rights allow it.

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50213&page=2

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2300AD

 

http://www.geocities.com/pentapod2300/kevin.htm

 

http://www.etranger.org.uk/

 

http://www.travellerrpg.com/2320/

 

http://www.drivethrustuff.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21_27&site=dtrpg

[Capt JT Kohonez]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Now that's an idea I hadn't considered, using coldsleep during hyperspace travel. It would give it a feel more like the Alien movies.

 

If I drop the speed down to 2 light-years per week, that puts Alpha Centauri about two weeks away, and the edge of the frontier (which I'm looking at as the most recently colonized regions) at 3 months distance. Deep space exploration would then be roughly double that, going out about 50 light-years from Sol.

 

Speed of communication is another matter. If courier vessels carrying messges are the only way to send messages between the colonies and Earth, ships become even more important for keeping mankind linked together.

 

I was thinking of calling this scattering of mankind through the stars the Terran Diaspora.

 

For communication you might consider using robot couriers of some kind which a regular route. They would basically drop into a system receive and send messages by radio and then do the same at the next system and so on.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Well' date=' I wasn't planning it as an exploration type game, but more like frontier adventure, something like [i']Firefly[/i].

If the PCs are mostly going to be hopping from one frontier planet to another, then the critical questions are how far apart do those worlds tend to be, and how long do you want those trips to take? From a story perspective, travel time from Earth to the rim is of secondary importance: it affects how long it takes news/orders/warships from Earth to reach the scene, but not PC travel times if it's not a trip the PC's are going to take regularly.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

A tangent question; Steve if the PC's are going to be wandering between worlds, are you going to set them up as going back and forth?

[Steve]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

If the PCs are mostly going to be hopping from one frontier planet to another' date=' then the critical questions are how far apart do [i']those[/i] worlds tend to be, and how long do you want those trips to take? From a story perspective, travel time from Earth to the rim is of secondary importance: it affects how long it takes news/orders/warships from Earth to reach the scene, but not PC travel times if it's not a trip the PC's are going to take regularly.

 

This raises a thought. There seems to be two basic ideas on travel speeds I've seen in this thread. One is that travel is literally as long as it takes, given whatever speed I decide to make available in the campaign. The other is a more flexible "speed of plot" notion. I wonder if that could be a type of subsection of the Realism for a campaign?

[Steve]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

A tangent question; Steve if the PC's are going to be wandering between worlds' date=' are you going to set them up as going back and forth?[/quote']

 

That was my notion. Part of the reason slower speeds would be good is that it creates a sort of Old West feel without making colonized space too huge, which is more what I'm going for than Age of Sail actually. 'Back East' in this campaign would be Earth, and the frontier would have mining colonies and ranches to supply Earth's needs for raw goods.

 

The PCs can meander around from colony to colony in a given system and even wander from star to star, if they so choose.

 

The movie Outland springs to mind.

[Nyrath]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Part of the reason why I'm considering more fixed travel times is because it provides a logical dimension to me for determining how big known space is' date=' and I'd like to have a harder science fiction feel as far as technology goes (though I admit FTL is pretty rubbery). [/quote']

You are to be applauded. A little math goes a long way to making one's campaign universe believable and internally self-consistent.

 

You may find some handy hits on my website here:

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html

 

If you are actually trying to make a full fledged interstellar empire, the maximum speed of starships and the maximum speed of communications limits the maximum size of the empire. If it takes a year for news of a rebellion on the outer marches of the empire to reach the capital (or sector capital) and another year for a fleet to travel back, this means the rebels will have two years to win the rebellion and fortify in preparation for the arrival of the imperial starfleet.

 

The defining factor of whether a given planet was part of an empire or not is whether the time delay between the start of the rebellion and the arrival of the imperial punishment fleet is longer than the time required for the rebellious planet to manufacture enough defenses to take care of the punishment fleet.

 

In other words: if you cannot hold on to the planet, it ain't yours.

Once you've established the size of your "empire", given a figure for the average density of stars in your campaign and the average density of inhabited planets in your campaign, you can calculate the number of inhabited and uninhabited stars in your empire.

 

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html#colonization

In the real universe, to find the total number of stars in your empire: take the radius of your empire in light years, raise it to the third power (i.e., multiply the number by itself twice), then multiply the result by 0.01.

Example: if your empire was 200 light years in radius, it would contain about 200^3 * 0.01 = 8,000,000 * 0.01 = 80,000 stars.

 

For the number of stars hosting human habitable planets, raise the radius to the third power and multiply by 0.0022.

Continuing the above example: 200^3 * 0.01 = 8,000,000 * 0.0022 = 17,600 planets.

 

Of course, for your campaign universe you can pick whatever numbers you see fit.

 

However, do read the section on the size of bureaucracy. Go to

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ac.html

and scroll down to the section that starts with "From 'Galactic Empires' by Dr. Robert A. Freitas Jr."

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

This raises a thought. There seems to be two basic ideas on travel speeds I've seen in this thread. One is that travel is literally as long as it takes' date=' given whatever speed I decide to make available in the campaign. The other is a more flexible "speed of plot" notion. I wonder if that could be a type of subsection of the Realism for a campaign?[/quote']

Partly it's a realism thing; partly it's a stylistic thing. I've played in games that had travel times spelled out, and I've played in others that "it takes as long as the story requires, no more." Personally, I greatly prefer the former, but the later can be fun too depending on the feel of the campaign and the style of the GM. The former does require a bit more work, of course. Not just in terms of initial set-up; when you're writing a scenario you have to takes actual distances/times into consideration. But then, we do that in every other genre, right?

 

That was my notion. Part of the reason slower speeds would be good is that it creates a sort of Old West feel without making colonized space too huge' date=' which is more what I'm going for than Age of Sail actually. 'Back East' in this campaign would be Earth, and the frontier would have mining colonies and ranches to supply Earth's needs for raw goods.[/quote']

One thing in your favor is that important/interesting worlds are likely to be much more spread out on the frontier than in the core; so interstellar travel is likely to take longer there too.

 

If you are actually trying to make a full fledged interstellar empire' date=' the maximum speed of starships and the maximum speed of communications limits the maximum size of the empire. If it takes a year for news of a rebellion on the outer marches of the empire to reach the capital (or sector capital) and another year for a fleet to travel back, this means the rebels will have two years to win the rebellion and fortify in preparation for the arrival of the imperial starfleet.[/quote']

Excellent points. (And too long since I've repped you for something, Nyrath!) It also raises the question of how the "empire" organizes its defenses. In the early days of the Roman Empire, the focus was on stationing legions out on the frontier where they could respond quickly to regional threats on their own authority. IIRC it was Constantine who pulled the Legions back and instead focused on a rapid response force concept -- requires fewer troops and allows for greater central control, but takes longer to react and makes it harder to deal with multiple threats.

[Nyrath]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

It also raises the question of how the "empire" organizes its defenses. In the early days of the Roman Empire' date=' the focus was on stationing legions out on the frontier where they could respond quickly to regional threats on their own authority. IIRC it was Constantine who pulled the Legions back and instead focused on a rapid response force concept -- requires fewer troops and allows for greater central control, but takes longer to react and makes it harder to deal with multiple threats.[/quote']

Thanks for the rep!

 

Indeed as you point out, the history of the Roman Empire will provide great insights when one is designing their campaign universe.

 

I will note that one of the advantages of the Roman military was the road system they built. It allowed very rapid deployment. In space opera terms, it would correspond to something like stargates: something that has to be built which vastly increases FTL speeds.

 

If the game master has the motivation, I would suggest reading The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire by Edward Luttwak. Surprisingly readable, and just chock-full of plot seeds and interstellar empire insights. Those with less motivation can find some goodies in Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Speed of Travel

 

Don't forget, Steve, that by takng a somewhat realistic/hard Sci-fi approach you can easily restrict your frontier even if the capability to explore much, much further is enbled by FTL speeds. Just cause you can survey a place doesn't mean you can afford to colonize it. Realstically speaking only REALLY big governments or corporations could afford to colonize a naturally human habitible planet. Terraforming is almost beyond the pale exensve unless you invent some cheap ways to do it, and even then, you're likely looking a decades or centuries before terraforming really has much effect. Economics and feasability are just as limiting as transit speeds and millitary presence/control.

To contnue your Age of Sail paralels, if there is significant conflict in the frontier, you can always go with Letters of Marque & Reprisal. Its a cheap way for a government to entice fortune seekers and adventurers to do your dirty work for you.