Auto-Astrogators... not that bad?

[MasterGwydion]

As far as I am aware, as it stands right now, you could come out of jumpspace 100D from the target planet, but on the completely opposite side of the planet or you could come out of jumpspace 100D from the planet directly above the Highport. Referee fiat, I guess.

 

[Condottiere]

I picked a trinary star system as a hub, which should make jump approaches interesting.

Aren't the majority of systems binary stars?

 

[Terry Mixon]

As far as I am aware, as it stands right now, you could come out of jumpspace 100D from the target planet, but on the completely opposite side of the planet or you could come out of jumpspace 100D from the planet directly above the Highport. Referee fiat, I guess.

The companion has it being a bit closer than that.

 

[rinku]

A lot of that derives from the DGP SOM tables, too (not identical, but it's a spiritual successor).

And I'd point out that any unexpected time variance is going to be important if the ship is trying to get to something orbiting a world, like a station.

So, I think the question of "why Jump tenders?" is probably settled now. Odds of arriving at the right spot of the station's orbit are not guaranteed by any means. Although you'd think X-Boats are launched with much more accurate plots than average if the station or tender resources are used to do the calculation and the boat jumps as soon as those are ready.