Tracking ships

[Tforbes]

Remembering to include the hex/parsec that they start from. Jumping from one side of the system to the other still takes one week but adds to the potential destinations.

true. I had forgotten about that.

Quick tangent... is it possible to Jump but not go anywhere? Like, intentionally enter Jump space for a week and pop out exactly where you left? If you needed to hide or protect something for a week that could be an effective way to do it.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Yes, according to prior canon at least.

 

[Condottiere]

Insystem jumps are possible.

Going by Azhanti, the minimum distance could be close enough that it could be reached through normal thrusters from the point of departure, fairly quickly.

 

[MasterGwydion]

It would seem to make a huge change to warfighting as well, as one stealth scout ship per system, with some couriers to back them up, and you know where everyone leaving the system is going, if you can hit the Difficulty anyhow.

It also means that anytime someone jumps to an empty hex, the starport they left out of knows where they jumped. Might be something to pass on to the navy or law enforcement as a potential illicit fuel dump.

 

[Talon Greyfeather]

Ehhhh .... this doesn't seem to be a game breaker to me.

If you witness the jump - let's say sensor lock on the target vessel is enough to determine direction. An Astrogator should be able to plot potential destinations based on the ships jump signature anyway. It may take more time without the analyzer software ... maybe I need another check to search/find the target ships jump rating - but this wouldn't be that hard to do even without the software. I know this is a Jump-X ship ... so where could it be going based on where it is now? I pull up my sector map and I can get potential target hexes pretty quick. An Astrogator plotting the course based on the jump entry should get you pretty darn close (finally a good use case for an astrogation roll!)

At my table this would be a Referee roll. Players wouldn't know until they get there. If they have the software maybe they get a confidence factor, but you don't need specialized software to tell where they are going. Maybe the software does it faster because it can calculate all routes (not sure how as I thought an Astrogator was required to do route calculations) ... but the rest is just detective work.

Game breaker ... not imho. YMMV