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Saturday, July 16, 2016

Ship Speeds



One aspect of Starfinder that I am eager to see what Paizo has planned concerns space travel and ship speeds. Before Starfinder was announced I was working on a Space-Fantasy game that some of the material that is going into Starmetal Alchemists came from.

A concept I was exploring is that various star systems are connected via a coexistent plane called the Slipstream. Travelling through the Slipstream is faster than through normal space but there is a definite flow in the Slipstream. This concept is similar to the Phlogiston as presented in Spelljammer.

Ships that are moving with the stream move faster, if they move against the stream they move slower or not at all. In addition not all streams are the same speed. Travel to a distant star systems may be faster than a closer systems because the streams don't move at the same speed.

Below are several charts that I developed for use with this concept.
Speed is adjusted based upon the stream value. A ship travelling in a fast stream going with the flow can adjust the ships speed by up to 3. A ship travelling in a slow stream going against the flow could very well have its speed reduced to 0.

I'll be posting the streams that I've created for the Starmetal Alchemists setting shortly.