Travel in Realspace

All starships have sublight engines that propel them through realspace, using them when taking off, landing, or flying within a gravity sphere.

When traveling in realspace, the GM can summarize the adventurers' movement without calculating exact distances or travel times: "You fly around the planet, reaching the stronghold late in the evening."

Sometimes it's important, though, to know how far, how fast, and how maneuverable your ship is in a short window of time. Starships come equipped with two speeds: flying speed and turning speed.

Flying Speed

Flying speed is how far your ship can travel in a single round. It is expressed in feet. For every foot your ship travels forward, it expends one foot from its speed.

A ship's unmodified flying speed is determined in Chapter 3: Starships by the Role selected for the ship at construction.

Turning Speed

Turning speed determines how maneuverable your ship is. In order for your ship to rotate 90 degrees, you must spend an amount of your flying speed equal to your turning speed. For instance, if your ship has a flying speed of 350 feet, and a turning speed of 100 feet, you can travel 150 feet in a straight line, spending 150 feet of your flying speed, and then turn 90 degrees to starboard, spending 100 feet of your flying speed, leaving 100 feet of movement remaining.

Typically games are played with turning limited to 90 degree increments, but, if your group has the desire and capability to track smaller angles, this is allowed.

A ship can turn more (or less, if your group agrees) than 90 degrees on its turn, by spending a proportionate amount of movement.

If a ship's turning speed exceeds its flying speed, that ship cannot turn 90 degrees, in combat conditions, absent another effect modifiying the ship's turning speed and/or flying speed or the Hard Turn action.

A ship's unmodified turning speed is determined in Chapter 3: Starships by the Role selected for the ship at construction.

Travel Pace

While traveling in realspace, a starship can move at a normal, fast, or slow pace. While traveling at a fast pace, your starship's flying speed is doubled, but your starship—and its crew—have disadvantage on Intelligence (Probe) and Wisdom (Scan) checks. While traveling at a slow pace, your flying speed is halved, but you can travel stealthily. A fast pace makes a ship less perceptive, while a slow pace makes it possible to sneak around and to search an area more carefully (see the "Activity While Traveling" section later in this chapter for more information).

You can use the following Sample Realspace Travel Times table to determine travel times in realspace for an average starship traveling at a normal pace.

Sample Realspace Travel Times

Difficult Terrain

The travel speeds given in the Sample Realspace Travel Times table assume unobstructed terrain. But adventurers often face narrow canyons, tight formations, or other difficult terrain.

You move at half speed in difficult terrain—moving 10 feet in difficult terrain costs 20 feet of flying speed—so you can cover only half the normal distance in a minute, an hour, or a day.

Fuel Usage

A ship uses a unit's worth of fuel for one day of flight in realspace or hyperspace, after one hour of flight in atmosphere, or in a single jump to hyperspeed.

Activity While Traveling

As adventurers travel on their starship, they need to remain alert for danger, and some characters might perform other tasks to help the group's journey.

A ship might encounter a hostile ship while some crewmembers are resting or relaxing instead of deployed. It is up to the GM to determine how long it takes each crewmember to deploy.

Stealth

While traveling at a slow pace, the starship can move stealthily. As long as they're not in the open, they can try to surprise or sneak by other starships they encounter. See the rules for hiding in chapter 7.

Noticing Threats

Use the passive Wisdom (Scan) score of the ship to determine whether anyone in the starship notices a hidden threat. The GM might decide that a threat can be noticed only by active characters. For example, as the characters are traveling through an asteroid field, the GM might decide that only those characters actively operating the ship (as opposed to remaining in their bunks) have a chance to spot a stealthy starship following the group. While traveling at a fast pace, the ship takes a -5 penalty to its passive Wisdom (Scan) score to notice hidden threats.

Encountering Starships. If the GM determines that the adventurers encounter another starship while they're traveling, it's up to both groups to decide what happens next. Either group might decide to attack, initiate a dialogue, run away, or wait to see what the other group does.

Surprising Foes. If the adventurers encounter a hostile creature or group, the GM determines whether the adventurers or their foes might be surprised when combat erupts. See Chapter 9: Combat for more about surprise.

Other Activities

Characters who turn their attention to other tasks as the group travels are not focused on watching for danger. However, a character not watching for danger can do one of the following activities instead, or some other activity with the GM's permission.

Navigate. The character can try to prevent the group from becoming lost, making an Intelligence (Astrogation) check when the GM calls for it. (The Dungeon Master's Guide has rules to determine whether the group gets lost.)

Maintain a Map. The character can maintain a map that records the group's progress and helps the characters get back on course if they get lost. No ability check is required.

Track. A character can follow the tracks of another starship, making an Intelligence (Probe) check when the GM calls for it. (The Dungeon Master's Guide has rules for tracking.)

Splitting Up the Party

Splitting up the party is more difficult when your party only has one ship. Should they acquire a fleet of their own, however, they can form multiple parties, each moving at a different speed. Each group has its own deployment order. The drawback to this approach is that the party will be split into several smaller groups in the event of an attack. The advantage is that a small group of stealthy ships moving slowly might be able to sneak past enemies that clumsier ships would alert. A X-wing moving at a slow pace is much harder to detect than the Corellian Corvette they leave behind.