Space Bastards

FTL Drive: ships with FTL drive can access hyperspace once they have built up enough power and have passed outside of the gravity well of any planet, moon or star. Once the jump is made, the ship travels a rate of 1 light-year in 1d4 (random) hours. Since each sector is 10 light-years and it takes on average 2.5 hours to cross a light year, a sector can be crossed, on average 25 hours, or 1 standard Galactic Day. The exit point of each hyperspace entry must be decided at the point of jump and can't be changed once FTL is activated.

Attempting such a jump requires a buildup of power appropriate for the ship's smarts followed by a Navigation skill roll, or ship's Smarts roll. There is a -2 penalty if the jump is 6 light years or longer and -4 penalty if the jump is 11 light years or longer. Single jumps cannot be longer than 15 light years. If the Navigation roll fails, the ship cannot attempt to jump again until they are able to build up enough power for another jump.

There are 2 scales of map used for astrogation in the campaign, the Galactic Region Map and the Sector Map.

Galactic Region Map: this scale of map is set up on a square grid, where each square equals 1 star sector, each of which is 10 light years by 10 light years. Each square can be crossed in an average of 1 day (10d4 hours). Generally this sort of map is used just to show political detail. If the details of the travel are unimportant, just have the ships move 1 sector per day.

Sector Map: this scale of map is a diagram of a 10 light-year by 10 light-year area with each star system marked and named. The map is presented as a 10×10 hex grid with each hex equaling 1 light year. There are 5 types of star system main worlds indicated on these maps:

1. White Disk: Class 1 system: indicates that the planetary bodies are rather poor and cannot produce any of the standard cubes.
2. White Disk with Rings: Class 2 system: indicates planets containing sufficient rare earth elements and low-gravity station to produce Mech Cubes for interstellar trade.
3. Blue Dot: Class 3 system: indicates planets with robust biospheres able to support significant agriculture and the ability to produce Bio Cubes for interstellar trade.
4. Asteroids: Class 4 system: indicates systems with primarily asteroid fields instead of planets, and the ability to produce Power Cubes for interstellar trade.
5. Station: Class 5 system: indicates that there is no star or planets in this hex, but there is a permanent deep-space station in place.

The Top of Sector and Regional maps is oriented to the Center of the Galaxy, and are usually referred to as “Inward”
The Bottom of the maps are toward the Rim of the Galaxy and are called “Outward”
The Left side is the direction that the galaxy spins and are called “Forward”
The right side is the direction opposite the spin and is called “Backward”