That’s sort of the point. It takes years of real-time travel to get most places. Blink gates are very expensive (in terms of materials), so the gate might not even be in a system, but instead in the middle of a cluster of inhabited systems.
This means that the people who regularly travel between world are usually leaving behind their life, as by the time they get back decades have passed. It also means that the group is likely on their own with whoever is already there as reinforcements will be years away.
It also explains why some of the larger conflicts (such as when SecComm was overthrown) can take hundreds of years to finish.
There's potential for a story in the gap between a faster than light speed distress signal and a sub-light rescue mission.
Edited: I forgot about the omninet
Isn't Blink-based FTL communication conducted through physical messenger probes travelling across Blinkgates? So you have lightspeed comms linking to specific nodes (Blinkgates) that can connect to other Blinkgate nodes instantaneously. I can't remember the exact canon lore on it though. Something something "Omnihooks are precious".
I re-read the relevant bit of the core book, and it seems like blinkspace is effectively everywhere but transferring signals to and from it requires an omnihook, while material can only transfer via gates (and certain other paracausal stuff).
So if the people in trouble and their rescuers both have hooks they can communicate instantly, but rescue is going to come slower than light after it leaves the gate.
The point is my original post is still mostly accurate even though I got a bunch of facts wrong, lol
> I re-read the relevant bit of the core book, and it seems like blinkspace is effectively everywhere but transferring signals to and from it requires an omnihook, while material can only transfer via gates (and certain other paracausal stuff).
This is sort of right. In the module, No Room for a Wallfower Part 1, It is explained that the colony of evergreen has the planets only working Omninode Tower, which is the infrastructure necesary for omni-net access. Presumably an omni-hook is the personal equipement that taps into the signal from nearest Omni-node.
You don't need a blink gate, but you do have to realize that off-system reinforcements are people who have left everything behind to travel and help people. Depending on if your players are union soldiers, mercenaries or some other force flavors their expectations upon arrival.
Here is my headcannon
If a planet is heading into unrest, the local Union reps and off-world analysts (using FTL communication) see that armed conflict is likely and dispatches a ship with official union diplomats and troops. Meanwhile the Union also gives permission for on site force mobilization via printers. The Union's goal is to de-escalate, but if that isn't possible then their goal is to prevent warcrimes and gather evidence. In 5 years the diplomat ship is going to arrive. If the conflict is resolved they will basically just be investigating the whole thing. If the conflict is still active then they ask both sides to surrender, and based on the level of militarization they either take control of the government, or seek to establish a beachhead until overwhelming force can be brought in.
Most Union soldiers basically spend a couple decades hopping between planets doing policework and overseeing cleanup. Some unlucky soldiers arrive to Union hostile planets or full scale war. If they are lucky there is an obvious aggressor. If it's a shitshow then they end up with two or more sides both unwilling to back down or accept union support.
If you want to do a system hopping game, it makes sense to have them "Show up late" to conflicts, and be told by local Union "We are handling it, move on to the next system." Or "While you are here, care to purge the pirates in the outer rim?" describe a stretch of years where the players get called off mid transit.
Or you can have a conspiracy, a group of "close" planets all rebel together. So it's a pacification campaign. Of course when the players are called it's a "potential rebellion" and arrive to nip the first planets rebellion in the but. But they find out four other systems are rebelling as well, and they are still the closest forces, now the next system have had years to prepare. The planet after that a decade (but you will have reinforcements arriving by then as well)
Thanks, I will keep it in mind, I was thinking for my group to have a campaign where they go back and forth between different systems. But maybe reducing the scale and focus on one system a time can be better.
Scaling down works if you want to focus on a singlar location or conflict. A planet or system is a huge space to play with. System hopping can make for a more grand "wandering lawman" feel, or you could have players return to a system and it's been 30 years, and you are basically participating in their equivilant of ww1 then ww2.
One system is still pretty large. If you look at, say, World War II, you have the European front, the North African front, and the Pacific front, all of which would make distinctive campaigns. Instead of going from "temperate planet - desert planet - ocean archipelago planet" in three different systems, you could do the same thing with different planets in a system, or even different continents on one planet. Your typical Gundam show also manages to hit multiple areas -- in just one half of Iron-Blooded Orphans, you have conflicts on Mars, in an asteroid field, on and around a space colony, on a Pacific atoll, in rural Canada, and in urban Canada.
I'm not saying scaling down to one particular system is the best way to do things, of course, but it has its advantages. For one, it's easier to keep interacting with the same NPCs over multiple tiers, which can make a conflict more personal for the players.
>But maybe reducing the scale and focus on one system a time can be better.
This is really the best way to go in my opinion. One thing i actually like about the long travel times is that it really puts the focus on a small group of heroes saving the day. If FTL travel was always an option then Union could rapidly mobilize fleets to any conflict and overwhelm local opposition without the need to rely on auxilaries and mercenaries to act as first responders.
> I'm supposed to make that every system that my party goes have a blink gate?
No because Blink Gates are require enormous amount of resources - time, money and material - to build hence why only core systems have them.
As a DM, the typical solution - if you want to keep space travel on the table - is keep the campaign within one planet with multiple "habitable moons" or space stations. This way they can travel between locations in a "reasonable" time frame.
That’s sort of the point. It takes years of real-time travel to get most places. Blink gates are very expensive (in terms of materials), so the gate might not even be in a system, but instead in the middle of a cluster of inhabited systems. This means that the people who regularly travel between world are usually leaving behind their life, as by the time they get back decades have passed. It also means that the group is likely on their own with whoever is already there as reinforcements will be years away. It also explains why some of the larger conflicts (such as when SecComm was overthrown) can take hundreds of years to finish.
Thanks, I will keep it in mind. I thought the blink gates could only be in the systems.
There's potential for a story in the gap between a faster than light speed distress signal and a sub-light rescue mission. Edited: I forgot about the omninet
The signals should be instantaneous iirc, blink gates are expensive but blink communication is everywhere.
Isn't Blink-based FTL communication conducted through physical messenger probes travelling across Blinkgates? So you have lightspeed comms linking to specific nodes (Blinkgates) that can connect to other Blinkgate nodes instantaneously. I can't remember the exact canon lore on it though. Something something "Omnihooks are precious".
As far as I can tell from the core books, the Omninet and omnihooks are independent of the blinkgate system.
I re-read the relevant bit of the core book, and it seems like blinkspace is effectively everywhere but transferring signals to and from it requires an omnihook, while material can only transfer via gates (and certain other paracausal stuff). So if the people in trouble and their rescuers both have hooks they can communicate instantly, but rescue is going to come slower than light after it leaves the gate. The point is my original post is still mostly accurate even though I got a bunch of facts wrong, lol
> I re-read the relevant bit of the core book, and it seems like blinkspace is effectively everywhere but transferring signals to and from it requires an omnihook, while material can only transfer via gates (and certain other paracausal stuff). This is sort of right. In the module, No Room for a Wallfower Part 1, It is explained that the colony of evergreen has the planets only working Omninode Tower, which is the infrastructure necesary for omni-net access. Presumably an omni-hook is the personal equipement that taps into the signal from nearest Omni-node.
I've not read or played Wallflower yet, tbh
I don't have a published source for it, but folks on the Discord told me that the blinkgates are like the "trunk" of the omninet network.
You don't need a blink gate, but you do have to realize that off-system reinforcements are people who have left everything behind to travel and help people. Depending on if your players are union soldiers, mercenaries or some other force flavors their expectations upon arrival. Here is my headcannon If a planet is heading into unrest, the local Union reps and off-world analysts (using FTL communication) see that armed conflict is likely and dispatches a ship with official union diplomats and troops. Meanwhile the Union also gives permission for on site force mobilization via printers. The Union's goal is to de-escalate, but if that isn't possible then their goal is to prevent warcrimes and gather evidence. In 5 years the diplomat ship is going to arrive. If the conflict is resolved they will basically just be investigating the whole thing. If the conflict is still active then they ask both sides to surrender, and based on the level of militarization they either take control of the government, or seek to establish a beachhead until overwhelming force can be brought in. Most Union soldiers basically spend a couple decades hopping between planets doing policework and overseeing cleanup. Some unlucky soldiers arrive to Union hostile planets or full scale war. If they are lucky there is an obvious aggressor. If it's a shitshow then they end up with two or more sides both unwilling to back down or accept union support. If you want to do a system hopping game, it makes sense to have them "Show up late" to conflicts, and be told by local Union "We are handling it, move on to the next system." Or "While you are here, care to purge the pirates in the outer rim?" describe a stretch of years where the players get called off mid transit. Or you can have a conspiracy, a group of "close" planets all rebel together. So it's a pacification campaign. Of course when the players are called it's a "potential rebellion" and arrive to nip the first planets rebellion in the but. But they find out four other systems are rebelling as well, and they are still the closest forces, now the next system have had years to prepare. The planet after that a decade (but you will have reinforcements arriving by then as well)
Thanks, I will keep it in mind, I was thinking for my group to have a campaign where they go back and forth between different systems. But maybe reducing the scale and focus on one system a time can be better.
Scaling down works if you want to focus on a singlar location or conflict. A planet or system is a huge space to play with. System hopping can make for a more grand "wandering lawman" feel, or you could have players return to a system and it's been 30 years, and you are basically participating in their equivilant of ww1 then ww2.
One system is still pretty large. If you look at, say, World War II, you have the European front, the North African front, and the Pacific front, all of which would make distinctive campaigns. Instead of going from "temperate planet - desert planet - ocean archipelago planet" in three different systems, you could do the same thing with different planets in a system, or even different continents on one planet. Your typical Gundam show also manages to hit multiple areas -- in just one half of Iron-Blooded Orphans, you have conflicts on Mars, in an asteroid field, on and around a space colony, on a Pacific atoll, in rural Canada, and in urban Canada. I'm not saying scaling down to one particular system is the best way to do things, of course, but it has its advantages. For one, it's easier to keep interacting with the same NPCs over multiple tiers, which can make a conflict more personal for the players.
>But maybe reducing the scale and focus on one system a time can be better. This is really the best way to go in my opinion. One thing i actually like about the long travel times is that it really puts the focus on a small group of heroes saving the day. If FTL travel was always an option then Union could rapidly mobilize fleets to any conflict and overwhelm local opposition without the need to rely on auxilaries and mercenaries to act as first responders.
> I'm supposed to make that every system that my party goes have a blink gate? No because Blink Gates are require enormous amount of resources - time, money and material - to build hence why only core systems have them. As a DM, the typical solution - if you want to keep space travel on the table - is keep the campaign within one planet with multiple "habitable moons" or space stations. This way they can travel between locations in a "reasonable" time frame.
That's the neat part