So according to the starship rules, "Go into Orbit or Land" takes 1d2 hours.
According to NASA, de-orbital burn starts at landing -1 hour, so I can see the 1d2 hours being fine for landing (though it's still very hard-science and counter to what you see in a movie like Star Wars).
But using that as a take-off time is insane. Also according to NASA, it takes 8 1/2 minutes for a Space Shuttle to get to orbit (0 MPH to 17k MPH). I can't imagine what circumstance it would take to lengthen that to an hour, let alone 2.
Hmm... might that time include pre-flight checks, communications with local air/space traffic co-coordinators (if applicable) and such?
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Via all the space X launches I have watched it takes about 10 mins or so to get the second stage to orbit elevation. (If you haven't watched any you should, pretty cool watching it land) Probably twice that to get into a stable orbit.
Only thing I can think of is they are not assuming a rocket trajectory on leaving the planet and more a SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) ship where it would fly up to the upper atmosphere then kick in some high altitude boosters to exit into orbit.
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While the engines might be power efficient they might not provide enough thrust for rapid takeoff required for real rockets who don't have antigravity and magic. The economics of flight changes to favor space efficient over atmospheric and likely a lack of launch specialized engines.
I guess I can see that but it still seems more like a justification than a reason. It seems off to me for a science fantasy setting to be making stuff that takes many times longer to reach orbit than even modern real technology, let alone a ship like the Millennium Falcon or an X-Wing fighter. Personally, I'm going to have to houserule that; It just doesn't jive with the genre for me personally. YMMV, of course.
Hmm... might that time include pre-flight checks, communications with local air/space traffic co-coordinators (if applicable) and such?
I suppose it could, though I don't see any notations to adjust it if you're taking off from a non-technological world, where there would be no air traffic. And there should be some mechanism for skipping a pre-flight, otherwise many of the chase scenes we're familiar with from movies would basically not happen. I know the system doesn't have to be able to mimic every movie ever, but I think "blasting your way out of Mos Eisley" is a pretty iconic trope.
I can see those times being okay. It is I think not the actual time to from deceleration to landing but more of either you are A> in a tech area and waiting on your landing permission clearance B> not in a tech area and having to try to find a good solid landing site and all the flight checks involved.
and taking off again you have likely the preflight checks and again either waiting on permission for your slot to leave or on a non tech world which probably also means not great satellite coverage making darn sure you scan your path well to avoid any unexpected hazards.
Bird strikes are bad but when flying a ship fast enough to break orbit making sure some dragon lizard thing is not in your flight path seems wise as an accidental collision would be problematic.
Also I guess I should just add time to break orbit largely depends on the world you are breaking orbit from. I can easily see the 1d2 hours as just being a random reasonable time window to use in general but this could easily change depending on what world you are on.
If you are on an airless lifeless moon with almost no gravity breaking orbit would take probably a couple minutes. Taking off from a planet 3 times bigger than earth with harsh weather conditions could wind up taking hours/days until you get a window to launch through.
I second the idea that preflight checks could take this amount of time.
My own experience with ships is that we start our pre underway checks days in advance. Presumably the Spaceships of Starfinder would be on the same order of complexity as modern warships. Systems would need to be started up, they would need to be verified, ect. Sure you could skip some of the steps, but others couldn't be skipped. You may need "system a" up and running before you can start "system b".
Hmm... might that time include pre-flight checks, communications with local air/space traffic co-coordinators (if applicable) and such?I suppose it could, though I don't see any notations to adjust it if you're taking off from a non-technological world, where there would be no air traffic. And there should be some mechanism for skipping a pre-flight, otherwise many of the chase scenes we're familiar with from movies would basically not happen. I know the system doesn't have to be able to mimic every movie ever, but I think "blasting your way out of Mos Eisley" is a pretty iconic trope.
I see the 1d2 roll as a way to handle preflight checks, traffic clearances, etc. without having to actually role-play all that. It allows for a passage of time to make sure everything is shipshape and Bristol fashion before lifting or landing.
The mechanism to skip is basically the PCs saying "we want to skip it", and the GM deciding the consequences. As a GM, I would absolutely allow PCs to blast out of Mos Eisley, but consequences may range from mid-air collision with a pleasure yacht to the traffic cops showing up. Blasting the hell off the Planet of The Prehistoric Creatures could entail collision with kaid's flying lizards to harried Crewman Jones forgetting to close an outer airlock.
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As a GM, I would absolutely allow PCs to blast out of Mos Eisley, but consequences may range from mid-air collision with a pleasure yacht to the traffic cops showing up. Blasting the hell off the Planet of The Prehistoric Creatures could entail collision with kaid's flying lizards to harried Crewman Jones forgetting to close an outer airlock.
Yeah, I might make up some sort of mishap table in such a case and just leave the numbers as is unless specified that they're ignoring it. Give, even without preflights, a ship in good shape in a low traffic world should be able to safely make orbit most of the time, IMO. Even if that's not realistic (which I have no idea not being a real pilot), it's well enough established in space fantasy as a genre.
It's important to remember that the reason our rockets go so fast is because they absolutely have to. They burn an incredible amount of fuel, and do so insanely fast. Both the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle were about 85% fuel by weight. The Saturn V burned 1,200 gallons of fuel *every second* for about nine minutes. If they go any slower, they would run out of fuel before getting to orbit.
With antigravity (or at least the ability to hover under power) and propulsion systems that do not require crazy amounts of fuel, one can afford to take a far more leisurely (and vastly safer) trip into orbit.
Add in Air Traffic control and the sort of pre-flight checks that sane pilots demand, and it doesn't seem so odd.