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I was browsing the starfinder system as i was curious about tech and noticed that space travel is much faster. Admitedly pathfinder doesnt have much space travel but i personally would prefer to keep the travel times consistent between the two. So the two systems...
Pathfinder
Insystem = 2d20 days.
Interplanetary = 2d20 weeks.
Starfinder
Insystem = 1d6+2 days
Nearspace = 3d6 days
Vast = 5d6 days.
There are other special things but im just posting the two similar ones to illustrate the difference. So if you were using a pathfinder interspace travel option would you go with the existing pathfinder rules, use the starfinder ones or keep the two different? I ask as the starfinder ones are are about 4 times faster in system and intersystem potentially 10 times faster.
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Yeah, the speed of space travel's going to depend largely on the propulsion system you use. A primitive Pathfinder style engine is going to take longer than a Starfinder Drift Engine. The only exception I'd make is Androffan tech (Iron Gods), with the Divinity Drive taking you just as fast as a Drift Engine or faster.
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Bleh trying to quote two people on the phone lost my entire post.
I'm not sure drift travel should be faster as this isnt say tech level 4 nuclear drive vs tech level 7 tachyon drive where it would get faster. This is magical ship/being vs essentially magical ship/being (you use tech to enter drift space only once in there you travel as vaguely as say a migo crossing the void). Even the thrusters vs mythic magic gives the advantage to the thrusters. Which is why im considering house ruling a mix so they'll both travel at the same speeds. Slower than starfinder is normally but faster than pathfinder.
I mean... wouldn't speed of travel depend on how you're traveling?
Path/starfinder use dice rolls rather tha engine speed calculation so any ship/being is going to travel at droll speed.
I guess the question is just whether you want travel to take days or months. If going away to get a PC un-petrified (or raised from the dead, or whatever condition your players can't undo) by a known temple on another planet is something that could happen (days) or that practically speaking can't (months).
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Actually my inclination is insystem planet to planet (1d6+2)x2 day's, nearspace (same radius as my house ruled interplanetary teleport) 3d6 weeks, the vast (travel beyond that radius from start point) 5d6 weeks. Its not really the time that bothers me its the sheer difference between starfinder and pathfinder speeds when pathfinder has near divine powered artifacts travelling slower than clapped out old rust buckets.
If the system had a variable speed factor like say startreks warp so you could go average ship warp 6, artifact warp 7, top tech/divine ship warp 8 it'd be fine you can adjust the rates but as is there's no variance beyond a divide by thruster rating for insystem travel. Everything in pathfinder travels the stars 4 to 10 times slower than everything in starfinder. Which is why I personally would like the two having the same speeds and why I'm curious if others would prefer everything to use starfinder, pathfinder, other or different speed values.
Personally I'd use an actual map (probably 3D) and speeds when going interstellar. Insystem I'd use some sort of random factor to avoid having to keep track of relative motion in 3D, but stars move slowly compared to the distances between them. The actual speeds would depend on what I wanted for that game. YMMV and obviously does.
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I'd prefer that too though ingame the random travel time makes sense as your travelling through a shifting dimension and your calculating a route to avoid debris. Perhaps I'll just adopt the star trek warp system though and stay away from the 9+ nonsense. It'd allow conaistent travel times which I like more.
Yeah, random travel time makes absolutely no sense to me.
Decide how long it would take given available modes of transportation.
Randomness makes some sense, actually. Aside from the potential for hazards to force deviations (comets, space debris, and whatever), the random travel times are an easy abstraction to deal with celestial revolutions without having to actually keep track of what planets are where at any given time. 2d20 weeks between planets means that, at their closest, the planets are only 2 weeks apart, while when they are on opposite sides of the sun, it takes 40 weeks to get to them. Any time you travel, you can simply roll to see the relative positions of the planets at that point in time.
This kind of breaks down if you hop planets very frequently, or if you have a lot of different planets in the system you travel to and thus they can't all be at 2 weeks from each other at their closest point (unless you've got a really weird solar system without a main plane of revolution I guess), but for infrequent space travel, the randomness can just be a simple way to account for the changing distances between celestial bodies.