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It doesn't say she activates them on day 17, though. It says if the PCs arrive on day 17 or later, she beats them there. And I was responding to a concern about how even a 26-day limit is tough.
Most of my post was thematically justifying how this scenario is one where it makes a lot of sense that she just barely beats them, because her progress is limited by theirs--she can't succeed until they're on-track. While it would be nice if the adventure actually explains that instead of having a single mention of shutting down the other signals that references Encounter G, which does not explain or mention it, I'd err on the side of the PCs. Especially since the other way likely makes it impossible instead of difficult.
Venture-Lieutenant, Ireland—Newtownabbey
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They only need to get to the three sites within the 26 days, which is doable.Except that after day 16 you can't find the secondary sites, as Sounrel activates Star on day 17.
From page 10: "About an hour after Star is reactivated (see area G), they automatically and unknowingly send out a dampening signal that
scrambles the remaining signals, preventing the PCs from locating
any unexplored sites to finish the Grand Archive objective."
Her dagger is affected by the interference, she can't find star either. I'm pretty sure she arrives at pretty much the same time as the party.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Ireland—Newtownabbey
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I let the party rent animals, that gave them 2 actions a day. It still took them 28 days to get to Star's hex.
I haven't played this, but having one action a day would make this a grindy pain in the a**e.
Two actions to cross a hex, two to use the dagger, two to search for the site. That's six days and then you spend another three days looking at the mechanism. Fail the first check, you just spent ten days in a single hex. That's thirty days in just the hexes with things to turn off.
It's not possible to use the dagger to find Star until you've turned off at least two of the sites, so heading straight to Star's hex just wastes time. Even if you meta-game guess which region he's likely to be in, you straight up can't find him. I don't see how the speed mission is even possible.
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Most groups will have at least one character with a 25-foot speed or lower given that 25 feet is the normal speed. And most groups will have at least one character with a Constitution modifier of +1 or lower. Even if you have someone with a Constitution of -1 or +0, though, the rules for a forced march say "minimum 1."
That means every group can safely do a forced march every other day at worst. Getting to Travel twice every other day makes it tight, but doable.
Getting from the starting point to Hex D goes through four hexes. The first is one activity, because difficult terrain in hexploration is based on the hex you're leaving. That's seven activities total. Forced march on days one, three, and five, and reconnoiter on days six and seven. The encounters don't take a full day.
Getting from there to F takes four activities, three days as long as one is a forced march (two probably will be, since they won't know they don't need it on day 10). If they find a good vantage point, they can reconnoiter on day 11.
Getting from there to G and finding Star takes another six activities. That's four days, and then one more to reconnoiter to find Star.
16 days to find Star.
If they start going south, it's a little easier because the oasis isn't difficult terrain. Five hexes to site E, but only three are difficult terrain. Eight activities. Five days with forced marches on days one, three, and five. Reconnoiter on day six, if they successfully find a vantage point.
Getting to and locating site F from there takes four days, if they forced march on one day and reconnoiter in one day.
From there it's the same as the first situation for another five days.
15 days to find Star.
This requires making all the right decisions and finding a proper vantage point to reconnoiter in one day at least twice (you can fail one out of your three chances with the second route).
"All the right decisions" is... doable. They know they need to find several of the things in this arc. Well, they can logically conclude that there must be something at the edges of the arc. There may be something in the middle, but it could be anywhere. It's reasonable to aim for site D or E first since they know the right directions. From there they'll get a narrower arc and should be able to identify where the other of D and E are. Since they know the other one was on the opposite side of the arc, they can conclude that F is closer. After they've dealt with F, suddenly the dagger is pointing in a new direction. They knew all along that the thing they're really looking for wasn't showing up because of interference. It's reasonable to think they've now found it, and go that way.
But that's three different times they have to come to a reasonable conclusion and get it right. It's not impossible, but it's... tight. And it means they'll miss the oasis.
Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis
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Quick question, is there any reason for a group to reconnoiter a hex that does not have a ruins or is the battleground?
Since the dagger reacts differently when they are in a hex adjacent to a sought after feature, they know when they just want to move vs when they need to search.
I didn’t see any reason to reconnoiter every hex when I played this, and reading the adventure I still don’t see a reason to do so.