So, what is a star drive? In Traveller the Jump engine expends all its fuel in a massive burst of energy and control that propels the ship from part of the Universe to another. For instance, a J-1 Jump drive will send a ship over one parsec distance taking about 1 week. There is more to it, but those are the basics.
What about other role-playing games (RPG)? In Other Suns the FTL (faster than light) drive will propel a 1,000 metric ton ship from 5 light years an hour (ly/hr) up to 31 ly/hr, depending on how much you pay for in the ship’s construction.
The biggest difference is in the style of play. Traveller likens its star travel to a time when travel to foreign lands took weeks or months to get where you want to go. Also, communications are held to the speed of light. So, any mail or data traffic waited for a ship to go to the next star system, or futuristic version of the pony express, the X-Boat.
Star Trek, based off the TV shows, used a Warp Drive. Over the years, they never had a specific time over distance formula. It all ran over at the speed of plot. If the story needed the Enterporise to arrive at Star Base 16 in a week, then either the star base was closer, or Warp 5 would get them there in the week for the story to continue. Now, Fandom has all manners of formulas, but the basics are “the speed of plot”.
There are many others, as many as there are authors with stories to tell. So, Dicer, what manner of faster-than-light would you choose for your game? Are you a Traveller or are you a Space Opera type of Sophant?
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