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Old 05-20-2016, 03:54 PM   #2
RogerBW
 
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

There are obvious complications and special cases. Navigation/TL8 (Air) becomes much simpler when you're working with GPS rather than with radio navaids (though obviously much more vulnerable to system failures). I'd also argue that if you're used to GPS air or land navigation on Earth, APS air or land navigation on Mars might well be less penalised than -5: in all cases you're telling the computer where you want to go, then pointing the vehicle where the nav system tells you to point it.

I'm not at all convinced by (Space) defaulting to Astronomy. For cruising around the solar system, taking star sights is only a tiny part of the job of working out where you should point the ship, when, and for how long you should burn. Playing with the Orbiter spaceflight simulator (freeware, but alas only for Windows) will make this very clear.

Given that Navigation is explicitly based on map reading, I think one could justify a separate skill for things like orientating oneself by the natural environment (I own a copy of the classic "Finding Your Way Without Map or Compass").

With all that said, I don't have any great tales of navigation in the game. In the WWII campaign it's often made a difference to when the group arrives somewhere, and in my new space game it (a) gives direct bonuses to Piloting and (b) will be useful for plotting cunning courses to shave off crucial hours of transit time.
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