Navigation, Sensors, and Comms

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This chapter covers Astrogation checks for Slipstream travel, sensor grades and detection, signature management and running dark, transponders, ship communications and the relay network, and the ship's AI Core. Slipstream drives, the FTL transit procedure, and the offset-exit modifiers and failure table are in Chapter Six. Combat actions for the Sensors and Comms station are in Chapter Fifteen.

Astrogation

Astrogation checks use Intellect + Astrogation and are made by the crew member at the Astrogation station (Chapter Fourteen). A Navigation Directive Package assists them (see Ship AI Cores, below).

Charted travel needs no check. A ship with a working Navigation Suite and current route data locates an Established or Maintained seam, enters it, crosses a charted Lane, Spine, or Grand Channel, and leaves by the standard exit without a roll. The navigator makes an Astrogation check when the seam is Frontier, New, or Fading; when the corridor is a Thread or a Fracture, Turbulent, newly charted, or saturated; when the ship takes an offset exit; when the Navigation Suite or Slipstream drive is damaged (Chapter Six, Drive Damage); and when the GM names another exceptional circumstance.

Seam Checks

A seam that needs a check needs it to locate the arc on approach and again to enter it (Chapter Six, FTL Transit Procedure, Steps 1 and 4). Both checks use the difficulty below.

Failure to locate the arc means the ship cannot find it on this approach. The navigator may try again after 1 Interval (Chapter Six, Legs and Intervals), or the crew may attempt a forced entry (Chapter Six) with all its consequences. Failure to enter means the drive does not cross; the ship stays in normal space at the arc, and the drive must charge again before another attempt.

Corridor Transit

The navigator makes one transit check as the ship enters the corridor, at the highest difficulty that applies.

A route with the Stable trait removes 1 Bane Die from seam and transit checks made on it.

Failure on a transit check takes the ship off the optimal path: the Slipstream drive takes 1 System Damage and the transit runs 1d3 days longer. A Calamity may instead deposit the ship in an unexpected branch of the corridor or cause further System Damage, at the GM's choice.

Corridor Capacity

Corridor class sets the largest ship the corridor carries safely. The route record in the Sector Atlas may state a different limit for a specific corridor.

A ship one Scale above the limit may enter. Its transit check is at least Hard, and it counts the corridor's saturation as one step worse for its own checks. A ship two or more Scales above the limit cannot cross: its phase wake tears the stream, and the entry fails as a forced entry (Chapter Six).

Corridor Saturation

Every transition adds phase turbulence. Heavy traffic raises a corridor's saturation, which the GM sets from the route record's known complications and the current traffic.

At Crowded or worse, every ship makes seam and transit checks even where none would otherwise be needed, starting from Average.

Saturation is temporary. It clears as traffic drops, usually within a day. A fleet entering at once pushes a corridor toward Saturated, so large fleets enter in waves: vanguard ships emerge first, heavy hulls later, support ships scattered behind them.

Offset Exits

An offset exit leaves the corridor before or after the standard exit arc, away from the monitored track.

1. Declare. During transit, the navigator chooses the offset type: Near, Distant, Extreme, or Emergency Punch-Out.
2. Check. The navigator makes an Astrogation check. The base difficulty is Average; apply the offset modifier for the chosen type from the Offset Exits table in Chapter Six. A Distant offset is therefore a Hard check with 1 Bane Die . Saturation modifiers apply.
3. Success. The ship emerges at the chosen point. Add the Extreme-leg Intervals from Chapter Six to its approach. An Emergency Punch-Out still brings a serious complication of the GM's choice.
4. Failure. The ship still emerges. Roll on the offset-exit failure table in Chapter Six.

Astrogation Results

Spend Boon and Bane results from any Astrogation check on these effects.

A navigator who identifies a secondary seam or an uncharted trait during ordinary transit has made an incidental Corridor Trace or Locate Candidate Seam result (below); the GM records it as the crew would record a trace.

Exploration

Finding a new Slipstream route is an expedition with six steps: trace the corridor, locate the candidate seam, make the first transit, survey the system on arrival, survey a body, and file or sell the record. The full procedure, its complications, and the empty-system generator are in the GM Guide. The two navigation steps are extended Astrogation checks.

Corridor Trace starts from one of four positions. From a known corridor that continues past its terminal seam: Average. From a Rumored atlas entry or a purchased survey fragment: Hard. From a Faded Branch, Collapsed Port, or Lost seam: Hard. From open space with no prior data: Severe, and the Seam Survey Package is required. The ship holds position in the Extreme Travel Band while tracing and burns fuel at a quarter of a Nearby jump charge per day (Chapter Twelve, Fuel); its crew draws consumables as normal. Meeting the threshold confirms the corridor and its class and reveals one route trait. Reaching the attempt limit means no corridor is within reach of this position.

Locate Candidate Seam is the New seam check, run as an extended check because the seam has never been crossed and no phase wake marks it. Meeting the threshold locates a candidate seam at New stability, and the crew may enter. Reaching the attempt limit means no usable seam exists here for this crew; the only remaining way through is a forced entry (Chapter Six).

The first transit through a candidate seam uses the rules above: seam checks at Severe to enter and to exit, and a Hard transit check. Survey hardware that modifies these checks (Seam Survey Package, Astrogation Lab, Slipstream Stabilization Package) is in Chapter Ten.

Sensors

Sensors detect ships and objects, scan cargo and life signs, read emissions, identify threats, and map hazards. Sensor checks use Intellect + Electronics and are made by the crew member at the Sensors and Comms station (Chapter Fourteen).

Sensor Grades

Every ship carries one of four sensor grades. A grade's most important property is its detection band: the farthest Range Band at which it detects another ship at all. The same bands apply to Travel Bands during in-system travel (Chapter Six, Detection on the Approach).

A ship cannot detect a contact beyond its grade's band. Extreme is the limit of detection, so Military sensors see as far as anything in known space can. A Military watcher detects a freighter at Extreme and can close through two full bands before the freighter's Standard suite registers anything; the freighter's first warning is a contact at Medium that already has a firing solution.

The Advanced tag on a sensor component (Chapter Ten) adds 1 Boon Die to its checks without changing its grade.

Sensor Checks

Ordinary detection needs no check: a ship that is not hiding is detected automatically when it enters the watcher's detection band. Every check below is Intellect + Electronics.

Active and Passive Sensors

A ship's sensors run passively by default: they receive and do not broadcast, and they reveal nothing about the ship. An active scan sends out a ping. Any ship whose sensors cover the scanning ship's position detects that a scan occurred, and can locate the scanner with a Hard check. In a fight, Active Scan and Passive Listen are Sensors and Comms actions (Chapter Fifteen).

Detection and Signature Management

A ship that wants to stay unseen reduces its signature: its heat, drive emissions, reactor noise, electromagnetic leakage, and transponder profile. These measures make a ship harder to detect, track, and target, and they always leave a watcher a chance.

Automatic Detection

These ships are detected without a check by every watcher whose band reaches them:

• A ship that is not hiding.
• A ship broadcasting its transponder. Traffic control knows it from emergence wherever relay or beacon coverage exists.
• A ship on Hard Burn, or running an antimatter engine at Cruise 4 or higher: detectable at Extreme by any grade (Chapter Six). Signature management does not offset this.
• A ship that fires a weapon, makes an active scan, jams, or transmits by broadcast or relay, for the round it does so. A ship with a Military Shadow Package makes a Signature Management check instead (Chapter Eight).
• A ship leaving Cold Running Mode, by every watcher within Medium whatever its grade, for that round.

The Detection Check

When a hiding ship is inside a watcher's detection band, resolve detection as an opposed check (core rules, Opposed Checks).

1. The watcher makes a detection check: Intellect + Electronics, by its Sensors and Comms crew member.
2. The hiding ship makes a Signature Management check: Intellect + Electronics, by its Sensors and Comms crew member. If nobody is at that station, the watcher instead makes an Easy check with all its modifiers.
3. Compare net Successes. The watcher initiates the check, so a tie goes to the hiding ship. If the watcher wins, the hiding ship is detected. Otherwise it stays hidden.

When to check. During in-system travel, make one detection check each time the hiding ship begins a leg inside the watcher's band. In structured play, the watcher's Sensors and Comms crew member makes the check with a Passive Listen or Active Scan action (Chapter Fifteen).

Staying detected. A detected ship stays detected by that watcher while it remains inside the watcher's band. To lose the watcher, it must leave the band, or enter Cold Running Mode and win a new detection check at the start of the round after the mode takes effect.

Detection Modifiers

Emission Baffles, the Heat Sink Array, signal scramblers, and the Military Shadow Package are in Chapter Eight. Vent Heat is in Chapter Fifteen.

Electronic Silence

Electronic Silence shuts down every emitter: transponder off, active sensors off, no broadcast or relay traffic, no targeting emissions. Declaring it or ending it is a Quick Action by the captain or the Sensors and Comms crew member.

• Effect: Basic and Standard sensors add 2 Bane Dice to detection checks against the ship. Extended and Military sensors read its heat and mass passively, and Electronic Silence gives no benefit against them.
• Heat: The ship's emitters hold their waste heat aboard. It gains 1 Heat at the end of each round, before Heat Dissipation.
• Restrictions: No active scans, Target Lock, or guided weapons; gunners get no Fire Control package assistance. No relay traffic. Passive sensors work normally.
• Piloting: Pilot checks for docking and precision flight add 1 Bane Die (no navigation coordination).

Electronic Silence is not Dark Running. Dark Running only switches off the transponder; the ship's emissions are unchanged (see Transponders).

Cold Running Mode

Cold Running Mode shuts the ship down to the minimum it needs to survive: engines at minimum thrust, weapons powered down, sensors passive, life support at minimum cycling, AI in standby, every other system dark. Any ship can run cold; it needs no equipment.

• Entering: The captain or engineer declares it. The mode takes effect at the end of the second round after the declaration (third round on a Crown Meridian hull; fourth on a Kharos hull, which also needs an Average Craft check by the engineer). An emergency entry takes effect at the end of the round it is declared, but watchers add only 2 Bane Dice instead of 3 until the ship has been cold for 2 full rounds.
• Effect: Watchers' detection checks add 3 Bane Dice . Target Lock attempts against the ship add 2 Bane Dice . The mode includes Electronic Silence; the two do not stack.
• Power and movement: Power Load 1. Speed 1, and at most one Helm action per round. During in-system travel the ship moves at Cruise 1.
• Restrictions: No weapons fire, active scans, relay or broadcast transmissions, ECM, or deflection screens. No AI assistance.
• Breaking: Any weapon fire, active scan, or ECM use ends the mode at once. The thermal bloom and emission spike are visible to every watcher within Medium for that round.
• Duration: No limit. A ship can drift cold for days.
• Orbit: Within Short of a planet or station, a ship running cold must make an Average Pilot check every 6 hours to hold a safe orbit. On a failure it must light its engines or begin to fall.

Example: Running Dark into Merrow Gate

The crew's Model 20 (Standard sensors, Openframe hull) emerges from a Near offset at Merrow Gate (Standard approach) and goes into Electronic Silence for the run in to Merrowhold. An inspection cutter with Standard sensors holds station at Medium.

When the Model 20 begins its Medium-to-Short leg inside the cutter's band, the GM calls for a detection check. The cutter's sensor operator rolls Intellect + Electronics with 2 Bane Dice for Electronic Silence against Standard sensors. The crew's sensor operator, Dela Voss, rolls Intellect + Electronics for Signature Management; the ship's Heat is below Threshold and an Openframe hull carries no Signature Management drawback, so she adds nothing. Both rolls net 1 Success. The watcher initiated, so the tie goes to the crew. The Model 20 slips past.

Two legs later a patrol cutter with Military sensors lights up the inner system. Electronic Silence gives nothing against Military sensors, so the captain orders Cold Running Mode. The ship drops to Cruise 1 and adds two days to the run, but the patrol cutter's detection check now carries 3 Bane Dice, less 1 because its Military sensors are within Medium.

Transponders

Every ship licensed to operate in known space carries a transponder, which broadcasts the ship's identity on a continuous loop. It is the legal foundation of traffic management and the first thing any authority checks.

Authorities use transponder data to flag outstanding warrants, compare cargo declarations against route data, verify weapons licenses, and trigger inspections. A ship whose declaration does not fit its class, whose route history is unusual, or whose ownership record has gaps is flagged automatically.

Transponder Spoofing

False transponder data is illegal in every power's space and common among smugglers, privateers, intelligence operatives, and ships with complicated legal status.

Installing a spoof needs replacement data (ideally a real ship unlikely to appear in the same port), access to the transponder, and an Electronics check: Average for a registry change, Hard for convincing false ownership and cargo history. Record the installer's net Successes on the ship sheet as the spoof's quality.

Detecting a spoof is an Electronics check by the inspecting authority. Add 1 Bane Die for each net Success of spoof quality beyond the first.

A crude spoof uses registration numbers that do not match port records, cargo declarations that do not fit the ship's configuration, or owner data that leads to a registry flagged for fraud. A professional spoof builds a false identity from genuine but unused registration numbers.

Dark Running

A ship may switch its transponder off entirely. Dark Running is illegal in port space, commercial corridors, and military zones, and unusual anywhere else. It does not hide the ship from sensors; for that, see Detection and Signature Management.

• Any ship with working sensors notices the missing transponder signal on a detected contact.
• Authorities in monitored zones log the absence and may send an inquiry vessel.
• Traffic control assigns no corridor priority or safe approach vector.
• Distress protocols cannot identify the ship automatically.
• Military ships treat dark contacts as suspicious by default, and some military zones treat them as hostile.

Communications

Ship Communications

A ship's Communications system carries voice and data to any ship or station in the same star system. Within Medium, exchange is immediate; across Long and Extreme, messages lag by minutes, so conversation is slow but workable. A broadcast is detectable by any ship that can receive it.

A tight-beam link aims a transmission at one known position: a detected contact or a charted station. Only the recipient, and ships Engaged with the beam's path, can intercept it. A tight-beam transmission is permitted under Electronic Silence and does not trigger automatic detection; it is not possible in Cold Running Mode.

The Phased Relay Network

Phased relays carry messages between star systems through the same corridor geometry ships use. How the network works, typical message times, and the limits of relay coverage are in the Player's Guide, Chapter Ten.

Uplink. A ship with working communications and valid registry credentials connects to the relay automatically from any Travel Band of a system with an active relay. With damaged communications, or through a damaged or intermittent relay, uplink is an Average Electronics check.

Coverage gaps. Relays sit near established seams. In fringe space, isolated systems, new colonies, and systems with fading seams, coverage is intermittent or absent, and a weakening seam can lose relay service before it becomes unsafe for ships.

A colony that loses its relay loses fast communication first. It goes on operating on news weeks old about prices, conditions, and threats.

Monitoring and Censorship

Every major power monitors relay traffic through its territory, from passive metadata collection (who is talking to whom) to active inspection of unencrypted content. Military relays inspect more aggressively than commercial ones. Encryption protects content but not metadata: origin, destination, size, and timing remain visible, and authorities read a great deal from them.

The Caliphate runs the most aggressive monitoring in known space: Jaziri relays check credentials, log all traffic, scan for unauthorized encryption formats, and flag messages consistent with political or religious dissent. League monitoring is lighter and commercial; corporations license traffic analysis from relay operators. Fringe relays are often run by independents whose practices range from careful neutrality to active information brokerage.

Jamming and Electronic Warfare

Jamming is the Jam action in Chapter Fifteen: an opposed Electronics check that degrades one function of the target for one round. Outside a fight, the GM resolves jamming of a ship's communications or relay uplink with the same opposed check, lasting for the scene. Counter-Jam and Sensor Ghost are also in Chapter Fifteen, and ECM hardware is in Chapter Eight.

Ship AI Cores

The rule for AI assistance is in the Player's Guide, Chapter Ten: the five conditions, the removal of 1 Trial Die (or the downgrade of 1 Crisis Die when no Trial Die remains), the 1 Boon Die it adds instead in an opposed check, one AI benefit per check, and the routine tasks that need no roll. This section covers the ship's AI Core: its rating, its packages, its channels in a ship encounter, and damage.

AI Core Ratings

Fleet, station, and capital-scale systems run bespoke Strategic Command AI, which no crew ship carries. Build costs for each grade are in Chapter Thirteen.

Directive Packages

An AI Core assists only with tasks its installed packages cover.

A package gives the standard AI effect and nothing more: the Navigation package removes 1 Trial Die from an Astrogation check, and the Sensors package adds 1 Boon Die to an opposed detection check. A Viridian AI Core's Signature benefit adds to this (Chapter Five).

Active Channels in Ship Encounters

Each Active Channel assists one check per round. A channel stays assigned to a station until redirected; Chapter Fourteen lists which packages serve which station. Redirecting a channel that has not assisted a check this round is a Quick Action. Redirecting one that already has is a Maneuver. When every channel is in use, the crew waits or redirects one.

One Package per Check

A check benefits from one Directive Package at most. When the Navigation and Sensors packages could both assist the same check, choose one.

AI Core Damage

A damaged AI Core is repaired with Craft or Electronics checks under the repair rules in Chapter Eleven.

AI Complications

Bane and Calamity results on AI-assisted checks follow the Player's Guide, Chapter Ten (AI Complications). Salvaged Jaziri military AI and over-modified cores can behave in ways no directive explains; the GM Guide covers this.