Spike Drive ranges and how they affect the play in Stars Without Number

A few months ago I was introduced to Stars Without Number, a scifi RPG by Kevin Crawford. My group and I have had some good experiences with his other system, Godbound, for awhile, so I was interested to see his take on the genre. The book was fun, but we had a few months still before we could start playing it, so I decided to give the highly praised RollPlay Swan Song show a go.

When I was discussing some of the mechanics with my friends, I was made aware that both the Swan Song crew and myself understood one of the core mechanics wrong (thinking the spaceships could Drill into any hex on the map, even empty ones, rather than only the ones with stars in them), and the subtle change has some profound impact on how the game plays. So, after having confirmed the proper mechanics with the game's creator, here is a small explanation of Spike Drills, and how they affect the play in Stars Without Number, based on Swan Song's Sector Asgard Sigma.

Spike Drill mechanics

Stars Without Number is a game about traversing a relatively small sector of the universe. You will have about 25 inhabited planets orbiting around half that number of stars. Each star occupies its own space on a hex map. Some stars are on their own, while others appear in small clusters. For example, this is how Sector Asgard Sigma looks:

The spaceships in this universe travel between the stars using Spike Drives. It's a form of faster than light travel that abstracts the physical distance between the stars. At Spike Drive 1, you can travel between two adjacent hexes in 6 days. Spike Drive 2 allows you to jump to a system two hexes away in 6 days, or to an adjacent system in 3 days and so on. Spike Drives go up to rating 6, but they become less and less common. NPC Factions can move their units one hex, or up to three hexes at higher end.

Due to the relatively slow travel time, the setting has an "age of sail" feel to it - people, goods and information travels slow.

At any rate, the crucial mechanic of travelling using the Spike Drives is that the ship can only end their movement at a hex that contains a star. While at the start this can sound inconsequential, it changes a lot when you have to consider the empty hexes that fill most of the map and separate the various clusters of systems. Without being able to "slowboat" between systems, an upgrade in Spike Drive rating not only affects the speed at which you travel, but also what routes you can take.

How Spike Drives affect the travel routes

Lets once again use Sector Asgard Sigma in our example to illustrate the differences the various Spike Drive ratings have on the game.

At Spike Drive 1, the players are confined to the cluster they start in. They might be stuck in the northern cluster of 8 planets, or the eastern cluster of 4, or one of the two 3-star clusters, end up in the 2-star cluster, or be stuck in one of the four singular stars. At this rating they can't leave their starting cluster until they make an upgrade.

At Spike Drive 2, the players are finally able to travel anywhere in the sector. There isn't a star beyond their reach, although travel time might be rather long.

At Spike Drive 3, the players can start cutting your first corners. Suddenly you can go from Vahdat to Forrughi in one jump, rather than three, and from Forroughi to Bakhtiar in one jump rather than six - cutting the journey down to 6 days from the whopping 33 days it would've taken originally. They can also go from Stavrou to Geaxi bypassing Tovar entirely, possibly breaking some blockades of the remote corner of the map.

At Spike Drive 4, the players get to the last major shortcut - going straight from Laodice to Mjalimi over the three empty hexes.

Further Drive ratings don't change the game in much more significant way.

Affect on the gameplay

By limiting the Spike Drive travel to only occupied hexes the system adds some new layers of narrative into the game. While it may only force the players to stick to one sector initially until they get their hands on enough money to upgrade, the system has much greater effect on the Faction system.

Suddenly, a lot of Factions are contained within their initial sector - the basic travel distance for a Faction is only one hex. Even bigger factions can usually project themselves only three hexes away. This generally means that it's possible to anticipate natural choke points and conflict zones depending on just the layout of the hex map. Multiple factions within the same cluster are likely to get in conflict quickly. A world on the far end of a cluster might be safe from invasion, while a lonely star might turn out to be the bridge warzone between two major powers.

Thanks to the Spike Drive movement restrictions, the geography of the sector starts writing its own stories for the GM to tap into for its games.