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The following question came to mind again when I was looking through the Exploration rules again while catching up on old posts: do players want to have the jump lane class rules included as the standard movement option in the 2E Campaign Guide, or should they be left as an optional rule in the 2E Campaign Companion?

For those that aren't familiar with the jump lane class rules from 1E, they assign each jump lane a class that in turn determines how much FTL rating a unit must expend to travel across them. The current incarnation of these rules divides jump lanes into four classes: restricted, minor, normal, and major. The movement costs for these lanes at present are 4, 2, 1, and 1/2. (Note: A previous draft gave normal lanes a movement cost of 2, but after the aborted playtest run last December I realized that this made players try to give all of their ships 2 FTL to minimize their travel times, so I went back to 1 for normal and 1/2 for major).

I always played with the jump lane class rules in 1E, but they were optional rules there and probably should still be in 2E, but I thought this would be a very good time to get a feel for how people felt about the rules.

My gut says that jump lane classes probably are not a good fit in standard rules.

(for the record: I much prefer the lane classifications for my play.)

As someone who never used jump lane classes, I think you'll know what my answer is. It adds a level of complication that is simply not needed in the standard rules (at least to me, anyway) and makes it harder for players that prefer to do pen-and-paper campaigns (i.e., me...)

I always prefer to just use normal lanes.
But then I often use the wormhole rules, and generally tend to think of the lanes as natural features and that one is as good as another. At least for games I set up.

At this point, there are 5 yes votes, 5 no votes, and 3 no preference. What is this, Congress?

Charles Lewis wrote:At this point, there are 5 yes votes, 5 no votes, and 3 no preference. What is this, Congress?

I think my vote just made it worse .

Ha, it's a complete deadlock. Well, that doesn't help much, does it?

Based on the fact that there isn't a clear consensus on the issue and because 3 votes are undecided, I'll go with my own gut (and Chyll's, too!) and move those rules to the Companion. As was mentioned, the rules do add extra complications that aren't necessary for the game to function.

Thanks!

I'd prefer to see them in the companion too