Estimate space travel time for Traveller RPG starships, maneuver-drive trips, 100D jump limits, orbit transfers, moon runs, intercepts, and system crossings using distance and acceleration.
Space and Starship Travel Time Calculator
How long does it take to reach orbit?
How long does it take to fly to the moon?
How long does it take to reach the 100-diameter safe jump distance?
How long does it take to cross a star system?
Use this Traveller ship travel time calculator to estimate real-space travel time based on distance in kilometers and acceleration in Gs.
This is useful for orbit transfers, moon runs, in-system travel, 100-diameter jump limits, intercepts, and other Traveller-style starship movement.
Traveller Ship Travel Time Calculator
Enter the distance and acceleration below.
The calculator uses a simplified constant-acceleration model: accelerate for half the trip, then decelerate for the second half. That makes it useful for fast table estimates, campaign planning, and answering “Are we there yet?” during play.
What This Calculator Estimates
This calculator estimates travel time for a ship accelerating for the first half of a trip and decelerating for the second half.
That makes it useful for Traveller-style maneuver-drive travel, orbital transfers, trips to moons, travel to the 100-diameter jump limit, and in-system movement between worlds.
This is not a jump travel calculator. In Traveller, jump travel is handled separately. This tool is for the real-space travel before, after, or between jumps.
How to Use the Traveller Ship Travel Time Calculator
To use the calculator, enter two values:
- Distance: The distance you want to travel, in kilometers.
- Acceleration: The ship’s maneuver drive thrust rating, measured in Gs.
You can usually find the maneuver drive thrust rating in a ship’s stat block. Use this table as a quick reference when you need a starting value for common Traveller-style ships.
| Ship Type | Typical Thrust |
|---|---|
| Free Trader / Far Trader | 1G |
| Scout / Courier | 2G |
| Mercenary Cruiser | 3G |
| Patrol Corvette | 4G |
Ships do not always need to travel at full thrust. A Patrol Corvette with 4G thrust can still travel at 1G, 2G, or 3G if the crew wants to conserve fuel, reduce stress, match another vessel’s speed, or avoid drawing attention.
Common Traveller Uses for Ship Travel Time
In a Traveller campaign, ship travel time matters because it tells you how much time the crew has before the next scene begins.
Use this calculator when you need to estimate:
- Time from orbit to a world or station
- Travel time to the 100-diameter safe jump limit
- Travel time to moons, gas giants, or nearby planets
- How long an intercept or pursuit might take
- How much downtime passengers and crew have aboard ship
- Whether there is time for repairs, scans, planning, or roleplay before arrival
Example Traveller Travel Distances
Use these sample distances as starting points when experimenting with the calculator. Replace them with the actual system, world, moon, station, or 100D distance that matters in your campaign.
| Destination / Trip | Approximate Distance |
|---|---|
| Glasgow to Edinburgh | 67 km |
| International Space Station altitude | 400 km |
| New York to Los Angeles | 3,944 km |
| Geosynchronous orbit altitude | 35,786 km |
| Earth to Moon | 384,400 km |
| Earth 100-diameter safe jump distance | 1,274,200 km |
| Earth to Mars average distance | 225,000,000 km |
For Traveller campaigns, the most useful values are often orbit-to-orbit trips, travel to moons, travel to gas giants, and the distance to the 100-diameter limit for safe jump.
How to Use Travel Time in a Traveller Campaign
Travel time is more than a number. It affects what can happen during the trip.
If the journey takes minutes, it may be a quick transfer or a tactical maneuver. If it takes hours, there may be time for scans, repairs, planning, passenger scenes, or a tense approach. If it takes days or weeks, the ship becomes a real campaign location.
Longer travel times create opportunities for:
- Passenger interactions
- Maintenance problems
- Crew downtime
- Sensor contacts
- Shipboard conflicts
- Training and research
- Trade planning
- Boarding actions
- Emergency repairs
- Strange discoveries between worlds
Turn Travel Time into Shipboard Play
A travel time calculator tells you how long the trip takes. A starship map helps you decide what happens during that time.
If your crew is spending hours, days, or weeks aboard a ship, deck plans turn the vessel into a real campaign location: a home base, cargo hauler, repair problem, boarding-action map, emergency shelter, or derelict exploration site.
CyborgPrime publishes Traveller-style starship deck plans and VTT-ready maps for Roll20 and other virtual tabletops.
- Free Far Trader Illustrated Deck Plans: Download the Far Trader deck plans
- Traveller VTT maps and Roll20 assets: Browse CyborgPrime on Roll20
- More CyborgPrime Traveller and sci-fi RPG products: Browse CyborgPrime on DriveThruRPG
Planning a campaign, trade route, mission, or starship scene? Explore CyborgPrime AI Tools for Game Masters for character creation, worldbuilding, missions, and GM prep.
More Traveller Starship Tools
This calculator estimates how long a journey takes. You may also find these related tools useful:
- Traveller RPG Ship Distance Traveled Calculator
- Traveller 100D Jump-Clearance Calculator
- Traveller Ship Mortgage Calculator
- Traveller RPG Tools and Calculators
Your Turn. What Do You Do?
What travel time problem comes up most often in your Traveller campaign: reaching orbit, getting to the 100D limit, crossing a system, intercepting another ship, or planning trade routes?
Please share your thoughts in the Comments section below.
If you found this calculator useful, please give it a good rating at the top. Thanks!
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