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Telescopes largely lose their function once you start travelling faster than light. Sure their useful to count planets and know where stars are, but when even the nearest stars are over 4 years away and others are 1000's away, you may as well just send a ship out as likely something has happened in real time to the system. Though there is an idea for a scenario there, going to a system and finding in the 50k years since our last light based inspection something has occurred.

Telescopes lose their function for looking at nearby stars. But they're still very much needed in general. In Alien they've explored a tiny fraction of the galaxy. There's still the rest of the galaxy and all the other galaxies out there to look at. And there are star types not seen in our galaxy, even the rulebook mentions this.

I would say that we are talking about several things here:

1. In what way are telescopes useful in the Alien universe? It would seem strange if they aren’t there any more. And the fact that the spaceships are fast, doesn’t mean that telescopes (or probably some kind of probes) can’t be fast too.

2. The starmap is not just canon material, it’s also something that frames the known universe. A worldbuilding tool. What is known beyond the map? The canon (Covenant) gives us at least some ideas. Going further could be conceptual thing in this game.

3. You can expand the map, just by travelling further out. How should that be done in the game? Of course, there are tables and you can create new star systems, but perhaps you can make something more strategic about getting more knowledge. In several other Fria Ligan games, there is a more large scale macro level (for example, the titan powers in Mutant Year Zero). The titan powers (very similar to the corporate level here) make strategic moves on a larger scale. Those moves affect the PCs and what they are able to do.

In general, I find concepts interesting. After all, this is a game, and not an encyklopedia.

1) Telescopes would still definitely be a useful tool.  Just less so than today I believe.
2) The map is 'known' space.  There would of course be colonised worlds beyond it, but the map covers the major populated bit.
3) Travelling beyond it?  Do it however you like.  The map is just a starting point and by no means exhaustive.  There are endless possibilities.  If you have an opportunity have a read of the Rage Wars books by Tim Lebbon.  It crosses over into Predator but there's a mob in them called The Founders who head out into deep space.

S. M, have you read any of the other Year Zero games? World exploring (and maps) isn’t just about canon references, it can be a concept, something that is a part of the game mechanics. Even ”endless possibilities” is something you do in the game, perhaps through tables, cards, alternate maps or some other kind of tools. So instead of talking about ”endless possibilities”, I would prefer specific possibilities. Games are specific, not general or endless. It might be possible to do ”anything” or to go ”anywhere”, but usually a game provides some ideas or suggestions. Or very straight forward limitations, like in Monopoly or chess.

So a way to be specific about exploring deep space in the Alien universe might be to create a campaign frame for exploring. Another way to put it could be to make exploring new worlds a career path, just like the truckers, colonists and marines. You set up your own expedition, target a certain planet or area, and go there to explore. It might first be just a small crew, but then possibly expanding to colonizing. Or something else. If you put the Prometheus movie into a career path, it would be the exploring mission. From a game point of view, there should probably be many possible outcomes of such a mission (perhaps you can list the most interesting ones, just to give an idea). I might actually present that concept in a new thread. It will for sure include expanding the starmap in some way.

And as I said in a previous post, having several (perhaps contradicting) corporate starmaps of areas outside the canon core map could reflect the conflicts that are at least quite central to the setting. For example, when you think you have discovered a new planet, the U. P. P. is already there with troops and scientists. Situations like that would be interesting in a exploration campaign; the PCs would probably be interested in getting the U. P. P. map of the specific area. They might have mapped a much larger area.

I’m not a fan of the Predator line (bodybuilders with dreadlocks...), but The Founders seem like a potentially cool concept that could be developed, even though I’m not sure if anything Predator is really canon. Not according to Ridley Scott anyway. But perhaps Fox has another opinion.

Telescopes largely lose their function once you start travelling faster than light. Sure their useful to count planets and know where stars are, but when even the nearest stars are over 4 years away and others are 1000's away, you may as well just send a ship out as likely something has happened in real time to the system. Though there is an idea for a scenario there, going to a system and finding in the 50k years since our last light based inspection something has occurred.

Telescopes lose their function for looking at nearby stars. But they're still very much needed in general. In Alien they've explored a tiny fraction of the galaxy. There's still the rest of the galaxy and all the other galaxies out there to look at. And there are star types not seen in our galaxy, even the rulebook mentions this.

Useful for other galaxies, less so our galaxy. They are interesting to see what they were like x thousand years ago to compare how they are now. But less so for actual exploration. You will want up to date info for a survey so will get info by sending an ftl ship there, rather than looking at historic data from a microscope, which then has to be heavily analysed to get minute data. When you can go to a system it makes spectrum analysis inefficient, unreliable and worse of all not even that cheap (scientists get paid good money to pour over this kind of data)

One way to consider limitations is literal travel distance over time. Let's take the extremes into consideration as hypotheticals:

The slowest FTL number we're given in the Alien RPG, noted as the speed achievable for the first FTL ships (page 150) is 10 times the speed of light, and if I did my math correctly, that translates to an FTL rating of 119 (feel free to correct my math here if I'm wrong, but the premise of this post should still hold regardless). Presuming a ship like the Heliades (the first FTL ship for exploration according to the RPG), setting out 150 years prior to 2183 (for simplicity of math here -- the first "FTL" mention in the timeline is technically 2023), the farthest it could travel is 1500 light years or just short of 460 parsecs.

The absolute fastest, according to the RPG, is 1 day per parsec, presumably only available for the cutting-edge spaceships in 2183. That ship would be able to travel 460 parsecs then in a little over a year and three months. While we don't know how long such theoretical ships would have been around for, we do know that the Sulaco, with an FTL of 2, was commissioned in 2169, so such a ship could travel approx. 2,738 parsecs over 15 years.The Milky Way galaxy is about 16,204 parsecs big, so at most, there's a maximum reach of traversing about an 1/6th of the galaxy.

To compare with another somewhat similar popular sci-fi franchise, Star Trek, the slowest speeds listed above is approx. their Warp 2 (achieved sometime before the late 2140s in its universe though warp 5 was achieved shortly after) while the fastest is approx. roughly somewhere in their higher warp speeds (above 8-9) and the Federation in Star Trek was said to be over 6,000 light years wide in 2373. Obviously the two are a bit apples to oranges, but at least their both fruit...

I hope that helps give some perspective!

And later they developed warp 9 which travels at the rate of plot convenience =p

And later they developed warp 9 which travels at the rate of plot convenience =p

Yeah, among other things, their higher use of warp factors isn't very consistent at all. Still, I thought the general comparison was interesting perspective, and I think the idea of neurological distortion disorder in the Alien RPG really helps fill in a gap of why the crew of even the Nostromo, a relatively slow starship, would bother having used hypersleep. I think the map that the RPG provided might also be somewhat conservative. That is, from a narrative point of view, I think the "core systems" (at least around planets) are likely rather bustling and active on average, and while the Frontier might evoke Western settlements on average, are not entirely remote in 2183. In 2121, sure, the Frontier was probably much more sparse, though certain 'shipping lanes' seem to suggest even Frontier places like Thedus aren't so isolated. When I saw the random lore building for Prometheus, I initially thought the distances would be much too far for the Alien universe, but given the general numbers (roughly supported by the first 2 Alien movies), it's actually makes a lot more sense to me now. Granted, the map is also of generalities: space is huge, and there could be both the rare heavily populated colony off the map side by side with a hard-to-find secret military base in the core systems. In any case, these sort of things help me gain perspective on the "Alien universe" as it were.

So instead of talking about ”endless possibilities”, I would prefer specific possibilities.

When the point of  a game is to tell a story on your own terms, the only limitation is ones imagination.

I didn't write the game so don't have any "specific possibilties".  There's over 30 years of reference material available though.

What are you supposted to do in the game? That is a fundamental question that has to be answered in any game. If it’s not answered or only vagely answered, the game will be hard to play. The more specific the answer is, the better. You get what the game is about. In an RPG like Alien, there are several answers. The three career paths - marines, colonists and space truckers - are all quite specific answers and they are there for a reason. They give you an idea of what you are supposed to do. You can do other things if you like, but those things are not explicitly supported in the game.

The starmap is another answer - you get some locations to go to. That’s what you are supposed to do. Of course, the reference material is also important to any franchise, but it’s not a game concept. The specific adaption of the canon is the concept. That’s central to what we are talking about here. Even though you can do basically anything in the game - for example being a dentist, a housewife, or a carpenter - the genre is not about any of those things. It’s more specific. Being specific is the concept.

Considering that this is all about what to do in the game - and not only about what’s in the canon - I would make the following conclusions about the starmap:

1. The potentially explorable space is only a part of the Milky Way. Even very powerful spaceships can’t go any further. They are not fast enough and space is too big. It means that it’s possible to map the potentially explorable area, or at least have an idea of it’s size. It’s not unlimited. However, the Engineers bring an X factor to the size of the known universe. We know from the hologram in Prometheus that they too have been mapping the universe (Earth is included). It shouldn’t be a very wild guess to assume that their knowledge is stretching far beyond the knowledge of mankind. If WY or any other human faction is aware of this is an open question. You can expand on it if you like.

2. From a telescope you can observe things that are very old and far beyond the reach of even the fastest spaceships. In the 2180s telescopes are probably a lot more powerful than today. I would also add the advanced AI factor: it will be possible to calculate things that are being obbserved. Astronomical predictions can be made. The knowledge is probably expanding rapidly. And just like in the case with space travelling, we can be quite certain that the Engineers have (or had) more advanced telescopes. The Pilot in the derelict seems to be born into a telescope (or canon) seat. Their known universe is probably huge. Maybe they even descend from beings outside the Milky Way.

3. The starmap is not just a canon reference, it’s also a game tool: it tells you where to go, a bit like the chess board or the streets in Monopoly (no, it’s not the same thing, just similar). As I mentioned above, there is already a more specific starmap career path in the setting (but not in the basic rules): the exploring mission. We meet them in Prometheus. They are specific, and we can all imagine what they do in this universe. And they are, in a very direct way, involved in expanding the map. In the game, it would be a world building concept. You develop the Alien universe (canon or not) while you are exploring previously unknown starsystems. I haven’t really seen any specific concept for expanding a starmap in any other game. To make it really interesting, I think each faction should have at least one secret starmap for the regions beyond the basic map.