We had a space combat tonight and the Outlaw Tech made a Mechanics roll to perform the Boost Shields action.

He failed the roll but got an Advantage. I think the second time he tried he failed but got 2 Advantage.

We didn't have a lot of great ideas at the time on how to spend Advantage on a Boost Shields roll. We let him add a Boost to his next Boost Shields roll, to represent him getting more familiar with the system and remembering the shortcuts needed.

Does anyone have other ideas on how to spend Advantage for a roll as specific as Boost Shields?

Thanks!

There's always the standard "give boost die to another player's Piloting, Gunnery, Mechanics or Computer check". You could also let him use it to boost power temporarily to some other shipboard system, like giving one weapon a +1 to damage for its next shot only, or something like that.

Well, for a Triumph, I'd have it add +2 to the targetted zone, but for 2-3 advantage, I'd maybe just have it also provide +1 defense to an additional, but different zone, as that is likely less useful, and not quite the exact effect the shield operator was looking for.

In the case of advantage being spent in this way, I would probably only have it apply until the next round or until suffering the next attack, at which point it'd go away, regardless of the result.

Other potential options are to not have the ship suffer the system strain it normally does when boosting shields. Or to suffer it, but then recover it afterward (a minor, but potentially key distinction).

The canon has this idea about overlapping shields used by certain starfighters in formations, perhaps you provide the benefit (culmulative) to one very nearby allied ship on the same course from the check until that ship takes its maneuver action.

Thats all I have at the moment, but I'm sure there are a few other things that would work as well.

KRKappel, the checks were failures though, as they didn't result in any net Success symbols. I try to avoid making Advantage into 'pseudo-successes'. I still wanted to honor the dice and have the Boost Shields roll itself not succeed, but apply the Advantage to something relevant.

Krieger22, I like the idea of giving a +1 to damage for the next shot fired or something like that. "You plug away at the computer, the shields systems are not cooperating but you do trigger a temporary surge in power to the weapons systems, which will grant an extra Success to the next Gunnery check."

I'll keep that in mind!