So, basically, PC equipment should be treated like the General Lee? It was never in the shop...
Edited by Brother OrpheoArmor vs Weapons
Ok, everyone, sorry to derail the topic here a little. How do you guys handle damage to armor? Does the armor ever get damaged? My thought on it was a quick and dirty system that really doesn't make make too much sense, but doesn't require a ton of book keeping either. If one of my PC's takes a crit, then they will lose one point of soak from the armor at the end of the encounter. If they take another crit, then it will lose one point of defense or soak, which ever it has, and will go back and fourth like that. Then at the end of the encounter, they need to repair the armor for a few hundred credits, the book has rules on that, I just don't them off the top pf me head, so i won't even try to quote them. How do you guys work armor damage?
Yeah, I really do not like this.
I have seen a number of systems with harder rules about damaging equipment. Most of them are rules-heavy (which this game is not, at least by comparison); many of them skew towards closer realism and simulationism (which this game does not); some of them are set in dystopian settings with strong themes of decay, hopelessness, inevitability of the PCs being crushed or not that relevant no matter their greatest successes (which are very much not the themes of the Star Wars setting).
Take Shadowrun. Most Shadowrun editions have provisions for destroying armor (mostly with acid damage, even Shadowrun isn't so brutal as to have that mono-whip destroy your MilSpec armor even if it cuts you pretty bad). That said, Shadowrun is one of those rules-heavy, dystopian games. Magic and cyber aside, it is very simulationist.
But this is intended to be a somewhat-abstract space opera. It's a dark period in galactic history, but the universe is neither dystopian nor grimdark.
To me this kind of mechanic is adding insult to injury. You have crits, which are not exactly great for your health. On the plus side, the game seems to be designed for characters to mostly take a licking and keep on ticking, but on the down side, you may start a mission with a fight that sees your gear destroyed, no money to fix it, and then going against worse odds sans the (let's be honest, very small) amount of protection it gives. And on top of that, any payoff is going to be reduced by shelling out not-necessarily-small amounts of money to fix your gear from inevitable wear and tear. It feels micromanage-y and worse, it feels like it punishes the players for fighting, when much of the source material is really badass fight scenes where the underdog main characters win through clever thinking against opponents who easily bring overwhelming force to the table.
As opposed to the Sunder rule, which is quite gear-specific, this rule just boosts the general danger of crits, without requiring a strategic choice about how one is spending dice pips. 1 crit and basic armor is worthless. 2 and most armor is worthless. Not at all a fan.
Cortosis
One thing that we've been doing so far is to just pay a small sum of money whenever we have downtime to reflect upkeep and maintenance on our gear. The tougher the encounters, the more we pay. I think it's a decent compromise. It gives a good nod towards realism in that your gear suffers wear and tear while keeping things in the abstract spirit of the game. Plus, we put 50% of all income into the corperate account and that pays for the repairs so it's not like one person is having to shell out lots of money while the others bank their credits.
Well, breaking equipment very well could be a main theme in an EOTE game. Afterall, a character's dangerousness comes mostly from talents and skills..equipment doesn't add that much.
Quite a few episodes of Firefly were hinged around just things breaking, so, I don't see why it wouldn't be relevant in EOTE.
Some of those stories would have taken a very different turn if someone had broken Vera (sp?). 
Destroying someones blaster rifle, eh. Destroying someones 10k blaster rifle that they've sunk every available credit into (attachements), and you may have an upset player.
I can offer real-world examples of armor breakage and replacement, with the caveat that I agree what is fun, not realistic, should be the driving force behind whatever you do.
Soft aramid (kevlar) armor would be similar to some of the lower soak armors. For a police officer, this is what is typically worn concealed under clothing, but can be found in external tactical vests also. If it gets shot at all, even without a penetration, whatever panels that were hit are going to be replaced. The vest will be considered non-usable until the exact panel of armor that was hit is replaced. That doesn't mean in game terms that the vest is ruined. It would still be 100% effective in the spots it was not hit. In game terms that could mean a Triumph or some Advantages results in the armor being struck in the damaged area which offers lesser or no soak?
Hard armor includes stuff like kevlar helmets and steel/ceramic/kevlar (or combinations) vest plates. This would be compareable to laminate pieces, heavy battle armor sections, etc. Some of this stuff (ceramic, kevlar) would be similar to the soft stuff above. If it gets struck it is less effective where it got struck, even if not penetrated. Replace the plate that got hit, not the entire armor. The steel stuff can take multiple hits in the same spot and still be serviceable, unless it's penetrated.
What does this mean for a game? For game purposes you could realistically reduce the effectiveness of armor for a simple hit, regardless if it penetrated and caused damage or not! That would be too much for a game in my opinion. Lots of record keeping and players having to spend perhaps 20% of the cost of their armor to replace hit pieces between almost every single battle. I would want it kept much simpler and rarer then that with some of the suggestions above. But, if you want realism that means reduced armor effectiveness and repairs between almost every battle, unless the bad guys are horrible shots.
Some of those stories would have taken a very different turn if someone had broken Vera (sp?).
Destroying someones blaster rifle, eh. Destroying someones 10k blaster rifle that they've sunk every available credit into (attachements), and you may have an upset player.
It was a great rifle. I wish I could say it's in a better place now, but the ship were its charred remains were left was destroyed 20 minutes later.
A moment's silence, please.
Edited by Col. Orange