You may be getting a vibe that people want to see someone who hyper specialized in melee punished but you've got it backwards. No one wants to see that player punished but neither should he be pandered to, there is a distinct difference. Coming up with contrived scenarios that are simply that is pandering. Plus running space combat is hardly stepping outside what one would expect in a Star Wars game so it's not like a GM would be mean for including it. If someone hasn't bothered to make himself useful at that then my response is, I like chocolate chip cookies best...

There were several suggestions that aren't contrived. It's not pandering to come up with something that someone can roll dice for, and it's not a lot of effort to come up with a few things or post on a forum about it. How bad of a GM do you have to be to think that helping someone come up with an interesting tactic is pandering? The GM isn't asking how to eliminate space encounters, just asking if he can add something for a player. It's really not that much effort. The opening poster is a better GM than you certainly for at least wanting to include a player rather than just deciding that karmic justice needs to be inflicted on him for daring to play a certain character in this game of pretend.

Sorry sublight engines on a droid is pandering. I said boarding actions are fine, as long as you aren't fighting starfighters. Btw, I like milk with my cookies....

The opening poster is a better GM than you certainly for at least wanting to include a player rather than just deciding that karmic justice needs to be inflicted on him for daring to play a certain character in this game of pretend.

If the player wants to have a role in ship combat, he has several methods in place to do so:

(1) He can buy Gunnery or Mechanics or Astrogation to directly help with dice pools with Ys in them

(2) He can try the former without buying skills and throwing all Gs

(3) He can use the Assist action to help someone else out - spotting for the gunners using sensors, or helping hold damaged things in place for the engineer to weld a fix, or really anything else he can think of, up to and including "timing bursts of supplemental thrusters to help the pilot's piloting," for example.

Assist is an incredibly vague, user-driven action, and intentionally so - it is every possible permutation of "I help Teammate X do Y, fluffed in this way, with no mechanical way for me to f*** it up ." That last point is important - no character performing Assist will directly penalize another character's actual action because he messed up a roll to provide assistance (this is different from some other game systems, where you have to roll to assist and a critical failure might penalize the actual "actor." Not so here!).

Now, if the second character's check still fails, it could be a good way to fluff if by saying "your strong droid held the broken panels in place for the engineer to repair...unfortunately the way he was holding them made the engineer weld them incorrectly so the fix didn't work after all." Or "your droid tries to help the gunner get a bead on the enemy fighters by watching the sensors...unfortunately he relayed that the target was coming in to port when it was going starboard so the gunner's shots went wide." Those are fluff justifications to explain a failure even when the active character was assisted, not a crunchy failure on the part of the Assisting character. And, hell, that kind of thing encourages creative thinking and roleplaying to boot!

So, no, I don't think any of the suggestions were punitive to the player, especially the suggestion that he might "merely" Assist another character. If he chooses not to invest XP into other things, or even try with an all-G dice pool, or even aim to help support another character in a role they might shine at...no, I don't feel the need to figure out yet another "something else" for the player to do in order to participate.

Because if he hasn't tried any of those existing options, that player frankly is just not trying to be a participant.

I think some of the "hate" that seems to be coming from several of these responses is due to an interpretation that the player was complaining that he wanted to be just as uber in space combat as well as in ground combat. If that's the case, then I agree with most of them and that the player should invest some XP into something so that he has something to do well in space combat. However, if the OP was simply looking for suggestions for how to keep the player feel more involved (not just a lump who's bringing milk and cookies) then I hope that some of the suggestions had given the OP some insights.

So, to bring this conversation back to answering what the OP was asking, the things a Brawn only character can do well are limited without XP expenditure. As for what he can do, there's plenty. He can do anything he wants to do. He can pilot, shoot guns, fix the ship, ect. Just like all other characters, he'll only get to use his atribute unless he takes skill ranks.

One thing that he could do well is providing assists. It may not sound like fun, (because less dice rolling a player does is usually seen to be less fun) but the extra blue die to someone's roll every turn can be a lifesaver for the party. This can be done narritively. As a droid, you can say he plugs into the computer systems and is observing everything going on. As an action he could call out problems as the computers pick them up to provide a boost die to another player's roll. "Gunner, you see that bogie at our six o'clock?" "Mechanic, the main thrusters are red-lineing from stress." "Pilot, watch out for that astroid."

I believe there is a rule in the book that you can use Brawn to try to fix some Hull Truma once per encounter. The GM could also rule some crits in a method that could be fixed by a Brawn roll. Or, if you think that's too powerful, then maybe just repair the crit effect, but leave the crit still on the ship until repaired by a real mechanic. For an example, the Shields Failing crit. Perhaps a large chunk of machenery fell on cables running to the shield generator which is causing the defense to drop by one. For an athletics check (I'd set it equal to, if not harder than the check to repair the crit) he can bring the shields back online for the rest of the fight, but the crit remains until fixed. Perhaps give it a 50-50 roll to see if the crit effects pop back up in each encounter until properly repaired. I'd also give each crit a random chance to see if the effect is something that an athletics check could fix.

One of the reasons why I'm not a fan of space combat is because it's super easy to run out of stuff for everyone to do that seems important. Even in a party where everyone isn't a Brawn beast. After a pilot, gunner for each gun, and mechanic you run out of stuff to do every turn. Heck, even mechanics for HT is limited to once per encounter. A mechanic would mostly be trying to repair System Strain anyway. It's easy for all characters to run out of stuff to do and feel useful. What can the Doctor do? How about the party face? The people who shine in space combat are pretty limited to pilots, gunners, and mechanics. In my experiences it always seems like only the pilot has a lot of fun while the gunners get to roll some attack dice every once in a while and everyone else is more on the bored side of things. Not many characters throw ranks into Gunnery, so the gunners typically aren't that great.

It's not uncommon for a player or two to feel left out (or not as important) during different parts of the game. Combat folks don't do much during social engagements. The social skilled characters don't do much during combat. A dedicated pilot isn't that great outside of his ship. The examples are unlimited. But, in all of those examples, if the player really cranks up their creativity and role playing juices then they can think up stuff to do in those situations to not feel useless.

To recap: A high brawn character can do anything but the stuff he can do well is limited to your creativity. The throwing a body out of the ship to distract enemy pilots was brilliant. It may be a struggle to keep coming up with fun and unique stuff for a high brawn character to feel useful in space combat, but there are things to do.

To clarify: my Brawn-monster player isn't complaining. In fact just the opposite. We talked about his lack of options and he said he didn't mind, he accepts it as part of the cost of being an absolute murder bot on the ground.

I will remind him of the assist option though I think it will go a little something like this: "I'M HELPING! SMASH SMASH."

One of the reasons why I'm not a fan of space combat is because it's super easy to run out of stuff for everyone to do that seems important. Even in a party where everyone isn't a Brawn beast. After a pilot, gunner for each gun, and mechanic you run out of stuff to do every turn. Heck, even mechanics for HT is limited to once per encounter. A mechanic would mostly be trying to repair System Strain anyway. It's easy for all characters to run out of stuff to do and feel useful. What can the Doctor do? How about the party face?

Co-pilot? Fire discipline? Slice enemy systems? Spoof missiles? Get on the comms and demoralize the enemy with Scathing Tirade?

Slice enemy systems?

Side note: this is one that really requires the GM to rule there is a "wireless way in" to their actual systems. Something I have a little bit of a conceptual problem with, unless you can do it through a comm signal.

One of the reasons why I'm not a fan of space combat is because it's super easy to run out of stuff for everyone to do that seems important. Even in a party where everyone isn't a Brawn beast. After a pilot, gunner for each gun, and mechanic you run out of stuff to do every turn. Heck, even mechanics for HT is limited to once per encounter. A mechanic would mostly be trying to repair System Strain anyway. It's easy for all characters to run out of stuff to do and feel useful. What can the Doctor do? How about the party face?

Co-pilot? Fire discipline? Slice enemy systems? Spoof missiles? Get on the comms and demoralize the enemy with Scathing Tirade?

Slice enemy systems?

Side note: this is one that really requires the GM to rule there is a "wireless way in" to their actual systems. Something I have a little bit of a conceptual problem with, unless you can do it through a comm signal.

One of the reasons why I'm not a fan of space combat is because it's super easy to run out of stuff for everyone to do that seems important. Even in a party where everyone isn't a Brawn beast. After a pilot, gunner for each gun, and mechanic you run out of stuff to do every turn. Heck, even mechanics for HT is limited to once per encounter. A mechanic would mostly be trying to repair System Strain anyway. It's easy for all characters to run out of stuff to do and feel useful. What can the Doctor do? How about the party face?

Co-pilot? Fire discipline? Slice enemy systems? Spoof missiles? Get on the comms and demoralize the enemy with Scathing Tirade?

I'm pretty sure if someone called me up and was cussing me out over the phone I'd probably hang up..............

One of the reasons why I'm not a fan of space combat is because it's super easy to run out of stuff for everyone to do that seems important. Even in a party where everyone isn't a Brawn beast. After a pilot, gunner for each gun, and mechanic you run out of stuff to do every turn. Heck, even mechanics for HT is limited to once per encounter. A mechanic would mostly be trying to repair System Strain anyway. It's easy for all characters to run out of stuff to do and feel useful. What can the Doctor do? How about the party face?

Co-pilot? Fire discipline? Slice enemy systems? Spoof missiles? Get on the comms and demoralize the enemy with Scathing Tirade?

I'm pretty sure the range limitation on Scathing Tirade (personal scale Short) will prevent it from being used in most vehicular combat, but if you have Inspiring Rhetoric your cheerleading can really help your crewmates.

If someone wanted to Scathing Tirade through an open comm channel, I'd definitely do a "yes, but..." The "but" being either a couple Setbacks or an Upgrade...depending on the Tirader's ship, of course. A YT-1300 yelling at a Star Destroyer isn't going to have an easy time...a Star Destroyer captain yelling at a YT-1300, um, will have a pretty easy time.

Unless said freighter is right in front of the bridge tower, below the shields and is about to fire a salvo of proton torpedos ... then you may call him and say 'Kiss my Wookie!'

Unless said freighter is right in front of the bridge tower, below the shields and is about to fire a salvo of proton torpedos ... then you may call him and say 'Kiss my Wookie!'

At that range, you'll probably catch yourself in your own Blast (which benefits from Breach). The GM would certainly be within his rights to spend a Destiny point to have this happen.

One of the Developers of FFG mentioned that a player in his game used Scathing Tirade to great effect in Vehicular combat, but as 2P51 mentioned, the target eventually shut off his coms.

I have no problem allowing a player to do this.

Slice enemy systems?

Side note: this is one that really requires the GM to rule there is a "wireless way in" to their actual systems. Something I have a little bit of a conceptual problem with, unless you can do it through a comm signal.

It's right there on page 237 on table 7-7 between "Scan the Enemy" and "'Spoofing' Missiles". It's a Hard Computers check to reduce the defense of one zone on the target vehicle for one round per Success, disable a weapon system for one round with a Triumph, and inflict one system strain with two Advantages.

But hey, if a GM wants to take away options from his or her players, that's their decision.

Slice enemy systems?

Side note: this is one that really requires the GM to rule there is a "wireless way in" to their actual systems. Something I have a little bit of a conceptual problem with, unless you can do it through a comm signal.

It's right there on page 237 on table 7-7 between "Scan the Enemy" and "'Spoofing' Missiles". It's a Hard Computers check to reduce the defense of one zone on the target vehicle for one round per Success, disable a weapon system for one round with a Triumph, and inflict one system strain with two Advantages.

But hey, if a GM wants to take away options from his or her players, that's their decision.

Oh, cool. I'm playing a slicer in an AoR game and have felt uncomfortable bringing up the "slice the enemy TIE during space combat" to the GM, thinking it strained plausibility and also wasn't sure how I would explain or justify it. I think we both missed that option on the table. I appreciate it!

He's a Droid. Strap him onto some Sub-Warp engines that he's plugged into, give him a Military Grade Rail Gun, drop him out the cargo hold, and call it a day.

The party now has their own state-of-the-art "AI" controlled Space-Drone. Even better, he can board the bad guys' ships and lay waste from the inside!

That is far and away much more gonzo/Pink Mohawk than I care for in my Star Wars.

I don't know what gonzo/Pink Mohawk means.

I hadn't heard of Pink Mohawk either so I did a bit of research. Apparently it's a term from Shadowrun. In that game you are "supposed" to be stealthy and break into places without anyone noticing. Someone with a Pink Mohawk is going to be noticed and easily picked out of a crowd, so the term Pink Mohawk refers to players who don't try to be stealthy. Instead of picking a lock at the back door and going unnoticed, they'll crash a car into the front door and come out guns blazing.

Well there's a little more to it than that. The term has some history. Take it from someone who started playing Shadowrun at 1st edition and did all the way up until mid 4th edition when Catalyst Game Labs ejected the original designers of 4th edition and their CEO secretly blew most of the freelancer budget on building a big house in California. (Note to any mods, this isn't libel, it's verified and documented fact).

Anyway, bitterness over the ruination of a game line aside, Pink Mohawk goes back to the earliest days of Shadowrun when there were essentially two different playing styles. You see 1st Ed. Shadowrun was the edition that contained a picture of a Shadowrunning team stealing a cop vehicle to make their get away, leaning out of the window shooting automatic weapons and with the cars original (and terrified) owner, tied upside down on the truck's grill. One of the sample characters you could play was a "Rocker". They had sweet F.A. combat skills or indeed any real Shadowrunning skills. But they had Charisma up the wazoo and had blown a load of build points (they weren't called build points back then) on followers and fame. And a guitar. Yes, you literally had a PC who would go on an undercover infiltration run into a secure facility... with a guitar. Eric Draven can only dream of such dizzy heights of gonzo panache. There were waves of groups made up of Ork Private Eyes, Troll bouncers, and laconic Street Samurai who said things like: "honour is a two-edged cyberspur". It was more gonzo than a remake of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Michael Bay's transformers in the lead roles. And at the same time, it was a game about skilled freelance agents who broke into secure facilities and lived in a world of fake personas and computer surveillance. 2nd edition took a slightly more professional approach, and thus the great Shadowrun Schism was cemented. Amongst Shadowrun players / GMs, there are two distinct factions.

Black Hats and Mirrorshades became one faction. Pink Mohawks was the other.

And we have been battling ever since.

A guy with a vibro axe isn't going to be much use modding weapons, doing medicine checks, hacking computers, picking locks, flying ships. I think there are skills to do everything you need to do in this game and while some crossover at times, the crossover is reasonable typically. I think the boarding action thing is a reasonable suggestion and about the best a melee person can hope for in space combat, provided you aren't engaged with star fighters. Even if they have a 2 Agility, sorry, but I don't think dropping a couple three sessions worth of xp on gunnery is all that big a sacrifice if the melee player wants to be useful otherwise in space combat.

Speaking as a guy who plays a big bad-ass Wookiee who swings a vibro-axe, I have intentionally stayed away from the ranged combat weapons because that's the territory of the Klatooinian Heavy in the group. I now have a couple of ranks, but that's it. And I now have a couple of ranks of Gunnery. And I think I've actually blown up more stuff in space than he has, because I can recall only one space battle we've had so far, and since we didn't have a pilot at the time, he had to go up front.

Meanwhile, the next things on my list are to get enough XP to switch to Outlaw Technician or Bounty Hunter Gadgeteer, because this Wookiee has seen what some of the other players can do with computers and devices, and he wants to play mad scientist working on his own wacky droid and weapon combinations. Oh, and armor -- have you ever seen a Wookiee wear a droid as armor? Imagine R2-D2 wrapped around Chewbacca as an armored chestplate.... And an R3 or R4 head would be perfect as a Wookiee helmet.

So, yeah -- I'm the melee heavy in the group, and I kill things with my Vibro-Axe. But I also enjoy learning other things.

Take it from someone who started playing Shadowrun at 1st edition and did all the way up until mid 4th edition...

So, I should take your word for it but your sig says "I lack credentials." How does that work?

One of the reasons why I'm not a fan of space combat is because it's super easy to run out of stuff for everyone to do that seems important. Even in a party where everyone isn't a Brawn beast. After a pilot, gunner for each gun, and mechanic you run out of stuff to do every turn. Heck, even mechanics for HT is limited to once per encounter. A mechanic would mostly be trying to repair System Strain anyway. It's easy for all characters to run out of stuff to do and feel useful. What can the Doctor do? How about the party face?

Co-pilot? Fire discipline? Slice enemy systems? Spoof missiles? Get on the comms and demoralize the enemy with Scathing Tirade?

That just goes to show how often we do space combat... Thanks for the reminder.

I was going to come up with a long list of rebuttles based on the actions listed on CRB page 237, but that really isn't necessary because you're addressing my comment and we're not in context of OP's problem. It seems that half of those actions are Average checks and half are Hard checks. An average character with 2 in most attributes can find something to do even if they aren't trained in a skill. Rolling two green vs two purple isn't bad and against three purple isn't terrible. There is enough variance in the dice to allow for a success, although odds of more than one success become slim. So, I stand corrected and there is plenty for a party to do as long as the ship has enough spots for people to sit and have access to controls.

To put things in context of OP's question, I think the combat droid would be best to pick one of the listed actions and take a couple skill ranks. Rolling one green is not good against two purples and pretty much not doable against three purple. Honestly, I don't know if I'd ever play a droid that couldn't repair itself. A couple ranks in Mechanics would serve a droid well in being self sufficient and will give him something to do in combat. I'd recommend that the droid player take a look at the space combat actions listed on CRB page 237 and figure out something that he'd like to try to do.