Starship Pilots and Gunners

By signoftheserpent, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

With regard to starships, how do we know which ships allow for a separate gunner position? The firespray has one pilot slot plus room for 2 'guards' and room for 6 passengers/prisoners. It also has more than 1 weapon. Can others operate these beside the pilot? 

Yes.

Yes.

So how many people aboard can fire a Firespray's guns? The cockpit has room for 2 people (according to AOTC).

How do we know which guns are for the pilot only?

It's pretty much up to the GM. If it were me, I'd make the guns controllable from anybody in the main cockpit and from the guard stations so that all players could potentially have something to do in a space battle. Might as well make the game fun for everybody, you know?

It's pretty much up to the GM. If it were me, I'd make the guns controllable from anybody in the main cockpit and from the guard stations so that all players could potentially have something to do in a space battle. Might as well make the game fun for everybody, you know?

Agreed.

It's pretty much up to the GM. If it were me, I'd make the guns controllable from anybody in the main cockpit and from the guard stations so that all players could potentially have something to do in a space battle. Might as well make the game fun for everybody, you know?

Exactly. The technical aspects aren't nearly as important as getting as much of your group involved as possible.

I've been through all of the vehicles at one time or another, and I didn't see any hard-and-fast rules for who can fire which weapons. Sometimes the "Crew" description will say there's one or more gunners, but that's about as much detail as there is, and for the most part, it's only really flavor text. If you want to make some sort of general ruling, I'd say that turret-mounted weapons probably have their own firing station (a la the Millennium Falcon), and that for small ships at least, forward-firing weapons are controlled by the pilot. For larger ships (silhouette 5 and above), I would guess that all weapons have their own stations.

But, again, who's controlling which weapon should be story-driven.

I think the vehicle descriptions should say how many positions exist within.

That's not complicating things.

I wish that they would have noted with each weapon what crewman/position fires the weapon. I also wish they would have noted optional gunners on ships that should have them (like the YT-1300).