Starship combat often ends quickly because small starships (fighters, patrol boats, light freighters, etc.) can't take much damage. In addition, all or most of the player group tends to be in a single ship barring games that use starfighter groups. So, one target kill by the NPCs could take out the entire group (even if it doesn't kill them). With laser cannon, this is usually a few turns of give and take, but when concussion missiles or proton torpedoes come out, the situation gets crazy.

There doesn't seem to be a good reason for a fighter not to use its concussion missiles/proton torpedoes against small ships in the first pass. These weapons outrange most other weapons mounted on small ships, and they allow for quick kills. This is vitally important when your own vessel is unlikely to survive more than one or two hits. So what's the downside to using these weapons?

The first is the Limited Ammo. This isn't really a downside. Your vessel isn't going to want to be in the fight long enough to run out of ammo because you'll likely run out of HTT way faster. As for the cost, even proton torpedoes are peanuts - 750 credits each means that firing the Linked 1 pair is going to cost you 1,500 credits. To put it into perspective, that's what repairing 3 HTT would cost, and it's a small price to pay to keep them from shooting down your 30,000+ credit fighter.

Slow-Firing 1 is the big downer. This means you'll need to do something else on the turns you're not firing your concussion missiles/proton torpedoes. Either go with lasers or try like hell to evade, but you're likely just spending the turn waiting for the next opportunity to ace some bastard with your next missile/torpedo attack.

But wait! What if the target is "Spoofing" Missiles? Well, they had better be. In fact, every ship with an extra crew slot needs to have someone that does nothing else. This might even be the best use of an astromech droid for fighters that have them. Still, an extra upgrade or two won't matter all that much against most enemies if your Agility/Gunnery pool is looking good.

So, anybody up for Rocket Tag?

Ummmm....yes?

I think it's weird that these weapons are so useful against small targets when we never see them used for such purposes in the films. I didn't watch Clone Wars. Did concussion missiles and/or proton torpedoes get used to down other fighters in that series?

We see them used in the films though, both ep ii and iii. Need to watch CW again to see if they show up there.

Without getting too real world you're getting heavy into doctrine, its not just about capability, but what the military employing those systems think they can do.

I also wonder how many GMs have had players come under fire from Cloakshapes or Z-95s and actually had the fighters use those concussion missiles as an opening salvo. Since I haven't head about any TPKs, I'm guessing that not many do.

Fighting TIEs is one thing, but a small number of Cloakshapes will devastate any ship the PCs are likely to own.

Well you have to think about what the other fighter wants, do they want to simply kill? Then yeah they could use missiles/torpedoes, but what if they want to disable and board? Or if the PC ship is escorting a larger ship that those weapons are even better against? Or they simply can't find enough to waste on "small fries", it might not cost more credits than a simple repair but the cost in time and effort to acquire might be more.

I agree with Vonpenguin. Concussion missiles and proton torpedoes are also restricted military hardware. While the players might have the credits to purchase new ones, it doesn't mean that they will be able to find new ones, especially true if they are members of the fringe. Besides, their flight leader might be kinda pissed off if they continually use up their torpedoes, which are a precious resource for the rebels, to take out a TIE fighter.

I agree with Vonpenguin. Concussion missiles and proton torpedoes are also restricted military hardware. While the players might have the credits to purchase new ones, it doesn't mean that they will be able to find new ones, especially true if they are members of the fringe. Besides, their flight leader might be kinda pissed off if they continually use up their torpedoes, which are a precious resource for the rebels, to take out a TIE fighter.

Assuming that the missiles are the same rarity as the launcher, concussion missiles are rarity 5. That puts them on the same level as a blaster rifle. IME, that's not too hard to find at all.

I should also point out that while proton torpedo launchers are Restricted, concussion missile launchers are not. This suggests to me that concussion missiles should not be Restricted despite the text on page 229. Further supporting this are the specialty missiles found in Dangerous Covenants. None of these are Restricted.

Note too that the Unguided Rocket (which somehow retains Short range) provides a low-cost alternative to the basic concussion missile with only a slight loss in hitting power (it also looses Guided and suffers a Setback die, but that's not really too bad IMO).

Also, if you have fighters that carry concussion missiles or proton torpedoes then you likely are operating outside of the law (or else you are the law), so whether or not the munitions are Restricted is not that important.

As for 'wasting the munitions' - allowing your ship to get shot to hell and costing your unit many thousands of credits because you didn't throw 1.5K credits at the problem seems like a much bigger waste to me. In fact, continuing to engage once you're out of munitions would seem like the bigger potential waste to me. There will be exceptions where you have to fight to the bitter end, but generally the fighter should only be in the fight long enough to fire off the missiles/torpedoes and then head back for a reload.

Most of these points have been hit already, but:

- Lack of maintenance and/or replacement ammunition. I've run a couple of encounters with pirates, and generally I'll give only one ship in three ordnance. Even the Empire has limited local resources.

- Not aiming to kill. This may not be entirely reflected in the rules, but missiles and torpedoes are probably less likely to leave survivors to capture or intact cargo to loot.

- Still more-or-less line-of-sight. But what would get in the way, you ask? Asteroids, buildings, cliffsides, other ships, etc. Have a dogfight somewhere you're already in Close Range by the time you can shoot the enemy, or where you're losing and reacquiring visual frequently. I house rule a Gain the Advantage check as an Incidental for the pilot every turn, and give all ordnance Prepare 1, so close confines might leave the player too busy to consecutively Prepare and fire the weapon before losing LoS.

- Hostile ECM or environmental effects interfering with targeting systems. Is there something going on that would throw off missile guidance?

- Saving them for bigger fish. Is their a transport or capital ship the attackers were planning on using these against?

Most of these points have been hit already, but:

- Lack of maintenance and/or replacement ammunition. I've run a couple of encounters with pirates, and generally I'll give only one ship in three ordnance. Even the Empire has limited local resources.

- Not aiming to kill. This may not be entirely reflected in the rules, but missiles and torpedoes are probably less likely to leave survivors to capture or intact cargo to loot.

- Still more-or-less line-of-sight. But what would get in the way, you ask? Asteroids, buildings, cliffsides, other ships, etc. Have a dogfight somewhere you're already in Close Range by the time you can shoot the enemy, or where you're losing and reacquiring visual frequently. I house rule a Gain the Advantage check as an Incidental for the pilot every turn, and give all ordnance Prepare 1, so close confines might leave the player too busy to consecutively Prepare and fire the weapon before losing LoS.

- Hostile ECM or environmental effects interfering with targeting systems. Is there something going on that would throw off missile guidance?

- Saving them for bigger fish. Is their a transport or capital ship the attackers were planning on using these against?

Some of these are house rules to intentionally limit Rocket Tag. I understand the desire, but I'm talking about the rules as they are written. Other than "Spoofing" Missiles, there isn't much that works against these weapons that doesn't apply equally to other weapons.

Others go back to making the missiles and torpedoes expensive and/or rare - but they are not. A concussion missile costs only a bit more than a blaster pistol and a proton torpedo costs less than a blaster rifle.

Finally, there's the point that the enemy may not be fighting to win. This may apply as long as the enemy has the upper hand and doesn't feel threatened, but the moment you show that you're a true danger any intelligent enemy is going to drop you hard. Consider the police officer with a taser and a handgun. He'll try to take you down with a reduced lethality option - unless you demonstrate that you're a significant danger to his safety. Then, you get shot for real.

Yeah, I've house ruled a lot of space combat. Frankly it's just not as satisfying as written compared to ground combat, particularly how every ship can attack any enemy every turn, regardless of maneuverability or piloting ability. But yes, following the Core Rulebook, ordnance is a very effective opening strike even against small craft.

Also, I can't speak to The Clone Wars animated series, but the Clone Wars cartoon series (the older one) does show missiles used to open fighter engagements, and quite a few dogfights in the EU novels are initiated by salvos of proton torpedoes, when the pilots aren't saving them for capital ships.

For what it's worth, they're very effective when used in this way in FFG's X-Wing Miniatures game as well. This (and the Prepare quality on the personal-scale missile launcher) inspired my house ruling for the vehicular weapons.

Part of it's the people you play with. All of my groups focus on the "fringe" aspect of Star Wars, where everything is scarce. My PC's have never obtained any starfighters or ordnance, and I've only fired a handful of missiles at them. Outside of the Beginner Game, I haven't played a space battle "to the finish" yet between three different groups that have been running for most of a year. Generally I'll have ships try to break contact at half their Hull Threshold, or even when they become clearly outmatched. If you're playing a more militant game, particularly one involving Imperials or Rebels, I'd certainly expect ordnance to be used to devastating effect.

If you are looking for suggestions to tone down missiles, the best thing I'd recommend is applying the Prepare 1 quality to them, like the personal-scale missile launcher has. It certainly captures the feel of scenes like the trench run, where the attacker leaves himself vulnerable to obtain a lock on the target.

I agree with HappyDaze - I stopped firing ordnance at my PCs because I got scared how easy it would to kill them, especially that in my games NPCs pilots are always rivals (for reasons I probably don't understand myself I can't put a mere minion in a starfighter).

Adding Prepare 1 sound like a great solution - or perhaps the attacker must 'line up the shot'/'lock the target' (insert the x-wing/tie fighter games beeping) beforehand by doing 'gain the advantage' or 'stay on target'...

Edit:

The more I think about space combat in this game, the more I GM (since september), the more I think that the whole ruleset should be revamped... It looks great if space combat happens rarely but with dedicated pilots in the group it's difficult no to fall into one of many holes. Well, probably too late to change or update the rules for AoR...

Edit:

The more I think about space combat in this game, the more I GM (since september), the more I think that the whole ruleset should be revamped... It looks great if space combat happens rarely but with dedicated pilots in the group it's difficult no to fall into one of many holes. Well, probably too late to change or update the rules for AoR...

The way I look at it, they tried a little too hard to port the same mechanics from personal scale to vehicular scale. The mobility and flexibility of individuals doesn't carry over to walkers, speeders, and starships as well.

Although I doubt the rules will change per se, I hope the Age of Rebellion Core and/or the Ace and Smuggler career books will provide more detailed guidelines for how to apply "cinematic" modifiers to space combat. Questions about it do come up pretty often on the forums.

At the personal scale, cover, concealment, and environmental effects are easy to understand, as players have a frame of reference from real life. Since most of us are not fighter pilots, it's a lot harder to conceptualize circumstances that would modify vehicular combat, like handling characteristics, maneuvers, and relative positioning.

In one of my games, the GM houseruled 'ion torpedoes' and 'ion missiles' which our group has used to devastating effect. We've used them to disable enemy ships and capture them. In general, ion weapons aren't as powerful, but with the breach that the missiles/torpedoes have, even with the reduced damage the GM gave them, they're a lot more powerful than light ion cannons for small craft.

In one of my games, the GM houseruled 'ion torpedoes' and 'ion missiles' which our group has used to devastating effect. We've used them to disable enemy ships and capture them. In general, ion weapons aren't as powerful, but with the breach that the missiles/torpedoes have, even with the reduced damage the GM gave them, they're a lot more powerful than light ion cannons for small craft.

I'd be worried that such weapons might be too good. Light ion cannon are weaker than laser cannon, but most ships have less SST than HTT. If ion torpedoes do damage on the level of proton torpedoes, then they are going to be very strong. I'm not against such weapons existing, but they really should have inferior base Damage, Critical, and possibly Breach values compared to regular proton torpedoes and concussion missiles.

Cost can be a factor. If the npcs in cloakshapes are, say pirates, they may not have a steady supply. A pirate captain could make a pilot pay for their own ordinance. Depending on the size of the pirate crew and what they hijack, the npc could spend more than their share.

Which brings up another reason why the enemies might not use ordinance right away: cockiness. If you think of npcs both villian and general populace as people rather than just being obstacles to overcome you'll see a change in how you run them.

The survival, or fight or flight instinct, is a powerful force for most living beings. Particularly sapient life forms. Very few want to die. While player characters often take chances the average denizen of the universr wouldn't necessarily. If random spave trucker gets jumped by pirates, there is a likely outcome of his dropping a cargo and living, rather than die trying to be a hero.

The piratws aslo don't deal with opponents (players) with either the skills or knowledge outside the fourth wall much, so they don't need to always use heavy weapons as a show of force, only the threat of violence.

Most npcs in the universe will not even have stats. They live a background existence of mundane means that very rarely would require a skill roll for day to day events. A pirate threatening them would be met with no resistance.

Well if the EU was still in use I would just point you to the X-wing novels by Stackpole. Back in the early days of the Rebellion these weren't kind of hard to find military grade ordinance, they were **** near impossible. For example in A New Hope why didn't they just have the same X-wing pair go in on a run over and over until they hit since an X-wing could hold 12 (6 strafing runs) each. The way the original novel was written they only put 2 torpedoes per fighter to increase the odds at least 2 made it to the strafing run in the first place. By the time we got to RotJ the ordinance was a bit more available because established supply lines and other circumstances I don't think we were aware of. In Clone Wars Anakin leads an assault on Grevious' command ship to knock out the massive Ion cannons it has on its sides. That used proton torpedoes to do that deed though the original plan was to destroy the whole ship. Also torpedoes/missles were saved for those really big expensive targets not the fighters. As I said the way they explained it Rogue Squadron sort of started the whole 'open with torpedoes' attack pattern because they were usually 12 fighters against 4 to 6 times those odds in fighters and cutting that down to 3 to 5 in the opening pass was pretty impressive. Also most of Rogue Squadron was classified as good enough that even without torpedoes they took out a few Imperial Star Destroyers.

You also have to look at who you have being thrown at your characters not just what. Yes, a Z-95 Headhunter is a nasty little fighter but if it coming from a pirate group and even a planetary police agency they probably didn't have the ship fully loaded at launch. Mainly because the Empire is smart enough to make these highly destructive weapons not very readily available to anyone. Mainly because they don't want the Rebels or pirates to just go in knock over the armory and make off with them in the night. Or a planet to rise up against the Empire especially those that provide particular resources. They have less access to military grade equipment then the Rebellion so they are only ever going to equip fighters with those gems when they see a big payday like a luxury liner or a poorly escorted supply convoy or the opposite if it a planetary government. Someone has already pointed out that these are ship killers and not much else. Unless you got your groups going against TIE Defenders or a very well funded planetary force the players honestly shouldn't be on the receiving end of these too often. However, I am all for bigger booms so I would reward my players with them if that was really what they were going after.

In one of my games, the GM houseruled 'ion torpedoes' and 'ion missiles' which our group has used to devastating effect. We've used them to disable enemy ships and capture them. In general, ion weapons aren't as powerful, but with the breach that the missiles/torpedoes have, even with the reduced damage the GM gave them, they're a lot more powerful than light ion cannons for small craft.

I'd be worried that such weapons might be too good. Light ion cannon are weaker than laser cannon, but most ships have less SST than HTT. If ion torpedoes do damage on the level of proton torpedoes, then they are going to be very strong. I'm not against such weapons existing, but they really should have inferior base Damage, Critical, and possibly Breach values compared to regular proton torpedoes and concussion missiles.

The ion torpedoes have a base damage of 5 and may have a lower breach value too. They also cost 150% as much as proton torpedoes.

In one of my games, the GM houseruled 'ion torpedoes' and 'ion missiles' which our group has used to devastating effect. We've used them to disable enemy ships and capture them. In general, ion weapons aren't as powerful, but with the breach that the missiles/torpedoes have, even with the reduced damage the GM gave them, they're a lot more powerful than light ion cannons for small craft.

I'd be worried that such weapons might be too good. Light ion cannon are weaker than laser cannon, but most ships have less SST than HTT. If ion torpedoes do damage on the level of proton torpedoes, then they are going to be very strong. I'm not against such weapons existing, but they really should have inferior base Damage, Critical, and possibly Breach values compared to regular proton torpedoes and concussion missiles.

The ion torpedoes have a base damage of 5 and may have a lower breach value too. They also cost 150% as much as proton torpedoes.

That's probably not too bad. What's the Critical Rating?

There's been a lot of good things brought up, but a few extra notes:

--I was taking part of a playtest and decided that in order to test ships, rocket tag would be a good way to open up. Oddly enough, concussion missiles are not a surefire way to kill every fighter, and that's if they even hit. Between shields, spoofing, maneuvers and the like, they are not a surefire way to win.

--If there are two launchers, Slow Firing isn't as big of an issue as long as you aren't using linked. While it means you aren't going to vaporize them with two missiles in one pass (which happened from time to time with testing), it can be great when going into a hairball and you absolutely need to vape two of them in rapid succession.

Again, not a promised way, but still possible.

--Yes, the cost may be low, but costs are also guidelines. If the item is restricted (which I believe most missiles are/should be in most parts of the galaxy), then you are looking at black market prices, which can double the cost on the low end or bankrupt a planet on the high end to restock.

Sure, the RAW makes it look cheap and easy, but there are plenty of notes in the book that state a lot is up to the GM, which can really put a damper on this.

When a fighter lists something like "forward-mounted proton torpedo launchers" and lists Linked, you can't fire the weapons separately. They form one weapon system, and Slow-Firing applies to the system, not the individual tube.

As much as that is RAW (and likely also RAI), what happens with linked missile tubes if you don't spend 2 Advantage to fire the second one?

I was reading back through the Starships and Vehicles chapter, and found something we'd all missed. The Sensors section on page 227 of the Core Rulebook describes the process of using active sensors to extend a ship's sensor range in one firing arc. Doing so requires a "Surveillance" check (one of the uses of the Perception Skill is for "surveillance", page 115).

Since most starfighters have a sensor range of Close, ordnance actually outranges their sensors. Using active sensors is a skill check, which by default is an action. So for most starfighters to fire ordnance at Short Range, they'd have to first take an Active Sensors action, which would preclude taking an attack action on the same turn unless you had a two-seater ship or astromech.

If you're worried about RAW ordnance usage on the initial pass, HappyDaze, that should help.

As much as that is RAW (and likely also RAI), what happens with linked missile tubes if you don't spend 2 Advantage to fire the second one?

The 2 Advantage triggers a hit from the second tube. It is fired either way.

I could certainly see an ambitious technician or clever astromech droid modifying the tubes for individual fire, but it should probably be an unreliable modification, since it exploits the customization hard point rules.

As much as that is RAW (and likely also RAI), what happens with linked missile tubes if you don't spend 2 Advantage to fire the second one?

The 2 Advantage triggers a hit from the second tube. It is fired either way.

But Guided ordinance that misses can still potentially hit on subsequent rounds as long as you can keep paying the Advantage. So where/how do you have to spend the Advantage to get one/the other/both when you factor in Linked as well?