My players have joined up with the pirates (who were originally going to be the bad guys for my campaign, fun times) and are about to launch an assault on their Hutt ex-employer.

My question is, if the pirates can take control of the space around the planet, and have something with turbolasers (e.g. corvette or frigate), why not just lay waste to the Hutt's palace from space? Aside from the fact that you destroy all his loot. But if you didn't care about that and wanted to just kill everything and move on, is there a reason that you couldn't use your massive turrets and blow it all to kingdom-come from orbit?

Frowny faces?

Yeah, they can do that. But maybe the Hutt has a spy among the pirate crew and has been tipped off. Maybe he has sensor buoys throughout the system and detects the pirate fleet's approach. Maybe he has a bunker beneath his palace. Maybe he has a planetary ion cannon like in Empire Strikes Back (and a fleet of ships waiting to attack the now defenceless ships).

Hutts are patient and cunning and tend to plan ahead. Bad enemies to make.

And even if none of that applied. How many star destroyers do you think would be called out to deal with pirates that started to carry out orbital bombardments? Even if it was a backwater they can't allow that kind of thing to go unanswered for, word gets out and they look weak, and the hutt probably has family with a few captains or even moffs on the payroll.

Why wouldn't the Hutt have a shield to protect himself from just such an attack?

I also think a palace would be shielded, after all Hutts are careful. On the other hand - I don't think orbital bombardment is a precise strike. The palace could be destroyed, but so would the nearby streetmarket, schools etc... Maybe not by the energy blasts but by the shockwave or pollution or weather change (all that dust in the air).

If the players insisted , after all SW is about Good vs. Evil and if they choose the latter, I'd let them, but then even some criminals would treat them as mass-murderers, the bounty on their heads would be really high etc...

Reasons not besdes not getting any loot include: not being able to verifiy if the target was at the facility, if the target was killed even if they were at the facility, the posibility of killin innocents at the facility (could be the pirates sister, brother, lover, or someone known by the PCs in the palace.) Difficlulty of shooting a small target on a plants surface, dificluting keepitng the ship in geosychronys orbit, set back dice from clouds or other atmospheric anomiles which block sensors or visual aiming. depending on the size of your ship this could be a verry difficult shot to make.

If you do not want them to be able to then you can simply say that the planets atmosphere disipates the weapons energy making it less effective or ineffective for arial bombardment. Effectivly the atmosphere reduces the range of the weapons since it is no longer traeveling through a vacume. This still allows for fighters to be flown down and used but can prevent arial bombardment.

Do that to one Hutt and all Hutts are going to be after you.

Family infighting is one thing, but they will unify to destroy an external threat that doesn't play by the rules they created. If they annihilated Xim's empire, what chance do you think one pirate ring has?

Since Star Wars is space opera you should just say they can't because of the shields on the palace. If they want to disable the shields they can do so from a secret room under the Hutt's throne room. Not everything has to make science fiction sense when the story and characters are the main driver for the space opera genre.

You really don't want the party to start solving every problem by blasting it from orbit.

Also, not every ship can effectively bombard from space. The Victory Star Destroyers were designed to be able to function in atmosphere specifically to bombard targets with more precision. Presumably, this means that most vessels are either underpowered or too inaccurate to target a building. Plus, corvettes and frigates carry between 4 - 16 turbolasers, assume 1/2 can target the ground at any given time. It would take a while to level a Hutt Palace, even if it is undefended. Especially adding in slow firing. Somebody will scramble defenses before serious damage is done. It takes a lot of damage to kill everyone in a large building. WWII combined artillery, bombers, naval bombardment, and tanks could pound a city for months, reduce it rubble, and it still has survivors willing to defend it. If you want your target dead, you have to be very precise. Think smart bombs. Or infantry.

I like the variety of answers on here. Thanks to everyone who posted so quickly!

- The threat of reprisal, either from the Hutts or the Imps, is very real, especially if they're not doing a "conventional" takeover/ground raid.

- There will definitely be some space combat, but my thoughts were if the pirates gained dominance of space over the then-doomed Hutt.

Hutts are patient and cunning and tend to plan ahead. Bad enemies to make.

Great point! I like this for thinking through the character of the now-villian.

Why wouldn't the Hutt have a shield to protect himself from just such an attack?

You don't see anything like this at Jabba's palace, and it seems a little out-of-place imho. Especially as this Hutt (Bargos from the GM kit) has financial problems.

- The technical difficulties listed are good points, especially regarding accuracy and collateral damage. The latter goes back to the first point about reprisal from either the Empire or family/associates of those killed.

Since Star Wars is space opera you should just say they can't because of the shields on the palace. If they want to disable the shields they can do so from a secret room under the Hutt's throne room. Not everything has to make science fiction sense when the story and characters are the main driver for the space opera genre.

You really don't want the party to start solving every problem by blasting it from orbit.

Actually, this wasn't the party's idea. I was thinking from the pirate's perspective, would they try to bombard it? though, being pirates, they'll probably go after all the loot they can.

In any case, both I and my players try to hand-wave as little as possible. The more things can make sense in-universe, the more real the story is and the easier the players can immerse themselves into its world.

I think a lot of independent pirate groups would know that orbital bombardment is effectively signing their own death warrant with one group or another. Black Sun, they are not. You can disappear a few transports and people might not know what's going on, but an orbital bombardment...not so much.

I think a lot of independent pirate groups would know that orbital bombardment is effectively signing their own death warrant with one group or another. Black Sun, they are not. You can disappear a few transports and people might not know what's going on, but an orbital bombardment...not so much.

Orbital bombardment should get you put on the Top Ten Most Wanted List -- Dead or Alive, of just about every group in the galaxy. The Hutts would be after you. The Empire would be after you. The people who make up what will become the Rebel Alliance will come after you as if you were part of the Empire, because in their eyes you are now equally evil as the Empire. Black Sun would come after you, because they don't want any competition.

For that matter, all the other pirates in the galaxy would probably gang up to take you down, because you're giving them a bad name.

There's not a planet in the galaxy that you could land on. There's not a space station in the galaxy that you could dock with. And even if you owned your own planet or space station, well -- you opened the door to using orbital bombardment against targets, so you can **** well be assured that everyone else in the game would be more than happy to use it against you.

I think a lot of independent pirate groups would know that orbital bombardment is effectively signing their own death warrant with one group or another. Black Sun, they are not. You can disappear a few transports and people might not know what's going on, but an orbital bombardment...not so much.

Orbital bombardment should get you put on the Top Ten Most Wanted List -- Dead or Alive, of just about every group in the galaxy. The Hutts would be after you. The Empire would be after you. The people who make up what will become the Rebel Alliance will come after you as if you were part of the Empire, because in their eyes you are now equally evil as the Empire. Black Sun would come after you, because they don't want any competition.

For that matter, all the other pirates in the galaxy would probably gang up to take you down, because you're giving them a bad name.

There's not a planet in the galaxy that you could land on. There's not a space station in the galaxy that you could dock with. And even if you owned your own planet or space station, well -- you opened the door to using orbital bombardment against targets, so you can **** well be assured that everyone else in the game would be more than happy to use it against you.

I get what you're saying here, but you'd need to take into account how accurate and fast-spreading knowledge of the event would be. If you're attacking a Core world or even a major Rim world, you're in deep. If it's the lone settlement on some backwater that barely anyone's heard of, there may be almost no reprocussion, because a) few people will know it happened, at least in the short term, and b) the ones who know it happened may not know you did it. So I get the "this is a big bad no-no," but I'd recommend taking this sort of thing into account. Atrocities happen everyday in the real world and go unnoticed for reasons like these.

I get what you're saying here, but you'd need to take into account how accurate and fast-spreading knowledge of the event would be. If you're attacking a Core world or even a major Rim world, you're in deep. If it's the lone settlement on some backwater that barely anyone's heard of, there may be almost no reprocussion, because a) few people will know it happened, at least in the short term, and b) the ones who know it happened may not know you did it. So I get the "this is a big bad no-no," but I'd recommend taking this sort of thing into account. Atrocities happen everyday in the real world and go unnoticed for reasons like these.

IMO, the Empire can get away with orbital bombardment in the backwaters, because they're the Empire. Not because they're in the backwaters, and no one who lives knows what happened, or they don't know it was you.

Now, if you're in the backwaters, it might take a while for word to get out, and it might take a while for them to get to you, but the investigation of this kind of Crime Against Sapience should be at the top of virtually everyone's list, and bringing to justice the most heinous criminals in the galaxy should likewise be at the top of virtually everyone's list.

IMO, this is the second Biggest Baddest type of thing that I can think of in the game, only exceeded by building a Death Star and obliterating an entire planet and not just bombarding a portion of it from space.

Also, just from a mechanics point of view on this...

Most buildings would be on the upper end of Sil 3 (houses, average offices and shops) and into Sil 4 (palaces, compounds, warehouses). Only very large structures or compounds would be Sil 5 (skyscrapers, spaceports), with only the largest ground targets being Sil 6 or more (large spaceports, university campuses, entire towns or city suburbs).

NOTE: For the purposes of an orbital bombardment I'd be more likely to "round down" the size of a building, as you're essentially only looking at the footprint rather then it's total mass. So a 1 story house (small home), 2 story house (large home), 3 story house (mansion), and apartment building (single block of 4ish townhouses, not the whole compound) would each only cover an area roughly in the Sil 3 neighborhood when viewed from above. Reasonable exceptions can be made, as a single story shopping mall, or a 100 story sky scraper both are sufficiently large enough to both be fairly high Sil, even though their footprints are drastically different. Furthermore, orbital bombardments can only really be directed from one direction, so no maneuvers or anything can be applied that would allow the attacker to choose the defensive zone.

Furthermore, remember that weather patterns and such will also be adding setback dice on a regular basis.

So if you've got a Neb-B and want to hit a surface target like a Teemo's Palace (Sil 4ish) You're looking at a base difficulty of Hard, plus defenses (if any) and environmental effects (clouds, thermal distortion, haboob) and anything else (did he mount an ECM package on his palace, just in case?)

So it's doable, but for a questionably trained pirate crew, targeting Mos Shuuta in it's entirety would be easier. That or going with a smaller ship, but that usually means reducing the range and firepower as well, making it less orbital bombardment and more upper atmosphere bombardment. Honestly a direct airstrike with fighter/bomber craft might be a more reasonable solution unless Teemo knows you're coming and arranges for some interceptor support of his own, though if he knows you're coming he's probably already evaced his palace and the attack would be more symbolic then functional.

Player OB's?.....No, no , no....

1. not every ship with a chump turbolaser can do an orbital bombardment. Requires the energy and targeting systems to drop a blast from orbit to a planet.

2. Turbolasers have a range, most mid and small ships wont generate the energy to reach a planets surface from orbit.

3. When the empire did OB's they did them with several Start Destroyers that were designed to do OBs, OB's are inacurate.mass effect damage attacks. A single corvette in space would take it a week of shooting to do any real sub surface damage .... IF it even hit.

I would not consider an OB to be inaccurate, but more designed to lay waste to a large piece of land. I mean if Ion Cannons on the ground can precisely fire at a Star Destroyer hundreds of km away (Episode V) or other capital ships at each other from simular distances (Ep VI) ... do you honestly want to tell me that they can't hit a town from orbit?

A Star Destroyer would have Sil 7+ and is just 1,6 km long, and just about 400m high at the bridge turret so even from a side that is not a big space to shoot at ... i know university camps bigger than that, let alone towns.

A Hutts palace or villa would easily be a Sil 5+ since even Sandcrawlers are Sil 4.

A battery of 5 heavy TLs from an SD I would roll IMO YYYGBPPPBB to hit such a target.

Sounds doable.

A smaller ship would have to go into LEO or even reenter the atmosphere since their TLs are not strong enough. That would give more options to counter (-attack) them, but would also make the shooting easier since the Sil-difference would be smaller.

Maybe YYGBPPBB?

Sounds still doable.

3. When the empire did OB's they did them with several Start Destroyers that were designed to do OBs, OB's are inacurate.mass effect damage attacks. A single corvette in space would take it a week of shooting to do any real sub surface damage .... IF it even hit.

I thought I read somewhere that your bog standard ISD could Delta Base 0 a planet in just over 24 hours. Though I'm not sure where I saw that.

In my opinion, if your orbital bombardment is accurate enough, the repercussions probably wouldn't be any worse than directly assaulting the Hutt Compound. A heavily armed group that successfully assaults a Hutts home is just as likely to draw unwanted attention as a group that fired a couple of turbo laser shots into the compound. Heck, the collateral might even be comparable if the fightng spills to into the streets.

My players discussed modifying photon torpedoes into a MIRV set up to soften up or just outright obliterate hardened surface targets because crewing and maintaining a ship with turbolasers is hard. That and its easier to guide a missile rather than a laser shot. The biggest things holding the idea back is cost and the worry that gathering up a bunch of photon torps will get them noticed. Also they know if they don't verify there is a body on a specific target, chances are that individual is coming back to bite them, which keeps them from relying on the "Nuke it from orbit" strategy. Speaking of which, nukes were also discussed in passing, but a consensus was reached that all the types of fallout nuking a planet would entail made it not worth it. Right now they have very few lifelines left and they'd rather not, to a point, ostracize them atm.

photon torpedoes are Star Trek. proton torpedoes are Star Wars.

Player OB's?.....No, no , no....

1. not every ship with a chump turbolaser can do an orbital bombardment. Requires the energy and targeting systems to drop a blast from orbit to a planet.

2. Turbolasers have a range, most mid and small ships wont generate the energy to reach a planets surface from orbit.

3. When the empire did OB's they did them with several Start Destroyers that were designed to do OBs, OB's are inacurate.mass effect damage attacks. A single corvette in space would take it a week of shooting to do any real sub surface damage .... IF it even hit.

Got me thinking, so lets run the numbers...

Neb-Bs have Long range banded turbo lasers, and CR-X0s have Medium range ones.

CRB has Medium range in atmo at around 50 km, and Long around between 100 and 200km. (pg 239)

By the US definition "space" start at around 80km, and Low Orbit is 160-2000km (source). High altitude aircraft (SR-71 type stuff) can operate around 30km up (assuming the actual ceiling isn't classified of course), with typical commercial flights cruising (with pressurized cabins) at a measly 9km.

Well... this is uncomfortable....

So by that, only Long Range weapons can be used to conduct an orbital strike, which seems to limit the ability to Sil 6 craft and up (unless you're using an oversized weapon mount from DC).

This also gets into the whole "Victory class can enter atmo and is awesome at orbital bombardment" thing as it's essentially saying the ship can sit in true orbit and do some long range bombardment, or drop down into a suborbital altitude and really open up with everything she's got (I don't have AoR on me atm, but I'm assuming it's got plenty of medium ranged weapons)

So it looks like you nailed it. Most craft just don't have the range to hit a target from orbit.

A Hutts palace or villa would easily be a Sil 5+ since even Sandcrawlers are Sil 4.

Run those numbers again dawg. A sandcrawler is a six story high mobile industrial building. I bet there's plenty of Hutt palaces and villa's that are about that size. Lay the Sand crawler on it's side and you're still looking at a pretty good sized 3-4 story building.

Jabba's palace it isn't, but the higher end of Sil 4 is still quite a piece of real estate.

Like I said, probably safer to round buildings down rather then up. Even Jabba's palace is probably only on the higher end of Sil 5.

[Lots of stuff]

Agree with everything you've said. Buildings don't tend to move, though. Should be easier to hit than a spaceship of similar surface area, yeah?

3. When the empire did OB's they did them with several Start Destroyers that were designed to do OBs, OB's are inacurate.mass effect damage attacks. A single corvette in space would take it a week of shooting to do any real sub surface damage .... IF it even hit.

I thought I read somewhere that your bog standard ISD could Delta Base 0 a planet in just over 24 hours. Though I'm not sure where I saw that.

Star Destroyer.net/Saxonite nonsense. Can a Star Destroyer level a planet if given enough time? Yes. But it would take quite some time. If you really want to level a planet you send a fleet of ships, not one Star Destroyer.

[Lots of stuff]

Agree with everything you've said. Buildings don't tend to move, though. Should be easier to hit than a spaceship of similar surface area, yeah?

Since the speed of a target only really comes into play when doing GtA and related stuff hitting a surface target and hitting a starship that's not moving is essentially the same. I'd be up for adding boost die for certain situations though.

Take Jabba's palace again; the structure itself is probably only a high Sil 5, so bombarding it from a Sil 7 or 8 capship is gonna be tricky.... but it's also the only thing in the neighborhood, so there's a reduced room for error. So if you asked for a boost die I'd probably give it to you.

Teemo's Palace, being more a high Sil 4 target is even trickier, but it's also in town. No boost for you, and possibly a setback or two, but depending on how you wanna roll I'd say you could target Mos Shuuta as a whole instead (so your target is now at least Sil 6), and use 2 Advantage to inflict a hit on Teemo's palace. Don't expect to win any popularity contests afterward though...

Getting into more nitty gritty though, if you were serious about orbital strikes you'd stack the deck accordingly. Ground teams and probe droids providing an assist, sensor sweeps, and so on would allow boost dice to really pile up.

Since the speed of a target only really comes into play when doing GtA and related stuff hitting a surface target and hitting a starship that's not moving is essentially the same. I'd be up for adding boost die for certain situations though.

Take Jabba's palace again; the structure itself is probably only a high Sil 5, so bombarding it from a Sil 7 or 8 capship is gonna be tricky.... but it's also the only thing in the neighborhood, so there's a reduced room for error. So if you asked for a boost die I'd probably give it to you.

Teemo's Palace, being more a high Sil 4 target is even trickier, but it's also in town. No boost for you, and possibly a setback or two, but depending on how you wanna roll I'd say you could target Mos Shuuta as a whole instead (so your target is now at least Sil 6), and use 2 Advantage to inflict a hit on Teemo's palace. Don't expect to win any popularity contests afterward though...

Getting into more nitty gritty though, if you were serious about orbital strikes you'd stack the deck accordingly. Ground teams and probe droids providing an assist, sensor sweeps, and so on would allow boost dice to really pile up.

I'd guess speed isn't a factor in regular space combat because the movement rules are somewhat fluid and the fact that both attacker and target are assumed to be in motion is factored into the difficulty already.

Teemo's palace - it's also a busy port, lots of crap could wander into the line of fire by mistake, too.