So, I'm brainsorming various things a party of fighter pilots can do with a squadron of Y wings. If you have an ideas, feel free to add them.

Escort mission

Tie Hunt.

Capital ship assault

Terrain Hug (Avoiding detection in starfighters)

Bombing Run

Smuggle small valuable cargos

Move informaion

Anything else come to mind? Do I need to "loan" the party a shuttle for most missions?

Recon missions. The standard Y-wing is a fighter/attack craft, but there are Y-wings specifically rigged as Longprobe for deep recon missions. If those are not available, then the standard Y-wing works OK (unless you look too closely at the Sensor Range issues), and would be good escorts in any event.

Scan a freighter

Search for new base/scouting run survey

Diplomatic missions

Take down an enemy ace

Break through a blockade to shut down defenses.

Insertion or extraction of one individual (depends on fighter and party composition)

The only thing you couldn't use fighters for would be transporting cargo and people.

Strangely, in Star Wars, there's very little a fighter can accomplish that couldn't be done better (and often cheaper) with a patrol boat or light freighter (customized with appropriate attachments). This applies even in squadrons where a half-dozen armed freighters are likely to outperform a dozen fighters and cost less to do it.

Distraction mission; one or two pilots in A-Wings jump in some time after a shuttle delivers the rest of the PC group to the planet. Once the PC infiltrators are in position, the A-Wings jump in, kick in their jammers, maybe strafe a space-dock, and lead the local TIE squadron(s) on a merry chase while the infiltrators set charges in the hangar bay. Once the charges are set, and the infiltrators exfiltrated, the A-Wings make the jump, and as the TIEs come in to land, KABOOOOOOOOOWHOOOOOOOOSSH!!!

Strangely, in Star Wars, there's very little a fighter can accomplish that couldn't be done better (and often cheaper) with a patrol boat or light freighter (customized with appropriate attachments). This applies even in squadrons where a half-dozen armed freighters are likely to outperform a dozen fighters and cost less to do it.

Technically you can say the same real-world too, with the same responses possible...

You can fit more fighters into a carrier then you can medium bombers.

Smaller aircraft require less infrastructure to support them. (shorter runways, smaller hangers, ect.)

A muti-crew craft requires multiple people each trained in a different specialty, often with little overlap, and trained to carefully work together as a single functional unit. Single crew craft requires one person with identical training to everyone else in the squadron, and only trained to work as a team, not as a single functional unit. Fighter squadron replacement crews are easier to get.

Smaller specialized craft can usually be repaired and returned to the field faster. (In-game this is a little deceptive but still true, since fighters have such a low HT the ones that aren't destroyed will need less HT repaired to get them spaceworthy again, and will rarely come home with a crit.)

There's other issues, but it gets more nitty-gritty that isn't well represented in the game...

What you're getting at is a very real doctrinal debate in the military. Is it better to use large numbers of disposable specialized craft, or small numbers of resilient elite generalists? An F-35 or F-22 is a awesome piece of machinery, but how will if fair long-term when you've got an enemy with 10x that number of Su-27s? On the Navy side you've got people asking how 6 missile corvettes will ultimately compare to a single missile cruiser...

Right now the US is going for generalists, but that has as much to do with reducing the manpower requirements and by extension benefit payouts to veterans as it does actual doctrinal theory. It won't be until a real conventional war is fought that we'll find out which theory is actually the winning choice....

Interestingly, the Imperial Military is divided on this as well, with the Navy fielding a sizable number of generalist Star Destroyers, while Starfighter Command decided to go with specialist TIE Fighters...

I don't agree with you on crew. It's far easier to train four crew members to each be good at one task (piloting, gunnery,etc.) than to train someone to be good at all tasks.

Also, those freighters don't need carriers. They can operate for months on their own stores of consumables. This is quite unlike any modern aircraft.

I believe it to be a question of speed/maneuverability and thus combat efficiency. Their smaller size also makes it harder to hit them compared to a larger, slower transport.

In a lesser sense it might also be a matter of projection. If you're short on recruits because you are an illegal terrorist group unable to post public ads, you may have a shortage of personnel - so if you still want to conduct raids on multiple fronts simultaneously, it's a lot better to use, say, 40 guys to man 40 fighters, rather than 10 transports.

In contrast, the Empire did not have a manpower shortage, but their fighters were so cheap that they could field three for the price of one.

Speaking of, I think raids might also be something for OP's list: the players need to attack a convoy of freighters, destroy their escort and protect a rebel shuttle until its boarders have successfully captured the cargo (or the entire ship) and everyone hypers out again. Imperial reinforcements, local law enforcement and/or a Sector Ranger patrol may or may not make their job more difficult.

Interestingly, the Imperial Military is divided on this as well, with the Navy fielding a sizable number of generalist Star Destroyers, while Starfighter Command decided to go with specialist TIE Fighters...

It's probably a "size" issue - Star Destroyers are like aircraft carriers and frequently serve as command ships for smaller squadrons (if one were to go by the flotilla chart in the old Imperial sourcebook), and once you've reached a certain size it just makes sense to try to make it at least good at everything, given that the necessary equipment might not change a unit's cost by a huge degree, compared to cheaper (=smaller) hulls.

If you look at corvette, frigate and cruiser classes, there's a lot more specialisation. The Lancer, for example, is a dedicated anti-air platform, whereas the Escort Carrier is useful only as a taxi for fighter squadrons.

I don't agree with you on crew. It's far easier to train four crew members to each be good at one task (piloting, gunnery,etc.) than to train someone to be good at all tasks.

It is, not saying that. I'm saying when you take a torpedo to the aft section and Mr. Scott ends up sucking vacuum, replacing him is harder. Not because his training is any more or less rigorous then the rest of the crew, but because it's an entirely different specialty that you now have to train in sufficient numbers to keep up with combat losses. With a one-man fighter Mr. Scott's combat losses will be smaller, simply because he doesn't go into combat anymore (well not intentionally) he stays back on the carrier.

Also, those freighters don't need carriers. They can operate for months on their own stores of consumables. This is quite unlike any modern aircraft.

True, they are more like patrol boats, and for peacetime ops you're correct, but I'm taking warfare. If you're sending those frieghter-gunships into harms way they are going to get shot up and will need repairs, and rearming, that can't always be done in deep space. For that they either have to return to a ground base, or a carrier. And in both cases smaller lighter craft are easier to handle because they don't need the huge hangers and landing pads capable of supporting the weight and size.

It's probably a "size" issue - Star Destroyers are like aircraft carriers and frequently serve as command ships for smaller squadrons (if one were to go by the flotilla chart in the old Imperial sourcebook), and once you've reached a certain size it just makes sense to try to make it at least good at everything, given that the necessary equipment might not change a unit's cost by a huge degree, compared to cheaper (=smaller) hulls.

If you look at corvette, frigate and cruiser classes, there's a lot more specialisation. The Lancer, for example, is a dedicated anti-air platform, whereas the Escort Carrier is useful only as a taxi for fighter squadrons.

But why build that big in the first place? Why not just make battlegroups of smaller craft organized as needed to suit the mission?

Answer: It's more convenient to be able to send a Star Destroyer anywhere in the galaxy knowing that it will probably have what it needs to accomplish the mission.

It's a legit strategy that ensures your commanders always know what they've got and can do what they need to do. The problem is when that Star Destroyer get's torpedoed and end up limping away with 5 crits, the thing is rendered near-combat ineffective until it can get repaired, and that might take a while.

That's also part of the big ship vs. many small ships argument. Imagine a scenario where there was a battle. The Empire reported heavy damage to a single SD. The Rebellion reported they lost 5 patrol boats. It looks like the Empire won, even though that SD is gonna be outta the fight for the next year and the remaining 10 rebel patrols boats that didn't get destroyed are ready to continue the fight right now.

Getting back on topic

This actually brings up a nifty idea for a starfighter-oriented campaign. Rather then having the players going around destroying Imperial capital ships, have them go around damaging Imperial capital ships. The final climax of the campaign being to attack the repair station all these ships are now centrally located at (also crippled and undercrewed) with the purpose of taking down a lot of ships in a single risky operation instead of taking them down individually in seperate risky ops.

Strangely, in Star Wars, there's very little a fighter can accomplish that couldn't be done better (and often cheaper) with a patrol boat or light freighter (customized with appropriate attachments). This applies even in squadrons where a half-dozen armed freighters are likely to outperform a dozen fighters and cost less to do it.

Going with the empire's tactic of overwhelming numbers, a freighter with four crew vs. A squad of 4 x-wings, the x-wings I wager can fare better.

While a freighter, or even y-wing has advantages with multiple crew, the losses would be felt more for a mission.

A scenerio I'm looking at is having my (newbie) starfighter squadron (8 players = 4 fighters) go help a nebulon B that is attempting to defect. The frigate hides in an ion storm, players fight off imperial ties outside the storm, go in, have a "ground mission" helping secure the vessel for the rebels, then fight the ships outside the ion cloud long enough to escape to hyper.

The Neb B then becomes their base of operations.

Strangely, in Star Wars, there's very little a fighter can accomplish that couldn't be done better (and often cheaper) with a patrol boat or light freighter (customized with appropriate attachments). This applies even in squadrons where a half-dozen armed freighters are likely to outperform a dozen fighters and cost less to do it.

I disagree with this analysis, mainly on the grounds that a larger ship also provides a bigger target. If the crew you send on a mission are in seperate fighters, you can sustain more losses and still accomplish the mission than if all your assets are in one ship, all your eggs in one basket, and all.

Going with the empire's tactic of overwhelming numbers, a freighter with four crew vs. A squad of 4 x-wings, the x-wings I wager can fare better.

While a freighter, or even y-wing has advantages with multiple crew, the losses would be felt more for a mission.

You certainly can't buy four A-wings for the cost of a light freighter, and since droids can cover many of the crew needs, the personnel costs are not necessarily higher for the freighters either.

But why build that big in the first place? Why not just make battlegroups of smaller craft organized as needed to suit the mission?

Answer: It's more convenient to be able to send a Star Destroyer anywhere in the galaxy knowing that it will probably have what it needs to accomplish the mission.

I think a more probably answer would be "because it's the Empire!", and for them bigger = better. Just look at the Super Star Destroyers, the Death Star, the Eclipse. Star Destroyers would not have been getting bigger and bigger ever since the Victory-class if there had not been a belief in heavier war machines. Not to mention the Tarkin doctrine. It's all about showing off.

It may also be kind of a historical reference of the movies to the change in naval warfare from WW1 to WW2 and the rising prominence of fighters and bombers compared to the big battleships, too, but that's just a guess based on the visual differences between the Rebel and Imperial fleets (which, in-universe, obviously has its own explanations).

It also seems to be two competing lobbies within the Imperial Admiralty, with younger officers pushing for smaller and more specialised ships, yet being kept down by a tradition of well-connected "big gun" conservatives. Nevertheless, newer projects such as the modular Strike-class cruiser - which can be refitted in short time depending on mission parameters - are the best example of a (very) slow change in thinking, or at least a sort of equilibrium between both extremes.

I don't agree with you on crew. It's far easier to train four crew members to each be good at one task (piloting, gunnery,etc.) than to train someone to be good at all tasks.

It is, not saying that. I'm saying when you take a torpedo to the aft section and Mr. Scott ends up sucking vacuum, replacing him is harder. Not because his training is any more or less rigorous then the rest of the crew, but because it's an entirely different specialty that you now have to train in sufficient numbers to keep up with combat losses. With a one-man fighter Mr. Scott's combat losses will be smaller, simply because he doesn't go into combat anymore (well not intentionally) he stays back on the carrier.

Also, those freighters don't need carriers. They can operate for months on their own stores of consumables. This is quite unlike any modern aircraft.

True, they are more like patrol boats, and for peacetime ops you're correct, but I'm taking warfare. If you're sending those frieghter-gunships into harms way they are going to get shot up and will need repairs, and rearming, that can't always be done in deep space. For that they either have to return to a ground base, or a carrier. And in both cases smaller lighter craft are easier to handle because they don't need the huge hangers and landing pads capable of supporting the weight and size.

It's probably a "size" issue - Star Destroyers are like aircraft carriers and frequently serve as command ships for smaller squadrons (if one were to go by the flotilla chart in the old Imperial sourcebook), and once you've reached a certain size it just makes sense to try to make it at least good at everything, given that the necessary equipment might not change a unit's cost by a huge degree, compared to cheaper (=smaller) hulls.

If you look at corvette, frigate and cruiser classes, there's a lot more specialisation. The Lancer, for example, is a dedicated anti-air platform, whereas the Escort Carrier is useful only as a taxi for fighter squadrons.

But why build that big in the first place? Why not just make battlegroups of smaller craft organized as needed to suit the mission?

Answer: It's more convenient to be able to send a Star Destroyer anywhere in the galaxy knowing that it will probably have what it needs to accomplish the mission.

It's a legit strategy that ensures your commanders always know what they've got and can do what they need to do. The problem is when that Star Destroyer get's torpedoed and end up limping away with 5 crits, the thing is rendered near-combat ineffective until it can get repaired, and that might take a while.

That's also part of the big ship vs. many small ships argument. Imagine a scenario where there was a battle. The Empire reported heavy damage to a single SD. The Rebellion reported they lost 5 patrol boats. It looks like the Empire won, even though that SD is gonna be outta the fight for the next year and the remaining 10 rebel patrols boats that didn't get destroyed are ready to continue the fight right now.

Getting back on topic

This actually brings up a nifty idea for a starfighter-oriented campaign. Rather then having the players going around destroying Imperial capital ships, have them go around damaging Imperial capital ships. The final climax of the campaign being to attack the repair station all these ships are now centrally located at (also crippled and undercrewed) with the purpose of taking down a lot of ships in a single risky operation instead of taking them down individually in seperate risky ops.

I prefer small or midsize cap ships to the heavy cruisers or destroyers though I think the bigger ships do have a role.

According to the Essential Guide to Warfare a typical Rebel Fleet Task force is two heavy cruisers, one frigate and a corvette. If I had my choice I would take either one heavy cruiser, five frigates, and four corvettes/gunships, or nine frigates and seven corvettes/gunships. Either force outguns the two heavy cruiser plus 1 frigate and corvette force for slightly smaller crew,sizes and would be easier to split into multiple task forces if needed.

And I think your campaign idea sounds great.

A scenerio I'm looking at is having my (newbie) starfighter squadron (8 players = 4 fighters) go help a nebulon B that is attempting to defect. The frigate hides in an ion storm, players fight off imperial ties outside the storm, go in, have a "ground mission" helping secure the vessel for the rebels, then fight the ships outside the ion cloud long enough to escape to hyper.

The Neb B then becomes their base of operations.

That reminds me of how my first Star Wars RP character to command a capship got command of a Nebulon-B. Our GM was planning to have our roving Rebel squadron assigned a capship as a carrier. On one of four last missions before we were going to be assigned to the carrier we were sent to ambush a Nebulon-B that was hunting for a rebel outpost in a nebula and I got a very lucky shot in which disabled all of its port broadside weapons. The nebula blocked communications and made jumping to hyperspace basically suicide so not long after the port guns went down the Nebulon surrendered and since my character had scored the decisive hit, plus had the highest tactics and command skills of the group he was given command of it.

Out of curiosity, what do the rest of you do for tie-basing? Is there an impstar around whenever you run more than 3 4-tie Minion groups (12 fighters), or does everything need to be launched from an imperial garrison? What kind of imperial "pocket carriers" are available in Legends and Canon?

Also, has anyone tried converting the starship movement system, with it's different starship speeds, into a grid/hex based system? Instead of trying to track rangebands and maneuvers with different speeds, I'm looking at saying that "close" is within 1 movement (with ships moving their speed per maneuver), Short is within 2, Medium is within 4, long is within 8, and extreme is within 16. This seems to track with the existing "Speed X cvessels can cover range band x in 1 or Y in 2 actions"

Legends had the Escort Carrier, which carried a Star Destroyers worth of TIEs without the, yknow, combat power of a Star Destroyer:-

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Escort_carrier

The new Rebels show has invented this:-

to carry 4 TIEs and provide a more manageable opponent for the shows protagonists than a SD.

Out of curiosity, what do the rest of you do for tie-basing? Is there an impstar around whenever you run more than 3 4-tie Minion groups (12 fighters), or does everything need to be launched from an imperial garrison? What kind of imperial "pocket carriers" are available in Legends and Canon?

Escort Carrier is the big one, and stuff like that is largely likely to be recanoned as it doesn't impact anyone's ability to write a new screenplay.

Also TIEs just need a base for pickup and drop off, so you can have the carrier drop them off with a comm repeater buoy for a patrol or something with the intent to come pick them back up later.

Also, has anyone tried converting the starship movement system, with it's different starship speeds, into a grid/hex based system? Instead of trying to track rangebands and maneuvers with different speeds, I'm looking at saying that "close" is within 1 movement (with ships moving their speed per maneuver), Short is within 2, Medium is within 4, long is within 8, and extreme is within 16. This seems to track with the existing "Speed X cvessels can cover range band x in 1 or Y in 2 actions"

I know some people have, but it's a lot of work to avoid a ripple effect that causes issues with other parts of the system or advanced features. The Radar Map that's been circulating makes more sense.

Case in point, Fly/Drive in RAW is all about distances to other objects, not fixed points in space. So you're approaching two Z-95s at medium range. You can Fly/Drive to change range bands in relation to one of the Z-95s, but not the other (narratively you maneuver in such away to split him off form his wingman). Hard to illustrate that properly on a conventional grid.

The system is fine as is, though unconventional. In my experience it usually takes a good 2-4 encounters for it to really catch on, but once you've all done it a few times it gels quite nicely.

I would like to take a moment to recommend Flying Coffins, an adventure for Trail of Cthulhu in which the PCs, flying for the Royal Flying Corps over the Western Front in the Great War, discover that there are more dangerous things in the sky than The Hun.

http://pelgranepress.com/site/?p=7808

Easily adapted to Star Wars by replacing the mi-go with hostile alien space monsters from another dimension, or some such.

The radar map is fine when everyone is in one freighter, capital ship, or shuttle. But when there are 4 hero fighters flying around, plus an allied capital ship, well, my group has a problem with splitting the party that we can usually survive by having a huge group to start with.

Any idea what that tie-transort is called? being able to shuttle in a full minion group and vanish back into hyper makes it a convienent plot device.

The radar map is fine when everyone is in one freighter, capital ship, or shuttle. But when there are 4 hero fighters flying around, plus an allied capital ship, well, my group has a problem with splitting the party that we can usually survive by having a huge group to start with.

Any idea what that tie-transort is called? being able to shuttle in a full minion group and vanish back into hyper makes it a convienent plot device.

That's a modified Gozanti armed transport. You can find basenststsnfornitnin thenAge ofnRebellion Beta. Hopefully it will be in the AgenofnRebellion Core Rulebook too.

Out of curiosity, what do the rest of you do for tie-basing? Is there an impstar around whenever you run more than 3 4-tie Minion groups (12 fighters), or does everything need to be launched from an imperial garrison? What kind of imperial "pocket carriers" are available in Legends and Canon?

In the EU, a whole lot of capital ships, whilst not designated carriers, had at least some smaller craft with them for a variety of duties - not dissimilar from WW2 cruisers and battleships, some of whom had their own airplanes! This complement may range from anything such as the 4 carried by the Gozanti Refit or a Carrack-class Light Cruiser, to a squadron of 12 on a Marauder-class Corvette or a Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser, to 24 on a Nebulon-class Frigate or a Victory-class Star Destroyer.

And then there is the modular Strike-class Cruiser, which in its standard configuration carries 18 fighters - but depending on how it is configured its starfighter complement may range from 0 to 36!

All these ships are or were used by the Galactic Empire, so this should provide you with ample options to choose from depending on how many fighters you want to throw at your players.

The new Rebels show has invented this:-

to carry 4 TIEs and provide a more manageable opponent for the shows protagonists than a SD.

That's not a new ship - but as much as I like to see the Gozanti featured, the new "windows" they added to the sides look really ridiculous when compared in size to the TIE cockpit or even the bridge windows. Is that a deck or a crawlspace?!

Easily adapted to Star Wars by replacing the mi-go with hostile alien space monsters from another dimension, or some such.

Nesting mynocks!

Or that Space Worm!

Out of curiosity, what do the rest of you do for tie-basing? Is there an impstar around whenever you run more than 3 4-tie Minion groups (12 fighters), or does everything need to be launched from an imperial garrison? What kind of imperial "pocket carriers" are available in Legends and Canon?

In the EU, a whole lot of capital ships, whilst not designated carriers, had at least some smaller craft with them for a variety of duties - not dissimilar from WW2 cruisers and battleships, some of whom had their own airplanes! This complement may range from anything such as the 4 carried by the Gozanti Refit or a Carrack-class Light Cruiser, to a squadron of 12 on a Marauder-class Corvette or a Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser, to 24 on a Nebulon-class Frigate or a Victory-class Star Destroyer.

And then there is the modular Strike-class Cruiser, which in its standard configuration carries 18 fighters - but depending on how it is configured its starfighter complement may range from 0 to 36!

All these ships are or were used by the Galactic Empire, so this should provide you with ample options to choose from depending on how many fighters you want to throw at your players

On the rebel side the Alliance used at least two type of bulk cruiser carrier conversions in the EU plus the MC40A Light Cruiser ans honestly I would be shocked if they ever do a full stat sheet for an MC30C and it has no fighters. I know it didn't carry any in Empire at War but none of the rebel capital ships in Empire at War, including the Nebulon-Bs and MC80s had hangers.

Yeah, I think that was just for gameplay - rebel fighters had their own hyperdrives, so you had to produce them seperately, whereas standard TIEs came included with the Imperial capital ships that launched them. I believe with high-end stuff like Defenders and V38s it was the same for the Empire.

It's been some time, though, so this is just from memory!

Yeah that's why I hate Video Game EU, game mechanic points tend to be interpreted as actual universe details...

Not just video games; I'm sure this RPG is just as guilty. In any case, that's why we have ... oh wait, we had a canon that dealt with such issues in a clear and unmistakable manner by removing gameplay mechanics and stats from C-Canon whenever a conflict with non-game material would occur.

Sigh!