Is the game a bit too deadly?

I'm not suggesting pc's and their ships should be indestructible, but certainly new pc's seem a wee bit too weak.

My impression is it's quite easy to go down, but hard to actually die. What are you expecting the PCs to be able to fight? Maybe expectations are out of whack?

I don't think so. Our Bothan politico/thief did fine with Brawn 1, Soak 2, WT 13(?)

(Of course that may have been because our enemies were focusing on the rest of us, and one of us was a Droid marauder. Hmm...)

CC-2N8 took a heck of a battering, but he just could. Crits sometimes piled up.

Oskara... didn't, despite having the 2nd best Soak/WT.

Pash got really messed up in a few fights but survived through drugs.

Manny was often targeted but was lucky with his Dodge.

It does require players to pay attention for sure. If you have players to spare and someone can be medic and actually get to cover and do a Medicine check. Stimpaks are a Maneuver, so it is wise to carry them with you. It is pretty lethal which is why everyone needs to be able to contribute to combat. Not everyone need be a Joe Gun, but everybody needs to help in a party.

My impression is it's quite easy to go down, but hard to actually die. What are you expecting the PCs to be able to fight? Maybe expectations are out of whack?

Starship combat between 3 TIE's and a Firespray (pc ship), the ship had 11 out of 15 damage. That's a lot to repair!

It just seems the pc's are a bit weak starting out.

However you justify it, if the players get blown out of the sky...it's not much fun!

Did the ship have any upgrades? What sort of Pilot Talents did they have?

TIE pilots have 3 Agility. This means they roll, as a group of 3, 3 proficiency against 2 difficulty (against firespray). That's pretty good odds!

The game also doesn't factor pc ability in to this roll: that is, unless the pilot has a talent that can help, he can't do anything to dodge or evade, for example.

These aren't necessarily bad ideas, nevertheless I do get a sense that pc's are a bit weak. Maybe it's different for a larger group.

Did the ship have any upgrades? What sort of Pilot Talents did they have?

No, this is a starting ship. No upgrades. Basic piloting talents (i forget which, the one that does extra damage if they hit and the one that reduces setback dice).

Ship combat is far more unforgiving than personal combat. Ships tend to have low Thresholds compared to characters, and they don't scale as well with XP either.

I'm referring to your players not the opponents.

We posted simultaneously apparently.

Ship combat is more vicious. To survive it and excel you really need someone to get defensive talents. You also want to grab the ECM upgrade and the Targeting array.

The other big thing is that there's no equivalent to stimpacks for a starship/vehicle. You'd think that something like an Emergency Repair Patch (for droids) could be scaled up to work on starships, but so far we haven't seen anything that does that.

I'm referring to your players not the opponents.

We posted simultaneously apparently.

Ship combat is more vicious. To survive it and excel you really need someone to get defensive talents. You also want to grab the ECM upgrade and the Targeting array.

Not sure how to do that. The pilot is the actual smuggler/pilot class/specialisation. I don't know all the talents offhand, but surely they'd be the best for that. If not...I'm not entirely sure. Either way, they'd have to earn them through xp unless i fudge the system and give them bonus xp, but i'd rather not have to do that.

Ship combat is far more unforgiving than personal combat. Ships tend to have low Thresholds compared to characters, and they don't scale as well with XP either.

Good point.

I don't know how you'd fix that without giving out upgrades as the pc's level or soemthing. Assuming that can address the issue.

We were trying to learn the system last night. Certainly i could have done a better job as a GM, but it's early days. Does seem like a ship can't take much. Last thing i want to do is sabotage the interest of the players by having them blown out the sky by some TIE fighters!

TIE pilots have 3 Agility. This means they roll, as a group of 3, 3 proficiency against 2 difficulty (against firespray). That's pretty good odds!

If you are running the TIEs as minions as it sounds like you are, the positive dice would be 1 ability, 2 proficiency.

Base 3 ability for the pilot minion with agility of three, then the skill is upgraded for each additional minion in the group.

I'm referring to your players not the opponents.

We posted simultaneously apparently.

Ship combat is more vicious. To survive it and excel you really need someone to get defensive talents. You also want to grab the ECM upgrade and the Targeting array.

Not sure how to do that. The pilot is the actual smuggler/pilot class/specialisation. I don't know all the talents offhand, but surely they'd be the best for that. If not...I'm not entirely sure. Either way, they'd have to earn them through xp unless i fudge the system and give them bonus xp, but i'd rather not have to do that.

To a certain extent I think people some people fancy themselves Han Solo out the gate and they are actually more Benny Hill at creation. The ECM upgrade is great and is essentially a rank of Tricky Target, and when combined with Tricky Target drops you 2 silhouette, which is fantastic. The Targeting Array upgrade provides all manner of lethality upgrade. Adding missiles is a good idea as well, you want that hard hitting alpha strike to take out as much opposition from go as possible.

I'm referring to your players not the opponents.

We posted simultaneously apparently.

Ship combat is more vicious. To survive it and excel you really need someone to get defensive talents. You also want to grab the ECM upgrade and the Targeting array.

Not sure how to do that. The pilot is the actual smuggler/pilot class/specialisation. I don't know all the talents offhand, but surely they'd be the best for that. If not...I'm not entirely sure. Either way, they'd have to earn them through xp unless i fudge the system and give them bonus xp, but i'd rather not have to do that.

To a certain extent I think people some people fancy themselves Han Solo out the gate and they are actually more Benny Hill at creation. The ECM upgrade is great and is essentially a rank of Tricky Target, and when combined with Tricky Target drops you 2 silhouette, which is fantastic. The Targeting Array upgrade provides all manner of lethality upgrade. Adding missiles is a good idea as well, you want that hard hitting alpha strike to take out as much opposition from go as possible.

The ECM Upgrade and Tricky Target together drop your Silhouette by 2. If you started with a 4 (Firespray, YT-1300, several other popular starter ships), this does absolutely nothing to Silhouette 3 fighters targeting you.

Well that is no small oversight!

That said, despite my getting that wrong, it's still a pretty good die roll: 2 prof 1 ability vs 2 difficulty dice (destiny points notwithstanding - i find myself reluctatn to spend them because I don't want to overwhelm the players!).

I was speaking to the ways you can generally raise the survivability and not just your specific scenario as your original post was just referring to the lethality of ship combat in general. Lowering silhouette 2 points is great regardless of what the nitpicks have to say. The example of a silhouette 5 ship attacking your intrepid adventurers would now have a Daunting Difficulty of 4 Difficulty dice instead of 2 in order to score a hit. In addition combined with the other defensive talents in the Pilot tree, particularly Brilliant Evasion, would come together to make the outcome of an encounter far different.

So my advice is look at the totality of Talents and Attachments, collectively they raise your survivability a great deal.

Space combat is kinda wonky, to be honest. On their scale, ships (especially fighters) are much more fragile than characters in personal scale, all things considered - most characters have more soak than ships have armor, and soaking damage > adding setbacks from shields (a weak defense against even kinda-skilled enemy pilots). On top of that, characters can spend Strain on certain talents to become harder to hit, I don't think pilots have that option, and characters have a much easier time of both in- and out-of-combat healing with stimpacks.

I was speaking to the ways you can generally raise the survivability and not just your specific scenario as your original post was just referring to the lethality of ship combat in general. Lowering silhouette 2 points is great regardless of what the nitpicks have to say. The example of a silhouette 5 ship attacking your intrepid adventurers would now have a Daunting Difficulty of 4 Difficulty dice instead of 2 in order to score a hit. In addition combined with the other defensive talents in the Pilot tree, particularly Brilliant Evasion, would come together to make the outcome of an encounter far different.

So my advice is look at the totality of Talents and Attachments, collectively they raise your survivability a great deal.

Right, but my point is centred around the position starting characters find themselves in. They don't have access to these resources. Brilliant Evasion is right at the bottom of the Pilot tree.

Space combat is kinda wonky, to be honest. On their scale, ships (especially fighters) are much more fragile than characters in personal scale, all things considered - most characters have more soak than ships have armor, and soaking damage > adding setbacks from shields (a weak defense against even kinda-skilled enemy pilots). On top of that, characters can spend Strain on certain talents to become harder to hit, I don't think pilots have that option, and characters have a much easier time of both in- and out-of-combat healing with stimpacks.

None of the TIE's were able to trigger Linked. Had they done so (i probably wouldn't have, if i had the threat tbh) it would have been horrific!

TIE's are fragile, but shields are most certainly a mixed bag.

I acknowledge it is more lethal and you as the GM have to take that into account. If you don't give them the credits or upgrades to their ship you have to be ginger in what you have them face in combat. A stock Firespray only has an auto blaster, which is not a weapon for a low skill player to get a lot of good effect from. I think when it comes to space combat people expect too much. In Episode IV Han seemed concerned by 4 TIEs and very proud of himself for beating them and he and the Falcon are not a starter character or stock ship respectively . I don't think TIE minions should be viewed as pushovers.

Bottom line is if you want the players in a ship from go they won't get obliterated in use the bigger starter options. That or just hold off on serious ship combat until they advance their talents and get some credits to mod the Firespray.

What do you mean by expecting to much?

Probably that they expect their YT-1300 to tear through a squadron of 16 TIEs fairly easily. When in reality, you'll just be dead.

Probably that they expect their YT-1300 to tear through a squadron of 16 TIEs fairly easily. When in reality, you'll just be dead.

Considering that they did make it so that the crew of that freighter - four PCs - can often chew through 16 stormtroopers, it is a pretty distinct change of tone.