If that's the case, I'm sure you can still get a copy of this.

I

From my understanding of the rationale behind the system, they use size difference as opposed to range and speed due to high-tech targeting computers. Of course, it's not a perfect rationale, but there it is. The system isn't perfect, but it will be improved over time, I'm pretty sure of that. We'll be getting more career books that could enhance and expand upon what we already have. Although I doubt they'll rework it as per your ideas of what constitutes an effective "pilot/ship combo" system. It is fairly effective as is, if you'd just care to look and test it.

While I think the TC is extreme in saying the system doesn't work using the existence of advanced targeting computers to justify the system doesn't work either because based on what we see on screen there are no such systems for Starfighters in Star Wars and we don't see much evidence to prove that even capital ships have such systems.

And honestly I'm not sure where the proof that cap ship weapons.have ranges of thousands or even hundreds of kilometers comes from since every capship engagement I saw on screen appeared, at least to me, to take place at much closer range than that.

I'm not entirely sure I get exactly what you're saying.

Although I think we are now entering the realm of wild speculations. Whether or not the targeting systems we do see on screen in ANH during the death star escape and later attack, assists or are just digitalised crosshairs we cannot know. To me it's reasonable to assume that they are not merely digitalised crosshairs, but do assist in targeting quite actively - I buy the, perhaps rather thin, rationale as presented by FFG. Of course some may disagree and that's fine, but it is the foundation upon which the assumptions for the space combat system is laid. As I understand it.

Your point of the range of capital ship weapons is appreciated though.

There would have to be targeting systems. Human Mk1 eyeballs and perception reaction time being what it is it would be impossible to engage targets flying at the speeds ships do without them.

Agatheron your not getting my point. considering no talents, and no manuvers( just forget them for a sec) a faster target is harder to hit....period, a more maneuverable target (either thru skill, or handling) is harder to hit.... period, the current system doesn't support either of these facts.

T

A faster ship would only be significantly harder to hit when they're taking actions to try and avoid fire. This is represented in those maneuvers and talents that you want to simply ignore. You're an easy target if you're just flying straight.

Gaining the advantage IS used for determining the positioning of ships, or an opposed pilot check. It's entirely reasonable to use GTA to get behind enemy ships, forcing them to spend maneuvers to try and get you in their sights again.

You're crying that the rules need to be entirely over-hauled but ignoring the rules that represent what you're asking for.

Evasive Maneuvers is using your superior piloting skill to avoid enemy fire. Yes it makes attacks more difficult, but that's also how it works in real life. Your focus is on dodging, not attacking. If you want to be great at attacking, the skill you're looking for is Gunnery, not Pilot.

You want to be able to maneuver your ship away from enemy fire. Just do it, it's called Fly/Drive, and a high speed ship will be able to move between more range bands more quickly than a slower ship.

If that's the case, I'm sure you can still get a copy of this.

Oh no! That's a (very good) game for grown ups, we go with that and they'll be complaining about running out of "laser ammo" before lunch...

No for this we need something more primitive...something that'll take no time at all to produce so I can cut right to screaming like a 60's drill sgt....

This is all they deserve until they prove otherwise.

Except Evasive Manuevers doesn't take into account superior skill or manueverability of the ship into account either. Its just a pure 1 upgrade in difficulty for attacks against you and you making attacks.

Nothing a manueverable A-Wing can do (other than its special system, which still does nothing against another starfighter unless you have Tricky Target to get your sillhoutte down to 0) actually makes it any harder to hit than a Y-Wing. In fact, with Evasive manuevers + Angling shields, the Y-Wing is even HARDER to hit than an A-Wing.

Now, the A-Wing will be harder to gain the advantage on, BUT, I question whether it is even worth it to do. A 3 Agi 1 Gunnery character has a 48% chance of hitting the Evasive Manuever A-Wing by just firing, or a 62% chance if he can gain the advantage. And considering that Gaining the Advantage also means giving up your attack for the round, it hardly seems worth it unless you KNOW you have a huge advantage against heir pilot ability.

I think though, that things could be altered by just saying if someone has gained the advantage on you, you can't fire at them at all, forcing you to have to try to beat their piloting skill, and give them a free attack on you if you try to fire on someone else (so that you can't just ignore them altoghether). This would make Gain the Advantage a LOT more attractive, it would also make high speed ships a pain in the ass (which right now they really aren't).

You could also have Evasive Maneuvers upgrade based on speed of the ship. If moving at 5-6 meant upgrading the difficulty twice, it would also make the A-Wing a bit harder to hit. And because it would apply both to hitting you and hitting opponents, it would funnel faster ships again, into using Gain the Advantage more.

The thing is, every single defensive boost an A-Wing can get, a Y-Wing can get too. The way the stats in the game work, because "Toughness" (hull/shields) translates into both the damage you can take (armor, hull trauma) and the chance of not getting hit at all (defense) it kind of gives the "more evasive" A-Wing nothing to work with.

Another minor complaint I have is that the "highly advanced" A-Wing, and most other "fast" ships have almost no strain threshold, combined with Punch it giving more strain based on speed. An A-Wing punching it would blow itself out of combat just trying to reach max speed. (The whole thing of all ships accelerating/deccelerating at the same speed regardless of max speed is also a bit meh, I would probably let speed 5/6 ships accelerate and deccelerate by 2 points as a manuever instead of 1)

Oh, also, with the GtA changes, I would apply the penalties to who you can fire at only to fixed weapons. Turrets would still be able to fire freely.

Ok this is the fix i'm going with,, the faster ships get an upgrade in their favor, and the better pilot gets an upgrade in his favor. simple easy to remember and accounts for speed and natural skill without invalidating any of the maneuvers or talents.

So in the example above the TIEs would receive 2 upgrades (one because they're moving faster, and one because the group has a better skill) to their attack rolls, and the Ywing would receive 2 upgrades to his DIFFICULTY when he shoots back.

I stated the Awing was only moving 5 so assuming the TIEs are going full tilt they would receive one upgrade to their difficulty when shooting at him because he's still a better pilot, and he would receive one upgrade to his skill when shooting back. I'm also considering modifying the pilots skill (solely for the comparison, not actual skill) by the handling of the ship to represent a better pilot getting more out of a maneuverable ship.

As for the posts

The guy that says "you can't ignore the maneuvers that's how the game works" is missing the fact that there is nothing to account for raw skill...I put points into gunnery it makes me better able to hit you with no further mechanics (maneuvers etc) however if I put points into pilot it does not make me inherently harder to hit without blowing a bunch more points in talents. Raw skill vs raw skill.

The guy that stated that "the same argument could be made for personal combat" isn't seeing the whole picture...there is no pilot skill (like evasion, or dodge for example) for personal combat, if there was I would fully expect it to modify the attackers pool in some way...right?

No offense to anyone (genuinely) but I don't why I bothered to post in a forum, they are generally filled with those who really love the game, or those that truly hate it with very few in the middle. As a result most posters will either defend the broken parts because they love the game as a whole, or take every opportunity to bash the crap out of it no matter what. Personally I think the game is far and away the best interpretation of star wars ever done, with just a couple wonky rules. like not accounting for skill and speed in ship combat.

T

Edit Emperor I think you got the right idea, but I like to keep it as simple as possible, like my house rule above..fater=upgrade, skill = upgrade) your suggestions start to creep into the over-complicated area for me.

One more edit

Gain the advantage is not nearly as useful as you guys implying. in a starfighter duel/dogfight it sucks.

My action I use evasive to be harder to hit then use GTA (my one action) to cancel my penalty and yours if your using it.

Your action you use GTA to cancel mine meaning you cant shoot either ( its an action not maneuver)

this goes back and forth ( with no actual shooting) until someone misses the roll or says screw it and just shoots.....boring and monotonous. Not very star wars at all

Giving the Pilot skill more relevance minus Talents lessens the Pilot spec. The devs are trying to draw a clear delineation between someone with 5 ranks of Pilot skill and someone with 5 ranks of Pilot skill and 200xp in the Pilot tree.

Except Evasive Manuevers doesn't take into account superior skill or manueverability of the ship into account either. Its just a pure 1 upgrade in difficulty for attacks against you and you making attacks.

Yes it does, it's right there on Pg. 251. They were tricky to hide it in that highlighted table weren't they?

See it now?

Your advanced skill will increase the likelihood of advantage and triumph when rolling. The A-wing itself adds it's Speed to reduce your difficulty (further increasing the chances) and the Handling (even further). You then spend those to upgrade and add setbacks to your opponent's gunnery and piloting checks.

So you roll to GtA, and spend all the advantage and triumph that your huge skill rank, handling, and low difficulty combine to provide you with to create increase difficulty for your opponent, and take evasive action for good measure.

So with a high skill, without adding terrain, destiny points, or talents, you've already got decent odds of making the next guys gunnery check being at least 2R, 2Blk. And that's base, no modifiers, which darn well better be there.

No offense to anyone (genuinely) but I don't why I bothered to post in a forum, they are generally filled with those who really love the game, or those that truly hate it with very few in the middle. As a result most posters will either defend the broken parts because they love the game as a whole, or take every opportunity to bash the crap out of it no matter what. Personally I think the game is far and away the best interpretation of star wars ever done, with just a couple wonky rules. like not accounting for skill and speed in ship combat.

It's not a matter of love or hate, it's a matter of understanding and experience. If you don't like the way the game works, change it, please. But as someone who's been there: Be careful what you change, the rules are the way they are for a reason and a single change that you consider an improvement can have long-lasting repercussions in ways you might not be able to predict. Furthermore, when one of these issues arises and the players exploit it, you as the GM won't have any real leg to stand on, because it was your idea. You can't go back to the rulebook and say "Oh, yeah, you can't do that, see, says here, sorry. Nice try though." and just end it there. Instead you've got to either change the rule again (and be ready to argue) or let the exploit stand and accept that there's no reason to do XX encounter type because the players will auto-win almost every time.

And demanding that FFG ditch the entire line because you don't "get" how their system translates into an actual encounter isn't a really good way to start a thread. We're 2 and 3/4 rulebooks in. Demanding a new edition before really looking at the situation (and actually running some test encounters at different character and difficulty levels) isn't a way to make friends.

My problem isn't so much with pilot skill (which is why most of my changes are to make FASTER ships harder to hit), its that fast ships aren't hard to hit.

Every single talent that makes an A-Wing harder to hit, also makes a Y-Wing harder to hit an equal amount. There is no situation where the same pilot in an A-Wing is harder to hit than that same pilot in a Y-Wing. Yes, the A-Wing has the advantage in GtA, but GtA isn't that great as written ANYWAY. You are almost always better off just FIRING rather than trying to GtA.

(The one exception is 1 rank of tricky talent brings an A-Wing down to 2 below sillhoutte, but that isn't because its fast its because of jamming systems).

Except Evasive Manuevers doesn't take into account superior skill or manueverability of the ship into account either. Its just a pure 1 upgrade in difficulty for attacks against you and you making attacks.

Yes it does, it's right there on Pg. 251. They were tricky to hide it in that highlighted table weren't they?

See it now?

Your advanced skill will increase the likelihood of advantage and triumph when rolling. The A-wing itself adds it's Speed to reduce your difficulty (further increasing the chances) and the Handling (even further). You then spend those to upgrade and add setbacks to your opponent's gunnery and piloting checks.

So you roll to GtA, and spend all the advantage and triumph that your huge skill rank, handling, and low difficulty combine to provide you with to create increase difficulty for your opponent, and take evasive action for good measure.

So with a high skill, without adding terrain, destiny points, or talents, you've already got decent odds of making the next guys gunnery check being at least 2R, 2Blk. And that's base, no modifiers, which darn well better be there.

OR, I can just buy up gunnery instead, and not bother with GtA at all, since the decrease isn't that great and if they are in a light craft slightly sneezing on them is going to blow them up anyway. GtA is vastly overrated.

Fast ships being fired at by computer targeted lasers aren't hard to it.

Except Evasive Manuevers doesn't take into account superior skill or manueverability of the ship into account either. Its just a pure 1 upgrade in difficulty for attacks against you and you making attacks.

Yes it does, it's right there on Pg. 251. They were tricky to hide it in that highlighted table weren't they?

See it now?

Your advanced skill will increase the likelihood of advantage and triumph when rolling. The A-wing itself adds it's Speed to reduce your difficulty (further increasing the chances) and the Handling (even further). You then spend those to upgrade and add setbacks to your opponent's gunnery and piloting checks.

So you roll to GtA, and spend all the advantage and triumph that your huge skill rank, handling, and low difficulty combine to provide you with to create increase difficulty for your opponent, and take evasive action for good measure.

So with a high skill, without adding terrain, destiny points, or talents, you've already got decent odds of making the next guys gunnery check being at least 2R, 2Blk. And that's base, no modifiers, which darn well better be there.

OR, I can just buy up gunnery instead, and not bother with GtA at all, since the decrease isn't that great and if they are in a light craft slightly sneezing on them is going to blow them up anyway. GtA is vastly overrated.

Yeah... maybe... What if they aren't in light craft though? What if they are in a modified freighter gunship with shields 3 all angled in the same arc, while flying through a nebula, and have adversary 1, and are taking evasive action, and spending their advantage and triumph to make your check harder?

You can argue scenarios till the cows come home, that's a good thing about the system, maneuvers like GtA are situational, not universal. Part of playing a good pilot isn't just rolling a lot of dice, but actually making good decisions to boot.

Is this table on pg 251 that you refer to in the EOTE book anywhere? i'm still using beta AOR

So ghost your saying the whole combat system hinges on you using GTA over and over and hoping you get some triumphs. that's just bad rules and your still not considering that that's your action and your not shooting, then your opponent does gta to cancel yours (and doesn't get to shoot) and as I said above it goes back and forth until someone misses the role or decides to eat the penalties and shoot anyway...boring

I see your point some people might really like the idea of jockeying back and forth till you get the "lock" and shoot but that's not very starwars-ish.

Also your not considering that these few advantage and triumphs you manage to roll only apply only to the target of the roll, so if your in a dogfight with multiple boogies the other guys get to shoot at you with zero consideration for your skill or speed.

So if me and party are I a dogfight with multiple tie groups I gain the advantage on group A and jam them all up with a bunch of triumphs and advantages( if I manage to roll them..dumb luck, not to mention I cant shoot because I used my action) and group B swoops in and blows me away with no modifiers at all even tho I'm a 5 pilot going speed 6...see the problem. your theories and make-fixes don't solve the problem and only apply if it's one on one.

T

You can argue scenarios till the cows come home, that's a good thing about the system, maneuvers like GtA are situational, not universal. Part of playing a good pilot isn't just rolling a lot of dice, but actually making good decisions to boot.

Except the "good decision" is almost universally piloting a slow, tough ship, over piloting a fast manueverable ship. They are harder to hit and damage, and as long as you have a good pilot skill, you can overcome the lack of a few boost dice to pilot checks, and just ignore GtA unless you are flying against something that is the same speed or slower than you.

Ask yourself: Which in the game would you rather fly, an A-Wing or a Y-Wing. Not for a specific situation, but overall. Which one gives you the most firepower and survivability.

(The real answer is an X-Wing. Being only a smidge less tough than a Y-Wing PLUS getting +1 speed and +1 handling)

No offense to anyone (genuinely) ...

Really? You walk in fresh off the street and tell everyone else who's been playing this game for over a year that it sucks and they're doing it wrong? Reactions to your post aren't based on "love and hate", they are based on people trying to help you figure out how the game is supposed to work and how to work within those constraints. You're still missing some key points.

First and foremost, this is not a dogfight simulation game. If you want that, try XWing minis. Some people have written crossover rules, no idea how successful they are, but they might fit your needs exactly.

Second, this is an RPG heavily based on narration and interpretation of abstract events. It is not a discrete tactical game at any level.

Third, (and this is just MHO) the best usage of spaceship combat in this game is short, with a specific goal or mission that doesn't take more than a few turns to resolve. It's best if those scenes involve some kind of terrain and a chase. In those contexts the game really shines.

Maybe this game isn't for you, but telling us we're doing it wrong before you've even played is kind of weird.

Is this table on pg 251 that you refer to in the EOTE book anywhere? i'm still using beta AOR

Pg 236. Table 7-5. Spending Advantage and Triumph in starship and vehicle combat.

See that's the thing you're missing when it comes to defenses and related skills. This game is 2.5 axis of success. So to represent you "out flying" your opponent, you, as the pilot, execute a vehicle action, roll, and use the generated Triumphs and Advantages to increase the difficulty of your opponents actions. If you're forgetting to do that, you're missing out on a critical mechanic within the system.

And the deal, both on the ground and in the air, combat and noncombat, is to stack those advantages and triumphs with clever use of the environment, and anything else you can think of to make the your rolls as good as possible and the others guys as bad as possible.

Ask yourself: Which in the game would you rather fly, an A-Wing or a Y-Wing. Not for a specific situation, but overall. Which one gives you the most firepower and survivability.

(The real answer is an X-Wing. Being only a smidge less tough than a Y-Wing PLUS getting +1 speed and +1 handling)

Excluding a specific situation? I take the tool for the job, not the tool I like best. If the mission is to cut down a tree I don't take a slide rule not matter how much more I "like" it, I take an axe.

The X-wing is a good all arounder, because that's the job it's intended for. Just as the Y-wing is a good strike craft, and the A-wing good at recon.

@Whafrog

First of all make sure you know what your talking about before you run your mouth.

I,ve been playing EOTE since the beta I know how it works back and forth.

second i'm not telling anybody they're doing it wrong, your using the rules as written...I'm saying the rules need a little work.

Third your third point that the space combat system should only be used for short chases is your opinion and totally goes against every thing star wars is, and the fact that nearly every film has a major space battle in it is all the proof you could ask for.

I said I meant no offense to anybody and I meant it. you put a hostile spin on it and choose to get confrontational.

T

And ghost like I said your examples and all those penalties you can rack up only apply to one group of enemies so everyone else can shoot you at no modifier.

Also your comment about I use tool for the job is kinda silly, your characters use what they have, you seem to think every rebel has a whole hanger full of fighters that he can just pick from to suit the mission at hand.

@Whafrog

First of all make sure you know what your talking about before you run your mouth.

I,ve been playing EOTE since the beta I know how it works back and forth.

second i'm not telling anybody they're doing it wrong, your using the rules as written...I'm saying the rules need a little work.

Third your third point that the space combat system should only be used for short chases is your opinion and totally goes against every thing star wars is, and the fact that nearly every film has a major space battle in it is all the proof you could ask for.

I said I meant no offense to anybody and I meant it. you put a hostile spin on it and choose to get confrontational.

T

And ghost like I said your examples and all those penalties you can rack up only apply to one group of enemies so everyone else can shoot you at no modifier.

Also your comment about I use tool for the job is kinda silly, your characters use what they have, you seem to think every rebel has a whole hanger full of fighters that he can just pick from to suit the mission at hand.

Your title is "Starship combat system doesn't work", not 'Starship combat needs a look'. A decisive statement that it doesn't work is both arrogant, self centered, and frankly incorrect. I played starship combat last week and it 'worked'. You can not like it, which is fine, but if you're going to get your feelings hurt by people confronting your opinion it's completely buggered, then you probably shouldn't post at all.

TBH, I like the starship combat. I just think it has a few flaws for my playstyle. Basically I just think high speed agile craft should be harder to hit.

I just want to say that I don't think its completely a borked system, nothing near it. I think it works exceptionally well for the EotE game since starfighters aren't as common of a thing.

I just think it needs a little tweaking here and there for light starfighters, at least for my home game.

Your correct.

Like I said, I avoid forums like the plague because no matter where you go they're full of people that blindly defend the their favorite game no matter what. And even if everybody on the whole forum said yep that's a problem, nothing can be done about it because it's already in print and devs (of all games) are notorious for not wanting to change rules once they drop.

So I'm out

Enjoy the game..like I said it's pretty **** good, just has a few(severe) problems.

T

And ghost like I said your examples and all those penalties you can rack up only apply to one group of enemies so everyone else can shoot you at no modifier.

Also your comment about I use tool for the job is kinda silly, your characters use what they have, you seem to think every rebel has a whole hanger full of fighters that he can just pick from to suit the mission at hand.

But these issues aren't mechanical, they are on the GM side of the table. As a Gm you have to design your encounters to challenge the players without killing them. If your GM puts you in a Z-95 and pits you against 3 groups of 4TIE interceptors, the problem isn't the game being broken, the problem is your GM is inexperienced, or a jerk.

Even if you're talking Sandbox where the GM is just following your lead, the players need to pick up that slack for themselves. So if you need to eliminate a wing of TIEs to escape the planet and all you've got is B-wings, then you need to generate the conditions that allow you to hit the TIEs on the ground, or create a diversion so you can take out the escort carrier while the TIEs are away, then just sit back and wait for their O2 to run out.

It's ok to go to war with the Army you have, but if you lose because you didn't fight to your strengths it's not the war's fault, that's on you.

The way I see it, if you want a more tactical feel with space combat, pick up x-wing. There are, at least, a half dozen conversions floating around.

I,ve been playing EOTE since the beta I know how it works back and forth.

You said in your OP you were considering using EotE/AoR...so a misunderstanding was created.

Like I said, I avoid forums like the plague because no matter where you go they're full of people that blindly defend the their favorite game no matter what.

Sounds to me like this experience somehow follows you around...wonder why that is? Maybe you're unwittingly confrontational. Maybe you're mistaking "blindly defend" for "re-adjust your expectations".

I too had problems initially with the starship combat. Once I learned (through the valuable posts on this board) how it was supposed to work, it has worked really well. But I know it's limitations, if I really wanted a full blown tactical battle that is the centrepiece of the game session, I wouldn't use these rules.

I could say "these rules suck at tactical combat", but it would be like saying "my Corolla sucks at off-road driving"...neither were designed for those roles.

Third your third point that the space combat system should only be used for short chases is your opinion and totally goes against every thing star wars is, and the fact that nearly every film has a major space battle in it is all the proof you could ask for.

Addressing this separately, I disagree. The battles were always a backdrop. The main characters had their missions, which at times interfaced with the backdrop, but mostly they were on their own pursuing a specific goal. That's what this game models best, with the backdrop being abstracted out to narration.