Except there is almost nothing that an A-Wing does better than an X-Wing by the rules. The sensor range is really the only thing it has, and in that case something like the YV-560 would serve better (yes its slower, but it can double move easier with the higher strain threshold and has an even LONGER sensor range). For the same cost, which do you think would be more useful for scouting/run and gunning, 4 X-Wings paired with a YV-560, or 4 A-Wings. Keep in mind this is the same cost.

Keep in mind the A-Wing is supposed to be one of the most advanced Alliance starfighters. Its more expensive than an X-Wing to build. If the only purpose it had was as a scout ship, and it isn't even the best scout ship for the cost, why would anyone make one?

In an aerial combat scenario, sensor range is huge. The design of the A-Wing allows it to detect enemy fighters and then escape without engaging. It's possible for A-Wings to emerge at one end of combat, zoom to the other, eliminate the target (preferably a non-hard target), and jump to hyperspace. That's the point of them.

Is it going to be a huge lopsided thing? No. The advantage is going to be very slight. The A-Wing is competing with equally competent engineers from Sienar Fleet Systems. A reconaissance fighter is only going to have a slight edge over the competition, but typically that edge is enough to accomplish the given mission. This is true with any other fighter craft.

I think you might be inspired too much by RPS game design. Sometimes, there just isn't a counter to something, or things that fit neatly in a box. A fighter is a fighter is a fighter. The differences aren't going to be very large.

A fighter is a fighter is a fighter. The differences aren't going to be very large.

Except the differences ARE large. Compare an X-Wing to an A-Wing. The X-Wing has nearly twice as much hull threshold. Half again as much armor, nearly twice as much strain threshold, twice as much shields. The staying power of the X-Wing is just much higher than an A-Wing. The A-Wing gets a slight speed upgrade (1 point, enough to give it an edge in GtA, but not enough to actually outrun most fighters it is going to be facing, or the X-Wing for that matter, by the rules), and 2 extra handling, which is nice, but becomes less and less important the more skilled the pilot is (I mean, if you are rolling 1 green, 4 yellows, and a blue, 2 extra blues doesn't matter as much as when you are rolling 2 green, 2 yellow, 1 blue.)

The sensor range is useful, but that has more to do with the fact that sensor ranges in the game are really kind of criminally low. An X-Wing moving its speed can't even see as far as it can move in one Fly action, even with its sensors focused. (Focused, it can go out to short range. In one fly move it can go from medium to close range. How it plans to move into close range of something when he doesn't even know its there I have no idea).

I'm actually starting to think that maybe, even just using the RAW, the A-Wing might not be so bad, it just has a relatively narrow niche. Once the weekend comes I will do some quick playtests and dig into the lore for inspiration, and post back with my findings.

But now that Norton brought it up, Sensors Are Weird. How many players actually use those rules as written/implied, where you can't necessarily detect something beyond that range? For my game, I ruled that you can see beyond that range, but you can't target effectively or gain any information about the target if they are out of range.

I think a few are getting wrapped up to much in the A-wing's dogfighting capability (or lack there of) when that really wasn't in it's mission profile. It was intended for interception, hit & fade, and recon missions, not air/space superiority. If you try keeping it in the middle of a furball thinking your speed and agility are going to save you, you're going to have a bad time no matter what system you're playing in.

That being said, for the hit & fade tactics to work properly (like the 'A-wing slash'), the sensor suite definitly needs an upgrade and why I agree with Chu Wolf's fix on the previous page. And with that said, I think this thread adequately shows why, if I ever play and not just GM, I'm never going to fly anything >Sil 4.

I'm actually starting to think that maybe, even just using the RAW, the A-Wing might not be so bad, it just has a relatively narrow niche. Once the weekend comes I will do some quick playtests and dig into the lore for inspiration, and post back with my findings.

But now that Norton brought it up, Sensors Are Weird. How many players actually use those rules as written/implied, where you can't necessarily detect something beyond that range? For my game, I ruled that you can see beyond that range, but you can't target effectively or gain any information about the target if they are out of range.

I use em. I allow reasonable flex though. Large capital ships can be spotted with perception checks at range, you won't always automatically "lose" a fighter you're actively interacting with just because it moves out to medium range and your sensors max out at short. Stuff like that.

Using the sensors as RAW does allow it to work in the players favor and support example narratives too though. Offhand the fact that the Vulture droids in RotS fire a missile and then lose interest in Anakin can be explained as them moving outside of the vultures range before dealing with the buzzdroids.

I always figured the boon to flying a fast, fragile ship was that you could get into and out of danger quickly - this has been my M.O. for gaming for some 30 years now. The first stipulation is that you never operate solo, the second was that you never hang around for the incoming fire. Seems like this tactic could work here as well without having a spreadsheet open to tract the combat.

I agree its a good tactic. Unfortunately, by the rules its not a viable one in most cases. Against cap ships (which all fighters will get mauled by anyway unless there are tons of fighters and other targets for it to choose from, just don't do it) they have long range weapons anyway, so you can't move out of their targetting area.

Against most Imperial fighters (TIE Fighters being the most common), you can't outrun them by the combat rules, as speed 5-6 ships move the same bands by the rules. It would work against bombers, except bombers also have torpedoes for a bit of extra range. And if you are jumping in and out using fly/drive you probably aren't using Evasive Maneuvers.

The only real target it works against are shuttles/transports.

And remember, since speed 5-6 ships move the same bands, you could also do it in the X-Wing, that costs 30k less. Or spend a bit of that difference to use its one hard point to buy up a +speed upgrade, at which point the X-Wing has the advantage or equals the A-Wing in everything but handling, in which it isn't exactly a slouch either.

I'ma break this down a little bit since the forum software won't let be break up your reply.

First, it's a fool's errand to take a single fighter against a capital ship. If you get blowed up good doing so, that really seems legit. In small numbers, using such things as Gain the Advantage, your massive silhouette difference, and showing up with some bigger guns to give capital ships to worry about, then you have an effective strategy. Aren't most capital ship weapon systems Slow Firing as well?

Against TIE fighters - well, they blow up easily. They're meant to blow up easily. Outrunning them isn't really an option.

Can't argue your cost point, although I would submit that most characters probably aren't buying their own military starfighters. From a purely quartermaster's point of view I would agree that the prices don't make sense, much like how car part prices in our RL universe can differ from model to model, especially if they're an identical part shared between a luxury/performance line and everyday commuter gocarts.

Yeah, I pointed out in a later post not to even approach a capital ship in this game without at least another cap ship or dozens of fighters.

I'll admit, that I don't think Cap ships should quite be the instant death they are in the rules, as characters in canon have been shown evading them long enough to escape.

The Falcon ran away from two Imp Star Destroyers escaping Tatooine, and even accounting for silhouette, and even if you say he was at long range (to keep most of its weapons off him, which he wasn't), he was in the forward firing arc of both ships at the same time, which means 12 barrages of 5 heavy turbolasers grouped as minions. Even if he had maxed out the pilot tree, and we give the Falcon 2 shields in each arc, and assume they were both angled to his advantage, and made the gunners only have Agility 2 they still would have hit about a third of the time. The Falcon would have been utterly destroyed.

And let's not even talk about ESB.

The Falcon ran away from two Imp Star Destroyers escaping Tatooine, and even accounting for silhouette, and even if you say he was at long range (to keep most of its weapons off him, which he wasn't), he was in the forward firing arc of both ships at the same time, which means 12 barrages of 5 heavy turbolasers grouped as minions.

They had orders to capture the ship undamaged so they could get positive confirmation of the plans recovery. Even hitting it with ion cannons (which I don't think George really truly intended ISDs to carry anyway) might have fried the computer or droid the plans were on, so they were trying to move into tractor beam range.

ESB though I will agree the GM was going easy on them (which is ok, getting vaporized by some mook isn't fun), probably using a simple concentrated barrage, or just a single shot form a single weapon instead of a full minion group. After all you only see a shot or two a turn come from those ISDs, not a full broadside. Again though I think George was thinking they didn't have ion cannons, and were trying to disable the falcon with careful turbolaser shots, not obliterate it, much like the Tantive IV in ANH.

Because fast and maneuverable doesn't mean poopy when guns fire rounds at the speed of light and computers that think a bazillion times faster than a squishy pilot are firing them would be my answer.

Then why make fast and maneuverable ships? Why would anyone manufacture them at all if they have no effect in combat conditions? Why not make nothing but heavy bombers like the y-wing and b-wing if maneuverability and speed has no signiicant advantage in a dogfight, especially considering outside of a dogfight, the y-wing and b-wing are definitely going to do better anyway since they have stronger and more heavy missiles/torpedoes.

Now you're just asking questions that have to do with designs of aircraft. Quite frankly stressing the dog fighting capability as most important criteria means you are probably designing a poor aircraft. If you are in dog fights in air war you're strategy is failing and you're well on your way to losing. Modern fighter design doesn't stress dog fighting. Radar cross section, payload, combat radius, EW/ECM, and cost per flight hour are all far more important design considerations.

The point carries over to the Alliance as well. Getting in lots of dogfights with TIEs would be an overwhelmingly stupid strategy. Having fighters that can deliver payloads against capital ships and facilities would be far more important. You bemoan the difference between A wings and Y wings but frankly the Y wing was a far more valuable vehicle to the Alliance.

I've said it before but it bears repeating. There is no such thing as 'more maneuverable' against weapons that fire at light speed and computer targeting, you have a mythic attachment to that notion that simply isn't born out by historical example in war or physics. For starters in order for higher maneuverability to even play a part in being hit you have to know you are being targeted, but you aren't actually ever going to know when someone 'pulls the trigger' and since the round is moving at lightspeed you are not going to be able to react. Even if it were possible to react at lightspeed you have to be in a position to act on that information, but in a dogfight, or combat overall, you aren't always going to be positioned correctly by default 100% of the time, so you expecting that you will be isn't realistic.

I understand that's what is realistic, and established from current history. It's also boring from both a cinematic, and thematic perspective. Star Wars is built out of mythic themes, and low realism. For example, you mention speed of light lasers, but the blaster bolts shown on screen are clearly discrete rounds within a frame, meaning they aren't travelling at the speed of light. Also the Imperials using walkers instead of tanks. Nothing in Star Wars gives any impression of realism or design for practicality.

If realism was taken to a full extent, neither fighters nor missiles nor torpedoes would be a factor at all in space combat due to point defense laser cannons.

I don't understand why if you wanted realistic simulations of space combat that you would choose Star Wars as a setting, rather than something like the Saginami Island tactical simulator or even Babylon 5. Realism isn't a strength of Star Wars.

Add that to a game, where options and items should only be included if they provide a meaningful choice, and I'd like the maneuverability of an interceptor to play a larger role within space combat to make selecting the ship more of a meaningful choice.

Do you not realize my point is "if one ship relies on the GM to be good, and the other can rely on the rules to be good, the one that has to rely on the GM to be good is probably going to be consistently worse across the game system as a whole."

Yes, every GM will change things. But without GM intervention, the difference between 5-6 speed is miniscule, and +2 handling over an X-Wing in no way makes up for the X-Wing being tougher, harder to hit, better weapons, and being cheaper.

You can't talk about rules without actually talking about rules. If your answer is "well the GM will fix it" there is no reason to talk about ANY rules in the game, because no rules can't be changed.

If the point of this discussion is "how can I make A-wings a more attractive option" then Chu Wolf's suggestions work really well. I haven't used A-wings in my games yet, but they're one of my favorite ships (loved them in the Rogue Squadron video games) and I'm definitely going to be incorporating his suggestions when I'm GMing (and hoping other GMs in my group follow suit for when I'm a player!). It's especially helpful as it doesn't require any major rules changes.

If the popular interpretation/implementation of RAW sees one ship being substantially weaker than another, what does complaining about it accomplish? It's not like FFG is going to re-print an errata'd book just to "fix" this. By far the most constructive solution is to use creative applications of the rules to play to the A-wing's strength and make its narrative advantages more mechanically relevant.

The more it gets discussed, the more GMs will be exposed to the ideas, and the more common such "rulings" will become. Space combat is already heavily narrative and abstracted so there's plenty of wiggle room.

I also like how the suggestions address, in addition to the A-wing, the GtA action which is typically considered weak. I'll definitely be pretty liberal in allowing advantage, additional successes, and Triumph to modify GtA.

One thing we all agree on (no really) is that we are all looking forward to the "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH: A Sourcebook for The Ace" which will come with many new Space Combat maneuvers and actions, as well as some fighter variants . . ..

Right FFG? Hint, hint, wink, wink.

That and the Smugglers book for EotE.

If the point of this discussion is "how can I make A-wings a more attractive option" then Chu Wolf's suggestions work really well. I haven't used A-wings in my games yet, but they're one of my favorite ships (loved them in the Rogue Squadron video games) and I'm definitely going to be incorporating his suggestions when I'm GMing (and hoping other GMs in my group follow suit for when I'm a player!). It's especially helpful as it doesn't require any major rules changes.

If the popular interpretation/implementation of RAW sees one ship being substantially weaker than another, what does complaining about it accomplish?

I wasn't objecting to Chu Wolf's suggestions, I was objecting to the idea that it wasn't altering the RAW. He was definitely altering the Fly/Drive rules (relative speed based on moving towards each other does not factor into fly/drive at all).

I also disagree with his premises because his plan is basically "I'll balance them in play with rulings rather than make rules to balance things". You'll notice that one of his comments, that the GtA option was "bare minimum" is also the same as one of my rules, except I give concrete use.

Chu Wolf's whole post was basically: "You are wrong, the rules as written work perfectly fine, and I'll illustrate that for you by showing how it works when I change all the rules at the table, including one rule change that you yourself suggested."

I'm not "just complaining", I've thrown up ideas on how to fix it myself. I'm objecting to someone basically telling me I'm wrong about the rules because they can't figure out that they are changing the rules themselves.

If the point of this discussion is "how can I make A-wings a more attractive option" then Chu Wolf's suggestions work really well. I haven't used A-wings in my games yet, but they're one of my favorite ships (loved them in the Rogue Squadron video games) and I'm definitely going to be incorporating his suggestions when I'm GMing (and hoping other GMs in my group follow suit for when I'm a player!). It's especially helpful as it doesn't require any major rules changes.

If the popular interpretation/implementation of RAW sees one ship being substantially weaker than another, what does complaining about it accomplish?

I wasn't objecting to Chu Wolf's suggestions, I was objecting to the idea that it wasn't altering the RAW. He was definitely altering the Fly/Drive rules (relative speed based on moving towards each other does not factor into fly/drive at all).

I also disagree with his premises because his plan is basically "I'll balance them in play with rulings rather than make rules to balance things". You'll notice that one of his comments, that the GtA option was "bare minimum" is also the same as one of my rules, except I give concrete use.

Chu Wolf's whole post was basically: "You are wrong, the rules as written work perfectly fine, and I'll illustrate that for you by showing how it works when I change all the rules at the table, including one rule change that you yourself suggested."

I'm not "just complaining", I've thrown up ideas on how to fix it myself. I'm objecting to someone basically telling me I'm wrong about the rules because they can't figure out that they are changing the rules themselves.

The point of a narrative system is you narrate what happens. He is using the characteristics of the A-wing as an influencer to his narration. as it should be, That is how the system is meant to work.

The A-wing is not the be all end all of snub fighters. In fact it is a lousy space superiority fighter. As an interceptor it is great. But like all fighters using them wrong will get you killed. You have to use your strengths against the other guys weaknesses. Not fight on the other guys terms. Unless you want to die.

For example an F-16 versus an A-10. At altitude the F-16 will destroy an A-10. but down in the ground clutter the F-16 will die like a turkey.

A-wings need to stay on the outside and zip in tag their target zip out. pic a new target zip in nail them zip out. Run them like they ran P-38s in WWII.

A-wings need to stay on the outside and zip in tag their target zip out. pic a new target zip in nail them zip out. Run them like they ran P-38s in WWII.

That is great, but tell me how they are any better at doing that than an X-Wing. (other than that the X-Wing has hilariously short sensors, which it can effectively outrun in one fly/drive maneuver. Seriously, the sensor ranges of ships is absolutely bonkers in the game).

Also, again with the "it's narrative!" line. Yes, it has narrative qualities, but it also has very defined rules for tons and tons of stuff. Its not a purely narrative game. Requiring the GM to balance the ships in the narrative rather than the ship being balanced to the rules is a copout.

Here is a link to my Tactical House Rules. There are rules from the CRB that are repeated so my players don't have to look them up. They haven't been well tested but I think they are good start if you want to be more mechanical and less narrative. While I did not try to look up the rules to the WEG tactical space combat rules, my fondness for those can be seen in my design.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2vwfw7gs32higic/Tactical%20Ship%20Combat.docx

I got bored and wrote down the total of all my house rules for Starship combat in one decent looking pdf page. You can read it here. (One change I forgot to make, change the Assault Gunboat's Sensor Range to Short).

It isn't meant to change the game into being supertactical, it is intended to stay within the narrative/tactical blend we have right now. I'll editorialize the changes:

• Incorporating range into difficulty of attacks. This never set right with me, mostly because I personally don't see the "super advanced targeting computer" thing they talk about in the book in the source material. It still doesn't affect anything unless it is Medium range or Farther.
• Flattening the Silhouette difference chart: This let me include range more. I also added higher difficulties to improve the survivability of small craft that run foul of Capital ships.
• Adding a penalty to hit ships moving 4+ at close range. This represents how at dogfighting range, everyone is turning and burning, and a faster ship is harder to track.
• Adding a weapon quality to longer ranged weapons and missiles/torpedoes that makes the above penalty worse. This is to once again, add survivability of small craft that run foul of capital ships, plus make missiles/torpedoes in dogfight range a little harder to pull off.
• Adding a vehicle quality to make high handling ships a bit harder to hit when they perform Evasive Maneuvers. This is to increase the survivability of higher handling ships.
• Revising Accelerate/Decelerate and Punch it to work better to allow Fighters to get to speed faster, then rolling them into Fly/Drive. It never made sense to me that on the turn you change speed, you somehow also couldn't move while doing it.
• Flattened the chart for Gain the Advantage, as well as added a few advantage spending options to the roll. The second was to make it harder for someone just to say "well then I shoot it" when someone does it to them rather than try to regain the advantage, and the first was to keep the handling + speed advantages from piling up too high with it being a much more effective action. A-Wings and Interceptors would still have a slight advantage due to the +3 Handling over an X-Wing, but the X-Wing wouldn't be totally dominated (1 difficulty vs 3 difficulty).
• Change Gain the Advantage to only work on smaller craft. This is to prevent it from being used heavily on craft that have no chance of recovering from it.
• Completely rewrote the sensor rules. The Rules as written are kind of crazy, with a lot of Fighters being able to outrun their own Sensor range. It also makes the A-Wing a bit better since it doesn't require a computers roll to fire its missiles at Short Range.
• A few tweaks to various ships to fit better for my personal opinion of them, as well as turning the Defender in the book into the Assault Gunboat.

Interesting stuff, I'm interested to see how that works for you.

Still looking, but I did find a "broken" component of your revision to the fly/drive maneuver. You effectively negated the "Full Stop" talent.

Interesting stuff, I'm interested to see how that works for you.

Still looking, but I did find a "broken" component of your revision to the fly/drive maneuver. You effectively negated the "Full Stop" talent.

Nice catch. I completely forgot that talent existed.

I would probably change Full Stop to an incidental that costs strain equal to sillhouette. I mean, being able to change speed to 0 instantaneously is really only useful if you are getting off, so combine it with let's ride and you could stop and jump off a vehicle and still have your maneuver and action. (Remember the way I wrote Fly/Drive you can only change speed BEFORE you move, so you couldn't move, then change speed to 0. Changing speed to 0 requires at least a maneuver to do nothing but that).

A-wings need to stay on the outside and zip in tag their target zip out. pic a new target zip in nail them zip out. Run them like they ran P-38s in WWII.

That is great, but tell me how they are any better at doing that than an X-Wing. (other than that the X-Wing has hilariously short sensors, which it can effectively outrun in one fly/drive maneuver. Seriously, the sensor ranges of ships is absolutely bonkers in the game).

Also, again with the "it's narrative!" line. Yes, it has narrative qualities, but it also has very defined rules for tons and tons of stuff. Its not a purely narrative game. Requiring the GM to balance the ships in the narrative rather than the ship being balanced to the rules is a copout.

They are faster. they can cover more range bands in a maneuver. though the movement chart leave a lot of math needed to get all the different distances covered. since they are not all covered. In fact we probably need to crunch all the numbers. Like how far can a speed 6 do in one manuever? I would think from medium to close. But I haven't done the math.

They are faster. they can cover more range bands in a maneuver. though the movement chart leave a lot of math needed to get all the different distances covered. since they are not all covered. In fact we probably need to crunch all the numbers. Like how far can a speed 6 do in one manuever? I would think from medium to close. But I haven't done the math.

Speed 6 and Speed 5 by the rules move range bands the same.

Look closer. there is a difference but you need to fill in the blanks on the chart. Because there are great big holes in that chart.

Sure they both can go from long to close in 2 maneuvers. but I bet they don't go the same distance in one maneuver. We are not given that info. So we need to fill in those holes to really see the differences.

Speed 5-6: One starship maneuver to move within close range of a target or object or to move from close to medium range or from medium to close range. Two starship maneuvers to move from close to long or long to close range.

Nope, sorry, they move exactly the same. We ARE given the amount they move in one maneuver.

Even if you extrapolate math from it to determine medium to short, or short to long, or long to extreme, you still would come up with the same things because all the reference points are identical.

By RAW the only time the difference between speed 5 and 6 come up is GtA and the Chase rules.

StarWars.com says the A-Wing has pivoting cannons on each wingtip, so the Fire Arc should be forward and back.

Why is the A-Wing the galaxy's greatest fighter again? Oh, it's not.

I see nothing saying it has any advantage beyond what the rules give it. It's maneuverable, it can get places fast. That's pretty much it.

Sure, if you negate firing arcs, piloting rolls, GtA + Evasive Maneuvers, Sensor ranges, & the narrative system (yes, I know, you hate the word narrative... sorry, it's part of the system) then it looks like it gains nothing from it's speed and maneuverability. However, all those things exist... so, why are we on p.14 of this same argument?

Going by the same logic, a super agile small character in the personal combat rules is also getting totally screwed when they run across an empty field shooting at you. Big armored guy has the exact same chance to hit agile small guy per range, speed, and size. It's only the other interactions of Agility, Talents, GM use of Boost & Setback to fit narration, etc., that give agile shorty any advantage. Luckily, all these things are part of the rules.