Pretty early on in our campaign I put this option to my players: You can pick the difficulty for breaking into starships at any difficulty you like, but it will also apply to your own ship. Suddenly starships became all but thief-proof.

It's pretty straightforward, really. If the PCs derail the campaign by stealing starships from NPCs, have NPCs steal their ship a few times. Preferably with all their good gear inside it. If the PCs love jumping into their starship to shoot at the poor NPCs, have the NPCs get reinforcements in the form of several souped-up freighters or a few starfighters. Any situation in which your players will have access to a starship, there's no reason why the NPCs won't have access to one as well.

give them the obsession obligation and have them roll a diciplince check everytime they see a ship. if they fail they must steal it!

mwahahaha

"Okay....you see several stormtroopers overseeing some droids loading cargo from the temple. A lambda shuttle is landed nearby"

"We steal the shuttle and open fire!"

"Okay...roll stealth to sneak onto the shuttle."

[Rolls]

"Succeeded! Now for the lasers!"

"..And vigilance"

[Rolls]

"You open fire. The Stormtroopers break for cover as you gun down several. Roll gunnery"

[Rolls]

"Two, in fact. The comms pannel buzzes as you continue to fire."

"Who cares, keep shooting!"

[Rolls]

"You kill another two. That message request is still going."

"...Wait. Did you just flip every single dark side point at once?"

"...Maybe. Anyone answering the comm?"

[Hand raises, nervously]

"The message is an audio signal from somewhere in orbit. It's a fleet officer, who sounds nervous and confused. 'ST-321, what's going on down there? Do you require assistance?' he asks."

"Well, what's...what?"

"Did he just say 'ST-321'?"

"Yeah...so?"

"Errr.....did you pass that vigilance check earlier?"

[The sound of very deep, mechanically augmented breathing heard from the passenger compartment...]

Better yet as they are flying away from the world in question...

GM: There is a lone TIE Fighter chasing you..

All Players: This will be a snap.

Player A: Yeah it looks like a TIE Bomber but only has one ball.

Player B: Cool that sounds like the fighter Darth Vader flies....

Few moments pass as the Players look at each other...

All Players: It can't be can it?

followed by RNNN! Forget the navcomp jus jump us now!

Grand Theft Starship, ROFLMAO! Maybe Disney should buy Rockstar games next.

You might feel it's too late but in my group we make shooting at individual foes nigh impossible. The targeting computer can't lock on to small targets like that. We might cause a lot of destruction but it's like shooting at a mouse with howitzer. Chances are that mouse is going to be missed but you will make lots of craters. In WEG days, when my players tried to shoot their laser cannons at a dark Jedi he reflected the bolts back at the ship and nearly disabled the ship. I plan to allow that in this game too.

So in your case, I would just explain that you shouldn't have allowed the actions before to be so easy and start giving them 4 or 5 difficulty dice and spend destiny points to give them reds. On the stealing ships thing. That's always fun. Nothing wrong with doing that. Just make selling the ships not too profitable. Also, stop making your games all take place outside by stealable ships. They can't shoot at the Emperor if he is inside the Death Star. Then again, see the reflect back tactic...

Ever consider making collateral damage a risk? Have the target be near an urban area. The book states that the Alliance does not accept attacks on civilian targets, outright terrorism is forbidden. They can't take out that ISB agent with a shuttle if he's in the middle of a crowded spaceport. And if they do....their superiors/handlers should be livid for the loss of innocent life and popular support in general.

Thanks for all the excellent insight everyone. Really appreciate all the responses. Looking forward to trying out some of these tactics in my next game.

Too funny! I recently ran 'Enemy of My Enemy' by Chris Witt (GM Chris) for my weekly evening group (I also run a concurrent lunch-time game weekly at the office) and used Christopher West's maps...well Mr. West likes to put ships and speeders on his maps...and my players, on more than one occasion, have used them to off NPCs as well. One of my players used a missile on the detention block map to distract the guards as well (heaved it over the edge of the large vent area).

Yeah, they rolled through the climax scene with the boss by suppressing all of my back up storm-troopers with the sporty speeder in the corner of the map...

It's actually pretty difficult to balance encounters now, the combat focussed PCs have min-maxed their gear with modded weapons and heavy armor...but my non-combat types can still be one-shotted by a minion group of 3 storm troopers....One of my PCs even stripped the medium laser canons off the downed long-probe y-wing in Rendezvous at Ord Mantell....and wants to mount one on their speeder-van...while adding the other to their VCX-100's dorsal turret to make it linked.

I'll have to keep this thread bookmarked for ideas on how to tackle the ship vs NPCs on foot problem at the very least.

The more i think about it, the more i think maybe a character has to die. I've had the "What happens when you die" talk with my group. They're aware of it. It's not the end of the world (game), just the end of that character and we agreed that the new character would get the XP boost to meet up with the rest of the group.

Plus, my group has gone through the evolution of never playing an RPG to bordering on min-maxing characters and situations. They are skewing toward the focus of "winning" the scene rather than RPing their characters. It's not in a malicious manner, i think it just evolved naturally as they got more into the game and the mechanics. I have a feeling that the day my game gets to the point where i can't balance the encounters (ships not withstanding), then someone will have to die.

I have my game tonight - One PC is in pursuit of a Nemesis who just took off, but he's heading into a fight with Three TIE fighters supported by a star destroyer to aid the Nemesis's hyperspace retreat. Time to lay the hammer down.

This is VERY simple. Play them at their own game. As they break for the shuttle for the Nth time, shoot them with a vehicle class weapon. Make sure it hits.

If they don't learn, do it again but throw a +50 on the crit roll.

Eventually they will get the message.

Are you using the vehicle-to-personal combat targeting rules correctly? Shooting individuals with starship-grade weaponry gets more difficulty dependent on the silhouette difference. Silhouette 2 or 3 vs silhouette 1 isn't a big deal, but it scales up rapidly.

The Difficulty isn't any worse than range - which is a non-factor when using planetary scale weaponry against personal scale targets. If you can hit at Extreme range with a personal weapon, you can shoot a Silhouette 1 target with your ship from beyond that range. Of course, the Silhouette 2 vehicle with an Autoblaster can do that even more accurately.

Yes, but it doesn't seem like his problem is with the PCs using land vehicles. He specifically mentioned starships, and, unless they're using starfighters, the basic starship silhouette is 4. Firing on a silhouette 1 target with a silhouette 4 vehicle is a Daunting (4 difficulty) check.

Most PCs aren't going to score hits every time on Daunting Gunnery checks. That's before we even consider Setback dice, Adversary, or Destiny points.

oops there I go again

I actually liked the whole "Docking Clamps" in the EotE Beginners Game Box, where the PCs in order to steal a ship had to get through the Command Center (away from the Landing Pad) and release the ships' Docking Clamps first before it'd even get it off the ground.

Plus, if they're just ripping up the joint with Turbo Lasers, perhaps have some civilians in the area as well. Dock workers, technicians, droids (okay...yeah, they wouldn't care about shooting up droids. Most people don't), and just general people doing their day to day business. Yes, even in a military facility, there's gonna be a janitor slopping up the deck with a mop, while a couple of technicians are getting the ship fueled up. If the PC's have no qualms about blastering through those guys as well, well...I think you have some dark side uprisers on your hands.

Now you may have a player go and state, "Wouldn't they flee when the battle started up?" Some might just duck and cover instead of flee, or...that's when you get the classic commander ****** the Janitor and use him as a human (or alien) shield from these miscreants.

Just some thoughts. But yeah...might want to have some more "indoor" adventures to get away from even the temptation of them highjacking a ship or six.

Alternatively, have a Bounty Hunter that's been monitoring their patterns, that's been hired by the Empire. He/she/it could then use a starship as a trap. The Bounty Hunter gets word to the Rebellion that Imperials are moving some precious cargo in some location that's conveniently in this Cells' Sector. They (the PCs) see it's got the typical armed guards and low and behold, a ripe and juicy Transport sitting on the Landing Pad they're supposedly moving the goods from. Make it a typical challenge, with some difficulties one would find with such a mission, but once they're all piled into the ship, it goes into lockdown. And from the cockpit they witness the Bounty Hunter step out onto the deck with a broad smile, and salutes the PC's as the ship begins getting filled with gas. Have them wake up to interrogation at the hands of the Empire, "We're wise to your tricks, Rebel Scum. Now, tell us the location of the rest of your pitiful band of outlaws..." Thus the game turns into an Escape from an Imperial Prison scenario. They'll think twice about stealing ships from that point on.

As common as weapons on a ship is in this game. It makes a certain amount of sense that many ships simply do not have weapons by default. Let them steal a ship and see how much trouble fun they get into without any weapons.

Its very, very rare for a ship model in the Star Wars setting, even small civilian ships, not to come with at least one or two weapons out of the factory or shipyard.

Depends. A simple orbital shuttle designed to just ferry cargo back and forth between space and the surface may skip weaponry.

But yeah, any ship with a hyperdrive is going to need something. Pirates are a thing.

Alternately, if you don't want to suspend belief to have an unarmed vessel, you could always just say the gun has obviously not seen maintenance in ages and flat out doesn't work. The wiring has rotted away, the turret is rusted to its mounting, the capacitors have corroded away, its basically going to explode if you try to power it up.

I'm pretty sure that in the heart of the Core Worlds (outside of those rascally Corellians), ships typically have far less armaments as standard than the ships we usually see out on the fringes.

I wasn't talking about the modified smuggler or free trader ships that are common on the rim I was talking about the ships fresh from the assembly line. Most civilian craft don't have much armament when built but they do have some, due to the danger of threats like piracy, and yes there are pirates even in the Core Worlds. They aren't as common as on the Outer Rim but they do exist.

I'm pretty sure that in the heart of the Core Worlds (outside of those rascally Corellians), ships typically have far less armaments as standard than the ships we usually see out on the fringes.

Less, but not none. Unless they're a wierdo pacifist planet, but then nobody is going to buy their ships.

"Why would I buy your ship when Kuat has better spare part availability and they toss in a couple Medium lasers?"

I think what your players do is also technically piracy which is the one crime the empire really cracks down on. I think your problem is simple, they love their ship. So why is that a problem? Just throw more ship stuff in and give them plots that take them to places where ships are completely impractical to use. Any civilized world or underground is usually good. Astroid stations and the such where blasting it from orbit isnt something in their best interest.