The best way to summon my starship?

In Suns of Fortune we have the Bespin Motors Remote DVI Activator. It says when "linked to a slave circuit, a beckon call allows the user to remotely activate the coupled vehicle or starship." Inexpensive models activate the ship's engines and run preflight checks and more complicated ones can call the ship to them. Truly advanced ones let the ship be piloted remotely (again via slave circuit) though it takes a Daunting Pilot check. No rules were presented for adding a slave circuit to your starship and the price was merely for either short or long range controllers. On the cheap end this is nothing more than an auto-start for your ship but on the expensive end this gets into Knight Rider/James Bond territory. This costs from 300-1,500 credits.

In Age of Rebellion's Stay on Target we get the Slave Circuit Starship attachment. This allows a user to use a comlink to remotely activate a ships system and bring it to the ready, or to shutdown and lock people out via Voice Command. More advanced models allow a ship to fly to the owner with piloting skill equal to the owner (and even fight using onboard weapon systems using the owner's skill). This is much more Knight Rider-ish at a cost of about 10,000 Credits and a hard point.

Lastly in Fly Casual we have the Autopilot Droid Brain. This allows an installed droid brain to Pilot (and assist with Piloting) with a skill of 2-4 that can be communicated with remotely via beckon call in order to summon the ship to the caller's location. Cost is about 6,000 credits but no hard point.

According to the Writer Keith Kappel (On episode 46 of the Order 66 Podcast) you don't need the Slave Circuit from Stay on Target in order to use the Remote DVI Activator (though Suns of Fortune specifically calls out being linked to a "slave circuit"). He calls the DVI a "budget Slave Circuit."

Using the best and most upgraded versions of each we then have...

Remote DVI Activator Advanced Model. 1500 credits for long range which activates the ship and calls it to you using a simple autopilot (that cannot perform complex maneuvers) or allows you to pilot it remotely using a Daunting Check. (Cheap, Simple, hope for good weather)

Slave Circuit fully Modded. 13,000 credits and a Hard Point to allow it to fly and fight as if the pilot were onboard. (Expensive way to have the ship fly/fight it's way to you but uses your skill)

Autopilot Droid Brain fully Modded 9,000 credits and it makes it's own piloting checks at a skill of 4. (Middle Ground, back-up always ready pilot).

Let's not forget that you could always buy an Astromech and leave it onboard. (Probably the most bang for your buck)

Having it all laid out like this helped me understand the differences between each system. What do you all think of them and could you see any perks/setbacks of one versus the other?

First off: Thanks, I have been reading the Mod options on the slave circuit totally wrong.

Now, of note:

-The DVI activator works out of the box.

-The Slave circuit must be modded to get the full remote control thing, meaning there's a possibility of a failed mechanics check ruining the whole scheme.

-Fly Casual arrives tomorrow, so no comment on the brain till I see that.

-The R2 unit is a droid, an NPC. So while it can do all kinds of wonderful things for you, remote or not, you're also hosed by the fact that it can be outside the the ship when you called, or powered down, or not in the mood, or eaten by a grue, or...

Also, just a funny thought.

You have an R2 unit and a Slave or DVI. You activate the "Fly to me" feature and the ship takes off flies to your location, and you board and fly away, jumping to hyperspace and escaping certain doom.

Final shot is a very lonely looking R2 unit standing an empty landing bay holding a fuel line up to where the refueling port used to be....

To me, those things seems extremely underpriced for their value.

Also, one of those things (the one that allows the pilot to basically have an RC ship using normal skills) is flat-out anti-fun, non "starwarsy" and non cinematic to me.

Seeing as how most people agree on landing/berthing fees in the order of thousands of credits, if such techonology existed everyone would just leave their ship in space outside core worlds, and only call them back when they actually need to use it to leave the planet.

You might not want to do that in the outer rim, unless you take further precautions...

Still, i will probably not allowing anything beyond the "simple autopilot that takes the ship to where you are" in my game, provided that the current plot says the route is clear enough for the autopilot to work.

Otherwise, the game could turn into who "summons" their spaceship first to a bar-fight.

Seeing as how most people agree on landing/berthing fees in the order of thousands of credits, if such techonology existed everyone would just leave their ship in space outside core worlds, and only call them back when they actually need to use it to leave the planet.

You might not want to do that in the outer rim, unless you take further precautions...

Also, one of those things (the one that allows the pilot to basically have an RC ship using normal skills) is flat-out anti-fun, non "starwarsy" and non cinematic to me.

Otherwise, the game could turn into who "summons" their spaceship first to a bar-fight.

Well... RC ship is still Daunting. That's 4 purple without setback for environmental and I wouldn't want to be that owner when the GM decides to flip a Darkside Destiny Point. Also, the "summoner" with the Modded Slave Circuit wins, the ship chooses to blow the other ship out of the sky. Hopefully the IFF is up to date?

A few notes from Legends that I like to threaten party members with, just because I can:

Remotes can be blocked/hacked. I have yet to see a player willing to risk someone else hacking their remote control and controlling the ship that way (although it DOES lead to a fun moment as the party tried to uninstall it before they get captured/killed. heh).

Slaving is something that comes up often, but certain people hate it in the novels. Han refuses to get the Falcon equipped with slave circuits, and most of the New Republic refuses to put them on their fighters.

If you're curious as to why, look up the Katana fleet for the dangers there.

Droid brains are great, but if you don't do it right (or, if you are like Han, put multiples on board), you're bound to give you ship even MORE personality and have to suffer to the whims of the brain with regards to certain elements of your ship.

I think my players would go after the Droid Brain pretty quickly, especially since the pilot is really itching to start piloting a fighter but doesn't want to abandon the group, but I think they'd be too paranoid about the others. . .

Added fun note: in a short story about Boba Fett, he apparently has the Slave I programmed to use successful strafing runs that the Alliance used. I am curious which of these, or some combination thereof, he used.

Autopilot Droid Brain fully Modded 9,000 credits and it makes it's own piloting checks at a skill of 4. (Middle Ground, back-up always ready pilot).

Note that’s skill of four ranks, but Agility of zero ranks, so it’s only going to be rolling four green dice.

If you want more than that, you have to do a Skilled Assistance check, where you provide the benefit of your Agility plus the Skill of the droid brain.

And so that’s also where you get into providing an actual pilot droid of some sort.

I'd like to understand the Droid Brain a little bit more, since Fly Casual is not here yet.

Is it a kind of "bodyless" droid (no characteristic score) that has a "floating" skill score of up to 4 in Piloting (Space), takes no HP and costs up to 6000 creds? Does it do more than that, like communicate, have a personality, have the potential to learn other skills?

Reason I'm asking, apart from the obvious ones, is that I'm trying to design a (or many) central supercomputer(s) for my PCs to use as a crew replacement on their Venator. Let's just say I want to find a solution that reduces the crew requirements of 7400. The largest Carrier/Destroyer or Battleship-sized ships in the CIS, like the Providence-class, were crewed by 350-600 droids. Which is about ten times less. I'm thinking the presence of several droid brains and other automated systems must be part of the explanation (in addition to not needing to have day/night shifts, no food, less "life support", no tailor, or barber, etc.)

I'd like to understand the Droid Brain a little bit more, since Fly Casual is not here yet.

Is it a kind of "bodyless" droid (no characteristic score) that has a "floating" skill score of up to 4 in Piloting (Space), takes no HP and costs up to 6000 creds? Does it do more than that, like communicate, have a personality, have the potential to learn other skills?

Reason I'm asking, apart from the obvious ones, is that I'm trying to design a (or many) central supercomputer(s) for my PCs to use as a crew replacement on their Venator. Let's just say I want to find a solution that reduces the crew requirements of 7400. The largest Carrier/Destroyer or Battleship-sized ships in the CIS, like the Providence-class, were crewed by 350-600 droids. Which is about ten times less. I'm thinking the presence of several droid brains and other automated systems must be part of the explanation (in addition to not needing to have day/night shifts, no food, less "life support", no tailor, or barber, etc.)

I honestly can't speak to Fly Casual, but I had a traveling doctor who used one of these to fly her ship, and I played a Droid Engineer for like 3 years. I can tell you how it works thematically.

I used an R-3, and in most cases this highly illegal modification (Droid Pilots were outlawed when the CIS went crashing down) involves an Astromech series Droid-Brain installed like a server rack. I hid mine in a closet behind the cockpit/bridge of the ship. Essentially, it does everything an Astromech does - so if it goes awhile without a memory wipe it'll learn the ship pretty well. It could be argued with a significant chunk of flight hours it might acquire characteristic dice on the principle of getting along famously with it's perma-buddy, the ship.

I seem to remember that in Zahn's Heir to the Empire, R2 had learned Luke's X-Wing so well that it was just as ornery as R2, and wouldn't take another Astromech. My R3 had access to the ship's PA system, but hardly used it, because I told it that it was supposed to be a secret. I also ALLOWED it access to ship's security, it could lock the doors, etc. It didn't have access to weapon systems (I didn't provide that). What it can do is limited to it's physical capabilities (like you said, no body) and what the characters actually hook it up to (assuming they don't accrue any failures or despairs; you could easily just not tell them that the despair they got hooked it up to the security systems). In any case, this permits a temperemental R-Droid to not let me fly the ship or even ENTER the ship.

In most cases, this allowed the R3 Droid I'd installed to fly the ship and operate it's systems while my Doctor character was in the back performing surgery or first aid to someone they just picked up. But it couldn't use the weapons (I'm not sure an Astromech could DO that without serious re-programming), and I didn't expect it to fight anybody. The ship was extra-armored, extra-shielded and had it's engines modded. It was built for escape, in other words - and I don't think the Droid had a problem with that.

Also fair to say that if you're not going to memory wipe it (and even if you are), you should give it a camera or two and a vocoder somewhere on the ship. Astromechs are famously temperemental little beings and it might get lonely or resent the fact that you've shoved it in a rack somewhere where most of the time it has nothing to do and no one to talk to. If your pilot, droid engineer or technician never talks to it, I imagine you're just waiting for a darkside destiny point or the middle of an adventure for the Droid to sulk and lock the doors or lockout the engine systems out of spite. You DID install an Astromech inside of a rack instead of a body...

I'd like to understand the Droid Brain a little bit more, since Fly Casual is not here yet.

Is it a kind of "bodyless" droid (no characteristic score) that has a "floating" skill score of up to 4 in Piloting (Space), takes no HP and costs up to 6000 creds? Does it do more than that, like communicate, have a personality, have the potential to learn other skills?

Reason I'm asking, apart from the obvious ones, is that I'm trying to design a (or many) central supercomputer(s) for my PCs to use as a crew replacement on their Venator. Let's just say I want to find a solution that reduces the crew requirements of 7400. The largest Carrier/Destroyer or Battleship-sized ships in the CIS, like the Providence-class, were crewed by 350-600 droids. Which is about ten times less. I'm thinking the presence of several droid brains and other automated systems must be part of the explanation (in addition to not needing to have day/night shifts, no food, less "life support", no tailor, or barber, etc.)

I'd like to understand the Droid Brain a little bit more, since Fly Casual is not here yet.

Is it a kind of "bodyless" droid (no characteristic score) that has a "floating" skill score of up to 4 in Piloting (Space), takes no HP and costs up to 6000 creds? Does it do more than that, like communicate, have a personality, have the potential to learn other skills?

Reason I'm asking, apart from the obvious ones, is that I'm trying to design a (or many) central supercomputer(s) for my PCs to use as a crew replacement on their Venator. Let's just say I want to find a solution that reduces the crew requirements of 7400. The largest Carrier/Destroyer or Battleship-sized ships in the CIS, like the Providence-class, were crewed by 350-600 droids. Which is about ten times less. I'm thinking the presence of several droid brains and other automated systems must be part of the explanation (in addition to not needing to have day/night shifts, no food, less "life support", no tailor, or barber, etc.)

I think of this as a very specific "skill droid". There is an astrogation version in the book too. There are no stat effects for it, but the book mentions that the two droid systems "bicker". Having lived aboard an aircraft carrier more than once, I can assure you that it will take significant investments to bring that crew requirement down. RAW though, just one should be able to fly the ship. Skeleton crew of droids should be possible, but it could be fun having them adventure to hire the sentiments that will be required.

A lot of those crew requirements are for 'support' staff like cooks and the like as well. But programming (or finding programming) the skill/coordination necessary for all those droids to work together would be a real headache, sie they're not programmed to do it on thier own. Administrator droids might become a real necessity just to organize your droid crew. There's so many ways to skin this cat...

I'd like to understand the Droid Brain a little bit more, since Fly Casual is not here yet.

Is it a kind of "bodyless" droid (no characteristic score) that has a "floating" skill score of up to 4 in Piloting (Space), takes no HP and costs up to 6000 creds? Does it do more than that, like communicate, have a personality, have the potential to learn other skills?

Reason I'm asking, apart from the obvious ones, is that I'm trying to design a (or many) central supercomputer(s) for my PCs to use as a crew replacement on their Venator. Let's just say I want to find a solution that reduces the crew requirements of 7400. The largest Carrier/Destroyer or Battleship-sized ships in the CIS, like the Providence-class, were crewed by 350-600 droids. Which is about ten times less. I'm thinking the presence of several droid brains and other automated systems must be part of the explanation (in addition to not needing to have day/night shifts, no food, less "life support", no tailor, or barber, etc.)

I think of this as a very specific "skill droid". There is an astrogation version in the book too. There are no stat effects for it, but the book mentions that the two droid systems "bicker". Having lived aboard an aircraft carrier more than once, I can assure you that it will take significant investments to bring that crew requirement down. RAW though, just one should be able to fly the ship. Skeleton crew of droids should be possible, but it could be fun having them adventure to hire the sentiments that will be required.

A lot of those crew requirements are for 'support' staff like cooks and the like as well. But programming (or finding programming) the skill/coordination necessary for all those droids to work together would be a real headache, sie they're not programmed to do it on thier own. Administrator droids might become a real necessity just to organize your droid crew. There's so many ways to skin this cat...

And soon the Droid Liberation Army is asking to come aboard.

I'd like to understand the Droid Brain a little bit more, since Fly Casual is not here yet.

Is it a kind of "bodyless" droid (no characteristic score) that has a "floating" skill score of up to 4 in Piloting (Space), takes no HP and costs up to 6000 creds? Does it do more than that, like communicate, have a personality, have the potential to learn other skills?

Reason I'm asking, apart from the obvious ones, is that I'm trying to design a (or many) central supercomputer(s) for my PCs to use as a crew replacement on their Venator. Let's just say I want to find a solution that reduces the crew requirements of 7400. The largest Carrier/Destroyer or Battleship-sized ships in the CIS, like the Providence-class, were crewed by 350-600 droids. Which is about ten times less. I'm thinking the presence of several droid brains and other automated systems must be part of the explanation (in addition to not needing to have day/night shifts, no food, less "life support", no tailor, or barber, etc.)

It's as much a 'giant' droid-brain as it is a central supercomputer on the Droid-controlled ships. They still had the Neimodian overseers and staff to monitor, take care of, and 'command' the Droids. I think the largest challenge you'd face is finding an old Droid-Brain that was already programmed (perhaps the path of least resistance regardless), becuase the Empire would have a NERF if they ever found a functioning one.

Programming a new one...would take an incredibly gutsy programmer (and a lot of time). Droids capable of combat already have a pretty spotty record as far as far as mental stability. The only way the CIS seemed to be able to manage it without all the existential crisis/psychotic breaks that droids like IG-88 and the 4-LOM series are notorious for is by having a single AI/Droid-SuperBrain controlling the whole lot. But with the CIS completely obliterated, this seems to be relatively uncharted territory that even the Sith haven't touched with a 10-foot cross-guard lightsaber.

Thematically however, your campaign is of course your campaign. And there are probably a few creative ways this could be explored if you're willing to hand-wave a few of the more 'over-realistic' elements. Ewoks would probably be cheaper and far more self-sufficient than droids however - I've heard they'll eat anything and accept 'shinies' as pay. Or am I thinking of Stormtroopers with a short attention-span?

I'd like to understand the Droid Brain a little bit more, since Fly Casual is not here yet.

Is it a kind of "bodyless" droid (no characteristic score) that has a "floating" skill score of up to 4 in Piloting (Space), takes no HP and costs up to 6000 creds?

Basically, yes.

Does it do more than that, like communicate, have a personality, have the potential to learn other skills?

As written, no.

Reason I'm asking, apart from the obvious ones, is that I'm trying to design a (or many) central supercomputer(s) for my PCs to use as a crew replacement on their Venator. Let's just say I want to find a solution that reduces the crew requirements of 7400. The largest Carrier/Destroyer or Battleship-sized ships in the CIS, like the Providence-class, were crewed by 350-600 droids. Which is about ten times less. I'm thinking the presence of several droid brains and other automated systems must be part of the explanation (in addition to not needing to have day/night shifts, no food, less "life support", no tailor, or barber, etc.)

So, the question I would ask is this — what is the ship supposed to carry? What is it’s purpose?

If you’re going to have everything done by droids, then why do you need all that hallway space? Why do you need all that bunk space? Kitchen space? Why don’t you replace that by a ship that is 1/100th the size, but still carries the same number of droid-operated starfighters, and get rid of all that extraneous crap?

Navies don’t spend money on ships and crew without a really good reason to do so, and you should figure out what those reasons are before you try to work out how to work around them and replace everyone and everything with droids.

Would you say that a fully modded Slave Circuit would allow the owner to actually "pilot" the ship within a certain range of the owner? Or, just beckon it?

What range should that be? Since the DVI Remote comes in short and long range, would you say that long planetary range is allowable?

Finally, what kind of difficulty should the check be and should that difficulty increase considering that the Slave Circuit is supposed to be an "unreliable" technology?

Would you say that a fully modded Slave Circuit would allow the owner to actually "pilot" the ship within a certain range of the owner? Or, just beckon it?

Beckon. DVI is for piloting.

What range should that be? Since the DVI Remote comes in short and long range, would you say that long planetary range is allowable?

GMs discretion, as dictated by situation. Long seems ok though (the piloting difficulty will pretty much balance it out)

Finally, what kind of difficulty should the check be and should that difficulty increase considering that the Slave Circuit is supposed to be an "unreliable" technology?

The Base difficulty is daunting. Book says so. ♦♦♦♦ is not an easy difficulty to beat, and there's plenty of room for ■s.

You can spend an occasional Dpoint to upgrade the difficulty, though difficult terrain would likely come into play too, which would give it's usual upgrades.

The "unreliable" thing is just fluff. Typically though merely flying the thing against ♦♦♦♦ and associated ■ is going to generate enough Threat to make it clear slave circuited remote operation of a spacecraft isn't something you want to make a habit of....

First off: Thanks, I have been reading the Mod options on the slave circuit totally wrong.

Now, of note:

-The DVI activator works out of the box.

-The Slave circuit must be modded to get the full remote control thing, meaning there's a possibility of a failed mechanics check ruining the whole scheme.

-Fly Casual arrives tomorrow, so no comment on the brain till I see that.

-The R2 unit is a droid, an NPC. So while it can do all kinds of wonderful things for you, remote or not, you're also hosed by the fact that it can be outside the the ship when you called, or powered down, or not in the mood, or eaten by a grue, or...

Also, just a funny thought.

You have an R2 unit and a Slave or DVI. You activate the "Fly to me" feature and the ship takes off flies to your location, and you board and fly away, jumping to hyperspace and escaping certain doom.

Final shot is a very lonely looking R2 unit standing an empty landing bay holding a fuel line up to where the refueling port used to be....

Just have to ask how you jumped to hyperspace with out the droid? Well at least would not work in an x-wing

First off: Thanks, I have been reading the Mod options on the slave circuit totally wrong.

Now, of note:

-The DVI activator works out of the box.

-The Slave circuit must be modded to get the full remote control thing, meaning there's a possibility of a failed mechanics check ruining the whole scheme.

-Fly Casual arrives tomorrow, so no comment on the brain till I see that.

-The R2 unit is a droid, an NPC. So while it can do all kinds of wonderful things for you, remote or not, you're also hosed by the fact that it can be outside the the ship when you called, or powered down, or not in the mood, or eaten by a grue, or...

Also, just a funny thought.

You have an R2 unit and a Slave or DVI. You activate the "Fly to me" feature and the ship takes off flies to your location, and you board and fly away, jumping to hyperspace and escaping certain doom.

Final shot is a very lonely looking R2 unit standing an empty landing bay holding a fuel line up to where the refueling port used to be....

Just have to ask how you jumped to hyperspace with out the droid? Well at least would not work in an x-wing

An astronavigational genius could do it without an astromech.. just takes longer...

First off: Thanks, I have been reading the Mod options on the slave circuit totally wrong.

Now, of note:

-The DVI activator works out of the box.

-The Slave circuit must be modded to get the full remote control thing, meaning there's a possibility of a failed mechanics check ruining the whole scheme.

-Fly Casual arrives tomorrow, so no comment on the brain till I see that.

-The R2 unit is a droid, an NPC. So while it can do all kinds of wonderful things for you, remote or not, you're also hosed by the fact that it can be outside the the ship when you called, or powered down, or not in the mood, or eaten by a grue, or...

Also, just a funny thought.

You have an R2 unit and a Slave or DVI. You activate the "Fly to me" feature and the ship takes off flies to your location, and you board and fly away, jumping to hyperspace and escaping certain doom.

Final shot is a very lonely looking R2 unit standing an empty landing bay holding a fuel line up to where the refueling port used to be....

Just have to ask how you jumped to hyperspace with out the droid? Well at least would not work in an x-wing

An astronavigational genius could do it without an astromech.. just takes longer...

Without a Navcomp or an Astromech it is impossible to plot a jump. You need to know where all the various masses are along the course of your exit vector to make the jump between them all.

Would you say that a fully modded Slave Circuit would allow the owner to actually "pilot" the ship within a certain range of the owner? Or, just beckon it?

Beckon. DVI is for piloting.

Thanks. But, if this is the case, it doesn't seem to me that DVI on its own would give you full piloting just on its own (out of the box) at 1,500. That would give you better functionality than the Slave Circuit, at nearly a 10th of the price.

Based on the book's description of the DVI, it seems that you would need the Slave Circuit to use the DVI: Linked to a slave circuit, a beckon call allows the user to remote activate the coupled vehile or starship... Some models can be used to remotely pilot a vehicle or starship via slave circuit.