Hey All,

Are there specific rules for shooting at people who are in/on a moving vehicle? Example would be shooting at a person on a speeder bike as opposed to shooting the speeder itself.

There are no specific rules for shooting at people in/on moving vehicles. For starters, a person sitting in a land speeder or air car would have only half his body exposed so may benefit from one or more setback dice for cover.

For a fast moving target, you just need to use your GM-judgment to add setback, increase difficulty, or upgrade based on how much harder you think it is from the base difficulty. I say maybe start with a setback for speed 1-2, increase difficulty for speed 3-4, increase and setback for speed 5+. Upgrade the check if there is a potential for things to go bad (firing into traffic with a risk of hitting bystanders).

It's also relative. I might increase the difficulty for a speeder moving laterally but not increase it for one that coming straight toward the shooter.

Use the "target a specific part of the target" manoeuvre; it requires that you spend at least one Aim manoeuvre aiming, after which you can make an attack check with two setback dice. A second Aim manoeuvre reduces this to a single setback dice.

After that I'd add additional setback dice based on A) how much of the character is visible (at least one setback die for someone riding a speeder bike, 2-3 for someone in an open-top vehicle), and B) how fast the vehicle is moving (maybe one setback die per speed increment). And of course, you'd be attacking a character, not a vehicle, so Silhouette would most likely be 1.

I`ve been having the same issue after I've been working on an adventure with a lot of people on feet vs. people in vehicles vs. vehicles. So I came up with some house rules, in addition, to the regular rules for vehicle (not spaceship) combats:

• Critical hits from personal scale weapons are reduced by double the vehicles silhouette

• Personal weapons fired from a moving vehicle take one setback per speed value traveled.

• Personal weapons firing from or at a target upgrade the difficulty by each difference in speed, people on foot are considered to be speed 0.

• Vehicle weapons firing at people follow the rules for firing at different silhouettes and add the difficulty for range in vehicle scale.

• Vehicle weapons deal ten times their listed damage for a direct hit. This applies to blast damage as well.

• The Breach quality is worth ten pierce, this however doesn`t apply to an blast damage.

• The Blast quality, if activated, affects all targets in short range.

• Weapons without any blast quality instead gain a personal scale blast equal to it’s regular damage. This can be triggered for three advantage or a triumph.

• Armor values are worth ten times that in soak.
• Vehicles are not required to spend a maneuver to leave engaged, they may and must spend a maneuver and travel their speed, unless it is stopped.

Called Shots on vehicles - Vehicles have many exposed areas that can be attacked for other effects, however they are also harder to damage. This falls under the called shots rule, however the attack must hit and deal damage to have any effect. GM’s may rule that vehicles with armor can either have the area armor or not, depending on where is being fired at.

Ramming Speed - When people are hit by vehicles it is almost universally bad for both parties, though people are always on the losing end. The vehicle must be able to travel at least far enough to enter short range with the character, and the drive uses both a maneuver to move through the characters location and an action to make the check. The driver must make a piloting check with a difficulty with a base difficulty of average, upgraded for each speed difference. People hit by vehicles take damage equal to the silhouette difference plus the speed hit at, times ten. The vehicle takes an automatic hit with damage equal to it’s speed, each triumph rolled can reduce this damage by one or be used to inflict a critical hit upon the target. Armor reduces this damage normally.

Vehicles Maneuvering in personal scale - Even the slowest vehicles travel faster than most people can travel on foot. For each speed traveled they gain an additional maneuvers worth of movement, the pilot must use this speed, they cannot elect not to move. Pilots can keep the vehicle at the same distance without loosing speed circling around as a pilot maneuver. This requires no check normally at extreme range, simple check at long, easy at medium and average at short, upgraded by the speed traveled at.

Thats what i have so far. Any thoughts?

It may be helpful to remember that for most weapons characters will be using (i.e. blasters) the travel time of the projectile is near instantaneous, so many of the problems from which shooting moving targets in our world suffers don't necessarily apply.

That being said, I would say that it would be somewhat more difficult to shoot a target with cover that is moving than just a stationary target in cover.

Like any situational combat, add Setback and upgrade difficulty when necessary....

It may be helpful to remember that for most weapons characters will be using (i.e. blasters) the travel time of the projectile is near instantaneous, so many of the problems from which shooting moving targets in our world suffers don't necessarily apply...

I don't know about this one. I can see blaster bolts plain as day on the movie screen, and they don't seem to be moving any faster than modern tracers...just ask those Tusken Raiders camped out on the canyon dune turn.

It may be helpful to remember that for most weapons characters will be using (i.e. blasters) the travel time of the projectile is near instantaneous, so many of the problems from which shooting moving targets in our world suffers don't necessarily apply.

That being said, I would say that it would be somewhat more difficult to shoot a target with cover that is moving than just a stationary target in cover.

They are not lasers, they are blasters. It's a flung plasma bolt. You could almost argue they are moving slower then bullets if you watch the movies closely.

LOL. Googling actually found this:

http://www.wired.com/2012/05/star-wars-blaster-speed/

Blasters are actually MUCH slower then slugthrowers (like 1/20th of the speed).

I would write that off as a desire for blaster fire to be easily visible on screen, but since that's the way it is... Yet again I wonder how slugthrowers are so bad.

Yeh it is strange how slugthrowers are so terrible.

Personally I know I definitely avoid being hit by slugthrowers.

Anything that goes through my skin I find fairly displeasurable

Setback most likely.

Diff for rangeband and maybe a setback for shooting that target and maybe another if you want to amp it up just for the fact you have to multitask; like hang on to something. Than whatever other setback you may add normally.

Personally I would just use common sense.

• Can the character be targeted? Is he exposed in any way or is he completely encased by the vehicle?
• If he is exposed, how much? A speeder bike or other vehicle. You could apply one or two setback dice for cover depending on how much.
• Use the aiming maneuver for target specific parts, in this case the pilot or passenger. This could end up applying one or two setback depending on how much time is taken to aim.
• Apply any applicable talents. This where taking talents like Brace would come in handy.

It may be helpful to remember that for most weapons characters will be using (i.e. blasters) the travel time of the projectile is near instantaneous, so many of the problems from which shooting moving targets in our world suffers don't necessarily apply.

That being said, I would say that it would be somewhat more difficult to shoot a target with cover that is moving than just a stationary target in cover.

They are not lasers, they are blasters. It's a flung plasma bolt. You could almost argue they are moving slower then bullets if you watch the movies closely.

LOL. Googling actually found this:

http://www.wired.com/2012/05/star-wars-blaster-speed/

Blasters are actually MUCH slower then slugthrowers (like 1/20th of the speed).

I love that **** article. Found it a few years ago when doing my own research. Plus now it's all the more justification for video games having blaster bolts travel at softball speeds (except for 1313, where they are friggin' Startrek phasers).

But back to the point at hand:

Personally I would just use common sense.

• Can the character be targeted? Is he exposed in any way or is he completely encased by the vehicle?
• If he is exposed, how much? A speeder bike or other vehicle. You could apply one or two setback dice for cover depending on how much.
• Use the aiming maneuver for target specific parts, in this case the pilot or passenger. This could end up applying one or two setback depending on how much time is taken to aim.
• Apply any applicable talents. This where taking talents like Brace would come in handy.

Targeting characters on vehicles - Characters can definitely be targeted with personal weapons, under the called shots rule and as long as they are visible and in range. Speeder bikes would, in my opinion give cover from the front and rear but not the sides. Regular Speeders would provide cover to side and backs, because they only make them open topped I would also give better cover from the front due to the windshield, plus add 5 to soak if they`re trying to shoot them through any unarmored window.

So to attack the pilot you would take a maneuver to do a called shot (two if you want to only take a single setback), then give setbacks for cover from the vehicle. If the character is firing from a moving vehicle as well they take setbacks upon their speed. The base difficulty is then set by the distance to the vehicle (or character for extremely large vehicles), then upgraded by the difference in speed. Then apply any talents or abilities the target has that would upgrade or increase the difficulty to hit the character or vehicle normally.

Now if you`re wondering about targeting characters with vehicle weapons that gets more dicey. Literally, there's going to be a lot more difficulty dice since a person is silhouettes smaller. Spaceships are just right out of the question, unless you bought the YT-1300 convertible model.

Brace is definitely a wonderful talent for firing from a moving vehicle. One of the first things I thought about when I read the description was using it between speeding vehicles, well, that and exploding star destroyers. Precise Aim would be another good one, as I would say they could eliminate a lot of the penalties for cover and speed traveled at.

That's my two cents, based upon personal experience and my team of lab monkey's I call players.

PS - Don`t try to shoot from a moving vehicle you`ll embarrass yourself and possibly shoot yourself

PS - Don`t try to shoot from a moving vehicle you`ll embarrass yourself and possibly shoot yourself

Personal story to share?

What happens at man-camp stays at man-camp.