This came up in tonights game... and puzzled me.

Does the book mean to say UPGRADE dice pool of all attacks made towards and by the ship.

Meaning swap a Purple for a Red dice?

Or is it meant to increase the difficulty, which seems to make more sense?

Executing Evasive Maneuvers upgrades the difficulty of the dice pool once for all attacks made against the ship until the end of the pilot's next turn...Executing Evasive Maneuvers likewise upgrades the difficulty of the dice pool once for all attacks made by the ship until the end of the pilot's next turn. (ECRB p. 233)

Due to the erratic maneuvering, both your ship and any ship attacking it upgrade the difficulty of attacks--convert Difficulty (purple) to Challenge (red). Two ships both executing Evasive Maneuvers upgrade the dice pool twice when attacking each other. This is why the Gain the Advantage Maneuver is so important.

@RebelDave, the complete rules for Upgrading the difficulty can be found in Chapter I of your core rulebook. Usually it means changing a Difficulty (purple) die to a Challenge (red) die, but if you're facing a difficulty of all reds and no purples, then the next Difficulty Upgrade simply adds a purple.

So for example, your difficulty for your next Gunnery check is Average (2 purples), but your target has Adversary 2. So you upgrade the difficulty twice, meaning that you're now at 2 reds. Further, you are executing Evasive Maneuvers, meaning that your difficulty to hit is Average, upgraded thrice , to a total of 2 reds and 1 purple. If on the next round you are both executing Evasive Maneuvers, your total difficulty (Average, upgraded 4 times) is at a cool 3 reds.

Due to the erratic maneuvering, both your ship and any ship attacking it upgrade the difficulty of attacks--convert Difficulty (purple) to Challenge (red). Two ships both executing Evasive Maneuvers upgrade the dice pool twice when attacking each other. This is why the Gain the Advantage Maneuver is so important.

Agreed, but don't forget Gain the Advantage is an action, not a maneuver.

As Domingo's point implies, in a situation where you have the Adversary talent and Evasive Maneuvers in the mix, spending that action to perform a Pilot check to Gain the Advantage can well lower your overall difficulty by 1 die, and that's not insignificant. Not to mention to potential defense bypass, which would result in reduction of 1 or more setbacks as well.

Agreed, but don't forget Gain the Advantage is an action, not a maneuver.

Right, right. Careless typing.

On that note, does anyone disagree with how they determine the degree of difficulty on Gain the Advantage? We were playing last night, and it came up, and wound up being an hour long table discussion. Our consensus was that it should include handling, as well as speed, and factor in piloting skill. Was it done with speed only just for the sake of ease?

On that note, does anyone disagree with how they determine the degree of difficulty on Gain the Advantage? We were playing last night, and it came up, and wound up being an hour long table discussion. Our consensus was that it should include handling, as well as speed, and factor in piloting skill. Was it done with speed only just for the sake of ease?

Doesn't Handling apply for all Piloting skill checks? I thought GtA was a skill check.

On that note, does anyone disagree with how they determine the degree of difficulty on Gain the Advantage? We were playing last night, and it came up, and wound up being an hour long table discussion. Our consensus was that it should include handling, as well as speed, and factor in piloting skill. Was it done with speed only just for the sake of ease?

Doesn't Handling apply for all Piloting skill checks? I thought GtA was a skill check.

It's a check, but vs. a charted difficulty based solely on the speed of the vehicles. We thought it should also factor in handling. The second point was a notion of pilot vs. pilot skill, not just the stats of the ships.

So, you would apply handling as a boost die to the pilot check to account for handling aspect, and the speed is the difficulty dies?

I would have to read it again, but a piloting skill check would be modified by handling I would believe.

The piloting skill is reflected in the back and forth of the jockeying for advantage round after round until eventually someone fails.

It would be further modified by handling, yes. Since it is a piloting check made with the ship in question, handling absolutely needs to be factored in. Granted, some pilots do have the Skilled Jockey talent, which removes setback dice, inclusive of those added by piloting a ship that handles like a Centaurian Mud Pig. So a TIE fighter is generally going to have an easier time to Gain the Advantage over a Y-wing, for example.

Yep, TIEs in this system are Japanese Zeroes. A typical engagement with TIEs will see them start by taking evasive action and attempting to GtA.