So i'm looking at "simplifying" starship combat by saying that any ship with a speed of 2 or less has the hutt rule "Ponderous" and ships with 5 or higher speed have the Xexto's "Additional Limbs" ability. This would replace the normal rule of different starship speeds having different movement rules.

Ponderus: You may only spend 1 maneuver per turn moving, including using maneuvers. if you strain, you may still use non-pilot maneuvers.

Additional Limbs: The ship may perform 2 maneuvers per turn without taking system strain. It still may not take three maneuvers.

Thoughts?

RAW has ships also accelerating up to their combat speeds - would they start off as 'ponderous' then move normally until speed 5 they get to zip about? Or is this from base speed, and the speed 5 ships get to accelerate to combat speed in 3 rounds without suffering any strain?

You must have a different definition of simply than I.

For ponderous: what's the concern here? Is it just that you don't want "sloiw" craft to cover the same ground as fast? Do your players even have access to a ponderous ship?

Additional limb: isn't there a concern for abuse? This would allow even a single seat fighter to SoT, EM, and attack in the same turn without much penalty to balance it on a craft-to-craft level.

You must have a different definition of simply than I.

For ponderous: what's the concern here? Is it just that you don't want "sloiw" craft to cover the same ground as fast? Do your players even have access to a ponderous ship?

Additional limb: isn't there a concern for abuse? This would allow even a single seat fighter to SoT, EM, and attack in the same turn without much penalty to balance it on a craft-to-craft level.

This is more to use the existing personal scale movement rules for starship combat, rather than the eisting starship rules, for simplicity's sake. In that line, I might want to pull out SoT and EM, are replace it with the normal "Take cover" and "Aim" actions.

By the same token, removing the simulation aspect of "accelerating to combat speed" would be part of simplifying space combat.

I kind of like it. It certainly takes some thinking to make sure it doesn't break, but on first reading it seems fine. I'm not sure how I like the loss of Stay on Target and Evasive Maneuvers; I'd leave them.

One thing I'd consider is to limit the free extra maneuver to the Fly/Drive maneuver. A case could be made for the others, but I think this most simply encapsulates your intention while trying to head off complications.

I am interested in hearing how this works out for you if you decide to try it.

You must have a different definition of simply than I.

For ponderous: what's the concern here? Is it just that you don't want "sloiw" craft to cover the same ground as fast? Do your players even have access to a ponderous ship?

Additional limb: isn't there a concern for abuse? This would allow even a single seat fighter to SoT, EM, and attack in the same turn without much penalty to balance it on a craft-to-craft level.

This is more to use the existing personal scale movement rules for starship combat, rather than the eisting starship rules, for simplicity's sake. In that line, I might want to pull out SoT and EM, are replace it with the normal "Take cover" and "Aim" actions.

By the same token, removing the simulation aspect of "accelerating to combat speed" would be part of simplifying space combat.

So would you spend personal strain or ss to do things? Or would it depend?

It sounds like you're got a lot of details to work out, but I think this endeavor is also one of the more grounded ones.

The best part about ponderous ships is when the horns kick in and your shoes start to squeak.

If you want to make space combat easy for you, especially difficulty, you should just use the normal combat rules, where distance determines difficulty. Short 1, Medium 2, Long 3, etc.

If you want to make space combat easy for you, especially difficulty, you should just use the normal combat rules, where distance determines difficulty. Short 1, Medium 2, Long 3, etc.

I suspect he may go there too. That also requires an adjustment of what the ranges and difficulties are. Right now most armed vehicles are essentially melee fighters. So making difficulties range-based really won't change a whole lot unless you also change the maximum range of most vehicle weapons too...