Had a space battle last night and an interesting artifact came up:

X-wing engaging a Gozanti in an Asteroid field. The X-wing pilot makes a piloting check to get within range of the Gozanti, and uses the generated Advantage to have the Astromech fire a torpedo. Under Astromech NPCs, it's assumed the astromech succeeds with a single success.

Up front this didn't bother me, but thinking about it it seems a little weird that I can have a ship with significant shields (like 4 points) take a simple hit without worrying about any difficulties...

Am I over analyzing? Does the fact the R2 will never crit or do any damage beyond the base value+1 offset the fact he's ignoring shields? Or is the a potential imbalance? What about situations where the target has additional difficulties like trying to hit a Sil 1 exhaust port?

Possibly, you could just roll the setback dice for shields against that one success.

So that's why the GM had to have R2 get shot before the end of the trench run!

It's kinda a joke, but the whole trench run thing actually is in the cards for my players so I'm a little concerned they might try some kind of "Oh, I'll just do an XYZ check and have the R2 do the firing."

On the other hand "I'll make a computers check to use my targeting computer and get a solid firing solution for R2" also doesn't sound horrible....

Getting the feeling this may just be GM hammer time....

From the wording in the book, it feels like only PC astromechs can fire the guns. There is a list of actions: "Damage control, Plot course, etc". Gunnery is not actually on that list. However, there is then a footnote which states: "PC astromechs are allowed to make Gunnery Checks if a weapon system is available".

In the NPC astromechs sidebar, it notes: "the pilot may spend 3 advantage or 1 triumph to gain the benefit of one successful astromech mneuver or action from the included list."

It's a really weird way of wording it. But that seems to indicate to me that NPC astromechs cannot be used to score free hits with torpedoes.

I'd be open to alternative readings, but that seems the most balance way of approaching the problem.

From the wording in the book, it feels like only PC astromechs can fire the guns. There is a list of actions: "Damage control, Plot course, etc". Gunnery is not actually on that list. However, there is then a footnote which states: "PC astromechs are allowed to make Gunnery Checks if a weapon system is available".

In the NPC astromechs sidebar, it notes: "the pilot may spend 3 advantage or 1 triumph to gain the benefit of one successful astromech mneuver or action from the included list."

It's a really weird way of wording it. But that seems to indicate to me that NPC astromechs cannot be used to score free hits with torpedoes.

I'd be open to alternative readings, but that seems the most balance way of approaching the problem.

Ah! I misread that portion that restricted it to PC astromechs! I thought it said NPCs could provided the weapon was available.

Problem solved!

I am allowing use of droid NPCs in all checks, as long as they have skill or the players make a good roleplay excuse on how the droid integrates. Usually droids aren't better then NPCs, unless they are stock assassin droids, who can fly, shot multiple weapons and have social interactions