Does anyone know what the logic behind system strain and not being able to recover more than one each round with an action? I don't understand why it's an action for only one SS, and why you can't spend advantages to get it back.

It costs 2SS to preform a second manoeuvre, and it costs 1+ to do things like Punch It, and ion weapons hit it hard. Why is it so difficult to recover? Is it supposed to be a losing battle? Or are pilots suppose to use advantages on their rolls to get that second manoeuvre during their turn?

I know that there are talents that allow you to recover more system strain, but that's not what I'm asking about. System strain is the outlier. For every other "health" pool—wounds, strain, and hull trauma—you can recover more than one with additional successes. Why is system strain different?

-EF

i think its because it can be done every single turn, so can strain. wounds, and hull trauma, are a lot more restricted in that regard. Critical injury and damage are even slower to recover.

Edit:

Also because more than one person can do it each turn, and on a sil 4 and up its not unreasonable to have 1 PC dedicated to recovering SS. on vehicles smaller than that the ship is harder to repair in flight, so recovering SS takes more of your time (uses a larger percentage of the available actions on that vehicle for a turn)

Also because more than one person can do it each turn, and on a sil 4 and up its not unreasonable to have 1 PC dedicated to recovering SS.

This would also imply that damage control teams on capital ships should be able to wash away vast amounts of SS in a very short period of time.

hmm, IKWYM, and that was my initial feelings. but we all know that an initiative slot for every team on every ship in a large engagement is not feasible

i like the method talked about on The Order 66 podcast episode 48, where only a small number of initiative slots are open to any given Capital ship, not everyone on a 2000 crew ship gets a turn

in their system each ship has a single combined pilot/engineering slot (this is due to pilots of cap ships only usually performing maneuvers and engineering only performing actions) and a single gunner slot for each different type of weapon, with any PC's (or Nemesis) on board adding additional slots to be used.

this seems to represent cap ship function quite well while keeping play fast, narrative and enjoyable. in reality the strain taken by a Cap Ship is all over the place, and some maintenance managers are directing teams to go here there and everywhere to get things back up and running, where each teams individual actions have a tiny effect, but together they bring the ship back from the brink.

Also because more than one person can do it each turn, and on a sil 4 and up its not unreasonable to have 1 PC dedicated to recovering SS.

This would also imply that damage control teams on capital ships should be able to wash away vast amounts of SS in a very short period of time.

This is another place where the "only 1 SS per check" breaks down for me. A damage control team aboard a NPCs ship should be a minion group. They get one check, upgraded as normal for the number of minions. But mechanically it would be better for the GM to have each minion take their own turn, since the extra successes are wasted.

-EF

Also because more than one person can do it each turn, and on a sil 4 and up its not unreasonable to have 1 PC dedicated to recovering SS.

This would also imply that damage control teams on capital ships should be able to wash away vast amounts of SS in a very short period of time.

This is another place where the "only 1 SS per check" breaks down for me. A damage control team aboard a NPCs ship should be a minion group. They get one check, upgraded as normal for the number of minions. But mechanically it would be better for the GM to have each minion take their own turn, since the extra successes are wasted.

-EF

Damage control teams on a capital ship should consist of multiple minion groups rather than just one massive clump, just as batallions of stormtroopers don't usually form a single minion group but are instead parsed into bite-sized pieces.

Also because more than one person can do it each turn, and on a sil 4 and up its not unreasonable to have 1 PC dedicated to recovering SS.

This would also imply that damage control teams on capital ships should be able to wash away vast amounts of SS in a very short period of time.

This is another place where the "only 1 SS per check" breaks down for me. A damage control team aboard a NPCs ship should be a minion group. They get one check, upgraded as normal for the number of minions. But mechanically it would be better for the GM to have each minion take their own turn, since the extra successes are wasted.

-EF

Damage control teams on a capital ship should consist of multiple minion groups rather than just one massive clump, just as batallions of stormtroopers don't usually form a single minion group but are instead parsed into bite-sized pieces.

Yes I agree, but during a large scale ground combat we don't care what 10th regiment of ST's blast a Rebellion squad with 5 grenades 2km away from the place the PC's are.

A computer can technically model every individuals contributions to the conflict, but clearly that's not required in a pen and paper RPG.

I'm just trying to offer ideas and tools to use to make a large engagement feel dynamic without bogging down.

The Combat rules assume squad level interactions (up to around 8-12). Once you go beyond the squad level it starts going pear shape and not making sense. That is why you need to come up with rule compromises to deal with the scale. A large party on a light transport is going to be more effective, especially with recovering strain.

But then you could as a GM start saying the system to fix is an overloaded power converted, and only one person can reach his arm in to replace it. the rest can't do much but wait for the power conduit nearest to them gets overloaded. That is why this game is better as a narrative then using the rules as written

It costs 2SS to preform a second manoeuvre, and it costs 1+ to do things like Punch It, and ion weapons hit it hard. Why is it so difficult to recover? Is it supposed to be a losing battle? Or are pilots suppose to use advantages on their rolls to get that second manoeuvre during their turn?

I've always interrupted system strain as High G forces on the frame of the ship, circuits overheating, etc... If I were to relate this to a car, i could see revving your engine really high and over heating the engine and shutting off, would be system strain. Short of dunking your car into a vat of coolant liquid it will take its time to bleed off the heat. "One SS per turn."

That's my 2 cents anyway.

Having some experience...

System Strain seems to be the limited resource because of how vehicle combat works. Intended to be run quick and efficient (My starfighter encounters rarely last more then 3 or 4 rounds) so allowing lots of extra maneuvers is a very powerful thing.

Think about it:

A nemesis or PC can Punch it (spending SS), move several range bands (spending 2 strain/SS) and fire their weapons in one turn.

A Minion group can't even come close to doing that.

Without keeping SS a limited resource the Nemesis and PC style characters can continually own the vehicle battlefield on a level a little beyond the normal Nemesis/Hero scale.

Not sure how much you can get back in a round with combined talents or mods to the ship, but with the Fine Tuning talent a mechanic can get back two system strain per round instead of just one. Maybe the idea was to make the mechanic shine as a specialization choice.