Just curious if these rules are still in the works, particularly in regards to using shields as a form of Reflect. My thought would be rename Defense to Shields, then take 3 Strain to negate Shields+2 Hull Trauma, is that roughly where the consensus is? Applying Handling as Defense Dice, is that just for Evasive Maneuvers, or any old time?

After removing defense dice for Shields, I would have handling as defense dice all the time. I originally made a difference because I wanted to make sure that shields and handling didn't do the same thing, but with changing Shields, it opened up handling to be the "defense" for starships.

And I would yeah, go with something like Shields+2, but I am still tempted to double the amount of shields each ship has divided evenly among its arcs. Right now, its structured around defensive dice, and the limitations that the designers wanted on those. When you move to them acting like shields, I feel like there should be slightly more difference. Plus it eliminates all those weird cases where a ship has uneven shields, and can for some reason have 3/0 shields to front, but only 1/2 shields to back, and all that.

Under your rules for shields, how would you handle the reinforced shield generator?

Nice optional changes to the rules, will have to look deeper before implementation.

Personally I also included relative speed into combat difficulty as well: Each point of target's Speed higher than attacker's adds one Setback Die per point, each point of Speed of attacker above target receives +1 Boost Die per point. "They're coming in too fast!!"

Norton, your house rules are pretty good but, can you add a version number or a date on your PDF please?

Thanks!

... That is a really good idea. I'm going to be working on doing a bit more on small issues, and then I'll put it up again with a date/version number.

I'm going to be working on doing a bit more on small issues, and then I'll put it up again with a date/version number.

I'm thinking of trying out your rules in my next session. Do you have a newer version than those from July?

I'm literally working on them right now. Will be up tonight. (I opened the thread to look through and figure out what changes I had talked about that I might want to use).

EDIT: First post edited with the latest version of the rules, as well as having the previous versions in a spoiler. I also added/removed the reasoning to explain the latest version of the rules.

Latest version is here.

Also, if anyone uses my rules in a session, please tell me how they worked out here. Thanks!

I've updated to 1.21 because I realized I REALLY hated one of the things I put into version 1.2, and I had a neat idea for allowing triumph to be spent to deal base weapon damage during GtA.

1.21 here

Some small questions:

1. The Blanket Barrage rules say that "until the end of the character’s next turn, all opposing vehicles with silhouette 4 or smaller upgrade the difficulty of any combat or pilot checks made at Short range from this vehicle within the Blanket Barrage’s arc."

I assume the language "at Short range" is supposed to mean "up to and including Short range"? i.e. Ships at Close range are still affected? (Because your language technically means that targets at Close range are safe, which I'm guessing is unintended.)

2. When using the Shields incidental "the vehicle suffers 3 system strain and adds his 2+Shield rating in that arc to his Armor for the purposes of soak for one hit per attack ."

Does this mean that if a single attack inflicts multiple hits (e.g. two separate hits when using a weapon with the Linked 1 quality) the Shields only apply to the first hit of the attack (e.g. the second Linked hit ignores the Shields)?

3. Is there a reason for saying that a ship has Shields: X and then having those Shields increase Armor by X+2? Why not just say that it has Shields: (X+2) in the first place?

For instance, why say that a B-Wing has Aft Shields: 3 and that these will block 3+2=5 damage when activated? Why not just say that it has Aft Shields: 5?

1. Yes, its meant to be up to short range, good catch.

2. Yes, I purposefully left it so that Linked could get around it. Personal preference, though you could test it either way.

3. If you have 2/2 for your shields, and you redirect it to 4/0 full front, your aft zone has zero shields so you can't use the ability.

Hate to ask the same question twice, but since it hasn't been answered...

How should the Reinforced Shield Generator Starship Modification be handled under these rules for shields?


A separate question...what made you arrive at double +2 for shields? I'm tempted to make it +1, incorporate it into shields, and call it a day, so there's less confusion on game night. I might actually say each ship gets +1 shield per section total, to be redistributed around the ship to be more proportional with original shields. So, if a ship had 2 Front, 1 Back, It would get Doubled to 3 Front 3 Back, and I would put both +1s on the front to make the final 5 Front, 3 Back.

On Individual ship changes, I think the B-Wing needs more System Strain, especially under your house rules. The B-Wing is supposed to have very strong shields, and if it can only use them twice per combat, that kind of negates the value.

Another suggestion...since we're messing with shields and you've already messed with proton torps and concussion missiles, give them both more breach, and possibly more damage. Lasers should have to wear down the shields over time, or get lucky with a crit, but a pair of missiles or a single torp should be able to bring down most fighters.

3. If you have 2/2 for your shields, and you redirect it to 4/0 full front, your aft zone has zero shields so you can't use the ability.

I'm not clear what you mean by this. Do you mean that you want to allow ships to use the Shield incidental thing even if they have no shields in a given arc?

e.g. A B-Wing has Shields of 3 Fore and 3 Aft. Each of these will block 3+2=5 damage when activated. If focused fully forward, the B-Wing would temporarily have Shields of 6 Fore and 0 Aft. This would allow it to block 6+2=8 damage from the front and 0+2=2 from the rear.

In other words, do you mean that you chose the X+2 structure so that 2 damage could still be blocked even when Shields are 0 in the targeted arc?

No, I used the X+2 structure because if you have 0 shields in an arc, it does NOTHING. If I added to to all the shields to get the same result you would still have 2 shields on that side.

For instance, with my rules, an A-Wing has 1/1. He can block 3/3 using the strain. Or he can block 4/0 or 0/4.

If you went with the double then add 2, you would have 3/3, and if he angled his shields, he can block 5/1, 4/2, 3/3, 2/4, or 1/5. Which is much better than what he could accomplish with the house rules as written.

I agree on the B-Wing might need more strain. Or a special ability that lets it spend less strain for using shields might also be an option. Or a combination of the two.

I've been testing them in some one-shot scenarios, and they've been great. I do have one question, though.

How would the Defensive Driving talent work with these house rules? Would it be akin to getting more ranks in Parry/Reflect? Or would it work as written, where it adds setback to a check against the character having Defensive Driving?

I'm going to be putting your latest version to use in a campaign pretty soon. I've never been a big fan of space combat in this system, both as a player and as a GM. I'm hoping that your rules have the same results for myself as everyone else seems to.

That being, drastic improvement. :3

The Target lock, Does it still get the boost die for aiming in addition to the Target lock?

In the fly/drive maneuver text, Need to add a "n" to any?

Recently tested out the rules thanks to a pair of battles between a few fighters and a freighter.

Overall there's a lot of good changes, makes space combat actually a thing(sensors actually doing something now was a huge upgrade), but a few points did remain:

-Piloting still does very little for survivability if not using specific maneuvers.

-Shields still work at 0 despite what you say: X+2 = 0+2 = 2 extra armor.

This is just a thought but, in order not to wreck the delicate balance of the speed/silhouette/gunnery affairs, what if piloting skill doubled as a pool to reduce system strain?

A number of times per encounter/battle equal to your piloting skill, whenever your would suffer hull or strain, as an incidental you may suffer one point of the hull or strain suffered as pilot strain instead.

A fix for the shields, rather than entering a caveat, would be to give shields a +1 per X full amount of defense. Doesn't quite work out exactly the same. but does give a better range.

Or maybe just reduce the strain inflicted by the incidental if the defense is that much better?

I've rather been wondering about what happens to a Star Destroyer. Technically fighter shots should be bouncing off the shields, but if you do that under these rules, the generators are going to blow quite fast.

You could choose not to use the incidental and let them bounce harmlessly off the armor, but that doesn't really make much sense.

Recently tested out the rules thanks to a pair of battles between a few fighters and a freighter.

Overall there's a lot of good changes, makes space combat actually a thing(sensors actually doing something now was a huge upgrade), but a few points did remain:

-Piloting still does very little for survivability if not using specific maneuvers.

-Shields still work at 0 despite what you say: X+2 = 0+2 = 2 extra armor.

This is just a thought but, in order not to wreck the delicate balance of the speed/silhouette/gunnery affairs, what if piloting skill doubled as a pool to reduce system strain?

A number of times per encounter/battle equal to your piloting skill, whenever your would suffer hull or strain, as an incidental you may suffer one point of the hull or strain suffered as pilot strain instead.

I know this is a bit old, but shields do NOT work at 0 because:

"When the Vehicle suffers a hit from a combat check in an arc they have shields , after damage is calculated, the pilot may take the Shields incidental."

If you have 0 shields in an arc, you can't even do the incidental.

What do you think of modifying Evasive Maneuvers? Instead of just a flat increase (or was it upgrade? I'm AFB at the moment), having Evasive Maneuvers up means anyone firing on you have to roll against your piloting skill with their gunnery, instead of the Sil.

We tried out these house rules last night. We had 3 players and 9 NPC's.

First we tried a big dogfight with all characters fighting each other in TIE Fighters. My goal as GM was to keep rounds going really fast so nobody sat idle for too long. I think it captures the chaos of a large dogfight battle quite nicely.

Then we tried a mission where the 3 players crewed a Blastboat and had to stop 3 squadron's of Y-Wing's from blowing up a target. There were also 2 squadron's of X-Wings providing cover for the Y-Wings. That went a little slower as we were figuring out how missiles and torpedo's worked with Blast, Breach and Squad Formations.

One question we had was with Blast and Shields. If one ship get's hit with a missile and Blast is activated, the ships in Close range get hit as well. The first ship would get a chance to take the Shields incidental. Would the second ship (and any other ship in the Blast radius) get the same opportunity to take the Shields incidental as well?

I also added a Ramming Speed maneuver that allows you to fly into someone in Close range. Requires Speed 4+ and an Opposed Piloting check. Then, using your Difference In Speed difficulty chart from Gain the Advantage apply that many Setbacks (instead of Difficulty) die minus 1. A success would result in a Major Collision for both ships, using standard collision rules.

Any updates on these rules or new input?