Hey Everyone,

So Being a new GM I just ran my group through the EotE starter book and the first adventure there. Everything went amazingly well my group got the hang of the dice and combat and even found creative ways around different situation than just combat to solve their problems.

The one thing that seemed out of place and that was space combat. I found that as my players were escaping from some tie fighters that the pilot didn't make very many checks and that the engineer and gunner were doing most of the work.

My question is did I miss something in the space combat rolls? It seems like there isn't very many reasons for the pilot to make checks, a lot of the piloting checks seem automatic. I plan on there being debris or asteroids or something in the future to warrant more piloting checks as a way to solve this.

Has anyone run into this problem as well? If so what did you guys do to solve it.

Thanks in advance!

Yeah, there should absolutely be some "terrain" in space combat. Obstacles make things interesting; having a starship combat in empty space is about as fun as having a gun fight in a huge, empty room.

If the pilot can't think of something to do in space, ask them what they want to do. Chances are they can think of something narrative. So just make up a difficulty and run with it! Opposed Piloting checks are pretty standard...you can try and get the pursuing TIEs to follow you in a perilous chase, and cause one of them to crash when they slam into an asteroid's canyon wall or a huge chuck of floating ice.

Evasive Maneuvers to try and lose pursuit or make it harder to hit you...

The space combat at the end of the Beginner Box is very flat. Between that and the simplified rules, yeah, it's really only a good encounter in that it shows you how the rules works, but not what you can really do.

It's worth mentioning though that the system is also built to not lock the pilot into making piloting checks every single turn, the idea being to free up his action to allow him to do other things if he so desires. So while having a good Piloting skill is always nice, it's not the be all end all of space combat.

Adding terrain will require the pilot to make checks when changing range bands, and also it should add some Setback to the gunners, ect. Be careful though as terrain and combat can get nasty. Terrain difficulty being based on speed and size, and combat requiring certain speeds for certain maneuvers. You can also Triumph/Despair to manipulate terrain, making it denser or lighter.

The space combat at the end of the Beginner Box is very flat. Between that and the simplified rules, yeah, it's really only a good encounter in that it shows you how the rules works, but not what you can really do.

It's worth mentioning though that the system is also built to not lock the pilot into making piloting checks every single turn, the idea being to free up his action to allow him to do other things if he so desires. So while having a good Piloting skill is always nice, it's not the be all end all of space combat.

Adding terrain will require the pilot to make checks when changing range bands, and also it should add some Setback to the gunners, ect. Be careful though as terrain and combat can get nasty. Terrain difficulty being based on speed and size, and combat requiring certain speeds for certain maneuvers. You can also Triumph/Despair to manipulate terrain, making it denser or lighter.

Thank you for that!

I will have to be careful in adding it to the encounters.

The space combat at the end of the Beginner Box is very flat. Between that and the simplified rules, yeah, it's really only a good encounter in that it shows you how the rules works, but not what you can really do.

It's worth mentioning though that the system is also built to not lock the pilot into making piloting checks every single turn, the idea being to free up his action to allow him to do other things if he so desires. So while having a good Piloting skill is always nice, it's not the be all end all of space combat.

Adding terrain will require the pilot to make checks when changing range bands, and also it should add some Setback to the gunners, ect. Be careful though as terrain and combat can get nasty. Terrain difficulty being based on speed and size, and combat requiring certain speeds for certain maneuvers. You can also Triumph/Despair to manipulate terrain, making it denser or lighter.

Thank you for that!

I will have to be careful in adding it to the encounters.

NP

Just do your encounter design legwork and you should be fine.

Also: Remember it's a vehicle combat system, not a space combat system, so it's designed to work on a lot of different levels. That's part of the reason the Beginner Box encounter seems a little weird. With a YT-1300 vs. TIEs in open space there really isn't a ton of Piloting actions for the pilot to take because there isn't terrain, TIEs have better performance then a freighter (duh), and theres a crew large enough to manage a lot of systems and actions.

Compare it to something like a speederbike, or single seat fighter. Now the pilot, being the only guy able to operate the craft, is going to want a lot of piloting to be maneuvers, so he can use his action to fire a weapon or whatever. You may want to get everyone out of the freighter and onto speederbikes and see if it works better for you. Just be advised, single seater vehicles are pretty fragile, so don't go expecting a long back and forth.

Evasive Maneuvers to try and lose pursuit or make it harder to hit you...

I believe the issue is more that the pilot has very little to do. Evasive Maneuvers and Stay on Target are just Maneuvers and don't make use of a pilot's skills or talents. The problem is that if your combat is happening in empty space, the cockpit is the most boring place to be. The first PC I ran was a pilot and space encounters ran something like this:

Gunner PC: I'm shooting all these ******* TIEs down. PEW PEW PEW

Mechanic PC: I'm fixing all the things!

NPC: I'm shooting up your freighter. PEW PEW PEW

Pilot PC: Um...what can I do? Not much? Sure do with I could use these ranks in Piloting Space I paid for, but I can't so I guess I do Evasive Maneuvers every turn. I'm going to get another beer while you guys wrap this encounter up.

That's basically verbatim, and I ended up trashing the pilot and rerolling because of how lame piloting was.

Now, is a lot of that on the GM? Absolutely, but we were all new to the system then so I give it a pass. The point is that a GM has to provide an environment that challenges the pilot as well as the rest of the party. Otherwise, your pilot is going to check out during encounters that should be his time to shine.

Having a deep and abiding love of all things Star Wars space combat since the TIE Fighter collector's edition, this is a topic near and dear to my heart and I have read through many of these threads and for the most part agreed with the fact that unless you are having a dog fight in an asteroid cluster/nebula/inside a partially built death star/whatever, ranks in piloting have less of an effect on the outcome than gunnery, and this seems to be by design to make combat in a one seat vehicle possible without the need for multiple actions. I have also seen (And I am going to apologize for quoting from memory and not sourcing this, bad me) a number of comments on this forum that boil down to "As written, Gain the Advantage is not a better choice than shooting" or "is rarely a better option than shooting." (Again, apologies for not having the exact wording but while my quote may not be 100% accurate it is my intent to line up with the spirit and intent of the statements made)

Doing the math myself in some simple scenarios, I can see that in a lot of cases both of the above statements are accurate and this has been a bit of a point of consternation for me as if you put a blaster to my head and said, "You can either be the pilot or the guy with the lightsaber but not both... CHOOSE OR PERISH!" I will instantly say "PILOT!" 10 out of 10 times.

Then, I had the epiphany.

Gain the Advantage suddenly makes sense with multi-crew sil 4 vehicles (or the accursed HWK-290 with a turret) especially against most snub fighters with fixed forward weapons. This is where the pilot's skill shines. Are you in a slow, stock YT-1300 trying to alley-oop a pack of TIEs? A pilot with 4 agility and about two ranks in piloting (3 for my Corellian brothers and sisters) still has a pretty decent chance to GtA even with the -1 handling, and some appropriate piloting talents make it even easier. (Full Throttle/Improved Full Throttle, I'm looking at you) Now you're behind the TIEs with their guns pointing uselessly away from you and your gunner cackles maniacally taking out a pack, and next round you get to do it all over again.

TL;DR Version

While yes, it is on the GM to help give the pilot moments to shine, and the rules have to be made so single pilot vessels can be functional with the same rules that govern vehicles with multiple options, and if given the choice only between Gain the Advantage and shooting the guns, shooting the guns wins, GtA certainly makes a highly skilled pilot a useful thing to have even if you aren't whizzing through asteroids and nebula and debris fields while someone is in a turret making GtA + shooting possible. Two problems solving each other seems elegant to me, and to those who figured this out before I did, we all have our own eureka moments eventualy

Hope this helps or someone finds it useful!

As an avid X-Wing player, I do find space combat a little more fun than just "I rolled 4 dice and got success and advantage. yay. *yawn*" We don't always use my X-Wing ships as props, but sometimes it is very helpful as the pilot is able to visualize what is happening and make choices more than just rolling dice. Seeing several packs of TIE Fighters allows the pilot to choose who he is going after while taking evasive maneuvers or gaining the advantage. Granted, we don't have all the ships, but as TIEs are so ubiquitous, they are easy to field a lot of and see at least in two (bordering 3) dimensions.

Another fun way to do it is to really describe the action of the scene without props. That way the pilot gets the feeling of "where'd he go?!?" and swiveling around in his chair trying to find the enemy ships. As a GM, you have to plan this out in advance. Not the actual direction of the fight... let the players direct that. Plan out the descriptive moments, until you get good enough to do it on the fly. Rarely is anyone as good as describing these scenes the first time as they are the hundredth time, but if you think about it and give them "movie moments" and add in some incidental noises or sound effects, it can make a huge difference on how the players in a ship react to piloting.

My favorite piloting scene of all time, hands down, any day of the week, is not even a fight scene. The undocking sequence in Galaxy Quest gets me to lean and cringe and laugh every single time I watch it. No other ships needed, just a lot of setbacks and a nervous pilot to put everything in perspective. On one hand, you could look at it as "Well, I got a single success, five threat and a despair" and you'll have a boring session and not really enjoy flying. If, as the pilot, you look at your dice and go, "You know what, this is going to be rough... hang on everybody! I put my sweaty hands on the controls and take a deep breath before engaging the drive. The whole ship thrums and it looks like we may do this yet... hmmm.... but... hold on... we seem to be drifting a bit... Oh boy... Um... let me just correct this a bit [player starts to lean away from controls] ... come on baby. come on baby..." and can go on and describe the entire scene to a degree that everyone is leaning and holding their breath along with you, then you'll love the hell out of piloting (and so will everyone else). Obviously you'll need to work with the GM, but if you own the scraping down the side of a space station with your shiny new ship, as a GM, I'm gonna let you go on with it.

We dont do a lot of space/vehicle combat, but I find the secret is - if you can plan ahead of time - plot out a course. For example, my game this weekend will most likely start out with the players running a blockade to their home planet.

Round one will be powering towards a capital ship and skimming along the hull to avoid fire.

Round two will see them having to avoid the cloud of fighters heading right at them.

Three will be narrowly avoiding the disabled civilian transports in low orbit.

Four will get them on the ground where they can head for the wilderness (and canyons to weave through) or into the city (and skyscrapers to weave through), while round five has them navigate a way too close canyon/building that will hopefully take out the remaining chasing fighters.

Only five rounds, you say? Well, we're not looking to turn this game into a nonstop dice vs dice rolling session. Five rounds should be more than enough to be awesome, get triumphant (or desperate) and scratch the pilot's itch to do cool things.